The Master of Winterbourne

by Louise Allen

  So he loved his dead wife still. The remembered pain had darkened his eyes, his fingers twisted unknowingly a broad gold band on his wedding finger. What he's offering, Henrietta thought, is a convenient arrangement for him and a neat solution to the problem of what to do with me. Each of us needs to marry, of that there is no doubt, and this cold proposal at least has the merit of keeping Winterbourne in the family.

  ‘If you wanted to do your duty as my kinsman you could give me my portion and let my uncle find me a husband,’ she snapped back to hide the hurt. So much for her dream of a suitor who would love her for herself. For this man she was simply an inconvenience to be tidily, but honourably, dealt with.

  ‘One of those fortune-hunting Cavalier exiles who haunt the Continental courts? Oh, no, Henrietta, I have better ways to waste my money.’ He watched her

  face for a few moments then added quietly, ‘I did not believe you so selfish as to desert your people.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I would have kept on your servants, your steward, your farmworkers if you were my wife. But if you wish to leave I can find my own people to fill their places. There is no shortage of good men seeking employment now the country is at peace.’

  ‘In effect you would coerce me? You are not doing this out of concern for a kinswoman or you would not be so cruel. Tell me plainly, sir, what do you want of me?’ She hoped against hope she would push him into a declaration, some sign that he intended to woo as well as wed her.

  There was a long, long silence that hung heavy in the still air, Matthew's gaze held hers with an intensity beyond all her experience, her knees felt weak and she was glad she was already sitting. She had told him that morning she wanted a man, not a boy to wed, now she burned with the knowledge that her immodest words had come back to haunt her.

  Suddenly she knew he wanted her as a woman, someone he desired in his bed, although he scarcely knew her and he still loved his first wife. She was an unrealistic fool to expect any sign of affection from him.

  Yet when he had held her just now he'd been tender and when his arms had tightened the beat of his heart had told her he was not indifferent to her. Henrietta lowered her eyes, feeling a shiver pass down her spine. In all her eighteen years she had never been so conscious of a man's desire, and now, experiencing it from Matthew, she felt dizzy. Confused.

  ‘I will tell you what I want of you,’ he said, and there was no sensuality in his voice now. ‘I want a wife with a knowledge of this estate, a proven good housekeeper and an intelligent and educated mother for my children.’

  How mortifying that her immodest thoughts had found no echo in his motives. Henrietta flung back, ‘Any woman of breeding would give you your last two qualities, sir. And, as to the former, my steward knows more of this estate than I ever will. Take him to wife.’ She scrambled to her feet and stood over him, anger loosening her tongue. ‘And let us be frank, it is accepted on these occasions, when a man seeks a wife, that he does so with at least some show of affection or attachment.’

  Matthew got slowly to his feet, giving Henrietta ample time to regret her impetuous challenge. Standing before her, he was disconcertingly close, dangerously male, regarding her with heavy-lidded eyes.

  ‘If you are asking me to make love to you, Henrietta, I will willingly comply. However, as we are not yet betrothed, do you not feel this place is a trifle indiscreet? I could come to your chamber later…’ He stretched out one hand, rubbing the ball of his thumb lingeringly down the line of her neck until it met the heavy warmth of her pearls.

  Chapter Four

  ‘How dare you touch me?’ Henrietta stumbled backwards, frightened at what she'd unleashed, the lightning change from cool logic to explicit sensuality. She had wanted fine words and dalliance, not dangerous reality.

  ‘Oh, Henrietta!' His voice and eyes mocked her. ‘You play at being a grown woman, you manage your estate and complain that your suitors are all callow boys. You ask for a mature man and demand pretty speeches but you cannot pretend you do not know what the true end of it will be. I will behave with restraint but you are like a child with a stick stirring a beehive. Do not be surprised if you are… stung.’

  ‘You are offensive, sir, and arrogant.’ The racing of her heart and the flush staining her skin was not all anger and embarrassment, and the recognition of her own shameful excitement added a guilty vehemence to her protest. ‘I will not marry you.’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘As you will. I doubt you will starve, but your people may. There are enough masterless servants in the countryside already.’

  ‘I wish to God you were out of my sight, sir,' Henrietta snapped back, too angry now to heed his threat.

  ‘I leave soon, I can stay at Winterbourne a day or two at most. I have too much important business in hand to linger here now. You have until tomorrow morning to change your mind. If you decide not to accept my offer of marriage I will provide you with passage money and escort to your friends in the Low Countries, but not a silver shilling more.’ He swept her a bow that mocked courtesy. 'I wish you joy of your deliberations, Mistress Wynter.’

  Henrietta stood watching the lean figure as he made his way through the orchard away from her without a backward glance. What had she done? He was not a man who made idle threats, that much she could already judge of Matthew Sheridan. If she persisted in her refusal to marry him he would make her people destitute and their families with them. There were people enough living on parish relief in the Vale for her to know the harshness of life for masterless men.

  And what of Robert who had fought at her father's side, had been maimed in the service of the Wynter family? Who would employ him? How could he ever marry Alice now? The weight of the responsibility weighed on her as it had never done before. Nor could she delude herself that her mother's brother could afford to support her people until she found a husband. ‘If I could find one to take me with no portion to offer him.’ She spoke out loud, knowing it was the voice of cold reality.

  Henrietta regained her room without meeting anyone, for which she was profoundly thankful. One window faced across the entrance court to the master bedroom opposite and as she watched she could see the housemaids at work, the flap of sheets as the great bed was made up, the casements pushed wide to air the long-disused chamber. Aunt Susan must have given orders to prepare the room for the new master. As was fitting.

  ‘Oh, Mistress!’ Alice swirled into the room, her face alight with excitement. ‘What a day this is. Such good fortune, you could hardly hope for better. A kinsman, and such a fine-looking man.’

  ‘What have you heard?' Henrietta demanded, knowing full well how the gossip would be spreading like wildfire through the household. A sensation of helplessness swept over her.

  ‘That Master Sheridan and you are to wed. Oh, just wait until they hear the news in the village – they'll peal the bells for joy. What shall you wear, Mistress?’ She bustled over to the great clothes-press and swung open the heavy door. ‘Your best primrose silk would look well.’

  ‘I am not marrying Matthew Sheridan.’

  ‘… it has never been worn. And the new kid slippers…’ The sense of Henrietta's words must have penetrated her excited chatter and Alice stopped, open-mouthed. ‘I heard wrong? He hasn't asked you? But he will, Mistress, never fear,’ she added cosily. ‘After what Letty saw in the orchard…’

  ‘Alice, be quiet, please. My head is splitting. He has asked me, and I have refused him. Now draw the curtains, and fetch me a tisane of lavender flowers for my head.’

  ‘I'll need the keys for the stillroom.’

  ‘I cannot find them.’ Henrietta was evasive, ashamed of the childish gesture of throwing them aside. ‘Ask my aunt for hers.’

  Alice looked amazed. It was inconceivable that the mistress of the house could misplace her precious keys without setting up a hue and cry. ‘Where did you have them last? Shall I look for them?’

  ‘Leave it be, for pity’s sake.’ Henrietta sat down on
the bed and rested her aching forehead in her hands. She couldn't think, her head was bursting.

  Alice drew breath, seemed to think better of speaking, and left the room.

  A few moments later Mistress Clifford swept in. ‘What's this, my dear? Dinner will be set on the table in a minute and you are all in disarray. What have you been doing to lose your keys? Alice told me some nonsense about your refusing Sir Matthew. Now, you must take him seriously and not flirt; he's no man to be left dangling like your other suitors… and, child, there's grass on your skirts and petals in your hair.’

  ‘Aunt, please.’ Henrietta put a hand to her throbbing temples. ‘My head aches so.’

  ‘It's the excitement.’ Her aunt exchanged a knowing look with Alice who had followed behind. ‘Come, tell me what he said.’

  ‘Alice, will you please fetch me my tisane?’

  Her maid ignored her, turning in an indignant swirl of skirts to Mistress Clifford. ‘I told you she meant it. She says she won't have him, Mistress. She says she turned him down.’

  ‘Henrietta, can this be true?’ Her aunt sounded horrified as she took in Alice's words and Henrietta's stubborn expression. ‘How can you be so foolish? You must go to him this minute and tell him it was just a silly whim.’ She softened her tone. ‘I know it must have been a shock, my dear, but this is no time for maidenly reticence. He is not a man to be trifled with.’

  ‘I do not like him,’ Henrietta said, knowing it sounded mulish.

  ‘That has nothing to do with anything.’ Susan was sharp. ‘And what is there to dislike, pray? He is an educated man of affairs, with a fine house in London, so Lawyer Stone tells me. And a healthy, well set-up man of maturity and sense.’

  ‘I won't have him. He's a… he's a Puritan.’

  ‘He's no such thing,’ her aunt retorted. ‘You are pettish and wilful. I must go down to our guests and apologise for your incivility. Think well on what you are refusing, and what will happen to you if you do.’ Aunt Susan swept out of the room, the colour high on her cheeks.

  ‘I have never seen your aunt so angry,’ Alice remarked a few minutes later when she returned with the infusion, cool from the stillroom.

  Henrietta slipped off her shoes and climbed on to the canopied bed, sinking back against the piled bolsters with a sigh. ‘She doesn't understand.’

  ‘Nor do I understand. What is there against him? Winterbourne will be yours forever, you will never want for anything, and you must marry someone. Why not him?’ She watched Henrietta sip the infusion as if weighing up her words. ‘And he's a fine man, it will be no hardship to take him to your bed.'

  Henrietta felt the blush heating her face and took a gulp of the tisane.

  ‘So that's it,’ Alice muttered and settled on the other end of the bed with a glance at the closed door. ‘There's no need to be afraid. You don't want to heed those silly wenches gossiping in the laundry. Where the man is gentle and knowing there's much pleasure in it for a woman. And that's a good thing, for the wisewomen say it makes for easier getting of a child.’

  ‘And what do you know about it?’ Henrietta knew she should not encourage such an improper conversation, but her curiosity overcame discretion.

  ‘Enough to know that with the right man it's a very great happiness.’

  ‘Alice, have you been bedding with Robert?’

  She tossed her head. ‘And if I have? You told me yourself only this morning we should be betrothed.’

  ‘But you aren't. And what if he were to get you with child?’ There was an uncomfortable pause. Henrietta said slowly, ‘I saw you coming out of Mistress Perrott's cottage yesterday. Why were you there? We were not in need of any herbs, and no one here or on the farm is sick and needing her help.’ There was only one other reason for the women of the village to consult the wisewoman. Her eyes fell on Alice's waist as the truth dawned.

  ‘It doesn't show yet.’ She was quite matter-of-fact. ‘Robert will wed me before it does.’

  It was suddenly difficult to do more than simply stare at her friend. There was no way she could separate Alice and Robert, drag her off to the Low Countries, now she was carrying his child. And how could the steward support a wife and child if he lost his position?

  ‘Does Robert know?’ she managed to ask when she thought she could keep her dismay from her voice.

  ‘No, but he'll be well pleased.’ Alice's face flushed with pride. ‘I know he loves me as much as I love him.’

  ‘I know he does. And I'm truly happy for you.’ The weight of responsibility settled round her neck like a millstone. ‘Leave me now, Alice, I will try and sleep.’

  Henrietta lay on the bed watching the sun shift round on the panelled walls, the shadows gradually lengthen. The clatter from the great hall as the meal was cleared came and went and silence fell over the front part of the house as the servants went about their business in the stillroom and laundry.

  The household routine was as familiar to her as her own heart beat. She could follow the time by it and knew when she heard the cattle lowing as they were driven in for evening milking that it was almost suppertime. She would have to make a decision soon, but she felt strangely sapped of both strength and will, as though she had been ill for a long time.

  Henrietta moved restlessly against the banked pillows. Her aunt was right, Alice was right, she acknowledged it. So why was it so difficult to say yes? Because Matthew Sheridan made no pretence of wanting her for himself? Because he was so obviously marked by the loss of his first wife? Or because she had lost even the appearance of choice in the matter?

  But struggle as she might she knew her duty lay in securing the future of her people.

  At last she heard the sounds she had been waiting for, her aunt moving in the adjoining chamber as she tidied herself to meet their guests at supper. Henrietta smoothed out her crumpled skirts, splashed cold water on her face from the ewer that stood on a chest by the wall and pulled a comb through her curls. A glance in the mirror showed her a wan face and with a sudden spurt of pride she touched rouge to her lips and cheekbones and hung her pearl-drop earrings in her lobes.

  Matthew Sheridan was never going to guess the hours of anguished thought he had cost her.

  ‘Come in,’ Aunt Susan called when Henrietta scratched at her door. ‘You've decided to accept him,’ she said shrewdly after one comprehensive glance. ‘I am glad of it, you foolish girl.’ She bustled forward and kissed Henrietta's cheek. ‘I am sorry to have had to scold you, but this is no time for blowing hot and cold. Matthew Sheridan is the perfect man for you, and I am glad you've had the sense to realise it.’

  Henrietta dropped a dutiful curtsy and kept her inner thoughts to herself as she watched Susan finish her toilette, pinning on her best lace and fastening the diamond ear-studs her late husband had given her as a betrothal gift. 'You are very fine tonight, Aunt.’

  ‘Well, my dear, you must keep this a secret,’ she dropped her voice and looked almost coy. ‘But Lawrence Stone has asked me to marry him. I have said yes, but not until I see you safely married. I was quite firm about that.’

  It was the final feather settling on the millstone of responsibility around Henrietta's neck and it almost brought her to her knees. There was no way now she could refuse Matthew Sheridan's offer. If she did so, insisted on going to the Low Countries, her aunt's sense of duty would compel her to go too.

  ‘I don't mind telling you,’ Susan continued, apparently taking her approval for granted, ‘when Lawrence read the will this morning I thought all was up with us and we'd end our days in Bruges with your aunt and uncle Walton. And I make no bones about it – live with my brother's wife I could not!'

  Henrietta looked at her aunt's animated face and saw the shade of the lively young woman she'd once been. ‘I'm so happy for you, Aunt,’ she said truthfully. ‘And I can think of no one who better deserves their good fortune. You'll enjoy society in the county town, and visit London often, I'll be bound. Why did I never guess how Lawyer Stone cared for
you? I saw it so clearly this morning.’

  ‘He knew I would never leave you, my love.’ Susan could not resist the opportunity to point up the moral. ‘You see, virtue and attention to duty do bring their reward in time.’

  I need no lectures about duty, Henrietta thought ruefully as she followed her aunt to the top of the stairs. And what is it going to get me? Not the mature love and companionship her aunt and Lawyer Stone would share, nor the passion and devotion Alice and Robert had found, which perhaps Matthew had shared with his first wife. The satisfaction of being a good housekeeper and devoted mother would have to fill the void where affection should be. And yet, only this morning, that satisfaction was all she had asked for. What had changed? Why was it no longer enough?

  ‘Drat the girl!' Susan stopped beside a large bowl of pot-pourri that had been left on a table in the corridor. 'Letty has a mind like an empty jar. I distinctly told her to place this in the master bedchamber. It smelt musty this afternoon and I would not have Master Sheridan think us bad housekeepers for anything. Take it in, my dear, supper will be a few minutes yet.’

  Henrietta obeyed reluctantly, balancing the shallow bowl filled with rose petals, bay leaves, lavender and orris root between her palms. The door was ajar. She breathed a sigh of relief. He must already have gone down.

  A nightingale had begun its bubbling song in the hawthorn bushes beside the moat and she paused by the open casement to listen to the beauty of the clear notes before putting the bowl down on the linen chest.

  The melancholy song tugged at her heart. She had heard it often before but it had never seemed so sad and beautiful as here in this room her parents had shared, where she and her brothers had been born and where her mother had died giving birth to Francis.

  Henrietta ran one hand down the heavy folds of the bed-hangings. They needed taking down and beating. She would see to that in the morning when Matthew Sheridan had gone. She still had to tell him she had changed her mind, would be his wife. Her fingers clenched on the brocade as she looked down at the wide bed. And in due time this would be her marriage bed.