Marrying the Mistress
Juliet Landon
Guardian…and husband Helene Follet hasn’t had close contact with Lord Burl Winterson since she chose to spend her life caring for his brother. Now she’s forced to live under Burl’s protection, because he has become guardian to her precious young son. Burl has grown hard and cynical over the years, while Helene covers her hurt with an ice-cool front.What she really craves is to finally find a loving home in his safe, strong arms. Neither can admit that they are still tantalised by the memory of one magical, fateful night…
‘Dance with me,’ he whispered.
My eyes must have reflected my doubts, but he did not accept my refusal. Standing abruptly, he held out a hand and raised me to my feet, leading me like a sleepwalker into the ballroom, where we joined the end of the line, moving into the steps as we went, turning, parting, closing, balancing.
If there were stares of disapproval neither of us noticed, only the slow and stately steps that moved us apart and together again, our bodies and hands just touching, like those six years condensed into six minutes. His eyes were brazen with desire, and mine were speaking of I know not what, except too much of my feelings. I knew then that I was losing control, that I was showing him what was in my secret heart, because, with his outspoken talk of wanting me, he had found a way in.
Juliet Landon’s keen interest in art and history, both of which she used to teach, combined with a fertile imagination, make writing historical novels a favourite occupation. She is particularly interested in researching the early medieval and Regency periods and the problems encountered by women in a man’s world. Her heart’s home is in her native North Yorkshire, but now she lives happily in a Hampshire village close to her family. Her first books, which were on embroidery and design, were published under her own name of Jan Messent.
Recent novels by the same author:
ONE NIGHT IN PARADISE
THE WIDOW’S BARGAIN
THE BOUGHT BRIDE
HIS DUTY, HER DESTINY
THE WARLORD’S MISTRESS
A SCANDALOUS MISTRESS
DISHONOUR AND DESIRE
THE RAKE’S UNCONVENTIONAL MISTRESS
*Ladies of Paradise Road
Author Note
Madame Helene Follet, High-Class mantua-maker and milliner of Blake Street, York, would have kept records and notes of what she bought, designed and sold, the colours, sizes and weights, and price per yard. Such notes would have been packed into a book amongst snippets of velvet, calico and silk, lace and ribbons, pinned in tiers or wound around cards thick enough to prevent the book from closing properly.
As an embroiderer, I could not resist making one for her using a method known nowadays as ‘altered books’. For this, I took an old book with hard covers that I no longer wanted and removed many of the pages with a sharp craft knife, leaving about 2 cms next to the spine. On these attached strips I stuck prettily-patterned replacement pages. Then I did what Helene would have done, packing each substitute page with Regency details, letting ribbons hang, arranging pages by colour, drawing hats and bonnets, cutting out pictures from brochures and postcards, sticking on scraps of fabrics that Helene would have known, stripes, florals, tiny prints and glittery bits. Papers can be bought from craft shops for the purpose. Just cut, arrange, pin and stick. I should warn you, it can become addictive.
To finish, it is usual to re-cover the original backing (i.e. the covers) with a suitable heavy duty paper that complements the interior.
MARRYING THE MISTRESS
Juliet Landon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Prologue
York—April 1802
It was hardly more than two miles from the centre of York to the racecourse at Knavesmire, a distance that only a few months ago, the Honourable Linas Monkton would have been happy to ride on horseback without the least discomfort. On this occasion, however, his young mistress, Miss Helene Follet, had put her foot down and ordered the barouche to be made available, for nowadays Linas’s cough left him weak, sweating with pain and gasping for breath. She dared not allow it, although she would have liked to ride her own black mare that weekend.
‘I feel sure we’re in for some showers,’ she said, noting the bending tree-tops as they passed out of Micklegate, ‘and I don’t fancy getting soaked as we watch your brother’s horses go through their paces. If it turns out fine, I’m sure he’ll lend us two of his hacks to ride. Did you remember to pack the new linctus?’
‘I expect Nairn did. You look very nice, my dear.’
Linas’s compliments rarely went beyond ‘nice’ or ‘smart’, which Helene thought more appropriate for soldiers. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled. She had made the outfit herself, including the beaded panel down the front and the frilled chemisette that showed inside the neckline. The matching bonnet of ruched blue-grey silk had been made by her, too, after the latest French styles.
Linas himself ought to have been tucked up warmly in his Stonegate home on such a raw April day, but it was the start of the York racing season and nothing would have persuaded him to refuse his twin brother’s invitation to stay the weekend at Abbots Mere, so close to the racecourse. The invitation had been to stay for a week, but Helene had balked at that and Linas, aware of a certain tension between his mistress and his brother, had not insisted on more than two nights.
Helene would rather not have gone at all. Although she enjoyed the races and the sight of horses in a herd at full gallop, bright with silks and shine, she could not look forward with anything like the same enthusiasm to meeting the Abbots Mere set, which, as like as not, would include a similar herd of Lord Winterson’s mistresses, past, present and hopeful.
The twins were unlike each other in most respects, Linas being far from robust but still trying to emulate his brother in so many ways, by taking a mistress, for instance, and by trying to prove his fitness when it was plain to see, to Helene at least, that he grew weaker with each passing season. Lord Winterson’s rude health needed no proof, for one look at his powerful physique was enough to convince any critic that his parents’ recipe had favoured the first of the two to emerge with good looks, intelligence, and enough charm to ladle out whenever he felt he could spare the effort. At other times he could be insufferably proud and offhand, and it was said that one of Winterson’s set-downs could cause a recipient’s disappearance for as long as a six-month.
Linas had never indulged in that kind of high-handedness except occasionally to the servants, and it was this brand of gentle courtesy that had won Helene over. After insisting that she would never again become intimate with a man for money, however high-born, she had relented and become Linas Monkton’s mistress, companion and nurse. That had been two years ago when she was still seventeen, two years in which there had been no sign of pregnancy, in spite of her desire to bear his child before it was too late.
Perhaps it was already too late, for Linas had not visited her bed once in the last two months on the pretext that any physical exercise brought on his coughing spasms. Tomorrow would be her nineteenth birthday. She hoped he might visit her, if only to be held in her arms.
It was unproductive to speculate on the welcome they would receive, Helene having no reason to suppose that they would be treated with anything but courtesy and, in her lover’s case, with affection too. The brothers were very fond of each other, and although no obvious favour was offered to Linas when taking part in the usual manly activities, Helene nevertheless suspected that Lord Winterson kept a very careful eye on his brother, stopping within his limits or suggesting an easier route, ostensibly for his own benefit. Visiting Linas’s home on Stonegate, Winterson never stayed long enough to tire him, nor was anything ever said in her presence about the array of medicines at Linas’s elbow.
Helene hoped it was obvious to Winterson that she was taking every conceivable care of his brother without molly-coddling him, but the feeling persisted that he thought her a young social-climbing nobody on the look-out for a wealthy patron who would feather her nest for as long as possible. If he had taken the trouble to find out, she thought, he might have discovered the truth of the matter, that Miss Helene Follet was in fact a certain Miss Helen Follethorpe of Bridlington, only thirty miles or so away on the Yorkshire coast, where her father had once been mayor. Had it not been for Leonard Follethorpe’s unfortunate experience, she would still be living with her family in comfort instead of selling herself to support those of her family who remained. Five years ago, taking a lover had been the very last thing on her mind, but she could be of little help to her family on the pittance she had earned as a York mantua-maker’s assistant, and one could not be too finicky when near-starvation was a real alternative.
To say she resented Winterson’s thinly veiled contempt would not have been an exaggeration. His manner was correct and as icy as if she’d been a crusty old dowager of fifty instead of a sleek raven-haired beauty of nineteen, giving her no opportunity to be as sisterly as she was with her own two young brothers. Not even for Linas’s sake did Lord Winterson do anything to endear himself to her, and now as he strode out of the great Tudor porchway of Abbots Mere with three gigantic wolfhounds at his heels, his smile skimmed over her as if she were merely the housekeeper or Linas’s nurse. The hand he extended came just a little too late to help her out of the barouche.
‘Miss Follet,’ he said, keeping the hand out so that she was obliged to accept it. ‘Welcome to Abbots Mere.’ The greeting was formal, and not particularly convincing.
She had tried to ignore the ambiguous emotions that bedevilled her, but the contrast between Linas and his twin was so transparent, and she herself so receptive to all the differences between one man in the prime of his life and one whose prime had never quite materialised, that she now found it easier to accept it than question it. Winterson did not have his brother’s lanky loping frame of a tired racehorse, but the deep-chested, well-toned solidness of a hunter.
Helene watched him move gracefully aside, her eyes taking their own wayward course over the broad smooth line of his riding coat, the bulge in his tight breeches, the tan-cuffed riding boots with spurs, and the muscled calves. Reprimanding herself, she refused to acknowledge the stark truth that she might have wished this man’s physical endowments upon his sibling, forcing herself instead to smile at the brotherly embrace and the genuine laughter accompanying it. The stifling, insistent beat of her heart, so long starved of its own special excitement, was quelled with some effort as she diverted her thoughts towards Linas’s pleasure and what she could do to maintain it.
Noting how Linas caressed the ears of the nearest wolfhound, she could see how happy he was to be here and to spend time in the stone-built rambling place where he’d been born. As a concession to his asthma, he kept no animals except horses, but any excuse to visit his brother’s racing stable was worth the sneezing fits and the itchy rash on his wrists that Helene cooled with witch-hazel and chamomile. The prospect of sleeping in his old room at Abbots Mere brought back the laugh lines to his pale winter face and lit up the sombre darkness of his eyes, as did the appearance of Somerton, the elderly butler.
Linas took Helene by the hand. ‘Good to see you again, Somerton,’ he said, creasing his papery skin with deep folds.
‘And you also, Mr Linas, sir. M’lord Burl here has had us all up since dawn to get everything ship-shape. We’ve even polished the hounds’ collars. Welcome, Miss Follet,’ he said to Helene, courteously.
‘Thank you, Mr Somerton.’
Perhaps being made aware by his butler that something more was being required of him, Winterson turned back to her to offer his arm, taking both her and Linas through a panelled passageway into the Great Hall. Again, the differences returned with the memory of that first meeting at the York Assembly Rooms when they had danced together just before she and Linas had first met, when she had seen the fear in Linas’s eyes that she would surely prefer his brother Burl, as any woman would. But she had never been seriously attracted to men like Winterson with reputations for breaking hearts, nor could she afford the indulgence of falling in love. If Winterson had ever suspected that she was more interested in a long-term relationship, then he would have been correct. She was. But her affection for the Honourable Linas Monkton was none the less genuine, for all that, and her good care of him had grown into a kind of love far beyond convenience.
The company that weekend was exactly as Helene had expected it to be, noisy, good-natured and gossipy, flirtatious and with an air of competition she felt no need to be a part of, since she was unavailable. Not that she was entirely safe from the attentions of the men, but her status and devotion were sufficient to keep all dalliance at a very superficial level. And because she posed no threat to the women, they sought her friendship and asked her advice about even the most personal matters, especially about fashion. Yet they were not the kind of people she would have chosen to spend a weekend with, and she wondered why Lord Winterson enjoyed their company so much, unless it was to watch them compete for his attention.
Although Winterson must have known about Helene’s previous employment as a seamstress, she had told neither of the brothers the full story of her transformation from well-brought-up mayor’s daughter to mantua-maker’s assistant. If either of them ever wondered how she had acquired such singular style and elegance, how she came to be fluent in French, or why she spoke English with only the odd vowel sound to betray her northern roots, they were either too uninterested to ask, or too well bred.
But the mantua-maker herself, once she saw what a gem she had taken on, had put those accomplishments to good use, transferring her from the workroom to front of shop, using her as a mannequin to model her creations and to suggest other ways of using accessories and fabrics with the kind of flair the older woman could only dream of. When Helene borrowed an evening dress now and again to attend the nearby Assembly Rooms with a beau, this was seen as a cheaper way of rewarding her than with money, for she was sure to tell admirers where such a beautiful gown could be made. Those years had been for Helene a time of intense learning in which she had absorbed every skill of the dressmaking trade, since then she had designed and made all her own garments, including her bonnets.
Despite her undeniable fashion ability, her popularity with Winterson’s guests could not be called complete as long as Lady Veronique Slatterly was on hand to shoot down any woman perceived to be receiving more than her fair share of attention from the men, particularly from Winterson himself. Her envy of Miss Helene Follet was out of all proportion to her influence with anyone except Linas. But according to Lady Slatterly, Helene was almost one of the family whereas she herself had not yet achieved that status, nor had she any guarantee of success. Helene’s superior position was too close for comfort, and the consequent trivial and ungenerous remarks that Lady Slatterly rained upon her, almost unceasingly, eventually drew even mild Linas’s displeasure at dinner.
Handing Lady Slatterly a silver dish of sugary things, he told her, ‘Take a few, Veronique dear. Chew them slowly to grind your teeth down.’
Frowning, she took the dish from him. ‘What are they?’ she said.
‘Little sweet things, dear. Keep them by you. You need them.’
Damned if she did, and equally damned if she declined, she glared at Linas as everyone around them laughed, but the caustic remarks stopped for the rest of the evening.
This personal sniping would not in itself have caused Helene too much concern had she not already been feeling vulnerable, vaguely insecure and unsettled by not knowing how to relate to a host who treated her with such polite indifference as if it was no possible concern of his that she was caring so well for his ailing brother. As if she was doing it more for her own benefit, rather than his. Not that she expected their undying gratitude at every end and turn, nor even their thanks. Men only rarely went in for that kind of appreciation. But nor did she appreciate being taken for granted in the offhand way these brothers had. Linas was a very dear man, but he appeared to suppose that what Helene was doing for him was no more than he deserved after what he was doing for her. And since the question of the future was a subject he particularly wished to avoid discussing, it seemed not to occur to him that Helene would have benefited from some clarity on the issue. She had a house, servants, a horse and enough money to pay her bills, but presumably those would all disappear one day, unless she could make some other arrangement.
Had relations between Helene and Lord Winterson been more cordial, she might have broached the subject to him. But not the way things stood. There was a younger brother who also lived on the outskirts of York, a new country parson named Medworth whose profession and family kept him totally occupied. No doubt he was relieved to know that his brother was being cared for, but his absence showed that he had his hands full enough without involving himself in Miss Follet’s problems.
Mindful of Linas’s enjoyment, Helene made every effort to enter into the excitement of the first day, during which two of Winterson’s racing thoroughbreds were competing. The day had begun with an earlier-than-usual breakfast and, since the weather was blustery but dry, Helene and Linas borrowed two of his brother’s hacks to ride with the others, she in her habit of nutbrown velvet and matching plumed hat that drew many a compliment. Linas had retired early the previous night, well before the others, and had fallen asleep even before Helene could go in to wish him goodnight. His valet had told her that his master had been too tired even to take his usual night-cap of port, sharing with her a look of concern that did not bode well for the busy day ahead.
So it did not surprise her that no reference had been made to her birthday on the morrow, and it seemed to her inappropriate to mention it when all the attention was focused on the races, the guests, the winners and owners, the sumptuous feast, the meeting of old friends and the excitement of Winterson’s successes. Linas had completely forgotten, and Helene had already decided that his guilt would serve no good purpose. Even so, there were moments during the day when her lovely expressive eyes must have revealed something of her hurt and disappointment, the ache to be at home with her family on this special day, enjoying their warmth and love instead of maintaining a position for which she had no real appetite, which she would once have reviled before she lost her innocence.
Turning to look at Linas, she checked that he was comfortable on the well-mannered hack, heaved a sigh, and looked away into the distance to where the newly white-painted grandstand swarmed with racegoers. A large horse and rider moved up beside her, blocking her view of Linas. It was his brother. At first his eyes followed where hers had been and then, returning to find that she was looking down at her hands as if deliberating whether to go or stay, said, ‘No, don’t go. We have not spoken all day.’
‘To each other, you mean? What is there to be said, except congratulations?’
‘Oh, dear. You’re angry.’ His voice was deep and apologetic.
‘Not at all. But you must not be seen talking to me, my lord. That would look very odd, wouldn’t it? See, we’re being remarked already.’
‘What is it, Miss Follet? You are angry. With me? Linas? Has he been flirting with someone?’
‘I don’t know what he’s doing. Does it matter?’
His horse stretched its neck, pulling his hand forwards as it shook its head and jangled its bit, keeping its rider occupied with its sidling before he brought it back, almost touching her leg with his. She watched as he humoured the great beast with patience, as if he enjoyed controlling its movements, his face strong, impassive, astonishingly regular, for a man. His dark hair was too long, she thought, noting how it curled over his cravat at the back. He had obviously been thinking of what she said. ‘Or what he’s not doing? Is that it? He’s forgotten your birthday?’ he ventured.
She knew it to be a stab in the dark. It must be. Yet the sudden surprise in her velvet-brown eyes escaped before she could hide it, and the denial that followed was worse than useless. ‘Of course he hasn’t. He…’
‘He has, hasn’t he? He was never any good at birthdays, Miss Follet. He rarely remembers ours, either. Shall I remind him for you?’
‘No!’ The word shot out, compounding the earlier denial. ‘No, please don’t.’
‘Ah! You mean you’d rather remind him yourself in a week’s time? Or you’d rather he didn’t know at all?’
‘I mean, my lord, that it’s of no possible concern to anyone but me. Please say no more about it.’
‘If that’s your wish, then I must obey. But you’re wrong to think it concerns only you. You are my guest and you’re not entirely enjoying the experience. That concerns me. What can I do to put it right?’
‘Nothing at all. Your hospitality is the finest, and if Linas is content then that is all I ask for.’ She heard the emptiness of her reply and was not proud of its insincerity. She could hardly expect him to believe her.
‘Fine unselfish sentiments, ma’am. But I fear I’m too cynical to be taken in by them. To say that my brother’s contentment is all you desire, a woman of your age, is moonshine. Have you not thought ahead a little, to the time when you might wish for more?’
Like a ball of slow fire, a sob of pain rose into her throat to sear her with a longing so intense that she had once cried out in the night with it, soaking her pillow with tears, for it seemed at times that her thoughts were of little else. Before she could take herself in hand, her eyes had begun to flood with scalding tears, showing him what was in her heart as clearly as if she held its doors wide open. This man, of all men, to see her weakness, a man who had rarely condescended to speak to her until now.
She would have wheeled her horse away, blindly, but he caught at her bridle before she could do so, leading it away from the Abbots Mere crowd towards a deserted area of long grass where both mounts dropped their heads to snatch at a juicy mouthful. He held her reins and waited, keeping their backs to everyone but making no comment.
‘I’m all right,’ she whispered. ‘Do forgive me. I had no wish to embarrass you, my lord.’
‘I am not in the least embarrassed, Miss Follet. I tend to be outspoken, and I have touched a raw spot. I am concerned, but not embarrassed.’
‘Yes, my lord, you have. Shall we say no more about it, if you please?’
‘Of course. Are you quite recovered?’
‘Yes. Quite.’
‘Then we shall return.’ Handing her the reins, he took stock of her smooth curvaceous lines under the habit, the neat waist and long back, the white lace at her throat. Black glossy hair was bundled into a gold net under her saucily feathered hat, and the deep reproachful eyes spiked with long black lashes were like pools to drown a man. Her full lips were mobile upon a skin of peach that he knew his brother had begun to abandon as his illness progressed and that this, as much as anything else, was a prime source of her distress.
Their return to the others, side by side, did not escape the notice of Lady Veronique Slatterly, whose displeasure bordered on extreme folly. ‘Where have you two been?’ she demanded, wheeling her grey mare round in circles ahead of them. Her blue eyes were cold and hard upon Helene.
Winterson’s reply did nothing to thaw them, though her skin turned a healthy pink. ‘I have not had to account for my whereabouts since I was fourteen, Lady Slatterly, and I don’t intend to start again now. Nor, I imagine, does Miss Follet owe you an explanation.’
Snubbed in no uncertain terms, the astonished woman hauled her mare savagely away and, though Helene caught sight of her several times during the afternoon, she did not approach.
It was Linas himself who answered Helene’s query about the exact nature of Lady Slatterly’s relationship with his brother. Was she his mistress, or merely one of the hopefuls?
‘He has no official mistress,’ Linas told her on the way back to Abbots Mere. ‘Veronique believes she stands a good chance, but she’ll have to toe the line and curb her sharp tongue if she wants to get anywhere with Burl. He doesn’t like the controlling kind of woman. Not even our mother had much success there.’
The parents, Lord and Lady Stillingfleete, had never exercised much control over any of their three sons, and had left the family home at Abbots Mere to live in a smaller Georgian house in Harrogate, within reach of the healing baths. Their large estate was now in Winterson’s capable hands, visited only once or twice a year by the owners when they wanted a change of scenery.
* * *
As a result of Winterson’s reprimand, Lady Slatterly’s rudeness seemed to abate on the second evening, giving Helene some respite from the woman’s jealousy. It also seemed to Helene that Winterson’s manner had changed too, even if she was the only one to notice that, this time, he took part in her conversations instead of distancing himself, showing more of an interest in her well-being.
Linas was exhausted after missing his afternoon rest, and at dinner Helene could see how he fought against his fatigue. Not wishing to prevent him from drinking more wine than usual while so many were there to see, she was obliged to watch in dismay as his glass was refilled time and again. His speech began to slur, and his pale skin became unhealthily mottled.
Unable to hide the concern in her eyes, she found her looks intercepted by Winterson’s equally worried frown. It was getting late, yet no one had deserted the gaming tables or the chatting groups arranged on couches and floor cushions. She shook her head at the young footman holding a tray of filled glasses in front of Linas, but too late to prevent one being removed, clumsily, sloshing the contents over white knee breeches and carpet.
She went to him, hoping to offer some unobtrusive help, but Winterson was there before her, lifting his brother under each armpit and good-naturedly ignoring his protests. ‘Come on up, old chap. Enough for one day.’
‘Stay with your guests, my lord,’ Helene said. ‘I’ll go up with him.’
‘No, you stay here. I’ll see to him myself. Nairn is on his way.’
‘He’ll be at his supper.’
‘I sent for him. Lespeaking ave him to us.’
His commands offered her a certain comfort for, although she had not wanted to stay amongst the guests for much longer, the alternative was even less appealing. To hand control over to his authoritative twin would be no great sacrifice.
She stayed in the drawing room for another hour, managing to convince all except one that she was as light-hearted as the rest of them. Winterson reappeared to lead a silly game of charades, but the pace slackened and, two by two, the ladies withdrew to their rooms to prepare for the night, still giggling and flirting. Helene was relieved that she and Linas would be returning to York in the morning. She would leave him at his spacious Stonegate home to rest and recover, and she would go to her well-ordered house on Blake Street, which was not really hers but Linas’s. She would pretend to be its mistress when the reality was that she could stay only as long as Linas was alive.
If she could have given him an heir, her future would be more assured, but that was unlikely to happen, for both of them had realised some time ago that one of them must be infertile. Having as much pride as he, Helene preferred to believe that the fault must lay with him, but Winterson’s wounding enquiry about her future had inflamed a painful truth that was never far from her darkest thoughts that, no matter which of them was responsible for their childlessness, the outlook remained bleak.
Deep in thought, she allowed her maid to undress her and to lock away the few jewels Linas had given her since their first Christmas together. He had never thought it necessary to shower her with gifts, but now her birthday had come and gone without a word, and the thought re-occurred yet again that their relationship must be on the wane. Ought she to leave him now, before he did? Should she find another lover, and be passed from one to the next until…until what? Had his brother anticipated the end of the partnership? Was that another reason for his coolness?
With a pang of guilt, she decided not to go to Linas’s room, knowing how the scene would do nothing to lighten her spirits. His brother and valet had tended him, and now he would be snoring heavily under a mountain of extra blankets with all the windows tightly shuttered and a lamp left burning next to the mahogany commode. The air would be heavy with the odour of medications and sweat. It was no place for lovers.
For a few moments longer she watched the rain beat upon the night-blackened window and run down the glass, parting and joining, lashed sideways by fitful gusts of wind. Then, drawing the curtains to shut out the sight of her distorted naked reflection, she parted the cool sheets and slipped between them, gasping at the sting of freshness upon her skin, her feet seeking the places where the warming-pan hadspeaking recently been. The maid tiptoed across to the candlestick and blew out the flame, leaving her mistress to her rest.
Not for many weeks had Linas stayed overnight at her Blake Street house, nor had he invited her to stay at his, and so it was with an immediate sense of consolation that, in unthinking half-sleep, she accepted the gentle movement of the sheets behind her and the slight dip of the feather mattress as his weight tipped her against him. She had been asleep, that much she knew, for the wind had whipped itself into a howling spring gale that rattled the old casement windows, and drowsily she wondered whether it was that which had disturbed him or the sudden remembrance of her birthday. With a grunt of contentment she snuggled deeper into his warm body and took the weight of his arm upon her hip, expecting that he would straight away resume his sleep.
But the weeks of abstinence were testimony to the way her senses remembered him, for instead of the tang of friars’ balsam, laudanum or linctus, there was a fresh moorland smell of heather and larch trees after rain, and instead of the heavy limpness of his arm, this one was thick and prickly with fuzz, moving over her skin with a purpose, his fingers spread wide to cover hers.
Her breathing behaved strangely as she struggled to bring back to her sluggish mind some memory of what she’d been used to, yet even with her back to him she could not reconcile those vague familiarities with the pulsing firmness that now pressed against her. Could she be dreaming? Had her tiredness, resentment and yearnings taken her too far? Reaching backwards, she took hold of the hand to feel for the signet ring he never removed.
But the hand slipped away quickly to grasp her wrist and hold it immobile, and as she turned to him in sudden alarm, he moved faster than she could ever remember him doing without stopping to cough and regain his breath. She found herself under him, pressed softly by wide shoulders that covered her, arms that enclosed her, and a large head of thick hair that touched her face with its softness, imparting a scent of new-washed linen. His lips found hers with none of the usual tentative pecking by way of introduction that was Linas’s way, but with the assured and competant kisses of one who knew how to suspend a woman’s protests in a limbo of delight, and it was not until he had taken his fill of her lips that her terrible doubts were able to surface and demand verification.
Pushing at his shoulders, she struggled against him as her body tried to recognise the deception, her mind still trying to persuade her not to delve too closely for fear of discovering the truth. Wordlessly, so as not to shatter the dream entirely with accusations and denials, she put up a fight that was disadvantaged in every way, which he countered in silence and with ease, and ultimately with the potency of his kisses that she allowed with nothing like the opposition she ought to have offered. Once, holding his head between her hands, she traced his features with sensitive fingertips over broad forehead and brows, over closed eyelids, cheeks and nose, firm mouth and chin, wider than the one she was used to. He kissed her fingers as they passed across, and she melted at that small tenderness before exploring the depth of his hair and the deeply muscled neck that led her on over the contours of his shoulders, down and down.
It occurred to her that he might have mistaken her room for that of another, but he would surely know where his guests were being accommodated. If any other thoughts of reason or common sense sneaked into her mind that night, they stood no chance of being heard against the deeply urgent need that sedated her fears like a potent drug, a need borne of starvation and a sense of waste that had dogged the last year with her lover. Gradually closing the doors of her mind, she began again to lose herself in the lure of his closeness, in the touch of his hand exploring the full roundness of her breasts. Perversely, she joined him in the treachery, forbidding herself to think about the consequences or to seek answers to a host of questions that were sure to follow. She would take what he was offering her, on her birthday, the only gift of comfort she was likely to receive.
Whatever reasons he had for doing this, he was not inclined to share them with her, nor did she ask him to, for she knew this would never happen again. Ever. He was making use of her and she would do the same with him, just this once. She might have pretended it was against her will, but she knew it was not, her token struggles having lacked any conviction against his gentle but determined restraint.
Savouring every moment as never to be repeated, excited by his mastery, she refused to allow the lack of endearment or word of comfort such as lovers use to detract anything from the fleeting glimpses of heaven she saw that night for the first time. Her unlikely lover-of-one-night was not a man she could ever want except for this, for he hspeaking ad never done anything to court her favour, and an exchange of tender words between them would have been meaningless as well as hypocritical. It was her experience alone that told her of his pleasure in her body, his delight and satisfaction with her loving. At the same time, he was a careful lover, taking time with her as had never happened for her before, bringing her to a state of ecstasy again and again, taking pleasure from her wonderment and indicating by his lips and hands the journey they would take. Yet each time was different, his energy and eagerness phenomenal.
He stayed with her until dawn to take full advantage of her newly awakened passion, feeding from her willingness and giving generously to satisfy her hunger. And as the light crept between the curtains, he disappeared as silently as he’d come, thinking that she was asleep, and she had let him go because the time for words was past. She knew it to be one of those rare events that happened without rhyme or reason to change one’s life for ever, and that the experience was worth the heavy guilt she would have to bear as long as her relationship with Linas lasted. Although Linas was not faultless, he had never been disloyal to her in the way she had been to him. She could only hope he would never discover it. The worst part would be having to pretend that nothing had happened.
In the months that followed, that pretence was shattered when she found herself to be with child. Then, because she could not keep the information from Linas, she broke the news to him, expecting that he would put an end to their association and reclaim everything that was his, including her home. To her utter astonishment, he did not, preferring to accept the unborn child as his own along with the congratulations of his friends and family, even though he must have known it could not be. Helene had assumed that pride in his manhood was more important to him than the truth, for he asked no questions, nor would he allow her to offer any explanation and, when the child was born, Linas’s joy was as great as hers. At last, he had the heir he wanted.
The boy seemed to provide Linas with a renewed lease of life and, for the next three years he hung on as if to escort the lad through his first formative contacts with the world. But the effort could not be maintained, his hold began to slacken and, just after his son’s third birthday, Linas was taken to Abbots Mere to end his days where they had begun, with his twin.
By that time, Helene had begun to suspect how adroitly she had been used by the two brothers. Now, she was sure of it.
Chapter One
York—January 1806
It would usually have taken me only a few minutes to walk from the workrooms of Follet and Sanders on Blake Street to Linas’s house, but that day was an exception. That day, I was wearing my pretty fur-lined bootees, not designed for three inches of snow that had fallen in flakes the size of halfpennies since midmorning, and by the time I reached the corner of Blake Street and Stonegate, where Linas’s house was, the freezing wet had reached my toes and I was dizzy with slithering over a bed of snow-covered ice. I’m a tough northern lass, I reminded myself, clutching my thick woollen shawl tighter round my shoulders. I’ve been in many a snow storm before. The scolding did little to ease the situation.
The steps up to Linas’s front door were thickly packed with the stuff, the shoe-scraper at the side piled with it, which should have warned me that someone had entered quite recently. But my hood was falling wetly over my face as I went inside, sending a shower of snow on to the already puddled black-and-white chequered tiles, and it was only when I threw my furry hood back that I saw more of Mr Brierley than his serviceable boots. Mr Brierley was Linas’s lawyer who had, I suppose, as much right as me to be standing in the hall of his late client.
His greying forelock was plastered across his head, his spectacles speckled with snow, catching the light of the single lamp, and his attempted smile was cooled by the unusually low temperature. Linas had always maintained an uncomfortable warmth in all his rooms. Now, they were uncomfortably cold. But then, nothing was going to be usual for Linas any more after yesterday’s funeral and today’s thick white blanket being gently laid over him.
‘Mr Brierley,’ I said, returning his half-smile, ‘I didn’t expect to see you here so soon. Not for weeks. Well, days, anyway.’ Shaking the hem of my pelisse, I showered his toes with snowflakes and saw him step back. My glance at the hall table verified what I feared: two grey beaver hats, two pairs of gloves, one antler-topped cane and a riding whip that I recognised. Silver-mounted. It was not what I had expected, or wanted, so soon after yesterday. I ought to go, I thought, before he appears. We shall only bicker.
The lawyer must have recognised the hint of unwelcome in my greeting, which, I admit, was not as fawning as it might have been from a client’s mistress. Client’s mistresses usually have expectations. ‘No, indeed, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We lawyers are not known for speeding things up, I agree, but Lord Winterson asked me to meet him here, to—’
‘To take a look round? Yes, I quite understand, Mr Brierley. Shall I leave you to it? Is that your inventory?’ There was a black leather notebook tucked under his arm, and my accusatory tone drew it from its pigeonhole to prove itself.
‘Er…no. Not to take an inventory. It was Lord Winterson’s wish to attend to other pressing matters before the snow delays things. Perhaps that is also why you are here, Miss Follet?’
Yes, I suppose he was entitled to ask my business now. ‘The snow will make no difference to me. I come here every day, sir. The servants need direction at a time like this.’
‘Which is exactly why we’re here. To help re-settle them. I have here some contacts…’ he tapped the notebook with white fingertips ‘…and they’ll need the references Mr Monkton prepared for them.’
Ah, yes. References. Linas would have discussed the futures of all his employees with his lawyer and brother. Mine too, I hoped. What a pity he had found it so difficult to take me into his confidence at the same time, to spare me the worry of how I would manage on my own. I had made plans, as far as I was able, but it would have lightened my heart if he had shown as much concern for my future as he had for the rest of his household. My repeated promptings, gentle or insistent, had brought no response except irritability and fits of coughing, and finally I had stopped probing for any kind of assurances concerning me and Jamie.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Then I shall bid you a good afternoon.’
My feet were wet, my fingers inside my woolly gloves frozen, the hall was bare and gloomy, and I did not want to see Linas’s brother that day. Or any day. I reached back to pull up my hood, numb fingers fumbling with an edge of wet fur, icy water running up to my elbows.
‘I believe,’ said Mr Brierley, ‘Lord Winterson would like you to be present at the reading of his brother’s last will and testament tomorrow, Miss Follet.’
The shake of my head was hidden from him. ‘No, I think not,’ I mumbled. ‘That will be no place for a man’s mistress, sir. Please excuse me.’ But my fumbling had obscured the quiet entrance of the one I hoped to avoid, and suddenly he appeared in the corner of my eye through the wet points of fur.
In almost six years there had never been a time when I’d been able to control my heartbeats at the sight of him. In the last four years—almost—there had hardly been a day when some detail of that night had failed to appear, or the wounding deceit of it fail to hurt. Between them, they had used me and I intended to make him aware of my anger as I had not been able to do with Linas. I could hardly bite the hand that fed me and my child, but I could and would refuse Winterson’s attempts, such as they were, to make me see him in a better light. And who could blame me?
The day before, with so many people there, I had done my best not to look at him. Or not to be seen looking at him. Now I did, and was astonished to see the shadows of deep sadness around his eyes, the unease of his mouth and the sagging tiredness of his shoulders that leaned against the doorframe into the study. Like me, he had kept his coat on, a long buff-coloured caped affair that barely cleared the floor, hanging loose over charcoal-grey riding coat and breeches, black waistcoat with a row of gold-figured buttons and watch-chain. His neckcloth, as always, was immaculate. His hair, as always, needed cutting.
I am ashamed to say that, in my own grief at the loss of my lover, I had spared too little thought for how he must be feeling at the loss of his twin, having to watch him fade away like a candle flame, burn low and finally extinguish. I had no cause to grumble that I was excluded, for Winterson sent a carriage for me at the end so that I too could be there for Linas’s last moments when it seemed, perhaps for the first and last time, that the three of us had shared a special tenderness and compassion, putting aside the complexities of our relationship. He had even allowed me some time alone with Linas at the end, which was remarkable when his parents were waiting to do the same. I was grateful to him for that. Returning home afterwards, my life seemed to be suspended and without cause, except for little Jamie. The funeral had upset me and I had slept badly, and I suppose it must have showed in my manner.
‘Miss Follet?’ he said. ‘Could you spare me a moment of your time?’
‘I told Jamie I would not be long.’
‘Please? Just a moment?’ He moved to one side, holding his hand out as if he was sure I would comply.
I left my hood up. And I left Mr Brierley in no doubt about my reticence as I swept past them both into the green book-lined study that had been Linas’s retreat during his last, most painful year. The once cosy room, always littered with books and papers, was now unnaturally tidy and distressingly naked. Incomplete. I turned the wick up in the oil lamp on his desk before going to stand by the white marble fireplace, putting some distance between us, hitching up my woolly scarf against a sudden chill. ‘My lord?’ I said, to convince him of my impatience.
‘Miss Follet…Helene…’ he said, wearily. ‘Brierley and I had…’ he sighed and looked away as if the room was affecting him too ‘…had hoped to have the will read here at Stonegate tomorrow. But, as you see, that may be prevented by the weather. If it carries on like this, those who ought to be here will be unable to manage it, or even get home again. I think we shall have to postpone it till it clears. I don’t know how you’re fixed for funds, to put it bluntly, but since Linas’s accounts are frozen for the time being, I wondered if you might need some help until we discover what arrangements have been made for you.’
‘How kind,’ I said. ‘If I had not chanced to see you here today, you might still be wondering.’
‘It was not chance. I know you still visit daily. Such habits are hard to break. I called at your home, but you were not there, so I came here to meet Brierley and to wait for you.’
‘You called…home? You saw Jamie?’
‘Yes,’ he said, raising an eyebrow at my tone. ‘Is there some reason why I should not? He’s grown in the last few weeks.’
‘I should have been there. He’s already missing his father.’
Unthinking, I stepped straight into the bag of worms. There was a crackling silence broken by the loud ticking of the bracket clock.
‘Then this may be the best time to remind you, Miss Follet, that his father has just made contact with him, which you have so far been at pains to prevent by every means known to you. I could hardly have said so while Linas was with us, but now we must both try to accept the truth of the matter and do whatever is best for the child. You surely cannot be too surprised that Linas wished me to be Jamie’s legal guardian?’
‘That is probably the one thing that will not surprise me, my lord. It’s well known that a child’s guardian must always be male, you being the obvious choice, but that does not alter the fact that I am Jamie’s mother and, as such, it is I who will decide where he will go and what he will do. And who he’ll do it with.’
‘Which is why I want you to hear Linas’s will at first hand.’
‘So you know the details of it, do you?’
‘Yes, I know more details than you. That’s only natural. We discussed it as brothers do.’
All too eager to display my wounds while I had the chance, I could not resist putting another slant on it. ‘Oh you did, didn’t you? Four years ago you discussed it. In some detail. Linas wanted an heir. You obliged. And I fell for it like an idiot. Like a resentful birthday-gift-starved fool. I paid for it, too.’
‘You got Jamie. He was what you wanted. Don’t deny it.’
‘But one does like to have a say, nowadays, in who the father is to be. Even mistresses appreciate some warning of that event.’
‘Think about it,’ he snapped. ‘Had you been warned, as you put it, there’d have been no Jamie, would there?’
‘No, my lord. There most certainly would not.’ I had to admit defeat on that brief skirmish, and I had no stomach for a prolonged argument on the topic. I closed my eyes with a sigh, holding a gloved hand to my forehead. ‘This will not do,’ I whispered. ‘It’s too soon for recriminations. Or too late. I’m tired. It’s time I went home.’
He watched me, saying nothing as I recovered.
‘I know there will be changes,’ I said. ‘I’ve had time to prepare for them, whatever they are. And thank you for your offer of a loan, but I think we shall manage for the time being. I also owe you thanks for allowing me access to Linas at the end. That was generous too, and…and appreciated…’ My voice wavered and caught at the back of my throat, dissolving the last word. I took some deep breaths to steady it.
‘It was no more than you deserve. It was your careful nursing that kept him alive longer than his doctors had predicted.’
‘I think it’s more likely to be Jamie who did that.’
‘Yes, that too. Jamie was your other gift to him. Linas was a very fortunate man. He told me so more than once.’
‘Did he?’ I remarked, tonelessly, wistfully.
‘Did he never tell you so?’
‘No. Not even at the end. I think the pain made him forgetful. Or perhaps he thought I was the fortunate one. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter now, does it? But I mean what I say about not hearing the will read, my lord. I would be out of place. I am not family and I have few expectations, except for Jamie, having fulfilled the role I was employed to do, to everyone’s satisfaction.’
‘You were not employed in any capacity, Miss Follet. You were my brother’s partner. It was his decision not to marry when he discovered he had so few years to live, and our family agreed that for him to do so would serve no useful purpose.’
‘Rather like good farm management, I suppose. You see, I am well able to think it out for myself, Lord Winterson. Having a mistress to support for just a few years was safer than taking on a wife. Linas preferred an illegitimate heir able to legally inherit and keep his estate intact, to a widow who would remarry and siphon it off into another man’s pockets. But don’t tell me that I was not employed, for that is certainly what I was, and I shall not sit with you round a table to be told that my golden goose has gone and left me nothing except my bastard child to care for. You may be very sure I shall guard my only treasure against any attempt to siphon him off into another man’s pocket. He may be the Monkton heir, but he is also my only legacy. Mine, my lord.’
I should not have said it, not then when emotions were so raw, Linas barely out of earshot, and both of us so tired. But my resentments were begging for release, freeing up words that I should have kept tightly controlled, as I had always done. I could have blamed my outspokenness on my northern roots, but that was too easy an excuse. So I held my breath and waited for him to retaliate in the usual Winterson fashion, with a set-down meant to silence me for months. Which he had every right to do.
His reply, when it emerged, was a calm reiteration of his claim. ‘And he is mine too, Helene. Linas has made me his legal guardian and you will have to get used to the idea, like it or not.’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘But I think Jamie will. He needs an active father, now he’s growing up. He needs more to do than walks with his nurse.’
‘He’s still only a babe. He needs only me.’
‘So let’s wait till we’ve heard what provisions Linas has made for you, then we shall know better what his needs are, shan’t we? You are exhausted, and so am I. It’s time you were home. Come. I have to get back to Abbots Mere before the snow gets deeper.’
‘What about the servants?’ I said, relieved to have been let off so lightly. ‘You came here to—’
‘Brierley can stay to deal with that. He lives on Petergate. You should trust him. He’s an honest man.’
‘I’m sure he is. He’ll have your interests at heart.’
‘And Jamie’s. Is that such a bad thing?’
Still, I could not help myself. Perhaps I wanted to provoke him, to make him react, in spite of his courtesy to me. Perhaps I was a little mad that day. ‘If I was retaining him,’ I said, ‘it would not be such a bad thing. But I’m not, am I?’
We had reached the door where his hand rested upon the large brass knob but, as my stupidly caustic remark stung him into action, he turned to me with characteristic speed, taking me by the shoulders with hands that bit through all my woollen layers. Holding me back against the deeply carved doorcase, he bent his head to look inside my hood and, whatever anger he saw on my face, it could have been nothing to the fury on his.
‘Stop it, woman!’ he snarled. ‘You think you’re the only loser in this damned business? You think you’ve had the thin end of the wedge, do you? Well, do you? Forget it. He was my brother. You had him for the best part of six years. I had him for thirty. We both…you and me…did what he wanted us to do, and if you had less choice in the matter than you’d have liked, well, I had just as little. I did it for him, and you believed I did it for you, didn’t you? That’s why you’re so angry. D’ye think I make a habit of creeping into my lady guests’ beds while they’re asleep?’
Since he was being kind enough to ask my opinion on that, I’d like to have said that he must have had a fair bit of practice at it. But, no, I said nothing of the kind. Nothing at all, in fact. I simply shook my head, which made my hood fall off. I noticed two new hairline creases from his nose to his mouth. I noticed that his eyelids were puffy, as if he’d been weeping. I noticed a sprinkling of silver hairs in that luxurious dark mop, just above his ears.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I’m overwrought. We both need to rest.’
He sighed through his nose with lips compressed, and I thought he was going to say more because his eyes held mine, letting me read the sadness written there more eloquently than words. Then he released me, and I felt the tingling where his hands had been, and I stood still while he pulled up my hood and settled it round my face. I was under no illusions; he would do the same for any of his closer woman friends, I was sure. Perhaps their minds would empty too, just for those few seconds.
‘Calm down,’ he said, gruffly. ‘Go home and get warm. Come on.’
Outside on the pavement, the lamplighter clambered down his ladder into the horizontal white blizzard, having cast a halo of light dancing across the ghostly snow-covered figures below. Lord Winterson’s groom emerged from the narrow alley that led to Linas’s courtyard and stables, riding one horse and leading the mighty grey hunter that blew clouds of white into the freezing air. ‘Follow on,’ Winterson called to him, taking my arm and linking it through his.
‘I can manage,’ I said, ready to pull away. ‘Really I can.’
But he clamped my hand with his elbow and, bending his head into the snowstorm, began to escort me home, not far, but far enough for us both to struggle against the conditions. His only conversation was, ‘Mind…take care…hold on…you all right?’
Standing under the porch before the door, I thanked him.
‘Stay at home till it clears,’ he said. ‘I’ll contact you as soon as I can get through. See Brierley if you need anything. He’ll help.’
I nodded and watched his effortless leap into the saddle, wheeling away as if the snow was no more than a mild shower. Across on the other side of Blake Street, the lights in the workroom, more properly known as Follet and Sanders, Mantua-maker, Milliner and Fabric Emporium, had been extinguished earlier than usual to allow the girls to get home, though I knew that Prue Sanders would still be working at the back of the shop on the new year’s orders, the alterations on ballgowns, fur trims and muffs. The cold weather had swept in from the north-east with a vengeance that year, and I had ordered that the fire in the sewing room should be kept burning constantly to keep the place warm. It was an expensive luxury I had not budgeted for, and my recent assurances that I could manage were not nearly as certain as I’d made them sound. But not for any reason would I have accepted a penny from him. Prue and I would have to manage on what the business earned.
That evening, however, my thoughts were in turmoil, for although my contacts with Lord Winterson had always been as brief as I could make them, this was the first time he and I had spoken about what had gone before, about his claim to Jamie, or about my feelings on the matter. As long as Linas lived, the subject had been studiously avoided, and now the impromptu unveiling had shaken me, if only because I had believed until then that he and Linas were alike in refusing to discuss things they found too uncomfortable. I had been proved wrong.
Only a day after his brother’s funeral, Winterson had brought out our shameful secret for its first airing, along with the reason for it and the well-planned result of it. My Jamie. He was right: I was angry, not because I was mistaken about his motives—for those I knew by then—but because he had known how easily I would give myself to him that night, repeatedly, willingly, and with little conscience. He had known, and my pride was wounded to the quick that all our mutual antagonism had been so easily suspended in the face of a temptation like that. How shallow he must think me. How disloyal. How easy.
What he would never know, though, was that I had fed off that experience since it happened, savouring it every night through each amazing phase, knowing that it would never be mine again. And since he had been unconvinced of my dislike of him before the event, I must of necessity try harder to convince him of it afterwards. His accusation about keeping Jamie at a distance from him was a part of my strategy but, with him now as Jamie’s guardian, I would find that more difficult, thanks to Linas.
Chapter Two
Thanks also to the weather, that part of my plan held up well when all the traffic in and out of the city was stopped for more than a week until men could shovel paths through the deep drifts, allowing access to the suburbs. We heard reports of farmers losing sheep, of snow burying hedges and cottages, trapping the mail-coach miles away with all its passengers, and the drowning of some young lads who had played upon frozen ponds. Fresh falls of snow added more depth to the fields each morning and broke branches off trees, the dropping temperatures killing everything that was too old, frail or poor to keep warm. The thermometer in Linas’s hall registered thirty degrees Fahrenheit, and a few days later we had twenty degrees of frost. I had never experienced such cold.
All through the freeze, my daily visits to Stonegate continued, partly to check on the remaining servants and partly to mentally mop up what was left of the essence pervading each room. In one way I had to be thankful that his suffering had ended at last, for I had not found it easy to watch him die and know that there was no way of stopping it happening. Jamie’s birth had done more than anything to extend the reprieve, but Winterson had been right to suggest that, when his brother’s illness began to distress the little fellow, a move to Abbots Mere would be best.
So I’d had a chance, at the end, to spend more time with Jamie, to begin some small rearrangements of our life in preparation for the future, to involve myself more with the thriving dressmaking business, to make another buying trip to Manchester and to pay an extended visit to my family without having to account for our absence.
Even so, I felt the gaping hole in my life where my Linas had been for, although we had not been lovers in the true sense for years, we had shared a real need for each other that was not wholly material, but emotional and spiritual as well. We never actually spoke of it: he was not good at speaking of love, and any attempt on my part only embarrassed him. But we were aware of our need for each other, especially so since Jamie’s appearance, and I was not foolish enough to end that prematurely when I knew the end would come soon enough. Had I remained childless, I might have thought differently, but I could not take a gamble when there was the son of a noble house to care for.
The River Ouse that brings boats up to the York warehouses froze all river traffic to a standstill, offering a quicker way to cross without using the bridge or the ferry. Those who could skate had a merry time of it, and Jamie’s nurse and I took him there, astonished by his pluck and persistence.
While Linas was alive, the natural tendency had been for everyone to compare him to the one he called papa, but by three years old his sturdy little frame and bold wilful nature, dark eyes and thick curly hair indicated characteristics that I was able to identify only too easily. Fortunately, my own dark colouring disguised the truth, but then, that must also have been taken into account at the outset, I supposed. It was so clever of them.
The nine seamstresses in the sewing room were loath to return home each evening during the freeze when the conditions at work were so much more comfortable than their own. Remembering how I too had been one of them, fourteen years old with only my clothes to my name, how Prue had sheltered and fed me, I tried to do the same for them, many of whom had worked there longer than me. Oh, she had worked me harder than hard to make it worth her while, being a canny Yorkshire woman, but I had not resented it, nor did the girls appear to resent me moving up the ladder rather faster, so to speak. Now, Prue Sanders and I were partners in the business, having expanded sideways into the house next door to the Assembly Rooms. A perfect situation, if ever there was one.
My own house was placed diagonally across the road, so convenient for us both especially during those exceptionally cold weeks when the ice seemed to creep into our veins. All our stores of potatoes froze solid. Few people could reach the mill for flour, nor could the miller use his wheel, sending up the price of bread accordingly. Fish was locked under the ice and people had to delve earlier than usual into their reserves of dried and pickled foods, feeding cattle with precious hay.
I did better than most in that respect, for as soon as a narrow passage was cut through the drifts, two pack-ponies and men arrived at my kitchen door having trekked from Abbots Mere at their master’s command. Into the kitchen were carried sacks of flour, oats and barley, chickens and geese, a brace each of pheasant and grouse, rabbits and a hare, baskets of apples, pears and plums, butter and cheeses, eggs and half-frozen milk, a half-carcass of lamb, hams, and trout packed in ice, all piled on to the table while cook stood with jaw dropping. I saw this gift as an answer to my refusal to accept a loan. For all our sakes, I was bound to accept this.
Gulping down beakers of mulled ale and wedges of fruit cake, the men would give no more information than, ‘Compliments of Lord Winterson, ma’am. And ye’re to let him know when you want some more. He hunts most days.’
‘What, on horseback? In this snow?’
‘Usually on foot, ma’am.’
Jamie jumped up and down at the end of my hand. ‘Oh, can I go too? I go on foot with Uncaburl?’
‘Nay, little ’un,’ said one of the men, replacing his woollen hood, ‘tha’d be mistekken fer a rabbit.’
‘Would I, Mama?’ said Jamie, looking worried.
I lifted him into my arms. ‘No, sweetheart. Your ears are much too short to be mistaken for a rabbit. But the snow is too deep. Now we must say thank you to the men and let them go. It’s starting to snow again.’
I sent my thanks to ‘Uncaburl’, thinking how ironic it was that food was more available to him out in the country than it was to me here in the town. Winterson’s revolutionary farming methods would see him through any crisis. According to Linas, Abbots Mere had never produced so much since his brother took it over. In truth, I had started to worry about what my own family would suffer if the freeze continued much longer, living several miles from York and completely cut off from supplies.
Perhaps I exaggerate. No, they were not completely cut off, only in the sense that they were invisible to all intents and purposes, living in hiding in a deserted village between York and our old home town of Bridlington on the east coast. There, the North Sea hurls itself at the cliffs in easily provoked anger.
For several years, my perceptive partner, Prue Sanders, withheld all questions about my family and why I was cut adrift from them. When the time was ripe, she knew I would take her into my confidence. So it was after I had borne Jamie and gone into partnership with her, extending the shop to twice its size, that I felt she was owed some kind of explanation as to why a woman like me had had to look for work as a lowly seamstress in York.
She was not the kind of woman to express astonishment; it was as if she had already guessed parts of the story, reversals of fortune being no new thing in those uncertain war years. When I told her my father had been mayor of Bridlington, she simply nodded and carried on pinning a gathered skirt on to a bodice. ‘Mm…m. Wealthy?’ she mumbled, without looking up.
‘He was a merchant. A ship owner, and Customs Collector.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said in the kind of voice that expects the Customs Collector to be up to some shady business, as a matter of course. ‘Smuggling, was he?’
Her assumption was correct, of course, for every villager along the North Sea coastline had a hand in the ‘Free Trade’, and few could afford not to be involved in the carrying, the hiding, the converting of boats, the warning systems, not to mention the putting-up of money to buy the goods from northern France and Flanders. The new French aristocracy led European fashions, and all things French were much in demand, imports that were taxed so highly by the English government that smuggling became a kind of protest against the unaffordable import duties.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He got caught. Informed on by a so-called friend.’
‘Nothing new there, then,’ she said, pinning. ‘Good rewards.’
‘Yes, it was the Customs Controller who shopped him for half the value of the contraband and five hundred pounds extra. Father wouldn’t accept the man’s offer to marry me, so that was how he took his revenge.’
‘And did you want him?’
‘Lord, no, Prue. I was fourteen and he was thirty-something.’
‘So your father was arrested. He’d not be found guilty by a local jury. They never are.’ She was so matter of fact. So dispassionate.
‘No, but he used a firearm, Prue.’
The pinning stopped as she straightened up to look at me. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That’s serious. That’s a hanging offence. Confiscation of property. The works. Is that how you came to be…?’
I remembered those weeks when the world turned upside down for our family, how my father was dragged off by the local militia to the gaol at York. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘More or less. But his friends from Brid rescued him and hustled him away to Foss Beck Common. My mother and the rest of us joined him there, but he died soon after.’
‘Foss Beck?’ Prue said, taking the last pin from between her lips. ‘Is that where they are? I always thought…’
‘Yes, I know you did. I’m sorry I deceived you, but it’s not a story to boast of, is it? It’s easier to call Brid home than a deserted village. Linas doesn’t know about what happened. No one does.’
‘Aye…lass!’ she said, sitting down at last. It was unusual for her hands to be idle. ‘Dear, oh dear! You lost your father too? And your home?’
‘He was wounded, but he kept it quiet. It seems so absurd that, only weeks earlier, he could have afforded the best attention in England. My mother has never quite recovered from the shock of it all, so it fell to me and my two brothers to survive on what we could find. We have a French relative who lives with us too, and he’s been very good. We have a few servants to help out, and friends from Brid brought us food and bedding and tools. Even hens and goats. We managed.’
‘I didn’t think any of the houses at Foss Beck were still habitable.’
‘The manor house has been half-ruined for centuries since the plague killed everyone off, but we manage to live in half of it.’
‘And there’s no chance of returning to Brid?’
‘My brothers were nine and eleven, and I was fourteen when we went into hiding, old enough to be arrested as substitutes for my father’s crimes. It’s a risk we daren’t take, Prue. Not even after all these years.’
‘So that’s when you came looking for work in York. I see.’
‘While I still looked half-respectable. Sewing was one of the things I could do to earn money. You must have seen in me something you could use.’
‘Yes. Your skills, and the fabrics you brought in each month.’ Picking up a bobbin of tacking-cotton, she pulled off a length and snipped it with her teeth. ‘I’ve never asked where it came from, Helene, and I don’t intend to ask now. If I don’t know, I can’t tell any lies, can I? Where did I put my needle?’
‘On your wrist.’ She wore a piece of padded velvet like a pincushion around her wrist. With Pierre, our French émigré relative acting as a go-between, and me not asking any questions about the source of his merchandise, everything he obtained for us was passed straight into the dressmaking business, the only one in York at that time to sell fabrics and designs too. The money from the bales of muslins and lace made it a lucrative trade that allowed me to supplement the poor wage I had earned and to take money and goods back to my family. Had it not been for Pierre and his French connections, we would certainly have starved. Prue must have known how the precious goods were obtained, and our customers must have guessed. My only thought was how to keep myself and my family alive.
‘Yes…well,’ she went on, threading her needle in one quick move and rolling a knot between finger and thumb, ‘you’ve been a godsend to me, Helene love. Not just the fabrics, though I’ll not deny they’ve done a lot to help things along. Your business ability, for one thing. Your looks, for another. Your style. Your knowledge of French too. And I know how hard it’s been for you, though I don’t know what your ma would say about how hard you’ve had to work. Does she know?’
‘That I’ve had to sell myself?’
‘Mmm,’ she said, rippling the needle through the gathers.
‘No, Prue. She doesn’t. The boys do, and Pierre. But beggars cannot be choosers, can they?’
‘No, love. You’ve had to grow up rather fast, haven’t you? But it’s not made you bitter, has it?’ The needle delved and pulled up, finding its own rhythm.
‘Yes, it has,’ I said.
The needle stopped in mid-air as she looked up at me. ‘Then don’t let it,’ she said. ‘Regretting is a waste of time. What’s done is done. You have a man, and a child, and a partnership in this, and youth, beauty, and more common sense than most women of your age. So, you’ve got responsibilities.’ The needle began again. ‘Well, most of us have, one way or another. Nothing stays the same, Helene. Believe me.’
‘I do believe you,’ I whispered.
Things would not stay the same. For one thing, I was determined that my infant would not suffer the same deprivations I’d suffered. Little did I know then how his future would pass out of my hands with such finality, nor did I fully appreciate the wisdom of Prue’s advice about my bitterness.
Lowering Jamie to the ground, I took him by the hand and led him back to the warm kitchen where the piles of food were being sorted by cook’s eager hands. He stroked the hare’s soft fur and spoke into its huge reproachful eyes. ‘Sorry, hare,’ he whispered. I showed him the intricate pattern of the pheasant’s feathers and the long banded tail that I would save for the millinery girls. ‘I want to see Uncaburl,’ said Jamie, sadly.
‘Yes, love. But you saw Uncle Burl only last week, and the snow is very deep. I don’t think our horses would like it.’
He barely understood. ‘We could go to see Nana Damzell, then?’
Damzell Follethorpe was my mother, who had not seen him for over a month and Jamie now able to talk so well, I dared not take the risk, with Winterson being a Justice of the Peace and Jamie so willing to chatter about all he knew. ‘Soon, darling,’ I said.
‘She’d like some of this, wouldn’t she, Mama?’
‘Yes, love, she certainly would.’ The same thought had passed through my mind too, but I could not see how to get it there.
Mrs Neape, my cook, understandably not wishing to see the supplies dwindle so soon, had the answer. ‘Don’t you worry, young man,’ she said. ‘This lot will stay frozen solid down in the cellar for weeks. Then you can take some of it to Bridlington to your Nana Damzell.’
It was where all my household believed my family to be living, about forty miles away on the coast. Foss Beck was less than half that distance, and the only person ever to accompany us there was Jamie’s formidable nurse, Mrs Goode, who would not have disclosed the smallest detail of my secret. She had once been a man’s mistress, too. ‘As soon as the snow begins to melt,’ I promised, ‘we shall go. What shall we take her?’
‘Eggs. She likes duck eggs, Mama.’
That would be like taking coals to Newcastle. They had hens, ducks and geese roaming freely, and no shortage of eggs. But bread would be a problem.
‘Tell me when you’re going and I’ll make you some of my meat pies,’ said Mrs Neape, hoisting the side of lamb on to her padded shoulder. She would not, however, see any need to send loaves of bread.
With little improvement in the weather, the reading of Linas’s will was delayed for almost three weeks and, even then, several of the family were missing, so Mr Brierley told me, owing to the impassable roads. It was he who called to say that he hoped I would not mind hearing at second hand what concerned me, since that was how several of the others would receive news of their endowments too.
What they were endowed with I have no idea, never having shown much interest in what Linas owned, or whether he relied on his wealthy father for an allowance, as many sons did. Even when they were twins, second sons rarely prospered as well as their elder siblings in the property stakes, although I had no doubt that Linas would never have been left wanting. As his mistress, I was probably the most expensive of his few extravagances, albeit not as costly as some I’ve heard of. I had, after all, reorganised my own business after Jamie’s birth, and thank heaven for my foresight, Mr Brierley having no outstandingly good news to offer me that day.
At first, I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
That Linas wanted me to continue living on Blake Street came as a great relief, though no real surprise. Mr Brierley’s assurance was quite clear that the house would be made available to me for as long as I wanted it. But when he kept his balding head bent while unnecessarily sorting papers out across the polished table, I guessed that he was seeking not figures, but a kind way to break the news. It came very quietly and deliberately.
‘As for pecuniary endowments, Miss Follet,’ he said, glancing up at last, ‘that’s money, you understand…’
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Monkton has left you the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds per annum for the rest of your life.’
‘Yes?’
‘Er…yes. That’s all.’
I stared at him, frowning, puzzled. ‘All? Three hundred and fifty?’
His finger pointed at the yellow page. ‘Yes. That was his wish.’
‘But how am I supposed to manage on that? Has he left no provision for our son?’
‘Certainly. Master James Frederick Linas Monkton has been left, you will be pleased to hear, a substantial trust fund, to remain in the hands and to be administered by his sole guardian, Lord Burl Winterson of Abbots—’
‘Yes, I know where Winterson lives, but what else is there? Surely Linas left me something for Jamie’s needs until he comes of age? I cannot raise him on three hundred and fifty pounds a year, Mr Brierley.’
‘You are not supposed to, Miss Follet, if I may say so. The trust fund to be held by Lord Winterson is designed to cater for all your son’s needs, as and when he needs them. This will include all his living expenses, his clothes and education and so on. All you will have to do is to apply to James’s guardian for—’
‘But that’s ridiculous!’ I yelped, jumping to my feet. ‘Are you saying I shall have to request money for Jamie’s food, but not for mine, candles and coal for Jamie, but not for me, his nurse’s wages, a groom…’
‘No…no, Miss Follet.’ Mr Brierley smiled, waving a hand in my direction. ‘I don’t suppose it will come to that, will it? I’m sure Lord Winterson will see that you have what you need for young James. A kind of allowance? Monthly? Weekly? But Mr Monkton’s wishes are quite clear that his brother shall have every say in his ward’s upbringing, and I have Lord Winterson’s assurance that he intends to exercise his guardianship with the authority of a father. It must surely be comforting for you to know that your son will have a guardian who is so committed to his immediate welfare.’
I stood by the window, stunned by the chilling austerity of Linas’s tight-fistedness. I felt I deserved better than that, after almost six years of devotion. I wished then that my life had taken a different turning. Gripping the rose-velvet curtain, I spoke my thoughts out loud. ‘The house will have to be sold,’ I said. ‘And I shall have to find a husband. Yes, that would be best for both Jamie and me. Even with a house to live in, it’s going to take every last penny I can earn to keep it going.’
‘Ahem!’ Mr Brierley coughed, shuffling the papers again. ‘I believe Mr Monkton did add a clause concerning that eventuality, Miss Follet, if I can find it somewhere. Ah…yes, here we are.’ He adjusted his spectacles. ‘Should Miss Helene Follet decide in the future to take a husband, then my son James Frederick Linas Monkton shall live permanently and exclusively in the home of his guardian at Abbots Mere in the county of York. There. He’s saying that—’
‘Yes, thank you. I believe I know what he’s saying, Mr Brierley. In short, I shall lose Jamie if I marry.’
‘Correct. You will also lose the use of the house too, I’m afraid.’
‘What?’
He nodded, pursing his lips. ‘Mmm. Well, you can see his point.’
My head reeled as I sat down with a thump upon the couch. Oh yes, I could see his point quite clearly. No wonder he’d been loath to discuss it with me. Not only had he decided by whom and when I should bear a child for him, but now he was asserting that he could take it away again if I did not conform to his wishes. How dictatorial was that? As for Winterson exercising his guardianship like a father, well, yes, he would. Exactly like a father.
‘That is most unfair, Mr Brierley, and highly unethical. That is interfering with my right to take a husband and to keep my child.’
‘Surely, Miss Follet, it is better for your son to have a guardian he knows and likes than to have a stepfather he doesn’t know? I do believe Mr Monkton had this in mind when he made this wish.’
Did he? I struggled to think what Linas had in mind when he saw fit to interfere in my life even after he’d gone. Jamie was precious to him too, I understood that, but he could not realistically expect me to see eye to eye with his brother on any matter relating to Jamie’s upbringing, when Winterson had no experience whatever of children. I felt insulted that he could not have left matters in my hands and made funds available to me for Jamie’s use. Did he think that, although I could manage a business, nurse him day and night, run my own household and care for a three-year-old, I could not be relied on to handle a trust fund? No, probably not. There had been times when I wondered whether Linas spared much thought for me at all. Now I knew the answer.
‘This will have to be contested,’ I muttered. ‘It won’t work.’
‘Miss Follet,’ said Mr Brierley, removing his spectacles and sitting back in his chair, ‘one cannot contest a will simply on the basis that one thinks it might be difficult to put it into practice. There is nothing here that is unworkable. You may have found it disappointing, but the terms are not so very unusual. Mr Monkton’s reasoning was sound at the time, and he does not state that you should not marry, only that his son shall live with his guardian if you do.’
‘And you see nothing sinister in that, sir? Is it remotely likely that I would allow that to happen, do you think?’
‘Ahem! I really cannot comment on that, Miss Follet, except to say that Mr Monkton’s prime concern was for his son’s well-being.’
‘Which I find difficult to understand, sir. One would have thought that his son’s well-being would be all the better for knowing that his mama was happy too. Oh, yes,’ I said as he opened his mouth to speak, ‘I know that wealth is not happiness, but how am I supposed to pay the servants’ wages, keep the place warm and in good repair, and maintain the standard of living that Jamie is used to, I wonder, on three hundred and fifty pounds a year? Not to mention my own requirements. I shall be obliged to look for a little cottage to rent. That seems to be the only solution. Thank you for coming, Mr Brierley,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘I think the best I can do now is to speak to Lord Winterson personally and see if we can come to a more sensible arrangement. Even he must realise what an impossible position this puts me in. Good day to you, sir.’
He shook my hand and gathered his papers together. ‘Mr Monkton’s servants will be gone from Stonegate by Friday,’ he said. ‘All of them except the top four have been paid and found new positions. The house will then be locked, prior to the new administration of the estate. If there is anything in the house that belongs to you, Miss Follet, I wonder if you would mind letting me have a list of the items so that I can isolate them. Oh… er…one more thing. If I may have your key to the Stonegate property?’
I took it from the drawer of my writing table and gave it to him. There were several things at Stonegate that belonged to me: a pair of miniature cameo portraits, my silver pill box that Linas used once, the embroidery workbox I kept there and a set of ivory combs, brushes and manicure tools. They were private, and I’d be damned if I’d make a list for him to hum and haw over.
It occurred to me much later that night as I lay sleepless, that Mr Brierley had not brought with him the title deeds to my house, or things to sign that would establish me as the new owner. Well, I must remember to mention it next time we met.
Chapter Three
Had I misunderstood? Had I not listened to him with enough attention? Had he really said the house would be mine? Mr Brierley had made no response to my angry comment that I would have to sell it and find a small cottage with fewer servants. Reduced circumstances I was familiar with, the fortunes of women in my position being notoriously unstable, but was that really what Linas had wanted for me and Jamie? I found it hard to believe.
My house on Blake Street was newer and more fashionable than our old family home had been, furnished with woods that shone like satin, hung with soft tones in velvet and silk, carpeted with Axminsters and matching Persian rugs, my bedroom patterned with birds and trees. My canopied bed was carved by George Reynoldson of York, no less. I had a family of loyal servants who gave me no trouble at all, and Linas had paid their wages without me ever having to worry about the cost. I kept a phaeton and two horses in his stable at Stonegate with no clear idea of whether they would still be mine to use. I ought to have asked Brierley at the interview, but perhaps he had given me enough bad news for one day.
My first call on the following day was to Follet and Sanders. Leaving Jamie at home with Goody, his nurse, I trudged over new layers of frozen snow. Every rooftop and ledge was capped with rounded pillows of white, blown like lace into every crevice and beyond where the great white minster reared its spiked towers, draped like a bride, silent and virginal.
The workroom door let in a fall of snow as I entered. Shivering in the chilled hallway, I met Prue with chattering teeth. ‘It’s as cold in here as it is outside,’ I complained. ‘We’ll never attract any customers at this rate.’
Unmoved, she kissed me daintily on both cheeks, casting her eye over my black outfit with the grey squirrel fur up to my ears. For all her fair, petite, middle-aged looks and elfin ways, she was as tough and sensible a businesswoman as any in York, with the typically dour sense of humour that can poke fun at what is difficult to accept. ‘No, dear,’ she said, without a hint of levity, ‘but we’re selling fur muffs and knitted gloves like hot cakes, so we can’t have our customers getting overheated, can we?’
‘And fur-lined capes? Those fur hats, too?’
‘Fur-edged handkerchiefs,’ she replied, deadpan.
‘No!’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Come and see.’
‘It’s not warm enough in here either,’ I said, entering the large workroom where women sat at the oak table, each with a mound of fabric before her, reels of cotton on revolving stands, pincushions and tapes, scissors, lamps and lace edgings. They looked up and smiled, all of them swaddled in woollen shawls and fingerless mittens. The windows were white, patterned with ferns.
‘No coal delivery this week,’ Prue said. ‘We’re having to eke it out. I can’t keep the fire going all night any more, and now the pump is frozen.’
‘I’ll send some coal across. Get cook to make some soup.’
‘That all adds to the costs, you know.’
Faces looked up, grinning slyly. Prue never starved them.
She followed me into the fitting room, draped with discreet pale curtains and peopled by miniature figures on shelves wearing the latest Paris modes. In here, I paraded gowns before our best customers, where they called me ‘Madame Helene’, impressed by my French pronunciation and having no qualms about our poor relationship with France. War or no war, French modes were all the thing, and our supplies of silks and lace was wondered at, bought, but never queried.
‘Brierley came about the will,’ I told Prue, quietly.
I told her what had been said. She listened, unruffled.
‘Then go to Stonegate and collect them,’ she said.
‘Go now. You don’t need a key. Go in by the kitchen door. If you delay till Friday, it’ll be too late.’
‘Do I care enough to go and help myself?’ I asked.
‘Of course you do. Go! Mr Monkton’s servants will let you in.’
She steered me through into the shop festooned with fabrics where customers were being attended at the long counter. ‘Good morning, Mrs Barraclough. Miss Fairweather. Lady Bess, good morning to you.’ She flicked a fair eyebrow at me and ushered me out into the snow, closing the door, setting the bell tinkling again.
At Stonegate, it was easy enough to pass through the ginnel into the courtyard and from there to the kitchen door. The cook, butler and coachman were there, huddled round the fire, surprised but not unwelcoming. I explained my mission and was led courteously up the back stairs into the echoing hall. ‘Would you like some assistance, Miss Follet?’ said the butler. ‘Or would you prefer to be alone?’
‘To be honest, Mr Treddle,’ I said, ‘I’m not even sure I ought to be doing this. Mr Brierley said to make a list, but I really don’t… well, you know.’
‘I understand perfectly, ma’am, and I feel sure Mr Monkton would too. May I suggest that you place your possessions on your bed, and I will personally wrap them and have them conveyed to Blake Street later on today. Would that do, do you think? That way, you’ll not have removed them, will you?’
‘Thank you, Mr Treddle. That will do perfectly.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’ He bowed, leaving me alone and feeling as strange as I had at my first entry, seventeen years old and on the cusp of something new. Yet again.
Upstairs, the sour smell of medication had gone and the tables had been cleared of the usual healing clutter. My silver pill box, brought from my old home, was still in his bedside drawer, yet even now I hesitated to take it. Smoothing the grey fur coverlet, I sat down on his bed as I had so often done to comfort him, to talk, to watch him sleep. Dear Linas.
The door, left open, gave on to a wide landing and the curve of polished elm, and if my eyes had not been closed by memories, I would have noticed, long before my return to the present, the tall great coated figure who had come to stand just inside the door frame.
I started with a gasp of shock, only half-believing.
‘Miss Follet,’ he said, softly.
I took a breath, summoning my matter-of-fact voice. ‘Oh…you! You’ve saved me a journey. I was going to pay you a visit today.’ He looked less weary, I thought, wishing my heart would not be so feckless.
‘In this weather? I should hope not. Was it urgent?’
‘Mr Brierley came. You must know, surely.’
‘And?’
‘There are things to be discussed.’ Glancing at Linas’s open drawer, I explained. ‘He wanted me to give him a list. I don’t do lists of possessions. I’ve lost too many possessions for that.’
‘I don’t blame you. Was there something in the drawer? Treddle told me why you’re here.’
‘Well…yes. That pill box. It was my father’s.’
‘Then take it.’ When I did not, he walked over to the drawer, removed the pill box and gave it to me. ‘There. Now, what else is there?’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Why should I?’ he replied, wandering across the room with his hands clasped behind his back beneath the greatcoat. ‘My staff are not going to know what belongs and what doesn’t when they start next week.’
‘What do you mean…your staff?’
He stopped his wandering and turned to face me with a searching look as if he was deliberating what to say. Yet again, I felt that this must be the prelude to some unwelcome news. ‘Some of my staff from Abbots Mere. The house belongs to me now.’ Then, as the shock dawned upon my face, he added, ‘Oh, dear. Brierley didn’t tell you? It was remiss of him to keep you in the dark. The staff you saw downstairs will remain, and the housekeeper too. I can use a house in the city as well as one outside it.’
What a fool I was. Why could I not have drawn more realistic conclusions about this? Guessing the answer to my next query, I asked it nevertheless. ‘So who owns the one I live in on Blake Street? Mr Brierley said I would maintain the right to…’
‘To live in it as long as you wish. Yes, that part was not in the will, but Linas and I agreed it between us. It belongs to me, you see. It always did. I lent it to Linas for your use.’
My guess had been correct. My arms prickled, but not with the cold. I stood up and closed the drawer with a snap. ‘If I’d known that…’
‘You’d what? Have refused to live in it?’
‘I had thought…hoped…that Linas would provide me and his son with a roof over our heads, at the very least. Now, I cannot even sell it to make ends meet.’ I could not deny that one of my main reasons for wanting to bear Linas’s child was to do with the security it would bring. It had, as it happened, brought much more than that, not least being great happiness to his last few years. I had never regretted that part of the experience.
‘You don’t need to make ends meet, Miss Follet. I intend to continue paying all the running costs, as I have done since I lent it to my brother. You won’t have any more expenses than you did before, except personal ones for which Linas has left you a modest sum.’
‘You…you paid for its upkeep? And servants too?’
‘Well, of course I did. Linas didn’t have many extravagances, apart from…’
‘Apart from me!’
‘…from yourself, which I was quite content to finance. There was no sense of obligation, I assure you.’
‘I’ve heard enough. No obligation, you say, when I was well and truly shared, wasn’t I? You even paid for me. How do you expect me to feel about that, my lord? Grateful? Flattered? Slightly bewildered? Who exactly have I belonged to all these years, I wonder? All neatly contrived to live as the mistress of one twin whilst bearing the other one’s child. Someone should write a play about it, shouldn’t they? What a comedy!’ Clutching the pill box, I strode past him, but was held back and swung round by his hand beneath my arm.
‘Come back, Helene. You can’t walk off in the middle of a discussion.’
‘I’m not in the middle of it,’ I snarled at him, pulling my arm away. ‘And you can keep the other things I came for, since you probably paid for them too.’
‘Listen to me, woman,’ he growled, preventing my escape with his great bulk, legs apart, a black silhouette against the light. ‘You’re blinded by your anger because what Brierley told you was not what you expected. But be reasonable, will you? You want to continue living on Blake Street and you want the funds to maintain it properly, to give Jamie the stability he needs. And now when I tell you that’s exactly what you can do, you fly off the handle and say it’s not what you want. Well, make your mind up, but try to think what’s best for Jamie instead of getting all hoity-toity about it. Does it matter who the house belongs to as long as you can both live there? Who else should pay the bills except me, I ask you? His guardian. Come down off your high horse for a moment. You’ll have all you need.’
‘What I need, my lord, is control of my life, for once. Control of Jamie’s life, too. And that is still being denied me.’
‘Then try being realistic. Sons remain in the control of their fathers or guardians and there’s nothing you can do about that. You must have known as much. So, if you want to stay with him, you will have to accept the same constraints and try to regard them as benefits. Which they are. Linas knew that, and his will reflects it.’
‘Is that so? Even to a ban on my marriage.’
‘What marriage?’
I shrugged. ‘Well, to a future husband, of course. Who else?’
‘Do you have a candidate in mind for the position?’
‘It would make no difference if I did. I stand to lose my son if I do.’
‘Nonsense. You wouldn’t lose him. He’d be with me.’
‘That’s the same thing, isn’t it?’
‘No. You know full well it isn’t.’
There was something in his voice which I could not identify, but which I preferred not to enquire into too closely. Far from simplifying matters, our discussion had taken me further into obligations I would rather not have had, for while the crisis over costs appeared to have a solution, the acceptance of it for little Jamie’s sake was not at all to my liking.
‘Just the same,’ I said, ‘it’s a risk I’m not prepared to take.’
‘A risk? Is that how you see it? As risk? What on earth do you think I might do to the little chap?’
The risk, of course, was not about what he might do but what he might not do, namely to protect my son from the kind of racy lifestyle enjoyed by the Abbots Mere set, the foolish irresponsible blades and the Lady Slatterlys of society. She, for one, would enjoy finding my Achilles’ heel in Jamie and, having found it, would twist the dart till it hurt. I was certain of it.
‘The kind of life you lead is quite different from the one he’s been used to with Linas and me,’ I said, turning away. ‘And you are not used to children.’
‘I’m willing to learn. And he has a nurse. Anyway, you take him to see Medworth’s family and to play with the animals there. He can do the same at Abbots Mere, and more. He’ll have his own room, a pony to ride…’
‘He’s too young for that,’ I objected, weakly.
‘Of course he’s not!’ he scoffed. ‘I learned to ride at three.’
‘The question doesn’t arise. Jamie will stay with me. A child of three needs his mother.’ I hoped he would hear the finality in my tone.
‘Nevertheless, Miss Follet, I think you will have to accept that Jamie will want to visit me, and that I shall want to see him. Often.’
‘I have to, don’t I? Perhaps one day a week, or alternate—’
‘No. My work doesn’t run like clockwork. I have a large estate, and I do things as and when they need doing. When I send for Jamie I shall expect him to come, and that will vary from week to week. I shall also expect him to stay, sometimes. You too, if you wish. I shall have rooms put aside for your personal use.’
Alarm bells rang. ‘For my personal use. How thoughtful. So tell me, my lord, what kind of signal that will send to family and friends? Will your current mistress vacate her rooms for my benefit? Shall I be seen as the newest member of the harem? It could get quite cosy.’
He didn’t react, this time, as he’d done before, but looked down his straight nose at me with his eyes narrowed, his mouth beginning to lift at the corners. ‘So…o, that’s what’s bothering you, is it? Ah, I see.’
Suddenly I was having to defend myself to him in a way I’d never had to do for years. Linas seemed so very far away, which was good, for I did not want him to hear this conversation. ‘Yes,’ I snapped, heading for the door, ‘that is what’s bothering me. How could you be so insensitive as to think I would ever agree to stay there after…’ My cheeks flamed. Why had I brought that up now, of all times?
I stalked off into the room next door that I had always used, scarcely more inviting than Linas’s, especially in the cold blue light of winter. ‘You must know,’ I mumbled, ‘that for me to be seen as one of the Abbots Mere crowd is the last thing I ever wanted, even when Linas was with me.’ I started to rummage. ‘I have a few things to look for. Treddle said he’d send them on, but if you’d rather I left them, I shall quite understand.’
He caught up with me and perched on my delicate stool with the petit-point cushion, his greatcoat swamping it, his long booted legs looking very out of place in a lady’s bedroom. I glared at him, bristling with hostility.
He held my glare with those supercilious brown eyes. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You wish me to hell. But some matters have to be tackled head on, and we’re going to have this out whether it embarrasses you or not. You must have learned by now that you’ve met your match, Miss Follet.’
What I had learned was that Linas and his brother were even less alike than I thought, one refusing point-blank to discuss the future, even mine or his son’s, the other one impatient to settle every detail. One, a prevaricator with no future to see into, the other with bountiful years ahead. Linas must have thought my future would take care of itself. I was not his wife. Why should he bother?
‘Shall we postpone the debate about whether or not I have met my match, my lord? If you’re asking whether I ever felt a certain imbalance in my relationship with your brother, then, yes, I cannot deny that. It could hardly be otherwise, could it, with Linas unable to see far ahead. Happily, I can see far enough for myself, so I shall not go hungry. You must tell me how to apply for Jamie’s allowance each month, and perhaps arrange for Mr Brierley to make it available. I shall keep every receipt, naturally. I pride myself on being able to keep my own accounts.’ It was immodest of me, but I thought he may as well know.
‘Mother. Mistress. Businesswoman. Is there anything at which you are not proficient, Miss Follet?’
‘Yes, I am not a good liar, my lord. The other day you were kind enough to remind me that your high-minded act of self-sacrifice was entirely for Linas’s benefit, not mine. So I would be lying if I failed to point out, in case you should misunderstand, that I thought only of him too. I wonder you did not hear me call out his name, once or twice.’
‘We spoke no words, as you well know.’
‘Which only goes to show the limitations of your memory, my lord.’
‘I’m flattered to know that yours is still sharp, Miss Follet.’ He stood up, damn him, as if to claim the last word on the subject. ‘And since you were also kind enough to point out the undesirable nature of what you call the Abbots Mere crowd, perhaps I may be allowed to voice similar concerns about your dubious connections. Not quite the kind of thing Jamie ought to know about. You entertained young Solway for a few months, I believe, as well as Standish’s middle son. What’s his name? Bertrand, is it?’
‘For money, my lord,’ I snapped. ‘I was obliged to sell myself.’
‘Ah, of course. For money. Well then, you need hardly be too concerned about visiting Abbots Mere with my ward, since none of the women who stay there are ever paid a penny. They do it voluntarily.’
‘In which case, then, one would expect to see the place swarming with your other little wards. That part must cost you a small fortune.’
‘No!’ he said, picking up a porcelain plate from the mantelshelf and looking at the back. ‘You and Jamie are the only ones to cost me anything.’
‘How sad. That’s something I can easily fix, my lord.’ Boiling, churning, seething with anger at being outmanoeuvred, I gulped down the rest of my venom in a pointless threat that meant nothing at all, since there was no way in which I could fix it, except permanently.
Looking back on it later, I suppose that’s what he thought I meant, for when I moved towards the door again, thinking only to get away from the haunting place, he slammed it shut before I could reach it, catching me like a silly sheep against the wall.
‘Admit it or not, lady, as you please,’ he said, but no more than that before he pushed my head on to his shoulder and brought his mouth down to cover mine, making me forget what it was I was not admitting, and a lot more besides.
He must have known…oh, yes…he must have known how much of that night I remembered. He must have known too how desperately I needed comfort instead of conflict and how much I would have preferred matters to go my way, for a change. He must have known, with Linas no longer to care or be cared for, that I felt both free and guilty, grieved and confused and not as well organised as I pretended to be. So I half-expected his kiss to taste of revenge after our session of deliberate wounding, our first close contact in all those difficult years. I thought he was about to put me, finally, in my place.
But it was not like that, not bitter, but meant, I think, to remind me of the magical beauty of that night without words, passionate but tender too, wanting, taking and giving. Predictable was not the way to describe Burl Winterson, yet I could taste the hunger in his kisses that roamed slowly across my lips, and I felt the desire in his hard arm across my shoulders, the soft hand holding my face. Feel, taste, scent…ah, yes…the scent was there too. Moorland. Fresh linen. Trees after rain. How could I not be reminded?
He must have heard the moan, faintly, in my throat.
‘You’re right,’ he whispered, ‘about not being a good liar. I think we’d both better stick to the truth in future. And let us get another thing straight before we leave. You and Jamie will continue to live under my protection on Blake Street without any more argument. You will bring him to visit me and you will both accept my authority as you did with Linas. I do not need to remind you again whose son he is.’
‘And I suppose the next thing will be that you’ll expect him to call you Papa, will it?’ I said, trying to stiffen in his embrace, and failing.
‘That’ll come too. One thing at a time.’
Squirming out of his arms, I steadied myself against the blue-flocked wallpaper. ‘I was being sarcastic,’ I said, pettishly. ‘I have no intention of giving you that satisfaction. And what is it I’m to admit, or not, as I please?’
‘That you’ve met your match, at last. Now, where are these other things of yours? Come and show me.’
Chapter Four
No expectations, I had said, choosing not to hear the unreality of such a boast. But it was not true. I had
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