Even so, she fervently hoped that she would not find herself alone with him that evening, so that no possibility of a disturbing and intimate conversation could arise. And really, it was hardly likely, she reassured herself. A small family dinner was exactly the sort of occasion that would offer no chance of anything private. Although an evening at Lady Cranston’s and an afternoon at Frost Fair should not have offered an opportunity either . . .
She was rescued from further uncomfortable musings by Hetty bustling into the room.
‘Oh, I do hope the food will be hot enough,’ said Hetty anxiously. She was every inch the hostess, and was worried about the meal her cook was going to serve. ‘It is so difficult to stop it going cold on its journey from the kitchen. In summer it is easy, of course, but in the winter . . . ah well, it cannot be helped.’
‘I’m sure it will be perfect,’ Rebecca reassured her.
‘Well, Mrs Lunn will certainly do her best,’ said Hetty dubiously. ‘But it is Joshua’s first meal with us in over a year, and I would so like everything to go well.’
Then, drawing her mind away from the problems attendant on having guests for dinner she glanced appreciatively at Rebecca, who was looking most becoming. She was wearing a white satin gown en saque with a bodice of midnight blue velvet, over which she wore an Indian shawl.
‘I am so glad colours have become fashionable again,’ said Hetty, her eyes going from the midnight blue of Rebecca’s bodice to her own yellow gown. Made of silk, its high waist was ornamented with a gold band, and its sleeves were decorated with gold lace. ‘Unrelieved white is all very well, but it never suited me, and I am vain enough to be pleased that colours are now the rage.’
At that moment Charles entered the room, rubbing his hands heartily and remarking that the dinner smelled good.
‘Oh, do you think so, Charles? I am so pleased.’
‘It will be delicious,’ said Charles decidedly.
‘Now all we need is Joshua,’ said Hetty, glancing out of the small-paned window, across which the curtains had not yet been drawn. ‘Oh!’ she cried in vexation. ‘It is snowing again. I do hope he will be able to get through.’
She need not have worried. The sound of the front door opening and closing could be heard, followed by Canning’s deferential tones, and there was Joshua, looking immaculate in a dark tail coat and pair of pantaloons.
He glanced at Rebecca as he walked into the drawing-room, his eyes warming as he saw her, and Rebecca felt her heart skip a beat. Really, it was most unfortunate, the effect he had on her, she thought. Why could he not leave her unmoved, as every other gentleman of her acquaintance did?
‘Good to see you, Joshua,’ said Charles. ‘We were worried you might not get through.’
‘It’s getting worse,’ acknowledged Joshua, glancing out of the window as he took a seat.
‘I hope it won’t delay you going north?’ asked Charles, offering Joshua a drink.
‘I hope it will,’ countered Hetty, turning to Joshua warmly. ‘Then we will be able to keep you in London for a few more weeks.’
Joshua laughed. ‘You may have your wish. I certainly can’t go at the moment. I’ve just heard that the roads out of London are impassable. Even the mail has had to be suspended, and if the mail can’t get through then nothing else can. But I mean to set out as soon as there is any chance of success. The manager has been left in charge of the mill for some time now, ever since I went abroad, and although I have every faith in him for the short term, I would rather not leave him in charge for too long.’
Charles nodded. ‘You must be eager to see the mill again, and take the reins into your own hands. There are some sharp practices going on in some of the mills these days, and it’s as well to make sure your manager hasn’t fallen prey to temptation.’
‘I’m concerned about that myself,’ said Rebecca. ‘If there are any unreasonable fines being levied, I hope you will make sure they are removed.’
Joshua’s eyebrows raised, as though he had not expected her to be so well informed, and she had the satisfaction of having surprised him.
‘I have had the good fortune to meet and talk to Mr Cobbett,’ she explained.
Joshua put down his glass. ‘Have you indeed. William Cobbett’s opinions need treating carefully. He has been imprisoned for libel before now, as I am sure you know —’
‘His crime was nothing more than speaking the truth,’ said Rebecca.
‘As he sees it. But he lives in the past. He wants England to return to the days when labourers worked merrily in the fields. Unfortunately, he forgets that labourers did not always work merrily, and that they were often plagued by poor harvests . . . as well as bad backs. Scratching a living from the land can be hazardous. Farmers, as well as mill hands, have been known to starve.’
Rebecca sighed. ‘I know he tends to idealize the countryside and I know that he has a dislike, if not to say a hatred, of the mills, but some of his reasons for that hatred are sound. The way spinners are fined a shilling for leaving their window open, for example, or sixpence for leaving their oil can out of place.’
‘I agree.’
‘And that is not all,’ said Rebecca, who had been so convinced that she would have to argue her case that she did not immediately take in what he had said. ‘In some mills, men are fined a shilling for whistling. I warn you, I will not countenance . . . ’ Her voice tailed away as his words sank in. ‘You . . . agree?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Yes. I do. Is that so surprising?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
‘Just like a woman!’ laughed Charles. ‘Three answers in one!’
Joshua smiled, but nevertheless he turned to Rebecca curiously. ‘Which one is it?’
She frowned. ‘Grandfather told me you were ruthless . . .’ she began.
‘And so I am, in commerce. But not in my dealings with people who depend upon me for their livelihoods. I know what it is to be poor. Your grandfather began life in very difficult circumstances and he told me many stories of those days.’
Rebecca nodded thoughtfully. Her grandfather had told her about the hardships of poverty. ‘I knew Grandfather would never have allowed such fines, but as I knew he had not taken an active role in the mill for some time I wondered . . . ’
‘Whether I would be a slave-driver?’ asked Joshua with a lift of his eyebrows.
‘Not a slave-driver,’ said Rebecca. ‘I know that Grandfather would not have left you in charge if you had been that. But a hard taskmaster, perhaps.’
‘I am a hard man,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I am not a monster, as I hope you will soon discover.’
His eyes washed over her disturbingly, and she was pleased when Charles spoke.
‘It looks like you two have more in common than you thought,’ he remarked.
Rebecca nodded. She had wondered, when she had become aware of Joshua’s ruthless streak, just how far this would carry him in his running of the mill, and she had been prepared to stand up to him. But she was pleased to learn that, although he undoubtedly had a ruthless streak - and, in business, she knew, a ruthless streak was necessary - it was tempered by fairness.
Joshua, she was learning, was a man she could respect.
‘Still, the mill needs to be profitable,’ remarked Charles.
‘And I mean it to be.’ Joshua took his eyes reluctantly away from Rebecca and gave his attention to Charles. ‘But not at the expense of other people’s misery. There is no reason why the mill can’t be run in a civilised manner and still show a healthy profit.’
‘It’s a good thing you two see eye to eye,’ said Charles, blissfully unaware of the fact that on everything else they were at daggers drawn. ‘It doesn’t do for partners to be always falling out. It’s bad for business. But it seems that my father knew what he was doing when he left you each half of the mill.’
‘You don’t mind him having left the mill to us?’ asked Joshua, looking at Charles.
‘Not a bit of it,’
said Charles, holding out his hands to warm them in front of the fire. ‘In fact, I’m glad he did. I’ve no head for business.’
‘Nonsense, Charles,’ said Hetty loyally.
Charles smiled. ‘I’m good enough at managing the property my father left me, but I wouldn’t have liked to learn about something new. And besides, the mill is so far north it would have been impossible for me to keep an eye on it. An absent owner is never a good idea. As you say, it provides an opportunity for a corrupt manager to operate undetected. No, I didn’t want the mill. It would have been a burden to me.’
The door opened and dinner was announced.
Charles gave Rebecca his arm, and Joshua offered his arm to Hetty.
Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness! The custom that did not allow wives and husbands to go in to dinner together had served her well tonight.
They went through into the dining-room, an elegant high-ceilinged apartment decorated in duck-egg blue. White mouldings adorned the walls, and their brightness was echoed by an Adam fireplace, which was decorated by a line of dancing nymphs. In the grate burned a roaring fire.
Hetty indicated their places, and they took their seats at the long mahogany table. A group of candles were lit in the centre, casting their sparkling light over the glass and silverware. It was a most attractive sight.
Hetty looked a little anxious as the soup was brought in, but the first mouthful showed it to be good and hot and Rebecca saw her relax.
Good! thought Rebecca. At least Hetty will be able to enjoy the evening!
‘Do you know,’ began Charles, once he had taken the edge off his appetite, ‘I think —’
But whatever Charles had been about to say was lost for ever as there was a sudden crash and something came hurtling through the window, narrowly missing Joshua’s head. It passed over his left shoulder and landed with a splash in his soup.
‘What . . . ?’ asked Rebecca, aghast.
She looked at Joshua, relieved to see he had not been hurt. If the stone - for a stone she could now see it to be - had been an inch to the right it would have struck him forcibly on the back of the head.
Joshua, throwing down his napkin, was already striding over to the window and looking out onto the lamplit street.
‘Do you see anything?’ asked Rebecca, joining him.
But as she looked out of the window she could see as well as he could that the street was empty.
‘No. Nothing.’ Joshua’s voice was grim.
‘Oh! How dreadful!’ said Hetty. ‘Lady Cranston was telling me only last night that her own house had been burgled just before Christmas, and now our house has been attacked. I don’t know what is happening to the world these days. It was never like this when I was a girl.’
Behind her, Rebecca heard Charles calling for the footmen as he gathered a party together and went outside in order to search for the miscreants.
And then she felt Joshua put his arm round her shoulder and steer her away from the window. As he did so his arm grazed her skin where, above her long white evening gloves and beneath the short, puffed sleeves of her gown, it was bare. She felt a shiver run up her arm and spread throughout her body. Instinctively she turned to look at him, lips parted, and he, feeling her reaction to his touch, turned towards her, eyes smouldering. There was a look of desire on his face that set her pulses racing. A desire that, alarmingly, was matched by an equally fierce desire of her own.
How had it happened? How had she found herself desiring the most stubborn man she had ever met? The most ruthless and the most perverse? A man who would relegate her to the fireside if she gave him a chance? Who would deny her the right to take an interest in her inheritance? And who, as the final straw, expected her to enter into a loveless marriage for the sake of her reputation? It was of all things the most contrary.
‘London grows more dangerous by the day,’ sighed Hetty.
Rebecca heard the words through a haze. She could barely hear, let alone think, with Joshua so close by. His presence seemed to be robbing her of an awareness of everything but him: his strongly-moulded features, his mane of hair, his full lips and his penetrating eyes.
With an effort she brought her wandering thoughts back under control.
She could tell that Joshua was making a similar effort. Although his eyes remained locked on hers, he replied to Hetty’s remark.
‘These things happen,’ he said.
He had obviously made an effort to speak lightly, but even so his voice came out huskily. The sound of it made Rebecca feel weak.
Making an effort to control her powerful reactions to Joshua, she wrenched her eyes away from his and fastened them once more on the street outside.
‘Do . . . ’ She stopped. Her voice was weak and trembling. She tried once more. ‘Do you think it will happen again?’ This time, her voice came out almost normally, with only the slightest hint of a quaver.
‘I hope not,’ said Hetty anxiously.
Fortunately, although she had looked at Rebecca sympathetically when Rebecca’s voice had trembled, she seemed to think it was nervousness on Rebecca’s part because of the stone flying through the window and nothing more.
‘But it might,’ said Joshua, who was once more in control of himself. Taking care not to touch Rebecca, he guided her back to the table. ‘I suggest we stay away from the windows,’ he said.
Rebecca nodded. It was a wise precaution, under the circumstances.
Joshua turned his attention to the table. Reaching out his hand he took the stone from his half-eaten bowl of soup. The bowl had been cracked by the force of the stone, and soup was seeping out onto the damask cloth.
‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed Hetty, suddenly noticing what a mess it was making.
She rang the bell, and a minute or two later she began directing the servants, instructing them to sweep up the broken china and glass, for the table was covered in fragments from the broken window.
‘The table will have to be completely cleared,’ she told the servants as she superintended their activities.
Joshua turned the stone in his hand, feeling the jagged edges.
Rebecca looked at the stone, then took it out of his hand. She shuddered. It was large and heavy, and the edges were extremely sharp.
Joshua reclaimed it. ‘Better not to dwell on it,’ he said. ‘Come and sit by the fire. You’ve had a shock.’
‘No,’ said Rebecca, pulling her shawl more closely around her. ‘I must see if Hetty needs any help.’
‘No, thank you, my dear, the servants have everything well in hand,’ said Hetty. ‘Lay the table in the parlour, if you please,’ she instructed the servants. ‘We will finish our meal in the back of the house. And serve the soup again, if you will. We have hardly had a chance to touch it.’
At that moment Charles walked back into the room.
‘Anything?’ asked Joshua.
‘Nothing,’ said Charles, shaking his head. ‘Whoever it was has long gone. There was no sign of them.’
‘I have ordered the table laid in the parlour,’ said Hetty, in an effort to restore an atmosphere of normality. She glanced anxiously at the window. ‘I don’t feel comfortable eating here any longer.’
‘I think that’s a wise precaution,’ said Charles. ‘I don’t think we’ll have any further problems tonight, though,’ he went on. ‘Now they know the house is well defended, the miscreants will think twice before attacking it again.’
Rebecca felt her calm returning. It had been an anxious fifteen minutes, but it was over now and no harm done.
Of far greater concern to her was her reaction to Joshua. If he was going to continue to have such a strong effect on her, she hoped he would remove to Manchester as soon as possible. Although even there she would have to see him from time to time, she thought with a shiver, especially as she was determined to take an interest in the mill.
‘Come, let’s go through to the parlour,’ said Hetty. ‘Fortunately there is a good fire burning there. We wi
ll soon be comfortable again.’
The table was soon re-set and before long they had all settled down to their meal once more. This time there were no unfortunate disturbances, and they could enjoy their mulligatawny soup in peace.
But Rebecca’s calm was short-lived. Because once they had finished their main course of ham in Madeira sauce and were about to embark on dessert, Charles said jocularly, ‘You don’t have any enemies, do you, Josh?’
‘Enemies?’ asked Joshua.
Superficially the word came out light-heartedly, but Rebecca detected a note of tension in Joshua’s voice. A moment later she asked herself how it was that she was able to catch the subtle nuances in his voice. Usually it was something she could only do with people she knew well, but she seemed to be able to do it with Joshua, despite their short acquaintance.
‘No, of course not,’ Joshua finished.
Again, the words came out lightly, but again there was an underlying tension to them. For some reason, although Charles had enquired about enemies jovially, Rebecca had the feeling that Joshua’s thoughts had been running in the same direction.
‘Well, of course Joshua doesn’t have any enemies,’ said Hetty, looking reprovingly at her husband. ‘Really, Charles! What a thing to say.’
‘Well, it’s just that first of all you were almost knocked down by a horse, then you were almost attacked by the rider,’ said Charles. He was trying to be light-hearted in an effort to dispel the uncomfortable atmosphere that had settled over them after the stone had been thrown through the window, but he was unfortunately not sensitive enough to realize that he was making matters worse. ‘And then, when you came to us for dinner, a stone flew threw the window, missing your head by inches and landing in your soup!’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Charles,’ said Hetty sharply.
Joshua smiled, but Rebecca could see that the smile was strained. He was trying to make light of Charles’s remarks, but Rebecca had the disturbing feeling that there may be something in them; that Joshua may be in some kind of danger after all; and her thoughts went to the horse that had nearly ridden him down. Had that been an accident, as she had supposed? Or had there been something more sinister behind it?
One Snowy Night Page 7