by Mary Nichols
‘His revelations the day before yesterday were new to you, were they not?’
‘Yes, and no doubt they have been conveyed to Lady Harecroft. I am leaving before I am sent away. I have my pride, Mr Harecroft.’
‘I would not take that from you,’ he said quietly. ‘Without our pride, how could we carry on?’
He was talking about himself as well as her, she realised. It was his pride that kept him at the dower house, at arm’s length from his father. ‘You chose the path you took. I had no choice.’
‘You are exercising a choice now, Diana.’ It was said very quietly.
Her riposte that she had no choice died on her tongue. ‘If I am, it is one that has been thrust on me.’
‘Let us make a bargain,’ he said. ‘Let us eat and then take a turn into the town. I have some business to transact, but I will be no longer than I can help and then I shall be at your service.’ He had no business but he knew she would not return to Borstead immediately and he had to think of a way to detain her until he could persuade her to go back willingly.
‘For what purpose?’
‘To escort you wherever you wish to go, of course. What else should I be offering?’ She stared at him as he took a plate from the tray and loaded it with bacon and eggs, which he set before her. ‘Eat.’
She was falling deeper into the mire with every minute. ‘Mr Harecroft, I cannot impose on you…’
‘It is my pleasure and my privilege. Now, I do not want to hear any more protests. Eat your meal and we will plan what is to be done.’
She obeyed him, while her wet clothes steamed before the fire. The food was hot and delicious and by the time she had eaten her fill, she was once again warm and dry and resigned to her fate, whatever that might be. It was in his hands, not hers.
He finished his own food, then poured himself another cup of coffee and sat regarding her quizzically. Her cheeks were pink from the warmth of the fire, but her smoky eyes were still troubled, making him long to take her in his arms to comfort her. But how could he? She was his brother’s intended wife and he had scandalised her enough already. ‘Diana…’ he began slowly. ‘If there is anything I can do to help, you have only to ask.’
Oh, how she longed to throw herself on his mercy, tell him everything, that she loved him, but he would undoubtedly be shocked and at that moment she was basking in the comfort his presence gave her and she wanted to savour it as long as she could. ‘You have already offered to escort me—what other help should I need?’
‘Only you know that, my dear. But whatever it is, please make use of me.’
‘Mr Harecroft, I would not dream of making use of you.’
‘Why not?’
‘What sort of a person do you think I am?’
‘At the moment, a troubled one.’
‘If I am, it is because you dragged me up here.’
‘Dragged you, Diana?’
‘Yes. I protested, as you recall.’
‘Only for your reputation, which you had already thrown away.’
‘If you think so ill of me, why do you not abandon me? I can take the next coach out and we can pretend we never met.’
‘I do not think we can do that,’ he said softly, coming to stand before her. ‘Can we?’ And when she did not reply added, ‘Can we forget we met, Diana?’
‘No,’ she whispered, all the stuffing gone out of her.
He reached out both hands to her and brought her to her feet. The blanket fell away, revealing a stiff white petticoat and a chemise. She made no effort to bend and retrieve the blanket, but stood in front of him and raised her smoky eyes to his. Neither spoke. Slowly he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrists, one by one, looking into her face as he did so. She shivered, though it was not cold that made her do so. It would take so little to give in, to throw herself into his arms and confess the whole miserable truth. She was the daughter of a bastard, a nobody who had had the temerity to fall in love with him. But she held back. There was still a spark of the old Diana in her, still a little pride, and she would not let him play with her and torment her with kisses that he could not possibly mean seriously. She withdrew her hands. ‘Mr Harecroft, I must dress.’ She picked up her dry clothes and disappeared behind the screen.
He stood up and went to the window. He felt as though something within his grasp had been suddenly snatched away, a dream broken by the awakening, a longed-for pleasure denied him. He had never gone into his own motives too deeply, but the truth shocked him. He wanted to make love to her. And that was out of the question. He gave a deprecating smile. ‘The rain has stopped and the sun has come out. We will venture forth and plan how to extricate you from this coil.’ Coil was an apt description, he decided, for both of them. They were like springs, wound up so tight that sooner or later something would have to give.
‘I am not in a coil,’ she said, emerging from behind the screen, determined to stay in control, though how long she could keep it up, she did not know. As for escaping from him…Did she want to? The sensible side of her said yes, she did, the wanton side wanted to stay, to be whatever he wanted her to be.
‘So be it.’ He had regained control and would make sure he kept it. ‘I have to make a call on a gentleman at the new literary and scientific institute. There is a coffee shop nearby. You may sit there and watch the world go by until I rejoin you. Then we will dine somewhere and talk and perhaps, if there is no more rain, take a promenade. Or you could, if you wish, wait here for me.’
She laughed a little crazily. ‘Are you not afraid I will take the first coach out?’
‘I do not think you will do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘You have not finished with me, Diana, just as I have not finished with you.’
‘What do you mean?’
He looked at her with his head on one side, a faint smile playing about his lips, though it was one of irony, not of amusement. ‘I mean I must take you back to Great-Grandmama. The rest is in the lap of the gods. Now what do you say? Come with me or stay here?’
‘Come,’ she said without hesitation.
She put on her shoes, dry now, and he helped her on with her cape and they left the inn.
The rain had been blown away on the wind and now the sun was shining in a sky where only one or two small clouds drifted. But it was wet underfoot and they had to pick their way carefully round the puddles and step smartly out of the way when vehicles splashed through them, throwing up a veritable cascade of water.
‘You have returned from London very quickly,’ she said, determined to stay calm. ‘Did you go to the gallery in Burlington Arcade?’
‘Yes. I took them some samples of Freddie and Joe’s work. They liked Freddie’s, but not Joe’s.’
‘Were you surprised by that? Most of it is very bleak.’
‘No, but Joe will be disappointed and I am not sure I should accept if he is not included.’
‘You are going to a great deal of trouble on behalf of your friends.’
‘Isn’t that what friends are for? They would do the same for me if our roles were reversed.’
She wondered if he were right, but did not express her doubts. ‘I found Dick asleep under a tree in the wood yesterday. He had escaped from the garden and was all alone. I took him back to Miss Standish. She had been searching for him and was very worried.’
‘Good God!’
‘Miss Standish said he was looking for his papa.’
‘He often does that.’
She waited for him to go on, but when he did not, she stopped walking, pretending to look into a shop window. It was cluttered with old books, pictures, pieces of jewellery and tiny carvings.
‘There is something you could help me with, if you would.’
His sudden change of subject confirmed her worst fears. How could he be so mercurial? Was he simply playing with her, like a cat with a mouse that it had no intention devouring? Surely he knew she had mentioned his son in order to giv
e him the opportunity to explain, but he evidently did not think he needed to enlarge upon what he had already told her. And he was right. It was nothing to do with her; she was on her way back to London to make a new beginning and would never see any of them again.
‘If I can,’ she answered automatically, hoping it had nothing to do with Lucy and her child.
‘Would you help me choose a birthday gift for my great-grandmother?’
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘If I can. What had you in mind?’
‘Nothing. She seems to have everything she needs.’
She looked idly at the collection in the window of the shop. Beside the tawdry pieces she spied some little carvings. They were all small, none more than a foot high and some only a matter of an inch or two. Some were marble, some stone, some almost perfect, others damaged; all were beautiful. ‘What about something from here? A little carving perhaps.’
‘But it is rubbish, not worth anything.’
‘Surely it is not the price that matters to an old lady who is rich enough to buy anything she wants? It should be something that has some meaning.’
‘You are right, of course, so let us see what there is on offer.’ Anything to keep her by his side, he told himself as he ducked under the low lintel to enter the shop.
The bent old man who came to serve them fetched several items from the window as Diana pointed to them. She picked them up one by one, could feel the life in the hands that had made them, the love and skill that went into their creation, and was almost moved to tears.
‘They are Roman,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘Found near the old bridge when it was demolished six years ago to build the new one.’
‘They are beautiful,’ she said softly, wavering between the marble head of a horse six inches across but perfect in every detail and a tiny carving of a woman’s head and shoulders in a creamy-coloured stone. It was beautifully done, every tress of hair, every fold of the dress was finely carved, the nose and mouth perfect, even though it was so small. ‘They are both good, but I think perhaps the horse,’ she said.
‘The horse?’ he queried in surprise. ‘Not the little head?’
‘The head is good, too, but this is even lovelier because it is so small. It did not come from a temple, it was done to please the sculptor, made as a private gift, perhaps, or a tribute to a special goddess, made with love. And it reminds me of North Wind, the way his nostrils flare and his mane flies out behind him. I think her ladyship would like the horse.’
‘Then the horse it shall be.’ He handed it to the shopkeeper to be wrapped. ‘But I think I shall take the little head as well.’
Both pieces were paid for and the little piece of pale stone wrapped separately from the horse. Richard handed it to Diana. ‘A gift to my particular goddess with my compliments,’ he said, as they left the shop.
‘Mr Harecroft, I did not expect you to buy this for me,’ she said in dismay.
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Yes, it is exquisite, but I cannot accept it.’
‘Good heavens, why not? It is only a piece of stone, not a precious jewel, a small token of gratitude for helping me choose my great-grandmother’s gift.’
‘It is more than a piece of stone. Perhaps once, long ago, someone treasured it. Do you think they were unhappy when it was lost?’
‘That is something we shall never know.’
‘I like to think it was valued by whoever owned it, a memory perhaps of someone they loved and they were broken-hearted when it fell into the river and could not be found.’
He smiled at her romanticism. It was contrary to the capable clerk who kept Harecroft’s books in such apple-pie order. ‘And now it is yours.’
‘Thank you. I shall treasure it because it is so beautiful. And a memento of my time in Borstead.’
He turned to look sharply at her, but she was concentrating on avoiding a puddle and did not look at him. ‘Borstead? But you were running away from it.’
‘I was not running away. I was, am, going to London to find lodgings.’
‘And to see Stephen?’ he queried, trying to elicit a confession from her.
‘Yes.’
‘But he is coming to Borstead on Friday. Are you so impatient to see him?’
‘Yes.’
He gave up; Great-Aunt Alicia was wrong—Diana was not going to turn Stephen down and she had not fallen in love with him, but having accosted her and thrust himself on her, he could not leave her. And he admitted to himself he did not want to. It was stolen time, but he could not give it back. Indeed, he wanted to extend it if he could. Why he did not know—it would not change anything.
He stopped to buy her a posy of yellow roses from a flower girl who importuned him plaintively and in due course they arrived at the coffee shop. He waited until she was seated at a table where she could look out of the window, ordered a pot of coffee for her, then left her to have a look round the new literary and scientific institute, which he had been promising himself he would visit when he had time.
He was gone a long time; people came into the shop, sat a while over their coffee, read their newspapers, met friends and departed; and still she sat. Outside the sun made rainbows in the puddles and the population who had been sheltering indoors emerged on to the streets. Old and young, hale and sickly, passed where she sat. She heard the faint sound of an orchestra rehearsing in the assembly rooms nearby and wondered dreamily if Richard would take her there, if she asked him, though, naturally, she would do no such a thing.
Just when she was wondering where he had got to, he returned and dropped into the chair beside her. ‘How did it go?’ she asked.
‘Well enough. Have you had sufficient coffee?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Then let us go for a walk.’
They left the coffee house and explored the town. It consisted of one wide street with houses on either side and small streets branching off it. ‘The town is very ancient,’ he told her. ‘A convenient crossing of the river for the Roman legions, who are believed to have had a station here. Now, with the new bridge, it is part of the highway from London to the West Country and a busy staging post, as you must have discovered.’
‘Yes, I have,’ she said, wondering when the next coach left for London and whether she ought not to be making her way back to the inn, but deciding to let the thought go. To be with Richard for these last few hours was something she would treasure along with the tiny gift he had given her.
Having seen all there was to see, they returned to the Bells and he ushered her inside. ‘Mr Harecroft,’ she said, suddenly realising how foolish she was being. ‘I thank you for a pleasant afternoon, but I can take up no more of your time.’
‘Now you have disappointed me,’ he said. ‘I have been told there is a dance at the Assembly Rooms tonight. I was hoping you would agree to let me escort you.’
She was beginning to feel the effects of everything that had happened—the journey and her reason for it, her sleepless night, the encounter at the Bells earlier that day and the long walk—but even as her mind started searching around for objections, she knew that she wanted to go, to experience again that strange oneness with the man who was looking at her now with his head tilted a little to the side and a slight smile on his lips. If he had said fly to the moon with me, she would have put her hand in his and gone willingly. She pulled herself together. ‘Much as I would like to accept, I cannot. I must find out the time of the next coach to London.’
‘I thought we had agreed we would return to Borstead together?’
‘I do not remember agreeing to that.’
‘Didn’t you?’ he murmured. ‘I must have misheard you. But there is no coach to the capital until the mail passes through in the early hours.’
She was appalled. ‘Mr Harecroft, if you think I care so little for my virtue—’ She stopped as she was confronted with the prospect of being forced to spend the night with him. Had he planned it? Was that how Dick came to be bo
rn? He was a rake of the worst order.
He saw the changing expressions cross her face: horror and embarrassment and something akin to fear. He could not help laughing. ‘Oh, Diana, surely you did not think…?’ He stopped and surveyed her, in that penetrating way he had, making the colour flare in her face. ‘Oh, my dear, not even I would stoop so low as to compromise my brother’s intended bride.’
‘You already have. And you are playing games with me and I only wish I knew the reason why.’
‘I am not playing games. I asked you to attend a dance with me, that is all. I will go back to the Clarence and I will call for you at eight o’clock.’
‘How can I possibly go to a dance? I only have the clothes I am wearing and they are more than a little bedraggled.’
He turned to look at her and laughed. ‘That dress looks perfectly suitable to me. After all, we are not in London, it is only a country hop. I am sure the innkeeper’s wife can do something with it between now and eight o’clock.’
She was as weak as water, she told herself as she watched him leave, but, oh, how she wanted to prolong their time together, knowing that this day and this night would be all they would have. And she could still catch the mail after the dance was over.
Chapter Nine
It was only after he had gone and she had made her way up to the room she had occupied earlier and put her roses in a tumbler of water, that she started to think about the dress she was wearing. It was an afternoon dress of yellow-and-green striped muslin. She took it off, shook it out and hung it up, then flung herself on the bed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Where would it end? She was courting disaster. She unwrapped the little bust and studied it carefully. ‘A gift to my particular goddess,’ he had said. And she had promised to treasure it as a memory of her time in Borstead. It was not Borstead she wanted to remember, but today. And it was not over yet. She smiled as fatigue claimed her and she slept until she was woken by a servant bringing hot water.