Harry was outraged. “You must think me a mercenary bitch, ready to sell myself to the highest bidder!”
“I don’t think that at all, Harry. The purpose of having a Season is to secure a wealthy, titled husband. What female would wed an earl if she had a chance to marry a future duke of the realm?”
“You arrogant young devil! Because you are a future duke of the realm, do you assume you can have any woman you want? If you believe you are God’s gift to women, you are deluding yourself. I want something far more precious than a title and wealth!”
“Whatever could that be?”
“Love, you idiot boy! Our parents have a happy, successful marriage because they are in love with each other. That’s what I want. I will settle for nothing less!”
“You turned D’Arcy down because you didn’t love him?”
“Exactly.” No, not exactly. I was going to turn him down, but didn’t get the chance.
“So if Will Montagu declares his love, you will fall into his arms?”
“Absolutely not! I’ll have to be certain I love the man I marry, and I shall demand proof that a man loves me before I agree to marry him.”
James laughed. “Will you send your suitor on a mythological quest and set him an epic task to prove his undying love for you?”
“Credit me with some intelligence. I shall be able to discern whether a man truly loves me or not.” Harry touched her knees to her Arabian mare and raced away from her inquisitive brother. Tomorrow I shall ride alone.
Riding lessons for her younger children were a priority for Lady Lu. They each had their own pony, and this year five-year-old Ronald and four-year-old Maud were provided with mounts. The duchess recruited Harry’s help and happily took on the role of teacher, as she had done with her older son and daughters.
Harry led Maud’s pony to the mounting block and showed her how to take a firm grip of the saddle to hoist herself to a sitting position. “That’s very good.”
“I want to ride astride like the boys,” Maud declared.
“It takes far more skill to ride sidesaddle. Father will think you an accomplished rider if you can master it. Now, grasp the reins firmly, hold your head high, and keep your back straight. I’ll lead you around the courtyard a couple of times, and then you can try it on your own.” Harry knew that it would take pride as well as determination for her little sister to handle a pony.
As Maud rode past her five-year-old brother, she raised her chin and said, “I can ride much better than you, Ronald.”
The duchess warned, “Pride goeth before a fall, Maud.”
“Oh, I shan’t fall, Mother. It takes far more skill to ride sidesaddle.”
“You and Harry are like two peas from the same disdainful pod. Let’s hope you are as skilled when you have your first swimming lesson this afternoon.”
“I shall swim like a swan,” Maud insisted.
Harry smiled. Actually, Maud is the spitting image of Mother!
An hour after they finished lunch, Harry provided Rachel with one of her bathing dresses. In actuality, they were sleeveless shifts made from colored linen. As the two young women joined the rest of the family at the lake closest to the house, Harry gathered her courage and braced herself for the uproar her tattoo would cause.
Her mother glanced at her bare arms and remarked casually, “I wondered if you were ever going to reveal your pet snake to us, darling.”
“You knew about my tattoo?” Harry was amazed. “Didn’t it shock you?”
“I’ve learned to anticipate and accept your unconventional behavior, darling. I put it down to the Irish blood you inherited from your father. And, truth be told, a tattoo is far less eccentric than turning down a marriage proposal that would have made you the wealthiest countess in England.”
“I don’t think it eccentric to hold out for a husband who loves me. I warrant you would have refused to marry Father if he hadn’t been madly in love with you.”
Lady Lu smiled at her vivid memories. “Your father first proposed to me when he was about nine years old. I turned him down many times, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. One thing is certain, however: I had proof that he loved me before I agreed to marry him.”
“What was your proof?” Harry asked avidly.
“That is our secret. And I am secure in the knowledge that Abercorn loves me enough to never reveal it.”
“Then I won’t pry,” Harry promised. “Every lady is entitled to her secrets.”
Her mother smiled. “And her eccentricities.”
The entire family spent the whole afternoon in the lake, and before the sun began to make its descent, Abercorn had successfully taught his younger children to swim and his older ones to dive to the bottom and retrieve heavy Indian clubs he tossed into the water.
They ate dinner in the great hall in front of the fire with their heads wrapped in towels, resembling nabobs from the Far East. After dinner, they helped themselves to nuts, figs, dates, and dried apricots, as they told stories of pixies, leprechauns, and Irish ghosts.
After Meg and Molly ushered the younger children up to the nursery wing, Abercorn took his wife for a romantic stroll through the night-scented gardens.
“We usually have a sett of badgers that make their burrow in the woods. Would you like to go and watch them play and romp about in the moonlight?” Harry asked Rachel.
“I’d love to see them. The number of wild creatures who inhabit Barons Court is amazing. The foxes and the otters seem almost tame.”
“That’s because Father doesn’t allow shooting. The cratures feel safe. He delights in fishing, but draws the line at hunting.”
On their way to the woods, the pair saw a hedgehog with her half-grown young, foraging for insects. “I had a pet hedgehog when I was a little girl. Whenever Trixy came on the scene, it curled up into a prickly little ball for protection.”
“They are very sweet, but don’t they have fleas?” Rachel asked.
“Most cratures have. But Father is extremely knowledgeable about Irish wildlife. He explained that hedgehogs have their own fleas that won’t live on anything else.”
Inside the woods, Harry stopped at a clearing. She put her finger to her lips, and motioned for them to sit down. They waited for some time, before Harry heard some twigs snap. She squeezed Rachel’s hand and pointed to the trees. They sat silent and motionless, and suddenly two badgers came gamboling across the clearing. In the moonlight they began to play and roll about like children. Three smaller badgers joined in the fun. They dance by the light of the moon.
On the way back to the house, they encountered young James coming from the stables. “You missed it, Harry. One of the Arabian mares foaled tonight!”
“Does Father know?”
“Yes, he and Mother are still in the stables. Father bred her to Sultan last summer. It’s a little filly. . . . Longest legs you ever saw.”
“How lovely. Let’s go have a look.”
As Harry watched the mare nuzzle her baby, it was brought home to her that motherhood was the primary role of a female.
“Lord Butler, what a lovely surprise. Welcome to Barons Court.” The duchess summoned a manservant and asked him to take James Butler’s luggage up to the guest wing. “You are in time for dinner. Come into the hall and meet the younger children before they go upstairs.”
Rachel’s face was wreathed in smiles as she greeted him. “James, I’m so glad you came.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve been counting the hours.”
Rather than kissing her hand, he gave her a quick embrace. “My darling Rachel, I’ve missed you every day.”
He greeted Jane and Harry, who introduced him to the younger Hamiltons. He took Maud’s hand and formally kissed it.
“Are you Aunt Rachel’s special friend, my lord?”
“Indeed I am, Lady Maud.”
“Ronald seems to be missing. Do you know where he is, Maud?” Harry asked.
“The baby of the family is upstairs, crying. He’s a
fraid to come down!”
“You, little miss saucy-drawers, are the baby of the family,” Harry informed her. “I’ll go up and get him, and woe betide the one who made him cry.”
Barons Court was a large house, and Harry had to climb two staircases and wind her way along a couple of twisting passages before she got to the nursery. She found her little brother sitting on his bed in the darkened room. When she lit the lamp and saw his cheeks were tearstained, her heart went out to him.
“My little love, why are you up here in the dark?”
He looked at her solemnly and whispered, “I’m afraid to walk through the Passage of Terrors all by myself, Harry.”
She thought about the long passage and tried to see it through the eyes of a five-year-old. “Why do you call it that?”
“Because the crocodile lives there.”
“But it’s stuffed. It can’t hurt you. . . . It’s dead.” The ancient reptile was part of a collection their grandfather had owned.
He shook his head. “It only pretends to be dead. We all know it comes to life when it starts to get dark. And grizzly bears live in the cricket-bat cupboard.”
“Is this what your brothers have been telling you?”
He nodded his head. “And Maud.”
“Oh yes, I can believe that.” Harry poured water from the jug into the washbowl and dipped in a flannel. Then she wiped the tears from his face.
“The wicked devils have made up these tales to deliberately frighten you. I want you to stand up and shake your fist and shout, I’m not afraid of a silly stuffed crocodile! I’m not afraid of bloody grizzly bears!”
Ronald got off the bed and lifted his fist, pretending defiance.
“The more times you shout it, the less you will be afraid.” Harry raised her fist. “Come on, I’ll shout it with you.”
The brother and sister lifted their voices together to banish the bogeymen. Then she took his hand. “Are we ready to defy the demons and go downstairs?”
“We are!”
He marched along bravely beside her until they got to the last staircase.
“What is it?”
“That’s the Robbers’ Passage.”
“Robbers be damned! We’ll face them together.” Harry squeezed his hand. “You’ve been very brave. From now on, I’m going to make sure there are lights in all these passages to banish the darklings.”
“I love you, Harry,” he whispered.
His words brought a lump to her throat. Harry turned the knob and the door to the great hall swung open. The blazing lights and the logs burning on the open hearth brought a beatific smile of relief to her baby brother’s face.
“Someday I want a little boy just like you, Ronald.”
The Duke of Abercorn provided Rachel and James Butler with mounts, and the couple made plans to ride out alone together over the large estate the next day. Harry knew she would miss Rachel’s company, yet at the same time she was determined to do all in her power to promote the love match.
“Barons Court is an ideal place for courting,” Harry informed them. “The estate has great tracts of woodland and heather-clad hills to ride over. There are many rocky little bubbling burns that cascade over the stones to form swirling pools, and it also has a few wine-colored bogs that the Irish call flows.”
“Your father tells me there is a salmon river with white rapids. Perhaps Rachel and I could go fishing one day,” James Butler suggested.
“Father and my brothers haunt the place. You don’t want to salmon fish with the rabble-rousers. You must choose a day when you can be alone.”
James winked at Harry. “Thanks for your valuable advice.”
“Why don’t you take James into the woods tonight and show him the sett of badgers?” she urged Rachel, then rolled her eyes suggestively.
At the end of the week, the duke and duchess planned a visit to their flax mill that they leased to the Herdman brothers. The textile mill, which had now been in operation for twenty years, produced some of the finest spun linen and cambric in Ireland, and much of it was exported to England.
“May I come with you?” Jane asked her mother. “I’ve been looking forward to choosing a couple of bolts of linen for some new dresses.”
“That’s a splendid idea. I’ve noticed how tight your bodices have become lately. Why don’t we all go?”
Rachel spoke up quickly. “James promised to take me rowing today. Your sparkling chain of fairy-tale lakes is irresistible.”
“Oh, you will love it. Gliding up the lakes, watching Abercorn flex his muscles on the oars, is the most romantic thing I’ve ever done. He takes me every summer. You can visit the flax mill next week.”
“I’ll come to the mill with you next week, Rachel. The wild Irish roses are blooming and today I’m going to gather them and distill their fragrance so we can make some scented candles. Everything about Barons Court is steeped in romance at the moment.”
Harry took her basket and knife out to the park and spent the next two hours cutting more than a hundred pale pink blooms. She carried them to the stillroom, and as she separated the petals from their stems, the air became saturated with the heady fragrance of wild Irish rose.
Harry inhaled deeply, savoring the romantic scent. She thought of the roses at Shugborough. They are cultivated roses. I warrant their fragrance isn’t nearly as intoxicating as these. Her imagination took flight. Perhaps I can plant some wild roses at Shugborough. Suddenly her hands stilled. What was I thinking? Shugborough doesn’t belong to me. As she crushed the rose petals, her lips curved into a smile. It could belong to me, if I put my mind to it.
The afternoon was uncommonly warm, and Harry took a favorite book of love poems with her as she walked out by the lake. Her senses were still drenched with perfume, and the solitude beckoned her. Thoughts of Thomas Anson stole to her, and for once she decided to welcome them rather than banish them. She walked past the boathouse, toward the shade of the ancient beech trees. The arching limbs of her favorite tree tempted her to climb it, as she had often done when she was a child. Since Harry seldom resisted her impulses, she slipped the book into her pocket and began her ascent.
Twelve feet in the air she found a secure, comfortable place to sit with her back against the sturdy trunk, and her legs stretched along a smooth gray limb. She took out her book and turned to a passionate sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
. . . my thoughts do twine and bud,
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree
Harry stopped reading. She leaned her head back against the tree and thought of Thomas. She closed her eyes and saw his dark image on her closed eyelids. His animal magnetism invoked a longing inside her. Is that what it would be like if I let him make love to me? A wild night of love? Harry shuddered.
A woman’s laugh out on the lake interrupted her forbidden reverie. She heard splashing, accompanied by more laughter, and realized it must be Rachel and James Butler. It sounded as if they were swimming, and she realized they were coming closer.
Harry felt slightly disappointed that her solitude would be disturbed. She peered through the leafy branches to the water’s edge, and saw her aunt emerge from the lake and begin to run. Rachel is naked!
A nude James Butler, enjoying the playful game, began to chase her. James caught Rachel and they rolled together in the long green grass, directly beneath Harry’s tree.
The couple’s laughter ceased as they began to kiss.
I must sit absolutely still. They would die of shock if they knew I was here!
Harry watched, mesmerized as Butler caressed Rachel’s breasts and belly. His lips followed wherever his hands touched her pale flesh, and she arched and writhed as her desire mounted.
Harry could hear their whispered love words—endearments that were so intimate they brought blushes to her cheeks. Yet at the same time, she envied Rachel. It was obvious that James Butler was in love with her.
When he mounted and thrust inside her, Rachel wrapped her legs a
bout his back, and Harry realized that this was not the first time they had indulged in a sexual encounter. The lovely redhead was obviously enjoying her newfound sensuality as her fingers threaded through her lover’s dark hair, and they moved together in the mating dance.
Harry drew in a swift breath as Rachel cried out her passion. James stopped thrusting and they lay motionless for long minutes. Then he clasped his arms about her and rolled with her until Rachel was in the dominant position.
“You are beautiful in your passion,” James told her, as her glorious hair cascaded down onto his broad chest.
Harry held her breath. If James glances up, he will discover me! Luckily, he had eyes only for the beauty with whom he had just coupled.
“We had better get dressed,” Rachel suggested as she caressed her lover’s cheek.
Reluctantly, James agreed, and when they moved toward the boat, Harry sagged with relief. Their act of love was so intimate and private; I should not have witnessed it. But try as she might, Harry could not bring herself to regret seeing them.
Chapter Fifteen
“I have something to tell you.” Rachel came downstairs shortly before dinner, wearing a cream gown, with her formerly disheveled hair now tamed and braided into a regal coronet.
Harry was surprised at the transformation of the naked hoyden into the elegant lady. “Are you sure you want to tell me your secrets, Rachel?”
“Oh, it’s not a secret. It’s a story I thought of for my next book.”
Harry hid her amusement. “Ireland must have inspired you.”
“Well, I’m thinking of setting it in the Scottish Highlands. It’s a wild, rugged, romantic story, about a titled married lady who falls deeply in love with a young artist. They become lovers, and they have a child together. I shall call it The Love Child.”
Harry went still. Good God, she’s talking about my grandmother Georgina, Duchess of Bedford. Her heroine’s lover is Edwin Landseer, and their love child is Rachel. She licked her lips, which had suddenly gone dry, and made a suggestion. “Couldn’t you write it without actually revealing who the father is? It could have an air of romantic mystery if you let the reader decide if the child was her husband’s or her lover’s.”
The Dark Earl Page 19