‘Thank you, Cooper,’ she said with a smile.
‘It is a pleasure to see you again, my lady.’
Crabtree was at the door, waiting. He bowed as she approached.
‘Good afternoon, Crabtree. Is Sir Benedict at home?’
Her stomach knotted as she waited for his reply. Please let him still be here.
‘No, milady.’
Harriet’s heart plummeted. She was too late. He had tired of waiting for her and returned to London. The butler’s measured tones penetrated her inner panic.
‘I beg your pardon, Crabtree. I missed that.’
‘I said, before he went out, the master left instructions that if anyone should ask for him, I should say he is at the folly.’
Harriet bit at her lip, excitement stirring deep within her. He was waiting for her. ‘I will go to him there,’ she called over her shoulder as she dashed out of the front door and down the steps.
The slope up to the folly seemed steeper than ever to Harriet as she dragged air into her lungs and her calves ached with fatigue. Or you are not used to such strenuous exercise. She paused, her hand to her heaving chest, the thud of her heart tangible beneath her fingers. The folly towered above her, silent and grim, silhouetted against the grey sky. Doubt assailed her. It looked deserted. Was she a fool to read such hope in his message?
Her breathing eased, but her heart still raced—from nerves now rather than exertion. There was no choice. She had come this far. If they could not reconcile the happenings of the past now, they would never do so. She walked to the door, her steps leaden with trepidation.
The door was unlatched. Harriet pushed it open.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The interior of the folly had changed beyond recognition. Candles flickered, banishing the gloom of the day and illuminating the red Chinese-style carpet that had been spread on the floor, and the cushions of all colours that had been arranged into two facing heaps. In the centre of the rug, between the piles of cushions, was a wicker basket, the neck of a bottle protruding. A flicker of movement caught Harriet’s eye. Benedict, eyes glittering in the light from the candles as he sat on the old tub chair pushed back against the wall on the far side of the tower from the door. He watched her. Waiting.
She stretched her trembling lips into a smile. ‘I owe you an explanation,’ she said.
‘You do.’ In one lithe movement he was on his feet but he did not approach her. Instead, he gestured to the cushions. ‘It is comfortable enough,’ he said, ‘although the resilience and enthusiasm of youth made it seem more comfortable back then than we might find it today.’
Harriet folded her legs and sank down onto the cushions. Benedict did likewise, the basket between them. So near and yet so far. Would he understand?
‘Have you eaten?’
She shook her head. He unpacked the basket and spread bread, cheese and fruit before her and then uncorked the wine and poured each of them a glass. He appeared totally at ease, lounging on the cushions, propped up one elbow, wine glass in hand.
‘Why could you not talk to me the other night?’
Brutal honesty was required, however hard it was for her and however shameful. She knew instinctively that he would struggle to ever fully trust her if she could not now summon enough confidence to tell him everything.
‘I was afraid.’ She bent her legs and hugged her knees close to her chest.
His brows snapped together. ‘Of me?’
‘You were so angry when I told you about the baby. I panicked and I couldn’t work out what to say in case it made you angrier.’ She gulped a mouthful of wine.
‘What about the truth? All I wanted was the truth. What did it matter even if it did make me angrier?’ He straightened, leaning towards her, staring at her, probing. ‘What has made you fear a man’s anger, Harriet? Brierley?’
Even his name made her want to curl into a tiny ball and disappear from view. She nodded.
‘But you must know I would never hurt you,’ he whispered achingly.
There was pain in his eyes, and the urge to comfort him overrode her dread of finally talking of her ordeal.
‘Oh, I do.’ She reached out impulsively and he met her gesture halfway, taking her hand and rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. She stared down at their joined hands. ‘Sometimes...’ She paused, trying out the words inside her head. ‘Sometimes...something happens that brings the past back and it is as though I cannot separate the now and the then.’ She looked up, anxious that he would understand. ‘When we met again. At Tenterfield. That night you ran up the stairs behind me and I...I...’
Her throat squeezed shut, leaving a torrent of words dammed up inside, as they had been for years. She dragged her hand from his and pressed her palms to her face, pushing her fingers to her closed lids.
‘Harry? My love?’ There was a rustle and Benedict was beside her, nestling her into the crook of his arm, stroking her hair.
‘Tell me, sweetheart.’
‘He th-threw me down the stairs.’ She clutched at Benedict, her words muffled against his chest. ‘I was s-seven m-months’ pregnant. I l-lost our b-baby.’ Huge sobs racked her as he held her and soothed her, rocking gently. ‘I didn’t think I c-could b-bear to carry on living—I didn’t w-want to survive. I had lost you, but knowing that I carried your baby s-somehow made it b-better. I s-still had a part of you and then...I had n-nothing. Nothing b-but p-pain and misery and fear and disgust.’
She wept on his shoulder, his deep murmurs soothing her until eventually her sobs subsided and she pulled back to look up into his beloved face. His jaw was taut, his features etched with pain. A tear sparkled on his lashes. Wonderingly, she reached up and wiped it away. He feathered a kiss to her forehead.
‘Oh, Harry, my darling, I can’t bear to think of you going through all that alone.’ His words vibrated with anguish. ‘Our poor, defenceless baby, robbed of the chance of life. You don’t need to mourn her alone anymore, my love. I mourn with you. I am here for you. I will be with you forever.’
Hope blossomed with his words, and yet there was something she must say...something Benedict must know before he committed himself and felt honour-bound to stand by his word.
‘Ben...what if...what if I can no longer carry a child?’ Her worst fear, out in the open. ‘You n-need an heir. And in seven years with...him...I never got with child. What if I am b-barren?’
‘Then, we will adopt children and we will love them as our own. Oh, God, Harriet! All that wasted time!’
A muscle in his jaw bunched and his chest expanded as he dragged in a breath.
‘Why did I trust Malcolm?’ he gritted out. ‘Why was I so ready to believe you would betray me by marrying for wealth and a title? I should have known better. I should have known you better.’
She placed her palm to the side of his face. ‘You were young. We both were. Is that what they told you? That I married Brierley for status and money?’ She read the shame that dulled his eyes. ‘You were young,’ she said again. ‘I would rather learn now that you made such a mistake than still believe you heartlessly abandoned me.’
‘Which is the thought you have lived with all these years.’ He hugged her close, resting his cheek on her hair. ‘All those wasted years over one lie... All that wasted energy, resenting one another for something that did not happen.’
He pulled away and tilted her chin, looking deep into her eyes. ‘I can understand why Malcolm lied. He made no secret of his ambition for a great match for me, perhaps to atone for his own failure to wed and produce an heir. I doubt he would have spent a single second feeling guilty, but...your father—I cannot understand why he didn’t tell you the truth. Why would such a pious, honest man lie about something so fundamental to his only daughter’s happiness? Did your mother explain why he went along with Malcolm’s l
ie? For I swear to you I never said those ugly things to him.’
She stretched up to press her lips to his. ‘I know you did not,’ she whispered. ‘I knew, in my heart, that you were telling the truth the other night, but I was torn. I hated that my memory of my father would be tainted by these lies...but now...I realise I did not go to my mother for proof you were telling the truth but to understand why my father had lied.’
She moved away from him, shrugging his arm from her shoulders, then shifted her position so she fully faced him. He watched her intently, his green eyes sombre, as she took his hands in hers.
‘My mother guessed my condition before I even knew it myself. I had missed my courses, and then I began to be sick in the mornings. She confronted me...’ Harriet paused, recalling the horror of that conversation, and her shame when her father had discovered the truth. Poor Papa. He had been devastated.
‘When Papa went to your cousin to tell him I was with child and to demand you marry me, Sir Malcolm was adamant he would never allow us to wed. As you said, he had much higher ambitions for you and, as your guardian, you would need his permission to marry. My father was equally determined that his first grandchild should not be born out of wedlock—that would have offended every precept in which he believed. So my parents’ only option was to find someone who would marry me before the child was born.
‘As you might imagine, Sir Malcolm was only too keen to help them out with finding someone, and he suggested Brierley. My father was so grateful for his help and to have his daughter married to an earl, and his grandchild brought up in such splendour... That was far more than he, or my mother, could ever have imagined for me.
‘I was utterly horrified when they told me I was to marry Brierley. I refused. I cried. I told them we loved each other and that I knew you would marry me—that we would elope if Malcolm wouldn’t give us permission.’
She smiled, shaking her head at the memory. ‘I had a very hazy notion of what elopement might entail,’ she said. ‘All my knowledge had come from reading novels, much to my mother’s despair. Anyway, that is when they decided a white lie was in my best interests, according to Mama. If I thought you wanted nothing to do with me or our baby, then I would stop hankering after you. I would find my peace and settle into my new life more easily.’
He squeezed her hands, then lifted them to press his lips to her skin. ‘Poor Harry. I wish you had written to tell me what was happening.’
‘I wish that, too, but it all happened so very fast after Mama realised I was with child that by the time I caught my breath, the arrangements had been made with Brierley and I had been told—and I believed—you did not want me. If I had written, it would have been to tell you how I hated you.’
A rumble rose from deep within his chest as he pulled her back into his arms. ‘I would have come back straight away to shake some sense into you. Tell me about Brierley.’
‘I can hardly bear to even think of that man,’ Harriet said, shuddering. She must be brave, though. No more secrets. ‘He hid his true character well, although the fact that he was a friend of Sir Malcolm’s should perhaps have been warning enough. But my parents were not worldly people and I do not think it occurred to them Brierley might be so very cruel. Not even Edward fully realises his father’s depravity—from what I have gathered over the years, Edward’s mother was a most upright, moral woman and his father worshipped her.’
She swallowed, the memories looming large, threatening to overshadow her new-found joy. ‘Perhaps it was I who caused such vile behaviour—I could never match the perfection of his first wife. He constantly compared my appearance and my behaviour to hers, accusing me of not being fit to take her place.’
She hesitated, dredging her past for the truths she must now reveal if she and Benedict were to have a chance of happiness together.
‘He would punish me,’ she whispered into his chest. It was easier to admit to such sordid details when she could not read the disgust in his eyes. ‘It started with the occasional blow if I displeased him, but eventually I could never please him, no matter how hard I tried. And he seemed to...seemed to...’
She stopped, unable to control the wobble in her voice, tears flowing again. Benedict rocked her. ‘Shh,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘You don’t have to tell me. Leave it in the past where it belongs. You’re safe now.’
Harriet rubbed her eyes and forced another swallow past the lump in her throat. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I need to tell you. I need you to know about Stanton.’
He stiffened. She could feel the anger radiating from him. Her courage almost failed her, but she had come this far; she did need to tell him all. She could not allow suspicions to fester between them.
‘Are the rumours true?’
She forced away her instinct to appease him by saying what he might want to hear, to deflect his anger by lying.
It’s Benedict. Even if he is furious, he will never hurt you. Not physically.
‘Yes,’ she said, her heart quailing as she accepted that, although he might not hurt her physically, he had the power to crucify her emotionally, once he knew the truth of her affaire with Stanton.
The silence seemed to stretch forever, his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek.
‘Tell me,’ he said eventually.
She dragged in a torturous breath. ‘Brierley... When he...he couldn’t...’ She could not say the words. She hoped Benedict would understand. ‘He liked to hurt me. When he...when he...’
‘When you were intimate?’
‘Yes.’ Harriet felt her cheeks burn. Confessing such things, even to the man she loved—or perhaps especially to the man she loved—was as hard as she had imagined. ‘He made me...do things and, if I did not please him, he would punish me again. He would...restrain me, sometimes for hours. Usually naked. To await his pleasure, he would say. Because it was all I was good for. And he would force me to accept his advances, at all times of the day or night. I know a wife is expected to accommodate her husband’s needs, but I grew to hate and fear any sort of intimacy and I hated him.’
She sighed. ‘I have never admitted this, but I was glad when he died, God forgive me. He cut me off from everyone. I was only permitted to go out if he was with me. I was not allowed to visit my parents, and he read their letters to me and would only frank my letters to them after he had read them. I was entirely dependent on him and his servants.’
‘And Stanton?’
Ah. Stanton. Will he understand?
She must be brave. Harriet levered herself upright so she could look into Benedict’s eyes.
‘I have always wanted a family and I was heartbroken when I lost our baby—’
Benedict put his fingers to her lips. ‘You did not lose our daughter. Place the blame where it belongs. Brierley killed her. You and she were both innocent victims.’
The burden of guilt in her heart eased a little. How many times had she wondered if—had she said or done something differently—Brierley would not have lost his temper with her and pushed her on the stairs? How many times had she blamed herself, as Brierley had?
‘Thank you for understanding.’ She sucked in a deep breath, praying for the strength to continue; to admit her calculated decision to use another man to help her forget. ‘Although I longed for a baby, I never wanted a child with Brierley and I thank God I did not have one. But then, after he died, I thought I might...’ She paused, chewing on her lip. ‘I thought of remarrying, but I found I was too afraid to trust any man. I could not even contemplate allowing any man such control over me, so I put my desire for a family to the back of my mind and I focused my energies on the charity I founded.
‘And then I was invited to a house party. Lord Stanton was there, and I heard some of the other ladies discussing his prowess.’
Benedict glowered at those words and, despite knowing what else she must a
dmit to, Harriet had to bite back a smile at his expression.
‘He was well known as a ladies’ man before he married Felicity,’ she continued, ‘but nobody expected him to marry when he did—he was known as the Elusive Earl for his ability to avoid the snares put out for him. And I began to wonder if someone like him—if he—might help me to overcome my distaste for...for the marital act.’
Her cheeks burned. ‘This sounds so sordid and...and calculating,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
For what indeed? She forced a laugh. ‘If I am honest, I suppose am sorry for myself. I am sorry that I must admit out loud that I would even contemplate asking a man to help me with such a thing, let alone actually do so. So I made a point of getting to know Stanton. We became friends and, when I felt I could trust him, I asked him to help me.’
‘You told a man you barely knew about things you have been unable to tell me?’
‘It’s odd, is it not, that I found it easier to approach Stanton than to tell you? Mayhap it was because my feelings were not involved. And I did not tell him much. I...I told him my husband had found me unsatisfactory, but after a few times I think Stanton guessed there was more to it than that.’
‘I don’t think I care to hear any more,’ Benedict growled, leaping to his feet to take a hasty turn around the room.
Harriet watched him anxiously. Would he be able to accept the past, and what she had done? She was well aware that men set great store on their brides being chaste and pure. Not only was she a widow, but she had just confessed to having a lover—one that she had pursued, and one with whom she still enjoyed a close friendship. She could not guess what was going through his mind now, but she had confessed thus far and she would finish her tale.
‘We agreed no one should ever know, and we only met at my house. I will not lie to you, Benedict. Stanton and I did become close, but there was never any question of love on either side. When Stanton became betrothed to Felicity—quite unexpectedly—he ended our arrangement.’ She huffed a laugh. ‘He was mortified when Felicity and I became friends.’
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