The Hawthorne Heritage

by The Hawthorne Heritage (retail) (epub)

  Theo snorted unpleasantly and shifted his position.

  She looked up quickly. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘’Course I’m not all right. Stupid question. Hand me that pillow, gel, will yer?’

  She propped him up a little, arranging the extra cushion comfortably behind him. Then she straightened, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, ‘Goodness, it’s hot!’

  ‘Yer lookin’ pale, gel. You sickenin’ fer somethin’?’ he asked, sharply.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s the heat, that’s all. And I’m always pale.’

  ‘Ain’t breedin’, are yer?’ The blunt words were as much a statement as a question.

  ‘No.’ Taken aback, she blushed furiously.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ She knew as she said it that the word had come too quickly, too certainly. She turned away to avoid the pale, shrewd eyes and went back to her chair. She picked up the book, opened it, stared at it sightlessly.

  There was a small, intent silence. Then, ‘What yer goin’ ter do about it, gel. Eh?’

  She kept her head down for a moment, nibbling her lip. Then she straightened her back and lifted her head. ‘About what?’

  He watched her, unblinking, until she looked away.

  ‘“Thy love to me was wonderful—”’ he said, musingly.

  She interrupted him, as acidly and lightly as she could contrive. ‘You’ve used that once. I thought you considered repeating one’s self as a social crime so heinous that it should be punished by hanging?’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded. ‘I was right.’

  Thoroughly discomposed she tried to settle herself to read again.

  “‘What should the cause be? Oh, you live at court—”’ Theo had steepled his hands before him and raised his eyes to the ceiling. From the thoughtful and innocent look on his face he might have been quoting St Augustine, ‘“And there’s both loss of time and loss of sport, In a great belly—”’

  ‘Theo!’ she said, exasperated.

  ‘I but quote Jonson—’

  ‘You but quote Theo Carradine!’

  He cackled like a washerwoman and scratched his bald pate.

  She gave up her pretence of reading and snapped the book shut, lifting her head.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, satisfied. ‘Now – at risk of me neck for repeatin’ meself again – what are you goin’ ter do about it?’

  She took a long, patient breath. ‘Theo – this is none of your business. You don’t understand—’

  ‘Oh, yes, gel. I understand.’ He spoke with that sudden sharpness of tone that could be so very disconcerting. ‘Better than yer think, perhaps, I understand.’

  She shook her head, helplessly. ‘You’re impossible.’

  He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly bright and gleeful.

  ‘A lover, gel. That’s what yer need. Can’t hold on to it fer ever, yer know!’ He laughed, his face crinkling like a satanic child’s. ‘Let me sort yer one out. Be happy to—’

  She managed not to throw the book at him. ‘No, thank you, Theo.’ She held doggedly to her composure. Just last night the large and friendly Georgie had made a suggestion that might, a year ago, have scandalized her. A small part of her still regretted her firm rejection of his advances. He was a nice young man, not unhandsome, and he had been flatteringly eager. She was not sure herself why she had been so swift and certain in her refusal. He had been disappointed. Perhaps he would ask again? Was that what she had wanted—?

  Theo was speaking, but she had missed the first part of his sentence. ‘—Italian lessons,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry – I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I said – you need some lessons—’ he paused for a wicked moment ‘—in Italian. And I know just the lad.’

  She was exasperatedly confused at the apparently wayward change of subject. ‘I thought you said that you’d teach me?’

  The grin widened, the devil’s own mischief glimmering in his wrinkled, berouged face. ‘Not as well as Guido Palca can.’

  ‘Theo—!’

  He held up an autocratic hand, preventing the explosion. ‘An excellent young man of good family. Handsome. Charming. Not too intelligent. Fortunate that. A servente cavaliere that any right-minded young matron would sacrifice her – right hand for.’ The heavily assumed innocence of the words brought answering laughter, which Jessica could not suppress.

  ‘Theo – truly – you don’t understand! I’m not – I can’t—’ Even in laughter, to her own surprise her composure suddenly all but broke. She looked down at her hands that were clenched fiercely in her lap, and saw the sheen of sweat on the smooth skin of her arms. ‘It’s late,’ she said, after a moment’s pause, her voice neutral but at least steady. ‘I should go home.’

  ‘Home?’

  The single word, and the blunt question laid bare her life. She swallowed. ‘Theo, you are undoubtedly the most abominable person I have ever met, do you know that?’

  He nodded. The pale, ancient eyes pierced to her soul, stripping her of pretence and of defence. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you should persuade your Robert to stay at home more often?’

  ‘And perhaps,’ she found herself snapping back without thought, lashing out in self-defence, ‘you should persuade your Arthur to do whatever it is you pay him to do instead of letting him take you for an absolute fool—!’ She stopped. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was unforgivable.’

  ‘And absolutely true.’ The dome of a head with its wild and wispy fringe of hair wagged a little, but the small, light eyes still regarded her steadily.

  She frowned, genuinely puzzled. ‘Theo – tell me – why do you let him do it? Why let him take your money, live on your bounty, take advantage of your kindness – when he offers so little in return?’

  He said nothing.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s hateful. He simply takes everything you’re ready to offer as if – as if it were his right, and gives nothing whatever in return for it. Why do you put up with it?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It’s not my business,’ she said, contrite.

  ‘No. It’s not.’ The voice from the doorway was cool.

  Shaken, she turned. Arthur stood, elegant as ever, his eyes very unfriendly indeed as they flicked across hers. He moved gracefully into the room towards them. ‘Honestly, Jessica, if you’re going to talk behind a man’s back at least have the sense not to do it in his own home and with the door open!’

  ‘I wasn’t—!’ She stopped.

  ‘Of course you were.’ The dismissive contempt in the words made her cheeks burn with mortification. Arthur turned his back on her and addressed Theo, who had been watching them, lively interest in the gaze that moved from one young face to the other. It crossed Jessica’s mind to wonder if he had known that Arthur had been there by the door listening to her idiotic indiscretions. She would not put such mischief beyond him.

  ‘Theo, my dear,’ Arthur said crisply, ‘that wretched little man Bonetto absolutely refuses to extend my credit any further. Would you see to it for me?’

  Theo nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And – bad judgement again I fear – my trip to the tables last night left me quite penniless—’ He smiled brilliantly, and tossed the tangled curls from his forehead with a small flick of his head.

  Theo chuckled and dug into his pocket. Gold glimmered in the shadowed light as he tossed a coin into the air, and was extinguished as Arthur’s long fingers expertly flicked it into the palm of his hand. ‘Thank you.’ Without another glance at Jessica he strode lightly from the room.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jessica said, sighing.

  Theo’s explosive cackle of laughter must certainly have been heard by Arthur, wherever in the house he was.

  * * *

  The small incident did little to improve her relationship with Arthur, poor as it had been in the first place, and in the long run too it damaged her relati
onship with Robert since Arthur now made no bones of his dislike for Jessica and avoided her as much as possible. Whether he had told Robert of what he had overheard she did not know, but certainly she saw less and less of her husband and the time she did not spend with Theo she spent alone.

  Until the day that, with a benign innocence that Jessica found deeply suspicious, Theo introduced her to the young man he had, without her knowledge, engaged to teach her Italian.

  Guido Palca was tall, slim, and dark as a shadow, with the most open and handsome smile she had ever seen. It was perfectly evident that his qualifications, if he had any, were certainly not in teaching language, though his English, charmingly accented, was excellent.

  ‘Guido, my dear – this is Jessica—’ It was dauntingly obvious from the emphasis of the words that the young man had been told all – and she knew that meant all – about her.

  Theo’s often expressed determination that she should form a liaison with an impeccable charmer chosen for her by him had become a source of amused exasperation to her over the past days. She put on a thunderous look. ‘Theo—’ she began, warningly.

  He lifted disarming hands. ‘“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,”’ he quoted entirely unrepentant, ‘“Old time is still a- flying.”’

  ‘My rosebuds are perfectly happy where they are, thank you,’ she said tartly and offered her hand to Guido, who carried it to his lips with a simple grace that was totally and dangerously disarming.

  Theo chuckled, delightedly. ‘I’ll leave you two young things together.’

  Guido was, she had to admit, utterly charming. He was attentive and entertaining. He attached himself to her with a tenacity that could only be admired, declaring himself immediately and irrevocably enslaved. And – most beguiling thing of all – he could make her laugh. With Theo’s active approval and encouragement he joined them on their expeditions into the city and what had on the whole been relatively serious exercises became hilarious outings. He was stylish on horseback, cut a fine figure on the dance floor and was, he assured Jessica in one of his few earnest moments, even more skilled in bed. It spoke volumes for the change that had overtaken Jessica in the past few months that she did not bat an eyelid. ‘I’m sure you are, Guido dear,’ she said, kindly. ‘Would you mind passing the tomatoes?’

  Robert appeared delighted with the arrangement; philosophically she endured that, telling herself she could hardly expect jealousy.

  Time passed pleasantly now, its passing eased by Theo’s friendship and charming Guido’s company. With Theo’s help she was refurnishing the apartment, which had been stylishly decorated by two of the young artists who frequented the via del Corso. Firmly she had refused Theo’s offer of money to help purchase the exquisite things he would have her buy. ‘No.’ The word brooked no argument. ‘Once and for all, Theo, I want nothing from you but the things you are already giving me – your friendship, your help. I don’t want – I won’t take – your money. Don’t class me with those that do.’

  He smiled a rare, genuinely warm smile. ‘There’s a second-hand shop on the via de’Panzani. You want ter start there, gel?’

  High summer was upon them. Several times they picnicked in the hills beyond the city. They visited Fiesole, with its Roman theatre and its spectacular views. On Theo’s whim a group of them visited the fine city of Siena, two days’ drive away, travelling in a couple of Theo’s opulent and comfortable carriages, some of the men on horseback. Guido rode beside Jessica’s carriage making charming conversation with her and equally charming eyes at her fellow passenger, an artist’s model of stunning beauty and known easy ways. Jessica was fairly sure from the girl’s coy looks the following morning that a bed had been shared that night, and suppressed firmly the faint and absurdly proprietary twinge of envy that the knowledge brought.

  Siena enchanted her. The medieval city brooded still within its great walls, the narrow, shadowed streets apparently unchanged by the centuries. The spectacularly lovely square known as the Piazza del Campo, where the famous – and sometimes murderous – horserace, the Palio, was run each year she thought the most beautiful she had ever seen. The bizarrely flamboyant cathedral fascinated her.

  Driving back to Florence they stopped to picnic in the hills, beneath a sky of flawless, infinite blue. Jessica perched upon a rock, her skirt tucked about her knees. The vivid sky and brilliant sunshine capped a world of browns and golds so in contrast to the soft greens of England that she still on occasions could hardly believe in it. On a nearby rock a lizard basked, glimmering, a living jewel. She stirred and it was gone in a glinting emerald flash of movement, too fast for the eye to follow. In the near distance Robert sat upon the ground, Arthur beside him, the blond boy’s long arm thrown with casual affection across Robert’s slim shoulders.

  She turned at a footstep beside her. ‘What are you thinking so solemnly?’

  She smiled at Guido. ‘Just how very different this is from home.’

  ‘And is that good? Or bad?’

  ‘Good, I think.’ Then she laughed, softly and a little ruefully, ‘And a little bad.’

  He nodded, understanding. ‘Will you go back?’

  ‘Home? Why yes, of course. We shall have to.’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Because – because that’s where we belong. We have obligations. Robert will inherit a house, and land—’

  ‘These things mean much to you?’

  She pondered a moment. ‘Yes. Old Hall has been in the FitzBolton family for generations. We couldn’t just walk awaythat. There are the people to consider. They’ll need us. We can’t stay here for ever.’ Faintly and uneasily at the back of her mind came the thought that Robert, his dark head bent close to Arthur’s fair one, might not agree with her.

  Guido took her hand, brought it, palm up, to his lips. ‘Then we must make certain that the time you can spend with us is as memorable as it can be.’ His eyes were warm, his soft voice with its attractive accent intimate. His lips on her palm sent pleasant pulses of excitement through her body. For a moment, and not for the first time, she felt herself weaken.

  A small whistle shrilled. Theo clapped his hands, sharply and a little irritably, ‘Come along, dearies, time to leave. Or we’ll not make the city by nightfall.’

  * * *

  Two days after their return from Siena, out of the blue, she had news of Danny.

  It was Guido who introduced her to a young man whose name she did not catch, but whose first words all but riveted her to the ground where she stood. ‘Theo sent me over. Said you were asking about Danny O’Donnel?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I was. You know him?’

  ‘Known him for years, on and off. We’ve worked together—’ the young man grinned lopsidedly ‘—drunk together—’ he glanced around ‘—which reminds me – any wine to be had? I’m as dry as the Sahara.’

  ‘Please. Have mine. I haven’t touched it.’ She thrust her glass into his hand. ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  His attention had wandered. He cocked his head. ‘Sorry?’

  She contained herself. ‘Danny. Do you have any idea where he is now?’

  ‘Generally yes. Specifically no. Last I heard they were headed for France.’

  It was a blow, but not a mortal one. ‘France,’ she repeated.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Where from? I mean – where did you meet him?’

  ‘Why, here. In Florence.’

  ‘When?’ Her voice was weak.

  He shrugged. His eyes had wandered to where a very pretty girl was sitting alone, playing with an empty wine glass with long, thin fingers. ‘Er – oh six months or so ago. Perhaps a little less.’

  Six months. He had left the city as she had married Robert.

  His attention was wandering again. He smiled vaguely at her, his eyes still on the girl, who was pointedly ignoring him. ‘Would you excuse me—?’

  ‘Oh, please – wait! First – do you know if he’s coming bac
k?’

  ‘Danny?’ He grinned broadly. ‘Who knows? These days it all depends on that wife of his, doesn’t it? Have you met Serafina?’ He rolled his eyes, ‘What a barrel of gunpowder that one is! Half gypsy, they say. And looks it. Danny always was a lucky devil with the ladies, wasn’t he? But he’s got his comeuppance now – Serafina goes, Danny follows – seems to be the rule. Can’t say I blame him, either. Now – please – you’ll excuse me for a moment?’ He sidled away towards the seated girl before she could reply.

  * * *

  That night, in the bedroom above the salon, with the windows open to the muggy August night and the best part of two bottles of Theo’s best champagne inside her, Jessica, wife of six months, lost her virginity. Guido was everything he had promised: gentle, practised, exciting. And, she thought, a little fuzzily, he seemed to enjoy it, which was a bonus for them both. Three parts drunk and very sleepy she was first surprised, then amused and finally moderately satisfied with the rather odd exercise. No doubt things would improve with practice.

  Guido kissed her, and handed her another glass of champagne. She knocked it back at one gulp. ‘Guido?’

  ‘Yes, my love?’ As latin a lover as anyone could wish he pressed her gently back onto the pillows, took the empty glass from her hand, looked yearningly into her eyes.

  ‘Did you ev-ever know—’ she giggled a little at the small belch that had impeded her words ‘—a lady called Ser-a-fin-a?’ She pronounced the name very carefully.

  A little puzzled he shook his head.

  ‘She’s very beautiful,’ she said, soberly. ‘Ver-ry beautiful indeed.’

  ‘So are you, my love,’ said her dutiful lover, smiling.

  Jessica blinked sleepily. ‘Never get married, Guido,’ she advised him, very solemnly. ‘It’s a – very – silly – thing to do!’

  Guido smiled his charming smile and said nothing.

  ‘Take a lover,’ she said, smiling happily at being the source of such a very intelligent thought. ‘That’s a much – much more sensible arrangement—’