Hareton Hall: Richard and Rose, Book 6

by Lynne Connolly

  “Capital idea, my love.”

  It became clear that the men on our side of the street were fighting to get to the packhorses, with the others trying to prevent them. This was no angry clash of rival gangs. This had a purpose.

  A man detached himself from the melee and went to the horses. He took one of the bridles and began to lead the animal away. We only saw this because we stood higher than the main arena. Another man looked behind and joined his companion, sheathing his sword as he went, and then another. The line of horses started to move, and then the men at our end of the street noticed them.

  With a roar, they redoubled their efforts, shouting and fighting with renewed vigour.

  Richard’s hand tightened around my waist. “I know one of the men. There—by the gate.” I saw the man he meant, standing by Mrs. Hoarty’s garden gate, holding an injured arm and in evident pain, his face creased with agony. “He’s one of Cawntons’ men.”

  That meant the men nearest to us were Cawntons’, and the ones who had possession of the packhorses belonged to the rival gang, stealing the contraband. My blood ran cold. The Cawntons wouldn’t let this pass. It could mean a bloody time ahead. Once they found out who was responsible, they would die, business methods be damned. Their reputation demanded it, and their livelihood.

  “Oh, Richard!” I moved closer, rested my forehead on his shoulder. He responded, pulling me closer to him.

  The packhorses were away. The fighting went on for perhaps half an hour after they had gone, the remaining members of the rival gang preventing any pursuit. Half an hour. How far would they get in that time?

  The fighters must be tiring now, and their initial vigour had certainly abated. Then we saw an astonishing sight cresting the hill beyond, the hill which stood before Hareton.

  A group of horsemen riding down the hill towards the village, at least fifteen, and the horses fresh, the men new to the fight. They charged the group in the street, no hesitation, no mistake, thundering down on them with great cries and yells.

  Those men who didn’t hurl themselves aside were mown down where they stood. I looked away when at least two horses went over the body of a man lying in the street, churning his body in the mud as though stuffed with rags instead of flesh and blood. Richard turned me around and took me to the bed where Mrs. Hoarty still sat, propped up by her soft pillows.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and Mrs. Hoarty reached out a frail, white hand to me. I took it gently so as not to hurt her. She looked up at Richard. “So you do look after her.”

  He met her gaze frankly. “She’s my life. Everything.” He returned to the window where Mr. Hoarty and his wife stared out at the melee. He glanced over at me once more and smiled reassuringly. “It’s Freddy. He brought the muster I sent for.” The horsemen were ours.

  I heard the horses outside the house and the shouts of the men. Then the front door slammed and hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs. Richard strode to the door and opened it before taking his cousin by the hand and shaking it. “Well done, Freddy! You should have been at Dettingen.”

  Freddy made a little bow when he saw the ladies in the room. He was dressed for riding, his boots splashed with mud and dark stains, probably blood, and he held a serviceable sabre in his hand. He laid it gently against the wall, making sure its stains didn’t mark Mrs. Hoarty’s blue paint. “They just scattered. We caught one poor bastard, but I think he was dead before the horse went over him.” He sounded disappointed.

  “They’d been hard at it for quite a time before you arrived,” Richard said. “Did you capture any of them?”

  “Did you want me to?” Freddy asked, surprised until the thought dawned on him. “Oh I see. No, I didn’t think to, but there must be enough wounded to take one.”

  “Do me a favour, Freddy,” Richard said. “Another one, that is. Go and secure a couple of them.”

  Freddy nodded and left the room. Mr. Hoarty and his bride had proved redoubtable allies. I liked her even more now—she hadn’t turned a hair. “Are you quite well now, ladies?” she asked us.

  Mrs. Hoarty smiled and I responded, “Quite well, thank you. Just a shame this had to happen.”

  “Do you know what it was about?” Mr. Hoarty demanded sharply.

  Considering the pact we had with the Cawntons, I decided on discretion. “It appears there is a new group of smugglers who are trying to take business away from the existing people. This must be an example of their tactics.”

  “Dear Lord!” exclaimed Mr. Hoarty. “I don’t like my mother so close to all this.”

  “I agree,” said Richard. “Would you allow me to convey you out of this, ma’am?”

  “She will stay with us in Exeter,” her son said firmly. Richard looked at him and nodded and then they both looked expectantly at the old lady.

  Her mouth set in a straight line. “I’m not leaving my house. What do you think I’d find when I got back?”

  “I can ensure that nothing happens to it while you’re away,” Richard assured her.

  She shook her head and her hand tightened on mine. “No. I inherited this house from my father, and I’m not leaving it for anyone or anything. I stay.”

  “Can we find some footmen for her?” I asked.

  Richard glanced at me sharply and then frowned, considering what I’d said. “I can certainly do that. But it may not be very pleasant living here for the next few weeks, ma’am.”

  “Then I shall close the shutters.”

  Richard looked away, to her son. “I’ll have several strong men here by nightfall. One of my business concerns is a staff agency, and I will call on them as soon as I get home.”

  Mr. Hoarty, a perspicacious man, frowned. “A very fast response.”

  “We pride ourselves on a fast response,” said Richard. “The men are completely trustworthy. It’s up to you, but I can offer your mother that alternative.”

  Mr. Hoarty stared at his wife, frowning.

  “My wife is right,” Richard said. “This is internecine strife, not general mob warfare.”

  I smiled at old Mrs. Hoarty. She smiled back, seemingly not in the least concerned. “I’m not letting these people drive me out of my home.”

  “I have no wish to make you unhappy, Mama,” her son told her, “but you must promise me that if this”—he gestured towards the window—“continues, you will come to us in Exeter.”

  She sighed and nodded. “I will promise that.”

  Her son smiled. A man had to get his own way in something. I think she knew it. She’d given him control back.

  The door opened on Freddy again who looked resigned, his mouth turned up at one corner. “Only Cawntons’ men left. Whoever the other gang leader is, he’s very careful. There’s some dead, but you can bet if he’s that careful, their pockets will be empty.”

  Richard turned a thoughtful face to his cousin. “So he’s clever and careful. Or they are, if it’s a gang, but those actions speak of a good leader.”

  “Very clever, very careful,” agreed Freddy. Those people who knew Lord Thwaite only as an amusing, frivolous member of fashionable society wouldn’t recognise the stern expression he adopted now.

  Richard glanced out of the window, then crossed the room to me, offering me his hand to help me up. He retained it when I got to my feet. “We must go. We have things to do, not least to organise extra help for Mrs. Hoarty.”

  “I should help the injured,” I said.

  “Not this time.” It sounded like an order to me and I was about to protest when he forestalled me. “Have you forgotten? On that street you would be vulnerable, and for some reason someone wants you. No, my love, you can’t help this time.”

  I bit my lip, troubled, but he wouldn’t let me go.

  Chapter Twelve

  I put on sky blue brocade for our visit to Exeter Assembly Rooms, with a white embroidered petticoat and stomacher. The gown was quite new. I’d only worn it once before, at Eyton. I powdered, considering the choking atmosphere worth i
t for the effect it made with the petticoat. The embroidery was sprinkled with brilliants, making the garment sparkle in the candlelight like frost in the morning. I found the effect quite enchanting, and stood before the long mirror in the bedroom swishing my skirts while Nichols tried to put my jewellery on for me. I’d chosen the sapphire and diamond set Richard bought me in Venice. I was in a particularly buoyant mood.

  Richard came through as Nichols pinned the last ornament into my hair, a spray of flowers with a tiny diamond bee set en tremblant. I faced him, making sure my skirts rustled when I moved. He took both my hands. “Delightful.” He wore blue, but a darker blue, and in figured velvet, beautifully fitted to accentuate his slim waist and strong shoulders. The femininity of men’s fashions always had that underlying masculine feel, creating a frisson of recognition, at its best when the cut and fit were superlative.

  We achieved our journey to the Assembly Rooms without incident. I glanced at the cathedral as we alighted, the scene of my marriage, and soon of my sister’s. I hoped Lizzie would be as happy in her choice as I. The tower soared up against the darkening sky, and I turned my back on it to go inside the rooms sited opposite.

  Flambeaux blazed outside the elegant building and the master of ceremonies waited to welcome us. James accompanied Ruth in Martha’s absence, but otherwise we paired up quite well, the Marquesa good-naturedly taking Freddy’s arm when he offered to take her in.

  The crowd murmured as a hefty footman lifted Julia Drury gently out of the carriage. She would enjoy the attention she received as he carried her into the building. Steven followed. People milled about outside, waiting to see the arrivals, and elegantly dressed people waited inside for much the same reason.

  We climbed a flight of stairs and then down a smaller flight to get into the main ballroom.

  My stomach was tensed and I felt foolishly nervous, as though I was about to enter the lion’s den. For years it had been just that to me—teased by the younger, prettier girls, ignored by the local beaux, patronised by the matrons I was forced to sit with. Even now, when I’d been presented at court, attended the finest ballrooms in London, I had to steel myself to climb those stairs. Richard said little to me, but halfway up he paused and gave me a reassuring smile. He’d noticed, then. Somehow, that didn’t help.

  My nervousness wouldn’t show—I’d long since learned to hide it. I smelled the assemblage as we approached. The smell of perfume mixed with the smell of perspiration and camphor was so familiar it took me straight back. Smell is a sense that doesn’t take account of time. Many of these gowns were laid away from year to year, coming out with familiar regularity when the season approached again, altered as necessary to fit current fashion, and the smell was distinctive, easily recognised.

  I thought the room a little fuller than I remembered, but then I realised that many people would have come for Lizzie’s wedding, and I began to see faces I recognised from last season in London. It was a jolt to see them here in my old stamping ground, disorientating me momentarily, but then I saw the circle of young ladies, the ones who had been here two years ago. They would most likely be here in twenty years’ time, respectably married, watching their daughters make the same moves, use the same tricks.

  I was wearing a new gown from a London maker, I’d been presented at court and I was married to a viscount. I listed all these things in my mind in a deliberate attempt to bolster my spirit, and it did help a little.

  Freddy approached us, blissfully happy. He had one of the Exeter girls on each side of him, hands on his arms. On one side was Eustacia, and on the other was her newest bosom friend, one Rebecca Clifton, the daughter of a landowner near Paignton, farther up the coast. Rebecca’s pretty dark red hair was covered with powder tonight, but some of it showed through.

  “Settled in, Freddy?” Richard asked. The girls curtseyed, and Lizzie and I nodded our acknowledgements, too grand to rise from our seats on an upholstered sofa. Richard bowed, every inch the haughty aristocrat.

  “I should come here more often,” Freddy remarked. “I’ve bespoken dances from both these ladies. Lady Rose, Lady Elizabeth, may I ask you if you would favour me later?”

  “You dance beautifully, Freddy. I’d be mad to turn you down,” Lizzie said.

  I smiled my agreement. “I can only think of one or two dancers better than you.”

  “Well you would say that,” Freddy acknowledged with a grin. “But I appreciate the compliment. I suppose the first two dances are out of the question?”

  He spoke to me, knowing that I usually danced the first two minuets with Richard and then Gervase. The brothers made a piquant contrast, and I appreciated the effort they took with me. I was not the best dancer. Richard made me practice, but that was a secret only known by Richard, Gervase, Freddy and me. He’d helped me to enjoy it, something I thought I’d never do.

  Richard addressed Eustacia. “Do you come to London again, Miss Terry?”

  “Not this season,” she admitted.

  “There are people who will miss you.” He was not one of them, but I thought it kind of him to say that in front of her friend, considering the trouble she’d caused us in the past.

  “I go to Bath later next year, though,” she added.

  “I went to Bath when I was Miss Golightly,” I said.

  “Did you like it?” Freddy asked.

  “Sometimes.” I’d enjoyed sitting quietly in a corner watching the fashionable world go by, but I’d received the same treatment there as everywhere else. “The buildings are very fine.”

  “Gervase likes Bath,” Richard observed. “All the antiquities there, I suppose.”

  I looked thoughtfully to where Gervase shared a joke with Ian.

  The orchestra struck up and Richard held out one elegant hand to help me to his feet, smiling slightly. The first minuet.

  We took our places. It hadn’t occurred to me until now that this was the first time I’d danced with my husband here. My dancing skills were execrable before my marriage; I’d been known to count the steps aloud. I’d appalled Richard, who possessed superlative dancing skills. To have a wife who counted as she danced wasn’t to be thought of. I still wasn’t the best or most confident dancer, but he and Freddy had taught me some tricks, and there was nothing better than having a dancing partner who knows exactly what he was about.

  I didn’t count tonight. I finished every move as I’d been taught, and made elegant use of my hands and the angle of my head. For his part, Richard showed me off.

  The minuet is a dance of courtship, of flirtation and love, always the prime dance in an evening’s entertainment. Many considered it usual to dance the first minuet with a spouse, if there was one, but after that the fashionable world thought it dowdy to dance with one’s legal partner. Richard ignored this. If he wanted to dance with me, and I was willing, he did so.

  His friends knew this particular dance was his declaration of love for me. Most people couldn’t tell if he meant it, but it always gave me a thrill to know he did this in front of so many people, and yet still kept it private, between us two. His hands gently guided me into the correct poses, his long fingers curved into shapes which appeared naturally elegant, they were so much a part of him.

  I didn’t need to concentrate as fiercely as I used to, so I noticed when people watched us. They would know me as shy Miss Golightly—many had never seen me like this. Tonight, as never before, I savoured my triumph. These people had ignored me and now they watched. I’d have to be a saint not to enjoy that.

  Richard’s mouth curved slightly and he took more care, redoubled his efforts. The ones with pretty daughters had always been kind to me. I wasn’t a threat to their angels, and they had someone to patronise. That had been almost the worst of it, I think, worse even than my contemporaries’ taunts. The assumption that the plain girl who sat quietly in the corner already belonged with them, pushed to one side by her pretty sister.

  When I sank into the final curtsey and raised my gaze to his, as the d
ance required, everything ceased to matter. I gazed into the deep, cerulean depths and smiled in response to his final smile, warmer than it needed to be, an expression of what we shared in private.

  He drew me to my feet and I placed my hand on his arm, pretending not to notice the stares as he led me off the floor. I smiled at my sister Ruth, led off the floor by Sir John, and I glanced at Richard to see if he’d noticed her choice of partner. It made a declaration of intent from Ruth.

  “Have we heard anything from London?” I asked Richard.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. “Just before we left. We should look at them tomorrow.” His speculative gaze rested on Sir John. “Other matters are growing more urgent.”

  “It looks like it.”

  Sir John stared at us unsmilingly and I found it hard to fathom his thoughts from his expression, but when his attention turned to Ruth, he gave her a warm and friendly smile—perhaps more than friendly.

  Richard relinquished me to Gervase, who led me on the floor for the next minuet, and I enjoyed the stares of my erstwhile tormentors all over again. Gervase wore dark green tonight, a rich, heavy satin fabric which gleamed when he moved. He wore his own hair, powdered, in essence no different to the fashionable wigs most of the men wore. His skills on the dance floor rivalled his brother’s, but the effect was different. We were good friends, but no more. Speculation rippled through society when I first made my debut in London, soon suppressed when those in the know recalled where Gervase’s tastes lay. He might find himself a wife one day, for propriety’s sake, and he would be a good husband—in all but one respect.

  His movements could be taken as a pattern card for the classic minuet. Like his brother, he showed me off wonderfully, but when our gaze met in the movements, only friendship lay there. No interest, nor would there ever be, so the extra thrill Richard added to the dance, the promise of love fulfilled, was absent in Gervase.