Hareton Hall: Richard and Rose, Book 6

by Lynne Connolly

  When I cried out in my joy, he responded with, “And you think I’d voluntarily give this up? Oh no, no, my sweet angel, you’ll have to do better than that!” and he carried on, pushing me higher and higher in ecstasy, not stopping when I climaxed but continuing until I thought I’d lose my mind.

  I hadn’t known such heights existed before he’d taken me there, but although his experience was infinitely greater than mine, he told me he’d never known it either. He arched his back to push against me and he dragged me down on his shaft with a force he would never use in his sentient moments. His head went back hard against the mahogany headboard, and his eyes closed. He cried out as he came deep inside me.

  I leaned on his upraised legs while I got my breath back, and gazed down at him.

  “How do you do that?” he said after a while. “I’ve never known anyone like you before, never loved anyone as I love you, and I was a lost cause amongst the careful mamas.”

  I laughed as I let myself sink slowly down into his arms. “You never met any of my mamas.” My father married three times, and all were good to me, so I called them all ‘Mama’. Richard had one, and he called her ‘Mother’ or ‘my lady’. “Perhaps I love you more than the other girls did.” I settled next to him and curled my leg over his.

  “It’s the other way about.” He put a finger under my chin and brought me close for a kiss. “There were plenty who imagined themselves in love with me.” He laughed at my expression of surprise at his vanity. “At least, that’s what they or their parents told me. But I was never in love with them. If they were, it wouldn’t have been fair to marry them because I’d have continued in the same way after marriage as before and broken their hearts. If it was a ploy to engage my interest, it had the opposite effect. I walked away. When I proposed to Julia it was in the full knowledge that she cared nothing for me and everything for the position in society I could bring her.” He tenderly pushed back another curl of my unruly hair. It was why I kept it loose at night, because he liked me to.

  “And when you proposed to me?”

  “With complete uncertainty. I wasn’t sure how you felt, not even after the episode in the coach house when I kissed you and you responded so gratifyingly. Not until we first made love was I sure you wanted me in the same way I wanted you.”

  “I loved you when you were hurt. At first I thought it compassion for your injury, something like that, but I was fooling myself.” I traced the now silvery line on his upper arm with one finger. And froze.

  “What, what is it?”

  I leaned up on one elbow to examine the smaller scar farther up, the scar left from his inoculation. “Barbara’s smallpox.”

  “What is it, sweetheart?” He frowned.

  “Barbara contracted smallpox after her attackers scratched her with a blade,” I said.

  He understood immediately. “My God, you’re right. We’ll never be able to formally connect the two, but we can feel sure that we can put that on his plate too.” He held me tightly, pulled me close. “You show no smallpox marks, so maybe he thought he’d take a chance. He was wrong on one thing though. If you’d contracted it and survived, however badly marked you were, it wouldn’t have stopped me loving you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Richard sometimes compared me to a cat, and I felt particularly content and catlike as I dressed much later on in the day. Richard hadn’t allowed the ugly revelation I’d had to taint our morning, but had loved me into sleep, so when I finally got up the hour was considerably fashionably late.

  I leaned back as Nichols dressed my hair, and closed my eyes, dreaming of the long morning I’d just spent with my husband. We requested Gervase, Freddy and Carier to come up to our room to discuss the whole matter of my would-be abductor or murderer later.

  Nichols found a pretty gown for me, white Indian cotton with a print of flowers and ribbons, and while she helped me into it I found myself wondering how the fabric had come into the country. I hadn’t asked the shopkeeper when I chose it, and he hadn’t told me. Cotton prints were one of the many items whose import was under strict controls, the very controls that made smuggling so lucrative.

  Nichols fluffed the ribbon bows on my stomacher and tied a ruffle around my neck before she cleared up and went to tell Richard I was ready. They must have foregathered in Richard’s room because they came in almost on her heels.

  I was surprised to see my brother Ian with them. He laughed when he saw my surprise. “You think I wouldn’t take an interest in your affairs, my dear? It’s society I avoid, not you. Gervase told me the whole, and I insisted on being involved.”

  I smiled back at him. Ian was the only one of the family who shared our mother’s colouring with me, and sometimes we felt like changelings amongst all the golden beauty around us. We still shared a unique bond, hard to explain, but once forged, always there.

  Carier brought in some extra chairs to supplement the two we already had. Richard took my hand and sat next to me, and Carier set a small table by his side.

  Before we began Carier answered a soft knock on the door. He closed the door before he addressed us. “Mr. Skerrit is downstairs.”

  “I don’t want to miss this meeting, but I don’t want to keep Tom waiting either. He’ll want to get back to Barbara, unless—” No, I wouldn’t think that.

  “Has anyone any objection to his joining us?” Richard asked. No one objected, so Carier went downstairs to fetch Tom.

  I had to laugh when I saw his bewildered expression. “Oh, Tom.” I stood and took both his hands. “We wanted to talk somewhere we knew we wouldn’t be overheard or interrupted.”

  “I should go then,” Tom said.

  “Oh no. You know all our secrets.”

  “Not quite all,” came Richard’s amused voice, and I glanced down at where he sat and I smiled before turning back to Tom. “How is she, Tom? How’s Barbara?”

  Tom’s expression lightened and my heart soared. “She’s past the worst, they say.” Everyone murmured something about being pleased, relieved at the news. “I left her sleeping so I came over. I thought you’d like to know.”

  “Oh yes, it was kind of you to come and tell us.”

  I sat and Carier brought another chair for Tom. He sat next to Freddy, folded his hands quietly in his lap and watched us.

  Richard picked up a slim folder that Carier placed on the table. “It appears that Sir John Kneller is a legitimate, acceptable person. He has, as he says, lived in the north and never visited London or the south before this year. He made frequent visits to Edinburgh, and uses it as the centre of his social life.” He glanced down at the paper in the folder on his knee. “He was born in 1731, which would make him twenty-four.”

  “He’s a young twenty-four,” said Freddy.

  Gervase demurred. “Not particularly. It’s just been too long since you were that age, Freddy.”

  “Sometimes it feels like it.” Freddy sighed with a world-weariness entirely belied by the gleam of amusement in his eyes.

  “I’m twenty-four,” Ian reminded us. He, too, looked young for his age. Years of illness had kept him away from the sun and physical exercise. His delicate appearance hid an inner strength not many people realised he owned, born of determination—and carrying heavy books around all day. His clear skin and well-defined features gave him an appeal some young men lacked, and he wasn’t short of female admirers in the short time he’d spent in London last year. He was only three years younger than me, and his birth had killed our mother.

  Richard looked at the paper again. “Kneller has an acceptable fortune, if Ruth wishes to consider his interest seriously. He won’t starve unless he bets all his fortune at ’Change, or at the card table. The only thing Alicia Thompson can find against him is his propensity for the table, but he seems to know when to stop.”

  “Any family?” I asked.

  Richard shook his head. “It seems not. That’s one of the reasons the investigations took so long. That, and the distance our mes
sages had to travel to discover all this.”

  “But he has my watch.”

  Gervase looked at me sharply. “Rose? The one I gave to you?”

  “He said it belonged to his mother. Could it have? Could there be a duplicate?”

  Gervase shook his head. “Did you see the landscape enamelled on the back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then no. There was only ever one of those landscapes, to my knowledge, and in any case I bought the watch new two years ago for you.”

  “So his mother couldn’t have owned it if she died some time ago.”

  Richard glanced down at the paper. “She’s been dead ten years. So where did he get it from, and why did he lie about it?”

  A pause fell while we thought about the problem. Ian was the first to speak. “If he knew it was stolen, he wouldn’t have wanted to say where it came from. There’s a certain pawnshop in Exeter. Everyone knows stolen goods sometimes turn up there.”

  “I wish I had,” said Gervase. “I could have bought it back for you.” His regretful glance at me made me smile at him in sympathy.

  “It might not have been there. It’s only a possibility.”

  “It would seem to be the most likely way he came by it,” Richard admitted. Then he exchanged a look with Carier. “But why should he wish to buy such a feminine ornament and then keep it to himself?”

  “Maybe he just liked it,” I suggested.

  “And why was he so intent on showing it to us?” Richard asked.

  I turned my head to confront him. “He did look at me rather closely after he’d consulted it.” I remembered Sir John’s considering stare when I looked down at the watch. “As though he knew where it had come from.”

  “We’re watching him,” said Richard. He turned over the first sheet of paper. “Here’s a report of his movements.” We kept silent for a few moments while he read through.

  “Why should he have your watch, Rose? Why don’t you have it?” Tom demanded.

  “We were robbed on the way here by a single highwayman. He didn’t take much, but he took my watch.”

  “I thought it strange when he gave you your wedding ring back,” Richard remarked.

  Gervase’s head went up at that. “I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

  “You read about it,” said Ian.

  Gervase smiled at him. “Not all those stories are real. And the highwaymen I’ve been unfortunate enough to encounter have taken everything they could.” He glanced at Ian and spread his hands in surrender. “Twice.”

  Ian nodded and kept Gervase’s regard before turning back to me. “They’re not the romantic heroes some people seem to believe. They’re poor and they can use extreme violence to get what they want.”

  Tom gave me a startled look and Richard saw it. “You know I’d have killed him if he’d offered anything of the kind to my wife.” Tom had good reason to know that was true. He nodded grimly.

  “Should we ask Sir John where he got the watch?” Freddy asked then.

  I shook my head. “He knows I recognised it.”

  “Does he know it’s unique?” Freddy asked.

  “It’s a fine object,” Richard said. “He must know how distinctive it is.”

  “Then we ask him,” Freddy said.

  “Or I do. It’s my watch, after all.”

  Richard took my hand and gripped it. “With one proviso. Whatever information we have about him, we don’t know him. You are not to put yourself in any danger, my love.” Richard went through the rest of the papers quickly and then put them aside and looked up. “The rest is company business.”

  Freddy cocked a questioning eyebrow. “Good gossip, eh?”

  Richard laughed at him. “Lots of it. But since you’re one of the worst gossips in London, or anywhere else for that matter, we’ll keep it for another time.” A laugh rippled around the room and lightened the atmosphere. Richard released my hand and stood. “We’ll leave it there. We’ll ask Sir John about the watch when we see him next. With all the attention he’s dancing on Miss Ruth, I’d guess that would be sooner rather than later.” He turned to me. “Should you like to take the air? It’s a beautiful day, and we haven’t many more of them before winter comes.”

  When I agreed he held his hand out to me and helped me to my feet. That was the cue for everyone else to stand up too, and the meeting was at an end.

  Tom came out with us. He would walk back to Peacocks, and excused himself from staying for dinner. He wanted to get back to his wife.

  Nichols found a shawl and a hat for me, Richard got his coat and hat, and we went out the back way to walk on the old terraces. Tom would walk across the fields. “She’s worried that she’s marked now. I told her not to worry.”

  “Is she?” I asked him.

  He stared down at the gravelled path before he answered me. “Yes. One eye, and some other marks on her face and body.”

  My heart went out to him. “Oh, Tom. She was so pretty.”

  He lifted his head and looked at me directly. “But she’s not blind, and she will recover. It’s all that matters. I don’t care what she looks like. I want her anyway.”

  My hand lay on Richard’s arm, and I gripped it a little more firmly. He felt it and put his hand over mine.

  “We’ll come and see her soon,” I promised him. “Give her my love.”

  Tom nodded, bowed to us and walked quickly away. I thought he might be weeping.

  I looked after him. “I wish I could do more.”

  “This is one trial he has to deal with on his own,” Richard said softly.

  I turned my head to look at him. I sighed and nodded. “I suppose it is.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was leaving my room early the following day to see the cook about the menus when Gervase waylaid me. He’d obviously been waiting for me. I wondered why he hadn’t sent me a note. “I decided to talk to you about this, Rose, but I needed to get some courage up. I must talk to you.” The maids had already started work in my room, so we couldn’t go back in there. Nichols, following in my wake, looked disapproving, but she knew Gervase would take care of me, and in any case, we were in the house. Little could happen here to hurt me.

  We found a quiet sitting room containing some of the old furniture from the manor. I smiled to see it, and sat in a well-remembered chair, motioning Gervase to its fellow, set on the other side of the cold fireplace. I was glad I’d decided to wear a gown of light woollen cloth today. It was none too warm here, but privacy was evidently important to him. “Whatever can be troubling you, Gervase?”

  “I value your friendship, Rose. If you weren’t married to Richard I’d still have appreciated your friendship.”

  “How agreeable of you to say so, Gervase,” I said, touched by the compliment. “I appreciate it too. Strangely, I’ve never confused you and Richard, as so many others do. I’ve always seen the differences in you.”

  He smiled, so like Richard and yet not so. They had spent their formative years together and they could never be dissimilar. Some of the gestures, the instinctive way of standing, the way they moved was similar, the way their eyes crinkled at the corners when they smiled, but there were so many differences too. Gervase dressed in a different style from his brother, preferred darker, stronger colours and plainer fabrics, but had a sense of quality I could also see in their mother. He was more forgiving than Richard, kinder, but Richard had been forced to put up with much more. Richard perfected his cold society mask long before I’d appeared on the scene, but he still assumed it in public, especially in large gatherings. It was something Gervase never needed once he’d left England for exile abroad. He could do as he wished as long as he didn’t cause more scandal or come home. He remained essentially the same person who left when he came back. Just infinitely richer. The only thing he was forced to hide was something he wasn’t ashamed of, but others were.

  “We have many differences,” he acknowledged. “Some existed from the start. I don’t have t
he curse of that terrible temper, for instance. Richard used to convulse with it as a child, but he learned to control it in time.”

  “It’s worse when his anger is cold.” I remembered one or two occasions when, although he’d directed his anger elsewhere, he’d frightened me.

  Gervase sighed. “I always hated confrontation, would go out of my way to avoid it.”

  “Such as India?” I suggested.

  He grinned in a self-deprecating way. “Such as India. I could have come back after a year or so, faced the critics down, but I chose not to. I didn’t have any idea how badly Richard took my absence or what I left behind.” He paused and studied his carefully manicured hands. “To be truthful, I don’t know if it would have made any difference. The offer from John Company tempted me too much. I could make my fortune or die out there, and either way it would be better than what I left at home.”

  His lover had broken his heart, but hearts don’t stay broken forever, and Gervase had come home so rich society couldn’t afford to ignore him anymore. “Are you happier now?”

  I didn’t take my attention off his face so I caught the blaze of happiness when he lifted his gaze. “Very happy.”

  I took in an audible breath of surprise. I knew that look. I’d seen it in his brother, but I daren’t try to interpret it in Gervase.

  “What have you found?” Perhaps he’d discovered an antique in the crates of goods from the abbey.

  “Something I’d lost. If I tell you, Rose, you won’t tell anyone else?”

  “Except Richard. Never ask me to keep anything from him, Gervase.”

  “I think he knows, or he’s guessed. I haven’t spoken to him about it, but we could always sense each other’s extreme emotions. Do you remember when he first saw you?”

  I remembered. Across an empty, broken courtyard in the wreck of a once-great country house. I nodded.