Hareton Hall: Richard and Rose, Book 6

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Hareton Hall: Richard and Rose, Book 6 Page 23

by Lynne Connolly


  John walked across the room and stared pensively out of the window that overlooked the enclosed courtyard. This room had two aspects, an inner and an outer, looking out over the land beyond. The noises from the courtyard continued. It gave me time to calm down and to exchange a glance with Steven.

  John turned back to us. “I can’t let you go yet. You know that, don’t you? You,” he addressed Steven, “saw how many men, animals and carts were in the yard. That kind of information would prove useful to others.”

  “Rose didn’t see it,” Steven pointed out. “She was unconscious.”

  “So she was, but she would prove such a charming companion—don’t you think?” His hard glare didn’t suggest anything of the kind. “You can have her for the night. I’ll put you in the same room. And please—don’t try to escape. The windows will be locked, and the door too. My men are swarming around this building, and more are on the way. You simply wouldn’t get away. You, Rose, are the only woman, bar the servants, here. You wouldn’t make a hundred yards before you were caught. I can keep enough men here to ensure that.”

  “Then what?” Steven didn’t seem at all concerned by John’s offer, which made me more worried than all his threats of killing. He seemed to have put it aside for now. “What happens after your precious run?”

  Sir John sighed. “Sadly I must leave. I’d hoped to settle for some time here, that I’d gone far enough away from where I was known, but it seems not. I will trust that my father won’t want to expose me again. I know things about him he wouldn’t like generally known, and I won’t hesitate to make them public if he chooses to pursue me. I can’t see why he should.” I could. “I want to see my sister again, take her away from the sordid life she’s been forced into. He’d be advised to leave us alone.” He glanced at me, the expression on his face calm now. “I could send him a warning. Do you think he will need one?”

  “No.”

  He strode to the door, yanked it open and called out. Two burly men came in and a maid, a different one from the one who had served us the tea. He turned back to us. “I’ve given you enough time now. These people will show you to your room. They’ll serve you some dinner there in due course. There won’t be any need to dress.” He smiled grimly and performed a mock bow as we stood up and silently left the room.

  We went up one floor to a large, comfortable bedroom, furnished like the rest of the house in an old-fashioned style. The door closed, and we heard the key grate in the lock.

  Steven strode to the window and I went and lifted the tapestry that hung behind the heavy, carved wooden bed, checking for listening devices, vents in the woodwork or something of that nature. Nothing. Steven turned to me and grimaced. “I’m sorry, Rose.”

  “So you should be,” I snapped, in no mood to be conciliatory. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” It wasn’t strictly true, but near enough. My foolish haste, which brought me closer to the house than I’d planned, had contributed a great deal to our capture.

  “At least he means to let us go,” Steven said. “I suppose, if we sit tight, we’ll be safe enough.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it. He doesn’t seem quite right to me. Richard’s family all have vicious tempers, but I’ve never seen it as volatile as it is in this young man.”

  He straightened up from examining under the bed and stared at me. “And he’s seventeen?”

  “Remarkable, isn’t it? I’d thought him to be at least four and twenty. I never suspected he was anything to do with us.” I stared at him, keeping my distance. He was a remarkably handsome man, but I didn’t know how I’d ever considered him seriously as a suitor. “Despite what he said, I’d feel happier if we got away on our own. He’ll keep our horses, but I know this country better than he does, and there are cottages and farms where I know we’ll find a welcome and temporary shelter.”

  “You’d be ill-advised to try.”

  “I won’t sit here and let him hold my husband to ransom while he smuggles goods ashore.” I needed to tell him something else too. “I won’t willingly sleep with you.”

  “I know.” He grinned, his dark eyes bright. “He’s obviously heard my reputation. He thinks I’ll rape you. I won’t, I promise.” Despite my intentions of remaining firm, I let my breath out in a sigh of relief. His smile wasn’t pleasant. “I still have hopes—but it will be on my terms, not his, and I won’t have to force you. Once, I tried a little forceful persuasion, but in general that’s not my way. He seems to have blackmail in mind for—his father. He won’t have the same cause to blackmail me. His father!” He threw back his head and crowed his triumph in a peal of loud laughter. “Don’t your sins come back to haunt you!”

  “You should know. Or you will.” That only made him laugh more. I plumped down on the bed and unbuttoned my jacket. I might as well be comfortable and I wore a shirt fastened up to the neck underneath. I beckoned to Steven, and without hesitation he came and sat next to me. Before he touched me, I fended him off. “I only wanted to talk quietly to you.”

  “I hoped you’d change your mind.” He bent his head and kissed my shoulder. I didn’t feel it through my jacket and shirt, but I didn’t like it. I shrugged him off. He laughed. “Another time then.” At one time I dreamed about this, being in a room alone with Steven. Funny how old dreams tended to repeat.

  “I think,” I murmured, “there might very well be spyholes in here.”

  He glanced around. This was obviously a new idea to him. “It makes sense,” he said as quietly as I had.

  “You know as well as I what Richard will probably do.”

  “Call up some of his men and come over immediately.” He slipped an arm about my shoulders and whispered, “If they’re watching, let them think I’m trying to do what they want me to do.” I saw the sense in that. “If somebody’s watching us, they’ll be witnesses if I seduce you. You’re perfectly safe, Rose. For now, at least. I do not intend to become the subject of extortion. At the end of our conversation, push me away. I’ll go and sulk in that chair by the window.”

  I nodded. “It might be better if he waits until there are less people here. Do you remember the girl who served us tea?”

  “Hmmm.” He nuzzled my ear.

  I resisted the urge to pull away. “She’s one of ours. Hopefully she can tell Richard that I’m well and in no immediate danger.”

  “It astonishes me, the efficiency of your organisation.”

  “He showed an interest in my sister. At the time, we thought we were merely ensuring Ruth’s happiness.”

  “I take it that’s all over now?”

  “Completely. I’m glad he’s decided to leave, but I’d like to find out where he’s going.”

  He lowered his head and kissed my neck, leaving a cold, wet imprint that I wanted to wipe away. “It would be useful.”

  “And I meant what I said about his temper. We might be able to use it to our advantage, but it seems dangerous—he might do things he would later regret. Have you any weapons?”

  “No, they took everything away when they captured us. They found your pistol too.”

  I sighed. “I know.” I decided not to tell him about the knives. Not yet, anyway.

  He kissed me at that spot below my ear which, when Richard kissed me there, sent shivers through me. Nothing happened now, except Steven murmured, “I always wanted to do this.”

  “You did, once. But no further.”

  “And yet you fell into his arms within a week. He was always known as a seducer, a rake. He must have been very skilful.”

  I smiled reminiscently. “He was.” But I’d seduced him, not the other way about.

  I pushed Steven away with a great deal of satisfaction. I needed to think. As he’d promised, he went to sit in the chair by the window, ostensibly sulking, but glancing out of the window from time to time.

  I sat on the bed and thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Nothing happened, nobody came. Later, as the day darkened int
o evening, a maid came and lit the fire and the candles, and then the first maid brought us tea and bread and butter and laid it out for us on the small table. We ate in silence, but afterwards I went to sit on the bed, just behind one of the heavy curtains that draped it.

  In a few moments I stood and went over to where Steven sat by the window. I put my hand on his shoulder. “He says hold on,” I said, staring out of the window so nobody could see me speak. I felt him flinch, but he didn’t otherwise move. “He sent a note.”

  “Hmm,” Steven said in acknowledgement.

  “He knows as well as we do that all John’s men are gathered here, and it would be impossible to fetch us now without a lot of bloodshed. He found out from the maid that we’re safe for now. He’ll arrange something for after the bulk of the men have left for the run, I imagine.”

  “Mmm,” said Steven again. If he’d moved his lips, the unseen watcher would see it. I’d been watched often enough in the last couple of years to sense it when it happened.

  “Julia sends her love.” I turned to look at him when he expressed surprise.

  “She must be worried,” he commented. I walked back to the other chair in the room and sat down. “I know what it is. Julia’s afraid I’ll do something without her.”

  I didn’t hide my disgust. “Well you won’t.”

  “No. Probably not.” I hoped he’d added that caveat for our watcher. “Whatever we do, we usually do it together.”

  I found this difficult to understand. “Do you love her?”

  He watched my face. “Yes, I think I do. There must be many kinds of love, that’s all. We’re not the only ones, otherwise our club wouldn’t have such a healthy membership.”

  I wouldn’t have been able to bear it if I had to watch Richard with someone else, whether he was in love with her or not. Sometimes, even the thought of him with one of his many mistresses, before we met, would send a pang through me, though I never told him about that. “Then how can you bear to see her…?”

  He grinned. “It excites me. I’m sorry, Rose, but you asked. We talk about it sometimes and get excited all over again. Don’t you ever want to?”

  “No.”

  “Then are the rumours about Strang true?” He leaned forward in his chair, an eager expression on his face, his shining eyes staring wide. Clearly, if I told him anything about my intimacies now, he would, as he put it, “get excited”.

  “What rumours? Or I should say, which?”

  “The ones about his prowess. Don’t forget, he was well known amongst some of my new acquaintances before he married you. We don’t despair of him yet.”

  “I wouldn’t tell you if I knew what you were talking about.”

  “Don’t you?” He raised a hand to his mouth. “Perhaps you don’t—you were a virgin, after all.” His hand strayed to his lap, then found its rest on the arm of the chair again, an unconscious gesture which made me shiver. “Do you know why he’s called the Iceberg?”

  “Yes—he’s so cold in public.” I felt distinctly uncomfortable now, but also curious to know what Steven meant.

  “And hot in private?” Steven smiled. “I’ve heard that. But icebergs are never warm, so that wouldn’t be a perfect name for him, would it? No, you know what they say about icebergs—nine tenths of it is below the surface.”

  When I understood his meaning, I glanced away hastily to try to cover my blushes. How should I know? Why should I care? Richard was all I wanted—the sum of him, everything, not just the one part Steven harped endlessly about. I wondered if this was all his life with Julia consisted of, physical intimacy, or if they had any life together away from the horizontal.

  “It’s none of your business,” I managed to say eventually. It sounded petulant, even to me. He laughed in delight at my discomfiture.

  In the shelter of the curtain, I reread Richard’s note. He’d obviously written it in haste, his usual tutored copperplate giving way to an untidy scrawl. The maid tells me you’re well, and in no immediate danger. I do not think he will harm you. She will keep me informed if things change, and she will be armed if you need it. I’ll come for you tonight. Take care, R.

  I hoped John wouldn’t harm us. He wouldn’t know how much was at stake if he did, if he thought Richard was nothing more than a popinjay. It was an image Richard cultivated to some extent, but most people who knew him knew he was at least capable of putting up a good fight if required. But I hadn’t seen John’s temper close up before, and having witnessed a similar display in Richard’s father once, I had no doubt that this was one inheritance that had fallen to his grandson intact. It was frightening, unreasoning, uncontrollable. I’d always hated voices raised in anger, but there was something terrifying in this display of savagery in what was usually a civilised human being. I believed John Kneller capable of anything after he’d lost his temper.

  I got up and wandered around the room. I found some books, and I smiled when I recognised Tom Jones, written by Richard’s friend Henry Fielding, now resting in warm, sunny Portugal, trying to recuperate his always-precarious health. Now his brother John had listed us, together with all the gangs he took an interest in, and assigned a man to watch us. I didn’t think it was the occasional lawbreaking he was interested in so much as a desire to use Thompson’s himself. Henry Fielding had been in charge of a similar organisation once, before he’d come to Bow Street. He must know what it was capable of, in the right hands.

  Unexpectedly the door opened to admit a burly manservant. “Sir John wants to know if you would like to join him for dinner.”

  I was close to refusing such an abrupt request, but Steven stood up. “Yes, we’d be delighted, but he must take us as he finds us.” He held out his arm for me to rest my hand on, just as though we were in a fine London ballroom. He was right. It would have been foolish to refuse. Not that we could escape, but we needed as much information as we could get about this place.

  The man took us down to a small dining room with only one window, which looked out over the courtyard. Sir John waited for us. He was dressed in a fine coat and waistcoat of dark blue ribbed silk, embroidered and laced, as if to mock our inability to change. He smiled pleasantly, but there was malice behind it. “So sorry I could find nothing appropriate for you.”

  “I could always go home and change,” I said.

  “I don’t think so.” He indicated that we should sit at the table.

  The table was set with a pristine white cloth. Cutlery and glass appropriate to the meal lay beside three places. Men came in bearing the first course and we sat to eat.

  My appetite, never of the best, was fugitive now, and I barely managed one dish, but I made a show of it and didn’t let Kneller see how little I was eating. Steven seemed to manage quite well. In my experience very little puts a man off his food. Sir John kept up a flow of conversation, all general, none of it specific. We learned nothing. There were two interminable courses like this. I could keep up a meaningless conversation, and I went along with it pretty well.

  The covers were cleared and some fruit and sweet wine set out. The servants left when Sir John waved one negligent hand, but I didn’t think they would go far. The night remained quiet except for the occasional sound of a horse from the courtyard, or steps and voices, letting us know the house was full of men in preparation for the run.

  Sir John put his glass on the table. He seemed to be in very good humour, smiling at us, not a crease marring his youthful forehead. “Everything’s going very well.”

  “Yes?”

  “Oh yes. I have enough men to cope with the militia and the Cawntons.” He took up his glass and sipped. The candlelight gleamed on the surface of the wine and the diamond ring on his finger. “Some of Cawntons’ men have come over to me.” Or been sent, I thought, remembering the man in Exeter gaol. “I’m not foolish enough to trust them, but they could come in useful.” He put his glass down and turned it round on the table, watching the clear depths. He looked up at us. “Fifteen soldiers are comin
g with the Bow Street and the Excise, and Cawnton has about thirty. I have thirty, so if I can meet them separately, or turn them on each other, I should come out the winner.” He smiled, perfectly confident of the outcome.

  I picked up my glass and made a show of taking a sip, though I wasn’t drinking much. Neither, I noted with relief, was Steven. We would need all our wits about us now. But Sir John was full of overweening, youthful confidence, and revelled in boasting to us.

  “They’re bringing in tea and lace tonight. It should be very lucrative.” He sighed. “Of course, if I beat the Cawntons, I’d very much like to stay here. Perhaps even marry your sister, after all.”

  “I don’t think I’d like you to do that.” Not a threat, a statement.

  “She would.”

  “You’re too young for her.”

  His smile broadened. “But only we know that, don’t we?” He sipped again, but his gaze never left my face. Something in my stomach tensed.

  “And my husband.” I didn’t mention that the details were also in Thompson’s safe, in London.

  “Yes.” He looked down at his glass and then back at us. “It’s too good an opportunity to miss. You see that, don’t you?” We said nothing. “I’d be set for life. A pretty wife with a comfortable dowry, a goodish house, and a little sideline. I’m a gentleman—and no one will argue with that.”

  “So,” said Steven. “You want us to hope that you’re beaten tonight?”

  He smiled, exhaling a little breath of derision. “I won’t be. My plans have gone very well, and I can’t see anything going wrong.”

  Except the Cawntons moving farther up the coast. Still, fifteen militia against a well-armed, well-trained band of men didn’t stand much chance. Especially when there would be profit in it. This could go on for years, create bloodshed and poverty in the county I loved.

  “The Cawntons have been here a long time,” I ventured.

  “All the more reason they should move on, then. Or be ousted. They haven’t met my kind of organisation before. My men are the best. I watched the Cawnton run last month. Sloppy, slipshod work. I can beat that.”

 

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