Next was Mrs Buss. The sympathy in the older woman's eyes was almost her undoing.
“I'll come with you, your Grace,” she said, her chin set in a determined fashion. “The town house will be all shut up and I don't expect that silly chit and her husband we left there will know the first thing about making it comfortable for you.”
“Oh, no!” Milly shook her head. “No, Mrs Buss, you know Beau will be lost without you and there are the boys to think about. I rely on you to keep an eye on them and make sure they are well fed and happy.”
Mrs Buss frowned, looking torn. “Oh, yes those two little mischief makers. Though his Grace can manage very well I daresay,” she added, giving Milly a dark look that gave her to believe she was quite as furious with him as Milly was. Grateful to know she wasn't alone in her misery despite her embarrassment she cast propriety aside and gave Mrs Buss a quick hug. “Don't be angry with him, Bustle,” she said, her voice quiet and daring to use the affectionate nickname that Beau called her. “He never promised me anything but his name and a safe place to be. He doesn't owe me anything.”
Aware that she'd overstepped the line between staff and Mistress of the house she turned to flee, but Mrs Buss' voice stopped her at the door.
“You're wrong, Madame. I was here when the old master lived you see, and I been with the young master since the day he was born. The best day's work that fellow ever did was when he married you. But you do right to go. Let him miss you, I say. He'll come to see what's important, you mark my words.”
Milly couldn't answer, too touched by the support of one of Beau's staunchest allies to force the words past her throat. Instead she ran back to her room and readied herself to leave.
***
Beau watched the great house of Ware come into sight as the sun sank in a great glowing ball of fire and for the first time in his life he welcomed it. All the windows seemed aflame in its reflected light and he could almost feel the heat of it on his skin such was the glow of pleasure in seeing the old, rambling building. Somehow Ware had become his home, and he knew full well why that was. Milly was here, and wherever Milly was had become where he wished to be.
It had crept up on him, little by little, but it wasn't until last night, sleeping under a strange roof after a day spent without her that he had realised how she'd changed him.
He tried to pinpoint a particular moment, the time when it had happened. But it had been so gradual he'd not noticed how she'd crept beneath his skin and into his heart. He thought perhaps the letters had started it. Somehow it was so much easier to speak with truth when you put pen to paper.
Face to face there was always restraint, even between very good friends. But in a letter there were no facial expressions or slight nuances of voice to subtly change the true meaning of the words. It became somehow more intimate than sitting beside someone and conversing alone. He had come to know and admire her lively mind and sharp tongue without even considering how she looked, but somehow her face no longer seemed so very plain. How could a face be plain when it held those eyes, so warm and bright and full of mischief when she was set on teasing him. And he knew to the cost of his sleep that the figure beneath those demur robes was far more alluring than she allowed the world to know. He wanted her to give him the honour of that secret. He prayed that he had played this game right and she would trust him enough to let him in.
He barely halted the carriage and flung the reins towards the waiting groom before he had jumped down and run into the house. Laughing at himself he realised he had never before been so impatient to see a lover, and this time it was his wife he wanted. Not just for a quick tumble, not just for a night's pleasure soon forgot in his haste to seek the next. But this time for good. This time he thought perhaps he had found something which had eluded him his whole life, something true and good and dependable. Something he could trust in.
Running into the gloom of the great hall he smiled at Rexom, wondering why the old fellow looked so gloomy.
“Evening Rexy,” he said, stripping off his gloves and throwing them at the footman standing a little behind the butler with a grin. “Why so Friday-faced, man, it's a beautiful evening isn't it?”
“I'm sure I couldn't say, your Grace,” the butler replied, his face devoid of any emotion.
Beau frowned at him. That kind of tone was reserved for unwelcome guests or occasionally himself if he'd done something to set up the old man's bristles.
“Where's my wife?” he asked, heading for the stairs and wondering if Milly could cast any light on the situation and too eager to see her to question the old badger any further.
“I believe that her Grace has returned to town,” he said, his voice monotone.
Beau stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Rexom. His heart had given the most disconcerting lurch in his chest and he felt a rush of cold suffuse him like someone had doused him in the lake.
“You must be mistaken, Rexom ...” he said, half laughing. The old man was getting confused, surely? He'd have to think about lightening his work load soon, if the old fellow would let him. “She knew I was coming home tonight, she ...” She wouldn't run away from him, but the butler's gaze upon his was expressionless and steady. The cold feeling grew until a heavy lump of ice seemed to form in the pit of his stomach.
“When?” he asked, wondering why it was so hard to breathe.
“A little after two o'clock I believe, Sir.”
“Did she say when she was coming home?”
“She did not.”
Beau ran a hand through his hair. He felt adrift suddenly, as though something solid had been taken from beneath his feet and he was all at once unsteady. Why? Why had she run away.
“Did ... did she leave a note, any message?” he asked, aware that he must sound ridiculous. This was not how people of their ilk carried on. Especially when everyone must know it wasn't a love match. They weren't expected to live in each other's pockets. It would be of no surprise to most people of similar birth to think a husband and wife could spend months under the same roof and barely speak a word. But Beau didn't want that. He'd never even wanted that in the first place. He'd always wanted her friendship, her companionship ...
“No, Sir.”
Beau turned and headed to his office, surely she would have left him some explanation? But there was no note on his desk, and when he went to check the shelf, the book he'd given her stared defiantly back at him.
Oh God. He'd played this all wrong. He'd frightened her away. He must have. Perhaps she was disgusted after all? But then he remembered the look in her eyes when she'd seen the book. No. It wasn't sex that disgusted her, it was only him. It was his attentions that had frightened her away.
She had only married him on the strict understanding that there would be a purely platonic relationship between them. With what he realised now to be stunning arrogance, it had never occurred to him that she might reject his offer if he hadn't made that stipulation himself. She wanted none of him. He'd asked her to give him a sign that his attentions were welcomed. Well if this wasn't a sign he didn't know what was.
He picked up the decanter and a glass and sat behind his desk, pouring it brimful and downing the lot. The liquor burned and his empty stomach clenched in protest but he filled the glass again. It was too much. Too much to bear. That he'd finally lost his heart only to have it rejected, it hurt more than he could ever have imagined. And there was no point in denying the obvious now. There was no damned point in pretending it wasn't true. He loved her, and she wanted none of him.
He laughed, a cold and bitter sound, as he remembered all the tear-stained faces of past lovers who had cursed him. The women who had loved him and watched him walk away when he'd grown bored. There had been more than one who'd prayed that one day he would feel as they felt now. Well they had their wish after all. If he'd made anyone else endure this soul-searing pain, surely he deserved all he got?
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, his throat tight. It
dawned on him then, and for the first time, the true extent of his betrayal to his best friend. He'd taken Sebastian's wife to be, knowing they loved each other, and tried to force her into a marriage she didn't want. All for money, all to save his own skin. For the first time he wished that Sebastian hadn't missed. If only the bullet had found its mark he would have been spared this pain and humiliation.
Making his way steadily down the decanter Beau wondered what he was supposed to do now. He'd had such hopes before he'd set foot in this wretched house. But the damn place was cursed after all and him with it. For without Milly's presence the ghosts of his ancestors seemed to mock him even louder than usual and all his old fears magnified and spread through his mind like disease.
He didn't know what to do about Milly, how to make amends or how to begin to regain her trust. At least he could try and regain her friendship. He would promise never to renew his addresses to her if she would only come back home. But was that a promise he could keep? Not without losing his mind perhaps. But he'd do anything to bring her home again.
He would go to her, he decided. First thing in the morning he would go to her and throw himself on her mercy. He would put his pride in her hands and beg her to come back home with him, there was nothing else he could do.
But there was someone else he owed an apology to. With a slightly unsteady hand he took out paper and pen and wrote to the lady whose life he'd very nearly ruined.
August 23rd
Ware. Herts.
My dear Lady Sindalton,
I hope this letter finds you and your husband well. I have heard that you have made a grand tour of Europe and expect that this letter finds you of late back in Paris. I pray you will forgive what follows, I have to admit at this point to having dipped rather deep and my handwriting is barely legible when I'm sober.
I know this is rather too late in coming but I have at last been moved to put pen to paper to apologise for my shocking behaviour towards you earlier this year. I am ashamed to say that it is only now, at this moment of writing to you, that I realise how deeply I have wronged both you and my oldest friend. If your husband is perhaps worried by this missive, suspecting me no doubt of mischief, please feel free to let him read these words. If not, at least assure him that the fates have conspired to punish his former friend in a manner that he should heartily commend.
You see it wasn't until my own heart was so wretchedly abused that I realised the pain to which I have put you both. If the agonies you suffered earlier this year are anything to the pain I am in at this moment I don't wonder that Sebastian sought to put a period to my life. I only wish he had succeeded. For I have indeed fallen in love at last, and must tell you that the lady in no way returns my sentiments.
I have endeavoured to apply all of those supposed charms I have at my disposal only to discover that she has a mind far above my own, and as is as displeased by my foolishness as you could hope to imagine. In point of fact she has gone so far as to return to the stench and heat of London in August so as to escape my attentions.
But you have yet to comprehend the 'coup de grâce', the final blow to my heart and my pride that the fates have delivered on behalf of all those I have hurt so callously in the past. You will remember Miss Sparrow I think? She was unwell at a ball we both attended and you were so very kind as to see her home. Well perhaps you have already heard that the lady consented to marry me. And so I must tell you that my beloved, the lady who spurns my attentions with a gentle smile, is none other than my own wife.
So you see my suffering is complete and at last I fully understand the disgust in which you must hold my contemptible act against you both.
Please know that I am most sincere in my remorse and would remain ever,
Your friend.
Beau.
Chapter 19
“Wherein new friends are made.”
Beau groaned as the curtains drew back with a vicious snap and sunlight seared his tender brain. Blinking in pain, he looked up to see Mrs Bustle moving about his study.
With a lurch he remembered last night, staggered by the misery that it hadn't been a bad dream. He must have passed out at his desk, and judging by the empty decanter it was a miracle he was awake at all. The blinding pain behind his eyelids was nothing, however, to the empty feeling that seemed to crawl about his chest in the place where his heart had once been.
Mrs Bustle slammed the tea tray down on his desk with a vindictive clatter that made him catch his breath. After recent weeks Beau wasn't about to grant himself the belief that he was an intelligent man, but it would take a bigger fool than he not to know Bustle was in a white rage.
She never usually brought him his tea in the morning, that job naturally falling to Purefoy, so he could only imagine there was something on her mind.
He watched, wincing as she poured and then stirred two large lumps of sugar in, chinking the spoon against the porcelain in a purely retaliatory manner.
“Spit it out, for the love of God, Bustle,” he said, clutching at his head. “If I've done something to offend you and Rexom and the rest of the damn world, let's have it. Lord knows I can't feel any worse.”
Bustle pressed the tea cup into his hand and then folded her arms under her ample bosoms, favouring him with a disapproving look that unsettled him just as much now as it had when he was seven.
“I don't know that it's my place to say such things to you, your Grace,” she said with a sniff, which indicated she was going to anyway. “But how you could let that wicked creature come here with all her flighty ways, upsetting the Mistress like she did. Well, I thought I knew you well enough to at least keep the likes of her away from the house, but perhaps I was mistook.”
Beau almost dropped the teacup.
“What?” He stood, so quick that the world span and his head exploded with pain so fierce he was forced to sit down again. “What woman?” he rasped, panic and hope blinding him in a fierce roll of emotion.
“Mrs Hadley,” Bustle said with disgust and a sniff for effect. “Though what you could see in that ...”
“Mind your tongue!”
Mrs Buss put her hands by her sides, her mouth set in a hard line. “Forgive me, Sir,” she replied with cold dignity.
Beau shook his head and put out his hand, grasping hers tightly. “No. No, Bustle forgive me but ...” He looked up at her and shook his head again. “Not with her. There's been no one since ...” He stopped, aware this was not a conversation to be having with his housekeeper. But who the hell else was there to help him? "Since we married. There's no one else, Mrs Buss."
He could see the doubt in her eyes and wondered if he would see that same look in Milly's. Then her expression cleared and she let out a breath.
“Well I've known you since the day you were breached, Sir, and don't ever remember a day you gave me a barefaced lie.”
Beau made a strangled noise halfway between a laugh and a gasp and held her hand to his face.
“Now, now,” she muttered patting his hand and putting the teacup carefully back into it. “You drink that up, young man,” she said, chiding him with the same soft voice she'd used when he was a little boy. “If you're wanting to go and fetch your wife back home, you'll be needing a clear head.”
“What did she say to her, Bustle?”
Mrs Buss wagged her finger at him in a way that made him feel rather like he was wearing short trousers. “That woman came here to make trouble for Lady Ware. She came here to hurt her, and if you carry on with your ways then there will be others who will come and do the same. There'll be others who whisper stories in her ear or make nasty little comments, insinuating just enough to make her wonder. If you'll pardon my tongue then I'd say you need to make a choice, and that's as to whether you'd see your wife get hurt the same way again.”
Beau smiled and walked back to her, putting his arms around his housekeeper and kissing her soft cheek. “Never, Bustle,” he whispered. “Never again.”
***
“We
ll that's all worked out splendidly,” Milly said, sitting back in the carriage.
Mrs Goodly clasped her hands in her lap and nodded, but there was concern in her eyes.
“The premises will certainly do very nicely, certainly, Milly,” she said, but there was an underlying anxiety in her voice. Unwilling to allow her to voice her concerns Milly redirected them.
“Then what is it, Edith?” she asked, trying her best to maintain her cheerful countenance, even though it was killing her to do it. “I suppose you think that Miss Lawson is too young for the responsibility we've given her? I admit that was my first thought too, but ... I think she'll rise to the challenge. There was a look of pride in her eyes that makes me believe she's the best choice.”
Mrs Goodly just returned a faint smile and turned to look out of the window. London was quieter now the great and the good had left, but the dirty streets were dusty and smelly and the longing to go home to Ware was painful. It had barely been twenty four hours but this would have to be the way she lived now. Yet she already missed the big old house that she'd begun to make home. She would miss watching the sun turning the lakes to liquid gold in the morning and greeting Rexom and Purefoy and discussing the week's menu's with Mrs Buss. But more than any of that, she would miss Beau.
The carriage slowed and rocked to a stop outside of Mr Priestly's house. He'd said the papers were ready to sign and he'd also samples of containers for the new product.
The starchy housekeeper showed them to Mr Priestly's dingy parlour and told them tea would be ready in just a moment. A few minutes later the man himself appeared.
“I'm so sorry to have kept you, your Grace,” he said, shaking her hand in a warm manner, his eyes full of delight at seeing her.
“Not at all, I have to say I'm more than impressed, Mr Priestly. You have delivered everything I have asked of you and more.”
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