A Time Like No Other

by Audrey Howard

  He stayed far too long in Biddy’s opinion and though she entered the dining room on some pretext or other on several occasions they lingered at the table, Mr Roly sipping the brandy, which would soon be finished, Miss Lally a glass or two of Madeira, laughing, chatting about nothing of any consequence since that was not Roly Sinclair’s way, enveloped in the fragrant cigar smoke from his cigars. He was holding her hand at one point, which she did not seem to mind and both of them were apparently unaware of her entrance.

  The old grandfather clock in the hall struck twelve and Biddy entered the dining room on the last stroke. Both the maidservants had been in their beds for hours and upstairs the babies slept peacefully in the care of Nanny Dora.

  ‘Miss Lally, I’d like to lock up now, and Carly is waiting to get to his bed,’ Biddy said pointedly. Roly Sinclair looked round at her, his hand still holding Miss Lally’s, but at once, as though aware for the first time of the enormity of what she and Roly had done to Harry who after all had been her guest, Lally stood up, her hand, it seemed to Biddy, reluctantly letting go of Mr Roly’s.

  ‘Oh, dear, is it that late? Of course, Biddy, and Roly, you must go home at one. No, don’t pull a face at me. I have to be up early to be with my children.’

  Biddy stood woodenly in the doorway, her stance making it quite plain to Roly Sinclair that she was not going to leave, therefore depriving him of the goodnight kiss he had hoped to get from Lally.

  There was a good deal of giggling at the front door where Carly stood patiently with Roly’s chestnut gelding. Both he and Biddy had faces on them that would have killed the cat, or so Roly whispered in Lally’s ear, but at last he mounted the animal and with a merry wave set off up the drive at a mad gallop.

  ‘Well!’ Biddy declared, knowing that her lamb would understand exactly what she meant.

  8

  ‘Have you the faintest idea what you are doing to Lally Fraser? Or to her reputation? There is not a family in Moorend or anywhere for that matter in and about Halifax that is willing to have anything to do with her. I dare say she does not care at the moment while you are at home to squire her about, or perhaps it is more accurate to say she has not noticed, but when you leave again on your travels at the end of the week what is she to do then—’

  ‘God in heaven, brother, where on earth did that come from? You make it sound as though I were deliberately ruining her, or trying to seduce her, is that what you’re implying? I have done nothing—’

  ‘But destroy any chance she might have of making a decent life for herself and her children in the future. You know perfectly well what society must be saying about her. A recently widowed young woman, a gently bred woman, gadding about with a young unmarried man, alone and only months after her husband died. You are destroying her, Roly, treating her as though she were one of your light women who have no reputation to destroy in the first place. Oh, I realise she can refuse your offers of visits to the theatre and the other entertainments you whisk her off to, but she is a beautiful woman who is too young to be widowed, a woman who has never really conformed to the dictates of her own society but has never really done anything that might cause offence to her own class. You are what is described as ‘good company’, witty, amusing, entertaining and, more to the point, very like her dead husband. I presume—’

  Roly Sinclair sprang from the sofa, his face suffused with rage and for a moment Harry thought he was going to strike him. Which would have suited him fine, for the mood he was in, the fury, pain and resentment he felt had him in a state that would love a good fight. He longed to knock his brother’s block off, as they said in Yorkshire, smash him to the ground, and when he got up knock him down again. Roly was doing all the things he longed to do with Lally: taking her about, escorting her to balls and plays and concerts where, since she was in his company, in the company of one of the Sinclair brothers who were prominent members of society, she was not shunned; but just wait until he was gone again on his forthcoming business trip and the men and women who were forced to accept her and smile while she was in the company of a Sinclair would drop her like a hot potato and not one of the women would call on her. She should be in the deepest black, keeping to the seclusion of her own home, at least until a year’s mourning was up but here she was, on Roly’s arm, dressed in all the lovely colours she had favoured as a young, married woman, flaunting herself, as they would see it, in their very faces!

  ‘I take exception to what you are saying, brother,’ Roly snarled, as incensed as Harry. ‘I have done Lally no harm, made no claims on her that could not be shared with the most stiff-necked matron. I treat her with respect as becomes the widow of my oldest friend and I resent your implication that I am doing my best to seduce her. She is as innocent as a . . . as a . . . schoolgirl and I have made no attempt to change that. We are friends who enjoy one another’s company and—’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense. Given half a chance and you would have her—’

  ‘Where, where?’ Roly’s voice was dangerous and he swayed over his brother who still lounged, an after-dinner cigar between his lips, on the sofa on the other side of the fire. ‘In my bed, are you saying, or in her bed? Goddammit, man, that woman of hers watches her like a bloody hawk.’

  ‘So you are saying that but for “that woman” you would have . . .’

  ‘No, confound it, I’m not . . .’ But even as he spoke Rory Sinclair knew that had it not been for Biddy Stevens, who always seemed to be hovering within earshot, he would certainly have done his best to get lovely Lally Fraser into his arms. He was half, well, not a half, but a little bit in love with her, as he had been years ago when good old Chris had married her, but he admitted that when Chris and Lally married, though he had been disappointed, smiling wryly and shrugging his shoulders since there were thousands of pretty girls in the world, he had not been broken-hearted. He doubted whether he could ever fall in love, truly deeply in love, for it was his nature to be light-hearted, light-minded, insouciant. He was never unkind, he believed, not deliberately but, good God, he was only twenty-four and meant not to marry for another ten years. Then it would be to a lady of unimpeachable character, young and beautiful and monied, who would bear him several healthy sons. Even had he loved Lally Fraser to distraction he would not have married her, for she was a poor widow with two sons. It was a shame since she was good company, as dedicated to having fun as he was himself. She made him laugh. She was intelligent and well bred but he must be the first, the only one to know in the biblical sense the woman he married. He had amused himself with Lally and she with him and had seemed to understand, in fact he knew she understood, for she had loved Chris and wanted no entanglements. Still, he would have liked to . . . to . . .

  His thoughts were interrupted by his brother’s bellow as he surged from the depths of the sofa, throwing his cigar into the fire.

  ‘You bastard, if you had half a chance you would . . .’

  Roly turned on his heel and strode towards the door. ‘I’m not listening to this nonsense a moment longer,’ he thundered over his shoulder. ‘You must be mad to think I would dishonour a lovely young woman who was once married to the best chum a chap ever had. She is my friend, just as Chris was my friend and I really don’t know what worm has got into your brain.’ Suddenly he stopped speaking, looking closely at his brother whose face had drained of all its healthy colour and whose eyes were narrowed to what seemed slits of madness. His hands were clenched into furious fists and it was at that point that Roly recognised what was savaging his brother. It was not, as he pretended, concern for the reputation of a friend but something much deeper and for a moment Roly felt compassion, then his young arrogance gathered force.

  ‘You’re in love with her yourself, aren’t you?’ he taunted, taking a step towards Harry. ‘That’s what’s eating you up. The thought that I might get what you covet. Well, let me reassure you, brother. I am not in love with Lally and never will be. I am merely cheering up a woman who has had a bad knock. She is young an
d lovely and had Chris lived would have been, as she had been for three years, the toast of the society in which she moved. I . . . I realise that she is not strictly speaking keeping to the rules of that society but there is no harm in what she and I do together. She deserves a bit of—’

  ‘Fun,’ Harry sneered, moving a step towards his brother.

  ‘Yes, if you must describe it as such and if you imagine that a decent young woman like Lally would . . . would dally with the likes of me then you are a fool. She loved Chris Fraser, and still does.’

  He turned on his heel and, leaving his brother torn with an emotion so strong he was incapable of moving, slammed the door behind him. The servants, who had listened, paralysed, to every word, for how could they not, slowly came to life. Mrs Cannon, who had been the Sinclair housekeeper for many years, began to chivvy the three maids about the kitchen, clearing up the meal the brothers had just eaten. Her voice was inclined to break, for she was deeply shocked.

  ‘Now then, Ivy, finish sideing the table, and you, Annie, give her a hand. Tess,’ who was kitchen-maid, fourteen years old and agog with what she had just heard, ‘start on those pans and I want to see my face in them when you’ve done, d’you hear?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Cannon,’ Tess said humbly, for she was the lowest of the low in the kitchen and at everyone’s beck and call. She ran into the scullery while Ivy and Annie made their way through the kitchen door to the passage, quiet as mice since they had no wish to meet Mr Harry, glancing fearfully at the closed drawing-room door behind which Harry Sinclair was slumped on the sofa, his head in his hands.

  Roly had been at home for six weeks. He was to be off to Europe at the end of the week, he had told Lally, a trip that would take him through France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Austria and Italy and he would be away for several months, but during those six weeks he was in the country he had called most evenings at the Priory. They had gone about a good deal, to balls, concerts and the theatre and even to the exhibition to which Harry had invited her. He had made her feel alive again. He had not ridden over the previous evening and she had been disappointed, but she had eaten her solitary meal, hoping up to the time darkness fell that he might come galloping up to the front door with his usual dash and verve, scattering Barty and Froglet’s carefully raked gravel. He had not come so she had gone to her bed, restless and bored, wondering how she was to manage when he had gone. He had kept her amused, if that was the word, taking her mind off her loss and the emptiness of her days, for when he was there she forgot about the estate, the farms, the problems of keeping it all in heart, and had been the girl who had ridden at the heels of Roly and Chris, who had been carefree with nothing but a bright future, the future the young are entitled to. She had not seen Harry whose guiding hand she had missed but it had not seemed to matter when Roly was there to make her feel young, pretty, a woman again.

  He was at the door the next morning, laughing and joking and teasing Jenny who had answered the bell. He even got a twitch of a smile from Biddy who did not approve of him in the least particular, for did he not threaten her young mistress. Perhaps he meant to marry her, Biddy thought in the depths of her hopeful heart and though she would rather have given her lamb into the safe hands of Harry Sinclair who would return her to her rightful place in society, at least if she wed Roly, despite their dreadful behaviour, her reputation could be salvaged.

  They rode across the park, through the woods and out on to the vast moorland, moving up the track that ran from Moor Wood. Roly had a magnificent seat in the saddle, his wide, laughing mouth shouting something back to her as he urged his gelding up the steep slope that led on to the moor itself. His hair was all a-tangle in the wind, tumbling with boyish disorder above his swooping eyebrows. His grey breeches clung to his strong thighs and buttocks and Lally thought how attractive he was and how she missed him when he was away. He wore no jacket and neither did she and her white cambric shirt could scarce contain her bouncing breasts, the nipples of which could clearly be seen. The fine fabric was taut, pulling at the buttons and her kid breeches, over which today she wore no skirt, revealed the soft curve of her booted calf, the long firm muscles of her thigh and the twin globes of her buttocks. Two handsome young animals intent on enjoying the bright and sunny day. The sky was high, placid and blue and the pale sunshine fell in a golden haze on the two riders. There was a slight breeze which was warm and soaked in the fragrance of the heather and gorse. It moved the shadows cast along the track they rode, rippling through the shoulder-high bracken.

  At last they reached the summit of High Moor and with fluid grace they both sprang from their saddles and with a word to their horses and the black and white setters which had streamed behind them they sauntered across the uneven, spiky grass to stare, sighing, over the vast expanse of purple and yellow moorland that lay beneath them. For several minutes they were silent, for though they did not voice it they both loved this enchanting land. It was beautiful today, soft and mellow, kind and quiet, but they had known days, riding together with Chris, when it had been cold, wet, cruel, biting winds and fierce storms and they had all three loved it just the same. It was theirs. Their land, filled with their memories, of Chris whom they had both loved, of the bewitching past when they were children, and this place, to where they had ridden without words, had been a favourite haunt. They had roamed these moors, the three of them, ever since she had learned to sit a horse, she trailing far behind the boys since she was younger and had not had the strength nor the expertise to keep up. They had been riding since they had been old enough to sit a horse but it had not taken her long to catch up, to be as swift and as adventurous as they, guiding her mount across tumbling streams and wooden bridges and stony paths to huge outcroppings of rock like the one they had reached today.

  Without a word they lowered themselves on to the soft dry grass, leaning their backs against one of the tall, grey-pitted roughcast rocks, shoulder to shoulder, their legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. Still they did not speak, for a feeling of sadness had come over them at the thought that this would be the last time they would be up here together for a long time. It was still July but autumn would be next, to be followed shortly by the winter, a time when the weather would force them to be careful where and when they rode. God knows how long he would be away, Lally brooded and how she should keep herself from losing heart without his merry ways to keep her spirits up.

  ‘I don’t think I can bear it without you, Roly,’ she whispered and at once he turned to her and took her gloved hand in his. ‘You have made me feel so much better, helped me to accept Chris’s death, given me a breathing space. I know I must get on for the sake of the children but it will be hard without you to make life more . . . sparkling. That is what is missing in my life. Sparkle. It’s what Chris gave me, and so have you. I shall miss it, and you.’

  ‘Don’t say that, dear Lally. You will have plenty to keep you occupied with those farms of yours. You have neglected them shamefully while I have been home; no, I’m not blaming you. I have been just as much to blame by encouraging you to play truant. But there is a challenge there for you and you know how much you love a challenge. Remember that gate at the back of Mill House? Chris and I jumped it time and time again and time and time again you tried to do the same. And every time you came off. God, we thought you would break every bone in your body. We pleaded with you to give up but you wouldn’t and at last you did it. But you weren’t satisfied even then and had to do it again. That was a challenge you overcame and so is this. Those farms, the estate belong to Chris’s sons and it’s up to you to keep them safe for them. Old Harry’ll help you, like he did after Chris died.’

  She hung her head and without thought he put his arm about her shoulders. She turned to him, thrusting her face against his chest and began to weep, the emptiness of the days ahead without him in them to cheer her up taking away the staunch resolution to be strong that she had imposed upon herself since Chris’s accident. Her body shook with her desolatio
n, first for her young husband who had been snatched from her so cruelly and then for this man who had been his friend and was hers and was to leave her again. Not quite as Chris had left her since he would be back, but leaving her nonetheless to her sadness and the emptiness of her life.

  ‘Oh, Roly,’ she wept, putting her arm about his neck and lifting her wet face to his, and when his lips met hers he found them eager, warm, parted, moist with her tears and with something else that comes when a female is aroused by a male. Moving their heads, their lips trembled and clung and urgency overtook them, since he was a male and eager to take what seemed to be on offer and she was a female who had been deprived of physical love for many days and nights. Their breathing became ragged as his mouth moved down to her throat which she arched in need, then dipped down into her shirt to the swell of her breasts. His hands invaded her clothing, moving to cup her breasts, taking the nipples, first one then the other and rolling them between excited fingers. He was not gentle, for, spending time with her, he had been deprived of a woman ever since he came home. He moved swiftly, nailing her to the stone at her back, pulling her down in the grass so that her skin rasped against the roughness of the rock leaving bloody tracks, making her wince, his hands busy now with buttons and belts and she was the same for it had been so long . . . so long. The dogs watched, bewildered. Fred stood up and began to whine, then lay down again, her head on her paws, her ears twitching at the strange sounds that were coming from her mistress but Lally did not hear her. Her head was thrown back as her body responded to the delight that had been missing from her life all these months and when he entered her, throwing his own head back as he thrust in and out, she cried out, a long-drawn-out cry that silenced Fred’s whimpers and stilled the many small creatures who had their home on the rolling moorland.

  They lay joined for several awkward moments, for both knew at once that what they had done was a terrible mistake, then he withdrew and sat up, adjusting his clothing, moving away from her, looking off into the distance as she did the same. Her fingers trembled as she buttoned her shirt and pulled her breeches into place. Neither spoke until Roly stood up and moved to the edge of the small plateau where they sat.