John led her up the stairs to his living area and settled her on to the large sofa that took up most of the room.
‘Cup of tea or something stronger?’ he asked and went over to riddle the stove.
It was not a cold day but Rachel was shivering. ‘Tea, please.’
He filled a kettle, placed it on the stove, then found a rug and arranged it round her shoulders. ‘Now, tell me all.’
She told him everything that had happened, spilling out the words without thought, desperate to make him understand how terrible Alice’s situation was. John quietly listened, made tea, found cups and milk. He said nothing but she knew he understood her distress and his calm presence was comforting.
‘He’ll kill her, I know he will! Oh, not physically perhaps, but she’ll collapse, he’ll put her in an asylum, refuse to let her see her child and then she’ll die!’ Tears started to pour down her cheeks.
‘Rachel, dearest, you can’t know that.’ John sat beside her, took out a handkerchief and tenderly wiped her eyes. ‘I’m sure you can prevent any such event happening.’
‘There’ll be nothing I can do,’ she said bitterly. ‘You don’t know Joshua Peters.’
‘But surely if he behaves so badly to her, she’ll leave him again.’
‘He’ll make sure he keeps the child, he’ll have a legal right. You don’t know Alice either. She’s fixated, says it’s her duty to stay with him.’ Rachel burst into passionate sobs.
‘Hush, hush,’ he said, gathering her into his arms, holding her close.
After a little, the sobs grew less and he wiped her eyes again. She closed them, the tears gone but hiccupping breaths worked through her body. ‘Rachel, Rachel,’ he said softly. She felt him kiss her eyelids and tidy damp strands of hair away from her face. The shivers running through her felt different and she found herself pressing against his body, lifting her face to his and slipping her arms around his neck. His hair was unexpectedly soft and she gave a little gasp.
He clasped her tightly, his breath came faster, and his mouth found hers. After a moment both their lips opened and she strained against him as the shivers ran through her more and more strongly. Never before had she experienced anything like this.
Then she felt him draw back. ‘No,’ she cried, unable to bear the removal of his arms. ‘Please!’
‘Oh, Rachel, you don’t know what you do to me,’ he breathed. ‘A man can only take so much.’
She ran her hands up into that soft hair and dragged his head down to hers again, pressed her mouth against his, forced her tongue between his lips. ‘I need you.’ It came out as a moan. ‘Please, please.’
Their clothes went everywhere, thrown off as each gazed at the other as though they were under some form of spell. Then the last piece of interfering fabric was discarded and they could entwine bare limbs on the deep sofa’s welcoming embrace until both their bodies seemed one.
Afterwards she lay against his chest, playing with the fair curls that grew there, while he stroked the long tresses that had come loose in her abandonment.
Rachel gave a deep sigh of pure contentment. ‘I never knew it could be like that,’ she murmured.
He kissed her nose. ‘It isn’t always, my darling.’
Rachel gave a gurgle of delight and kissed his left nipple. ‘So I’m special?’
‘Very, very special.’
Rachel could not imagine that Alice had experienced anything approaching so sublime a moment with Joshua but this was surely what she should be sharing with Daniel. She hated the thought that her sister should be so deprived; worse, that she should have to endure the caresses of such a man as Joshua Peters. There must be something Rachel could do to help her.
John pulled the rug over them both, tucking it in around their bodies. Another thought popped into Rachel’s head and she could not help laughing out loud.
‘What is so funny, my darling?’
‘I was thinking how horrified Aunt Lydia would be if she knew of my behaviour. She’s always saying how dreadful the Bohemian set are, that they’ve got the morals of alley cats.’ She pulled herself up and looked down at his blunt face with its warm brown eyes and kissed the scar above his right eyebrow. ‘Miaouw!’
Chapter Eight
Ursula missed Alice. While the quiet girl had been at Mrs Maple’s boarding house, she had had a friend to share her evenings with. The difficulty of Alice’s position, her listlessness and obvious distress at Daniel Rokeby’s continued absence from London, none of this had prevented her from being a pleasant companion. She didn’t have Rachel’s energy and intelligence but Alice was closer to Ursula in age and, despite the difficulties of her situation, could manage to see the humour in some of her tales of life working for Mrs Bruton.
There was the afternoon her employer had held one of her ‘At Homes’, with Ursula helping to serve the teas, and had announced in wondering tones how taken aback she had been by a performance of Hamlet she had attended the previous evening with friends. ‘I expected something out of the ordinary but to me it seemed as though the author had merely cobbled together a whole stream of quotations.’
There had been a moment’s stunned silence, then an elderly gentleman seated in a wing chair had stamped his cane approvingly upon the floor. ‘That’s the wittiest remark I’ve heard in a long while,’ he wheezed. Relieved laughter broke out.
‘My employer looked puzzled but gratified,’ Ursula said to a laughing Alice. For a moment she had sounded almost carefree.
Then there had been the King Charles spaniel puppy Mrs Bruton had acquired. ‘He can be my little guard dog,’ she said to Ursula. ‘And you will not mind taking little Robbie for walks, will you.’ It had not been a question. But Ursula did not mind at all, she was very fond of dogs and the animal was great fun. Mrs Bruton equipped herself with a dog whistle. ‘Only Robbie can hear it,’ she said and demonstrated, blowing through it and watching how the dog’s ears moved and his head went on one side, as though wondering what his mistress wanted him to do.
Ursula found the whistle a great help when she took the little dog into Hyde Park for a run. Then one day Robbie managed to get hold of Mrs Bruton’s finest nightdress, the one with the Brussels lace, pulling it downstairs behind him while he tossed the bodice in his mouth as he descended.
‘So I’m afraid I was instructed to return Robbie to the breeder who had supplied him,’ Ursula told Alice ruefully. ‘Now she keeps the dog whistle in her handbag as a reminder of him.’
Alice had laughed at that as well. What seemed to please her most, however, was questioning Ursula about America and the possibilities for employment on both the east and west coasts.
‘You see, Daniel talks about us going to live on the continent, it being so much cheaper there. But Mr Peters says that all the Europeans are liars and cheats. He does business with them, you see, and has lived there as well.’
‘I was educated in Paris,’ said Ursula gently. ‘We found the Parisians were very proud. They seemed to look down on us foreignors, but I don’t think we were cheated.’
‘Mr Peters was quite adamant.’ Alice looked at her with wide open eyes. ‘He said quite the worst were those in Cairo.’
‘Ah, well, my only experience of Egyptians was a girl who was very lovely but not very intelligent. She could never manage the French subjunctive.’
‘Oh, nor me,’ said Alice mournfully. ‘Mr Peters also said that he fears the Germans.’
‘Fears?’
‘Well, he says they want to be, as he puts it, “top dog”. The Kaiser is very jealous of the British Empire, he says.’
‘I’m afraid I know nothing about that,’ said Ursula, who disliked talking about Mr Peters. ‘But there are plenty of opportunities in America for a man with drive and ambition,’ she added, getting out the playing cards that were always with her for a session of the two-handed patience she had discovered that Alice enjoyed.
After the girl had returned to her husband, Ursula fought a feeling of lo
neliness. It had been a long time since she had been able to enjoy spending time with someone so close to her in age, especially one who seemed to share her taste in books.
Ursula had hoped to hear how Alice was faring back with her husband. But there was no news. A note to Miss Fentiman, politely hoping that her sister was in good health, had not been answered. Ursula could not help being worried: how had Mr Peters reacted to his wife’s return? How was Alice managing without Daniel? On the surface, the girl seemed gentle and malleable, the last person, in fact, to make the scandalous decision to leave her husband for another man. A scandalous decision, yes, and one that Ursula was sure had required considerable courage – and she was equally sure that Alice had needed to summon up even more courage to abandon her new love and return to the thoroughly unpleasant bully that was Joshua Peters.
Ursula almost considered approaching Thomas Jackman to see if he had any news. But she still could not forgive him for taking employment with such a horrid man as Peters.
* * *
Some ten days after Alice had left the boarding house, Ursula arrived at Wilton Crescent to find Mrs Bruton handsomely attired in a new outfit of pale grey crepe elaborately designed with pleated panels on skirt and sleeves offset with a large number of moulded gilt buttons.
‘We are to take up Count Meyerhoff’s invitation to visit the Maison Rose,’ said Mrs Bruton. ‘You look most handsome, my dear,’ she added, surveying her secretary.
As Ursula had left the previous evening, Mrs Bruton asked her to pay particular attention to her appearance the next day, ‘For I have a little plan in mind,’ she’d added mysteriously.
Mrs Bruton was always full of ‘little plans’ and occasionally warned Ursula that the following day she should dress as ‘a woman of leisure’. Ursula had accompanied her employer to Kew Gardens, to various exhibitions, and to sample tea at Fortnum and Mason’s, which had proved a great treat.
It was for these occasions that Ursula was grateful for several cast-off outfits given her by the Countess of Mountstanton. ‘By the time I can discard my mourning,’ Helen had said in bitter tones, ‘these will all be out of fashion.’ Today, therefore, Ursula had abandoned black for a pale blue shantung costume that matched Mrs Bruton’s for style.
They were bound for Mayfair. The distance from Wilton Crescent was not far; Ursula would have been happy to walk but this did not suit Mrs Bruton. So the young lad who performed a number of menial duties in the Bruton establishment had been sent to find and bring a hansom cab to the house.
‘I would not like my new footwear to suffer,’ Mrs Bruton said while they were waiting. She stretched out a slim ankle in a small soft grey suede bootee. ‘Particularly since we are to visit a fashion house.’
It was nearly two weeks since Count Meyerhoff’s note had arrived. Thinking that it might be her duty to remind her employer of the invitation, Ursula had mentioned the matter.
‘Oh, my dear, I cannot seem to be too eager. No, we shall go in a little while.’ Today it seemed the ‘little while’ had arrived.
‘Now,’ Mrs Bruton said as they settled themselves in the hansom, her white-gloved hands clasped over the stem of a dainty parasol. ‘I met Mrs Trenchard yesterday at a charity event – do you know, I had no idea there were quite so many worthy causes chasing one’s money – well, I asked Mrs Trenchard if she had heard anything more of that extraordinary man who gatecrashed my tea party. And she told me that her niece, his wife, was now home with him It seems that she had not left but was in a delicate state that required medical attention. In other words, she is with child. Would you not have thought her husband would have known that?’
Ursula murmured something non-committal and wondered again how Alice was surviving in the Peters’ household.
‘Mrs Trenchard told me that the girl is in good heart. Is that not also surprising? To be in “good heart” married to such an unpleasant fellow?’ Mrs Bruton did not wait for a comment from her companion. ‘Obviously this is some story concocted to cover Mrs Peters’ desertion. Well, that is no surprise. For a wife to leave her husband! Such social ruination. To hear, though, that Mr Peters has accepted her return is interesting. But, then, such passion as he displayed in my drawing room. I could almost forgive him for ruining my little party.’
For once Ursula found herself lost for words.
Their cab had been halted in traffic at Hyde Park Corner, now the way was suddenly cleared and the horse whipped into something approaching a trot.
‘I wonder what difference the advent of the motor car will make to London traffic,’ Ursula said firmly.
‘Why, I cannot believe that anything so crude and uncomfortable will be around for very long.’ Mrs Bruton sounded astonished that anyone could think differently. ‘So noisy, so inefficient and the mess it makes of one’s appearance with the wind and the dust, and the inconvenience to other road users! No, I am confident we shall not see the reliable horse vanishing from Piccadilly.’ She waved a hand up the broad thoroughfare they were making their way along in fits and starts.
At that moment the horse, brought to another stop by the traffic, defecated, the result falling in a steaming pile just below their feet. Mrs Bruton’s nose twitched but she said nothing.
The cab eventually drew up outside an imposing mansion.
‘I would have expected nothing less of the count,’ murmured Mrs Bruton as they climbed a gracious flight of stairs that would not have looked out of place in a stately home.
On the first floor a heavy, dark mahogany door bore a shining brass plate that declared: Maison Rose. Ursula pressed the bell.
A pleasant girl attired in a white coat that exuded a clinical aura, greeted and invited them into a large, well-appointed salon and took their names. ‘Please seat yourselves,’ she said. ‘I will tell Madame Rose that you await.’
‘It was Count Meyerhoff who invited me to visit,’ Mrs Bruton said with just a hint of disapproval. ‘Is he here?’
‘If you will be seated, Madam, I will enquire.’ The girl disappeared.
‘What a strange uniform for the staff of a couture house.’ Mrs Bruton said, seating herself. ‘Hmm, it seems no expense has been spared,’ she added in tones of deep satisfaction.
The salon was furnished in the style of Louis XVI; the paintings on the wall, though, were modern, colourful and impressionistic. A table covered in a white linen cloth stood near the window with chairs on either side, looking as though it waited for two diners to be seated; there was, though, no cutlery nor glassware, indeed, the surface was quite bare. Two large vitrines set against the walls held a variety of bottles and jars on their glass shelves.
‘Surely this cannot be a pharmacy?’ exclaimed Ursula.
At that moment a man entered. ‘My dear Eugenie, you are here!’ he exclaimed, coming over and taking both Mrs Bruton’s hands in his. ‘I had almost despaired of Maison Rose ever being honoured with a visit from the beautiful Madame Bruton.’
Mrs Bruton blushed as Count Meyerhoff, it could only be he, raised first her right and then her left gloved hand almost to his lips, stopping in the correct manner before actually making contact.
‘What a delightful picture you make,’ he said, dropping her hands and stepping away as though to survey her from head to toe. ‘It has been too long.’ His English was very fluent but he had the slightest of continental accents that was immediately attractive.
Ursula found herself staring at the count. A compact figure of average height, aged, she thought, in his mid to late thirties, he was dressed in a devastatingly tailored dark suit with a heavy gold watch chain stretched across a silver-grey brocade waistcoat. His face showed a good bone structure but was perhaps a little too fleshy. He had a straight nose and well-shaped mouth. What, though, drew and held her fascinated gaze was his head of thick, glossy, and prematurely white hair. The contradiction with his no more than middle-aged physical appearance gave him an almost unearthly air and underlined a sense of easy sophistication.
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p; Mrs Bruton sat enjoying his attention.
Count Meyerhoff clapped his hands. ‘But you must meet Madame Rose!’
As though she had been waiting for her cue, a statuesque female entered. Blonde hair was severely drawn back from a sculpted face with high cheekbones. Flashing, tiger-gold eyes compensated for a beaked nose and thin mouth. A well-cut white linen coat skimmed an Amazonian figure.
‘An honour to meet you, Madame Bruton,’ she said, advancing with her hand held out. ‘I hear from the count of your style and elegance. Also how Mr Bruton was such a man comme il faut. I mourn for your loss.’
Madame Rose had a much stronger accent than the count’s and it was not Austrian. Ursula cast her memory back to her Parisian finishing school with its collection of girls from different countries for one that matched.
‘Come, please to sit for my examination.’ Madame Rose’s tone was pleasant but firm. She guided her visitor to the white-clothed table, placed her in one of the chairs, and sat opposite.
‘The chapeau, it shall be removed, yes?’ Mrs Bruton was wearing a charming, wide-brimmed hat in grey straw decorated with scarlet roses. The assistant had returned and now efficiently removed first pins and then hat. ‘Now, we shall see.’
The table was not wide and Madame Rose was able to take Mrs Bruton’s face in her hands and turn it gently towards the light, examining it with serious attention.
The count approached an interested Ursula. He gave her a small bow with a click of his heels. ‘Count Meyerhoff at your service, Fraulein.’
‘Ursula Grandison, amanuensis to Mrs Bruton.’ She offered her hand.
He held it for a moment. She was amused to realise he was not going to raise it to his lips, the way he had Mrs Bruton’s, and that his eyes were an unusual, very pale olive green.
‘I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Fraulein Grandison. You are, I think, from America?’ The pale eyes were fixed on her face and something in the way he looked at her sent an involuntary shiver down Ursula’s back. She told herself not to be ridiculous. This was a charming man, a friend of Mrs Bruton’s; not some sinister foreigner. Yet, beneath that suave demeanour there was something that reminded her of the lions she had seen in the menagerie: dangerous power rippling unseen through relaxed bodies. She smiled pleasantly.
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