Marrying the Mistress

by Juliet Landon

  Naturally, I had to tell you of my lifespan and to give you a choice; to do otherwise would have been barbaric. But you bore the news well, and maybe it was that which gave you a reason to put on a brave face and to give me all I could have wished for in devotion, nursing and loving. I always found it impossible to tell you, dearest beloved Helene, that your loving companionship was the heaven for which I had bargained with my brother. I should have written to you sooner about my adoration.

  You may be wondering, beloved, when my regrets began. Not during those nights of tender lovemaking, to be sure, but on those days when we visited Abbots Mere and I could see how well Burl stuck to the letter of our agreement and, worse, its effect on you. There were times when I wanted to revoke it, to beg him to be a little kinder to you, but it was a risk I dared not take, being selfish, wanting you all for myself. I know now how very unhappy I made you even while you had my protection, yet my regrets on that score were to multiply.

  Two years passed without a sign of my much-wanted heir, and my doctor and I were forced to the conclusion that the infertility was linked to my illness, not to you. You may also have wondered why I never asked you to marry me in those early years, but to be honest I saw no reason to. You will be well provided for when I am no longer with you, dearest Helene, for I have always known that Burl will claim you and our son, especially as he was so far-sighted as to lay claim to my heir’s guardianship, even before he knew the exact circumstances. Moreover, widowhood brings its own complications of inheritance and relationship and, in short, I felt that for you to remain as a spinster would make things simpler for Burl and for you to come together without blame or scandal. For both your sakes, I pray that it has already happened.

  But when I realised I was not likely to produce an heir, I decided to share my concerns with Burl and, once again, beg him to help me. I need not tell you how much he fought against my suggestion, knowing how it would immediately wreck the relationships we had put in place, how distraught you would be by the second inexplicable withdrawal of his affection, how bitter you would have every right to be when you began to realise the purpose of it, and how worried you would be about the initial deception to myself, the one who had provided for you. So I brought to bear all the ammunition to the argument, how I’d already used up two-thirds of my predicted time and how, if you became pregnant by him in the near future, I would have only a few months in which to see my son. Could he deny me that? I asked. Could he also deny himself, and you, one night of bliss as a foretaste of what was to come? Would the damage outweigh the benefits, did he think? Were you likely to allow him access to your bed?

  No, he said, you most certainly would not. You had pride, and who did I think I was talking about…a whore who shares her body with anyone she fancies? He could have one of those any day of the week, he said. He was astonished I could even ask. Yes, he was very angry.

  I begged him, Helene. Yes, it was my doing, not his. I promised him I would not lay an ounce of blame on you or him, but take any offspring as my own, male or female, even though it would look like a miracle. I would love it as my own too. I told him I would not want the details, the how, or when, or where. I would leave it to him, and then to you to break the good news, having not the slightest doubt about the success. It was not, however, the kind of request I could expect to be answered there and then, and indeed he never did answer it in words, only in the deed. And even as I write, I am not in a position to guess how, or even if, he explained himself to you. Needless to say, the very thought of sharing you even briefly with my brother was like a knife wound in my soul.

  Oh, dear Linas, I begin to wonder if you had a soul and, if so, where you hid it. How could anyone use a woman so, without a word to her?

  But although my joy at Jamie’s birth was boundless, dearest Helene, I saw how shame, humiliation and sadness showed through your lovely dark eyes, and how Burl’s coolness towards you was unchanged, and there has not been a day since then when I have not tried hard to justify the impositions I placed on you both for my sake. Yes, to save my face, you lied to everyone for me about our Jamie’s parentage. You swallowed your pride and hid your pain from everyone but Burl and me, yet I suffered not one word of reproach from either of you. I could give you no comfort, my Helene, because that would have been to admit my treachery, and ruin with distrust what were to have been my last few months. As it turned out, the wonders of fatherhood gave me an extended lease of life that I have always accepted as a precious gift from you, Burl and little Jamie. It has been more than I deserve. And now we have worked out the complicated plot and my story is at an end, at last.

  Forgive me, dearest beloved. I have thought too much of my own desires and not enough of yours. When I am gone, you may find it in your heart to understand the kind of love I have for you that asks far more than love is allowed to ask. Or give. Burl has burned for you through all these years in a way I never believed was possible and, if I had not already done enough damage to last one lifetime, I would beg you to listen to him, and believe, if ever he tells you so. His suffering was for my sake, too.

  God Bless you, dearest Helene, and our beloved son. Linas Monkton.

  Yelping, gasping with grief, I put the book down, for it was trembling too much for me to read and my sobs shook my arms uncontrollably. Blinding hot tears crumpled my body into a heap, slamming the book shut between my knees and dropping it to the floor. His writing was so eloquent, yet he had never once hinted at his feelings in spoken words, never remembered special days, never voiced what his heart felt or what he knew death was about to take from him. But worse than that was the way he had abused his brother’s love. I had accused Burl of using me; now I saw how he too had been manipulated, his emotions bribed into submission by Linas’s demands. Knowing his brother’s generosity, Linas had wrung him like a sponge to get what he wanted for his last three years and, although this had caused the birth of our darling Jamie, to do so in such a self-serving fashion at the expense of our happiness was unforgivable. He had asked for understanding, but my wretchedness could not find even the smallest crumb of it.

  The clock struck nine and, as if obeying some kind of signal, I tried to slow my roaring into my handkerchief and clear my mind.

  The tears began again. Stopped again.

  The servants must not hear. They already had.

  There was a tap on the door and Mrs Goode slipped into the room through a haze of my tears. Saying nothing, she came to hold me in her arms, bringing me back to earth with the smoothing and patting of her hands. ‘It’s the funeral isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It’s brought it all back to you. Shall I make you a cup of hot chocolate? I’ll tell Debbie to go and warm your bed. You’ve had a busy day.’ She bent to pick up the book and restore it to the pile, perhaps suspecting something in the handwritten pages.

  ‘No, Goody. Bring me the woollen cloak. I’m going to Stonegate.’

  She took me by the elbows. ‘Can it not wait?’ she whispered.

  I shook my head, hoping she would not ask why.

  ‘Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No, you stay with Jamie. I just want…to…’ Tears flowed again.

  ‘Shh, it’s all right, I know. But you ought not to go out alone.’

  ‘It’s not far. I won’t be long.’

  She brought my cloak and changed my shoes for me, frowning the perplexed footman into silence as I left the house. I clung to the railing beside the ice-covered steps, staggering like a drunk along the slippery pavement that twinkled with new frost under the lamps, passing the dark frontages of Blake Street, most of them shuttered for the night. Linas’s house on Stonegate, now his brother’s, was in darkness except for the brazier stuck into the metal holder beside the door.

  Mr Treddle answered my knock, admirably concealing his surprise at my tear-stained face, extending a kindly hand to help me up the last step, drawing me like a father into the darkened hall as if he needed no explanation for my presence there. ‘My dear lady,’ he said. �
�Come inside.’ It was familiar, I know, but familiarity was what I had come for.

  But if he had asked me why I had come, what I needed, what I would see, I could only have told him that I needed to be where Linas and I had been together, to try to make some sense out of those years, to chronicle the events and try to justify the pain he had inflicted on his over-generous brother. I pointed to the beautiful winding wrought-iron staircase. ‘Up,’ I whispered.

  ‘Allow me to light your way, ma’am.’ Picking up the hall lamp, he went very slowly ahead of me, waiting on the top landing for me to indicate the room I had once called my own. Passing through the doorway, now painted a fresh pale grey with gold beading, I saw that nothing inside had been changed, not even by a detail, same bed-curtains, same rather threadbare carpet, same towels and soap on the wash-stand, so dowdy compared to the rest of the house, newly decorated. ‘Would you like me to draw the curtains, ma’am?’ Mr Treddle said. ‘And I can have a fire lit in no time, if you wish?’

  ‘I only want to sit a while, Mr Treddle, thank you.’

  ‘Very good, ma’am. I’m downstairs if you need anything.’

  ‘I’ll ring,’ I said. The room smelled musty, damp and unloved.

  Like a wraith he disappeared, and I sank down upon the velvet-cushioned window-seat that overlooked Stonegate’s frosty cobbles, just as I had done countless times before to gather my thoughts together from the jumble of parts that intertwined like the figures in a dance. I had believed myself to be the one most wronged, the one most hurt by hopeless love, the one who had sacrificed most for Linas. Now I saw that it was not so. Burl had loved and wanted me and I had never known it, thinking that I was no more or less than a woman to be caught, and bedded, and then discarded once she had fulfilled her purpose. Now, all his coldness could be explained by Linas’s dying wish that he should leave me well alone.

  Mine. You belong to me, Helene Follet. Me alone. I have you at last.

  Those words, fiercely spoken against my cheek, had haunted me for days, for they were words of possession, not love, though I had been right in my hunch that comfort was what he most needed then. It was what he’d needed for years, though he’d hidden it much better than me. How he must have suffered.

  Sighing, I went to lie on my bed still, with my cloak wrapped round me, my mind unwinding the ravelled story that was too full of alternatives, assumptions and speculations to offer me any reason at all for forgiveness. The only mitigating factor I could dredge up from my charity was that Linas had been very ill, and desperate, and probably very afraid, and that in such an atmosphere, his resentment of Burl’s success with women finally drove him to play God, before it was too late.

  Downstairs, the muffled slam of a heavy door broke into my tangled reverie, hurting my head, but I thought no more of it until my bedroom door opened to let in another light and another figure, and then the cold icy scent of the night. Horses, leather, larches after rain.

  ‘Burl!’ I croaked. ‘Oh Burl…dearest man…dearest beloved.’

  Shadows lurched and skidded across the bed-curtains, and then I was being pulled up into his arms and held close with my wet face warmly nudged by his. Our lips met and breathed soft words into each other’s mouths, words of wanting and the pain of loving too much.

  ‘I didn’t know, Burl. I didn’t know until now,’ I sobbed. ‘I had no idea that’s how it was for you. And I love you…love you…have always loved you…and you should not have allowed him to do this to us. It was so very cruel, my darling. Your pain, Burl, when…’

  ‘Hush, my love. Sweetheart,’ he whispered deep, low, velvety words that warmed me like fur, ‘my only love, my darling Helene. You must not weep for me, lass. Come now, no more tears. It’s done. Past. How long have you been here weeping?’

  ‘Since I read it…oh, Burl. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘For what, dear heart?’

  ‘For my accusations. I’ve been so unfair and selfish. You did it for love of Linas, as you told me, but I thought it was some cold-hearted scheme you’d both devised to get Linas a son.’

  ‘It was not cold-hearted on my part, my love. Anything but that. I had strong objections, but he made it too difficult for me to refuse him. I ought to have done, I know, but that day at Abbots Mere the chance arose and I took it. You were so unhappy, and I thought that just for one night I could show you how it could be. It was wrong, I admit it, but I had wanted you for so long and I felt that you wanted me too. Darling, it was never my desire to hurt you so much. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘I didn’t know you loved me, Burl. You kept it hidden.’

  ‘I dared not let a word pass between us. That was part of the bargain. He pleaded with me to let him have first chance, thinking it would be for only three years, but then he took three more. How could any of us have known that would happen? It was almost unbearable. I didn’t want his death, sweetheart, but I wanted you so desperately.’

  ‘I think I might have left him, Burl, but for you. It was you who kept me here, that and the thought that I might lose Jamie. He was my comfort, my part of you that I never expected to have. If I’d known you loved me, I could have borne it all with patience, but he told you to leave me alone.’

  ‘I couldn’t let you suspect it. You would not have been able to conceal your feelings. You’ve never been good at that, have you, sweetheart? But how did you discover all this? Has he left you a letter?’

  ‘Yes, I found it this evening. Perhaps I ought to let you read it.’

  ‘Poor Linas. So he explained his reasons?’

  ‘Yes, and now that he’s gone, Burl, I ought not to criticise him to you. He was your twin and my lover, and I suppose he gave us more than he demanded from us. At least he kept us together, didn’t he? Like it or not.’

  ‘I would have found a way, sweetheart, never fear. There’s never been a woman, not one, that I would have waited six years for. Until you.’ His arms tightened around me and, in his kiss, I felt all the longing and desolation of those six years, the ache of desire and the release of love that had been so long denied by us both. ‘I knew I’d have to work hard to get you back,’ he murmured, stroking the hair off my damp temples, ‘but I didn’t realise how useful your family would be, and the snow and ice, then the floods. And all that nonsense talk of rewards and prices, my darling, was only a device to trap you into accepting me. I had to do something to make your mind up. Think no more of it. For you, I would do whatever it takes, family or no family. So don’t think too harshly of Linas if that’s what he did too. They were his last years and his only chance to be the proud lover of Miss Helene Follet and, who knows, if I’d been in the same boat, I might have done the same.’

  ‘You wouldn’t, Burl. You’re too big-hearted. You would never forget your sense of fairness. Linas seemed to forget everything.’

  ‘We have six years of lost ground to make up. Shall I take you back home now, so we can make a start? And will you marry me now, Miss Follet, without any ifs and buts? No bargains? No delays?’

  ‘I will marry you, Burl Winterson,’ I said, feeling a strange sense of elation rush into my chest like the first stirrings of a young woman’s heart. Breathless with happiness, I took hold of his head as I had done on that April night four years ago, letting my fingers roam in the semi-darkness to remind myself that this was not a dream. His skin had warmed, his lips kissed my fingertips as they passed and I knew I was not dreaming. ‘Yes, take me home. I have things to show you,’ I said.

  Under my fingers the lips smiled and whispered. ‘You would not prefer to stay here, in your own room?’

  ‘Not until it’s been decorated,’ I said. ‘A pretty spring yellow, I think.’

  Dear Mr Treddle ushered us out with a smile at my blotchy face. ‘Goodnight, Miss Follet. Goodnight, my lord. The step is icy…take care…hold the railing, ma’am.’

  * * *

  That night, the short walk to my home was punctuated by several stops to remind ourselves and each other that, however many
questions still awaited answers, the main one had at long last been resolved. Yes, it was true. Burl had loved me from the very beginning, and although I might have argued that for him to accept Linas’s suggestion without consulting me was less than gentlemanly, I found it easier to forgive Burl than Linas. Though we had both suffered for it, we had also lived off that brief memory for four years, gaining an adorable child as a consolation that bound us together irrevocably. I could not blame him for that any longer. It was time to let the past take care of itself.

  For me, the day had been packed with incident, most of which I was not at liberty to talk about. For Burl, who had been to Foss Beck again, the day had been a tiring one and he had plenty to tell me. Yet in the dim warm intimacy of my room at Blake Street, there were more important matters to keep us occupied than our respective families, for now our loving could take on a new dimension that would stretch ahead into years of trust and understanding. I had never thought that particular freedom would be mine so soon.

  Setting all modesty aside in his honour, I first acted as his valet to make him comfortably naked in the chair beside the fire with a glass of wine, and myself standing some distance away where the lamplight could catch at only the palest surfaces. Although I was tired and emotionally drained, my slow and erotic removal of each item of clothing was suitably lethargic, like that of a sleepy woman who has other things on her mind. Each garter, each stocking was peeled off and discarded with a tantalising display of my body, just enough to delight him and, although he was relaxed and silent, I knew how focused was his attention and how delicious this was for him after a long day attending to my family’s welfare.

  Pretending to be alone, I took my time with each button, hook and tie, letting one side slip a little, then another, loosening my hair to reveal and conceal, swinging it aside, lifting it and letting it drop for me to make all those minute examinations of this limb, that hand, that foot, which we women make at such times as a matter of routine. Sliding my chemise down over one hip, inch by slow inch, I held it before me to conceal that part of me which I have never found particularly attractive, finally stepping out of the soft cotton fabric with the deep broderie-anglais hem while looking at him through the screen of my hair. I could go no further in my pretence.