Lady Allerton's Wager

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘There is the mistletoe,’ Marcus said, a wicked gleam suddenly in his eye. He pointed to the beams above her head. ‘If you would care to glance up, my lady…’

  Beth evaded the snare deftly. ‘Hmm. I think not, my lord. I would prefer to dance!’

  The country dance was ending and the impromptu orchestra swung straight into the next tune. Beth clapped her hands.

  ‘Oh! The Furry Dance! I have not danced this since I was a child!’

  The dancing was fast and furious, and bore little resemblance to the sedate entertainment of a London ballroom. Beth managed one country dance with Marcus before he was snatched away from her and she was whirled into a jig by one of the village lads. They had no shyness in approaching her and she barely had any rest during the evening as the old folk dances of her childhood and familiar country airs intermingled. The dancing became progressively less decorous as the evening went on and finally she was swept into the lilting rhythm of something called the Brawl, and ended up face to face with Marcus, as she had begun. Dark eyes blazing, he swept her into his arms.

  ‘A kiss under the mistletoe!’ one of the village lads shouted, energetically setting the example with his own partner.

  Beth saw Marcus grin. ‘It is customary,’ he murmured, and before she could reply he bent his head and kissed her. His lips were gentle at first, but Beth could not conceal her instinctive response and he crushed her to him, unleashing a passion in both of them that could not be denied. When he let her go and steadied her with a hand on her arm, Beth felt dizzy and confused, aware of the curiosity and approval on the faces all about her.

  Marcus kept a protective arm about her as he steered her towards the refreshments and someone pressed another glass of Puffin Punch into her hands.

  ‘This is probably a mistake,’ Beth said hopelessly, aware that she was already more than a little inebriated. ‘If you do not wish me to be drunk, my lord—’

  ‘Marcus, remember?’ Marcus was smiling down at her in a way that made Beth feel distinctly unsteady. ‘My dear Beth, I should be delighted to see you a little foxed if it makes you more receptive to my advances! Would you care to see the castle gardens by moonlight?’

  ‘Marcus, it has been snowing these five days past!’ Beth said severely. ‘If it is your wish that we catch our deaths—’

  ‘Then perhaps we could watch the snow falling from Lady Salome’s orangery?’ Marcus suggested, a glint of amusement in his eyes. ‘That would be most romantic and so very pretty…’

  ‘Lady Salome would scarce approve!’ Beth said lightly. The idea held much appeal but she was no green girl to fall for such a suggestion. She knew exactly what would happen once the orangery doors were closed behind them.

  ‘Marcus, why do you not take Beth to see the view from the orangery?’ Lady Salome said, appearing beside them with a huge glass of Puffin Punch clasped in her hands. ‘It would be so very pretty with all the snow!’

  ‘Exactly what I have been saying, ma’am!’ Marcus agreed, whilst Beth smothered her giggles. ‘Come now, Lady Allerton, surely you cannot resist such a recommendation!’

  ‘She is matchmaking,’ Beth said, as Marcus tucked her arm through his and steered her firmly out of the hall and along the corridor to the orangery. ‘Or making an alliance to save Fairhaven, perhaps!’

  ‘I imagine all the villagers are behind her!’ Marcus agreed. He held open the orangery doors. ‘There…and is that not as pretty as I promised it would be?’

  Beth moved forward to the big windows, feeling the cold coming from the glass in contrast to the warmth of the room behind. The bare branches of the orange and lemon trees struck spiky shadows across the floor. The snow brushed softly against the windows, melting as it ran down the glass. Outside, nothing could be seen but the soft darkness and the falling flakes.

  Beth turned. Marcus was standing just inside the door, his face shadowed, but a faint smile on his lips. She felt puzzled. She had been certain that he would kiss her as soon as they were alone and she had been ready, waiting even. Such sweet pleasure could not be denied even if she was uncertain where it was leading. Yet now he made no move towards her and she felt confused—and more than a little disappointed.

  ‘It is very pretty, my lord.’ Her tone was cool as she struggled to master her feelings. ‘However, I think I should retire now, if you will excuse me—’

  ‘I will escort you to your room,’ Marcus murmured.

  Beth looked him in the eye. ‘I am not likely to become lost, my lord.’

  ‘No, but you are a little intoxicated—’

  ‘I am not foxed!’ Beth said indignantly, clutching the nearest orange tree for support and belying her words. ‘I may be a little merry—’

  ‘More than a little,’ Marcus said, lips twitching.

  ‘But it is a most pleasant feeling…’

  ‘Not to be recommended on a daily basis, however.’

  ‘Dear me…’ Beth wavered a little ‘…you have become most censorious, my lord!’ She had reached the orangery door and looked up into his face. ‘Yet it seems to me that, for all your severity, you are not above taking advantage!’

  ‘It is well-nigh impossible,’ Marcus said solemnly, ‘and I swear you are deliberately tempting me…’

  He took a step forward and drew her into his arms. His lips touched her cheek. ‘Dear Lady Allerton, have I told you how much I esteem and admire you?’

  ‘No,’ Beth said, determined to be prosaic despite the excitement racing through her blood, ‘you have not.’

  ‘Well, I do.’ Marcus’s mouth grazed the corner of hers. Beth stood quite still repressing the urge to press closer to him. He took her chin in his hand and brushed his thumb across her lower lip. Beth felt a shudder go straight through her. Desire swept over her in a crashing wave, leaving her thoroughly shaken.

  ‘My lord—’

  ‘Marcus, remember…’ Marcus’s voice was husky. He kissed her lightly, slowly, his lips just touching hers. Beth made a small, inarticulate sound deep in her throat and melted against him.

  ‘Marcus…’

  ‘Mmm…no.’ Marcus drew back slightly. ‘Beth, there is something I must ask you. Will you marry me?’

  For a moment Beth clung to him, her senses still adrift, then her mind focused on what he had said.

  ‘Marry you? I don’t think…What…? Why…?’

  She lost the thread as Marcus took her earlobe between his teeth and bit gently. ‘I want to marry you, Beth. I want you very much.’

  Beth’s eyes, a cloudy silver grey, searched his face. ‘Marcus, I cannot think properly if you keep kissing me.’

  ‘Fortunately, there is no necessity to think. Will you marry me? Here on Fairhaven? Say yes.’

  ‘Because of Fairhaven?’

  ‘Devil take Fairhaven! I want you, not the island!’

  Marcus was kissing her again fiercely, robbing her of breath. Beth realised that he had abandoned the idea of a gentle approach, abandoned restraint. Her whole body shook with the force of his passion—and of her own, for she was wrapping her arms round his neck to pull him to her with an urgent need that matched his own. Her body was besieged by heat and desire, desperate to be closer to his.

  There was an insistent tapping on the orangery window behind them. Beth spun round.

  ‘Marcus!’ Lady Salome was peering at them through the glass. ‘How much longer do you need? We are all waiting for an announcement!’

  Beth laughed shakily. ‘My guardian angel!’

  ‘With the devil’s own timing,’ Marcus said ruefully. ‘Very well, Aunt Salome. We will be with you shortly.’ He took both of Beth’s hands in his. In the pale, white light of the snowbound conservatory, Beth saw him smile faintly.

  ‘So what do you think, my love? If you do not like the idea you need only say!’

  Beth smiled shyly. ‘I do quite like the idea—’ she confessed, and got no further as Marcus swept her back into his arms again.

  Chapter Nine

>   ‘I fear I must be leaving you for a trip to the mainland,’ Lady Salome said dolefully to Beth, leaning on her hoe and tucking the ends of her orange and purple scarf more firmly inside her green velvet coat. They were standing in the castle garden, where Lady Salome had been using the hoe to break the ice on the fishpond, so that the golden carp could breathe. Beth could see the faint flash of a fin deep in the gloom at the bottom of the pond. She hoped that the carp were warmer than she was, or at least more able to withstand the cold.

  ‘Drat this frost!’ Lady Salome proclaimed. ‘We cannot be doing with a hard winter! Not when there is so much to do about the island!’

  ‘Why are you leaving, Lady Salome?’ Beth asked, as they crunched across the fresh snow to the castle door.

  ‘A letter from St John!’ Lady Salome said. ‘He has been delayed in Exeter and asks that I join him. He is worried that we may be away for Christmas and what our poor, benighted islanders will do for pastoral care in the meantime is not to be imagined! I suspect that there will be any number of christenings to attend to next autumn!’

  Beth giggled. ‘Surely the Bishop will send a curate to take care of your flock here?’

  Lady Salome humphed. ‘Very likely, but it will not be the same! And indeed, my dear—’ she fixed Beth with a stern gaze ‘—I cannot like leaving you alone here with Marcus, for all that you are betrothed! It is most irregular!’

  Beth blushed and made a little business of wiping all the snow from her boots before she followed Lady Salome into the warmth of the hall.

  ‘You know that we intend to leave Fairhaven in a few weeks, Lady Salome!’ she said. ‘I have promised to join my cousins at Mostyn for Christmas and Marcus is going to Trevithick, and the wedding will probably be in the spring—’

  ‘It is what happens in the next week that concerns me,’ Lady Salome said darkly. ‘It is easy to stray from the path of righteousness! And without me here to act as chaperon—well, the descent into hell is easy, but there is no turning back!’

  Beth tried not to smile. To her mind, being seduced by Marcus would be heaven rather than hell, but she could scarcely express such inappropriate remarks to Lady Salome.

  ‘I really do not think that you need to worry, Lady Salome!’ she said wistfully. ‘Marcus has been a very pattern of propriety these last three days since the dance!’

  Lady Salome looked unconvinced. ‘You mark my words, child—once a rake! Still…’ her face softened ‘…I do believe that Marcus truly loves you! It is a blessing to see it!’

  Beth was not so convinced. Although she did not think that Marcus had proposed merely to reach a compromise over Fairhaven, she was not certain that he loved her. She was even beginning to doubt that he desired her for, although he had been ardent in his pursuit of her before their betrothal, since the dance he had been positively distant. Beth knew that Marcus was deeply engrossed in the plans for the estate, even more so now that he knew there would be her money to back his projects. Even so, she thought he might have been a little more attentive as they were so newly engaged.

  The week following Lady Salome’s departure did nothing to change this view. Marcus either worked in his study with Colin McCrae or was out and about the island. He and Beth dined together in the evenings, took a pot of tea like any old married couple and sat chatting, reading or playing cards. When it was time for Beth to retire, Marcus would escort her to the bottom of the stairs, light her candle for her and give her a chaste peck on the cheek. It was becoming so frustrating that Beth swore to herself that she would cast herself into Marcus’s arms the next night just to see how he reacted. She was tolerably certain that he would simply disentangle himself and ask her if she was feeling unwell. It was as though the passion that had flared between them had never existed at all.

  Now that Lady Salome had gone to the mainland, Beth found herself taking over many of that redoubtable spinster’s responsibilities towards the islanders. She would visit the sick or call in at the school and she kept a keen eye on Lady Salome’s garden, knowing that her future aunt-in-law would never forgive her if the orange trees died or the fish perished. On days when the weather was crisp and fine she would sometimes walk along the shore or over the hills, delighting in the beauty of the island and the freedom of the open air. Once, when she had returned to her room at the castle after a scramble over a rocky beach, Beth had looked at her reflection in the mirror and wondered what on earth Charlotte would say if only she could see her now; her hair was all tumbled and windblown and her cheeks flushed from the cold air. There was a long rent in her skirt where it had snagged on the rocks and her petticoat was stained equally with mud and seawater. Decidedly she did not look like a lady, or at least not the sort of lady who flourished on the rarefied air of a London drawing room. Charlotte would despair of her.

  November slid into December. It was a full two weeks since Lady Salome had left for Exeter and still they had had no word of whether she and St John would be returning for Christmas or whether a curate would be sent in their place. Beth knew that Marcus was delaying his departure from Fairhaven until he had word, but she had reluctantly started to think that she needed to make her own plans to rejoin Charlotte at Mostyn. She was thinking about it as she walked along the seashore that afternoon, idly tossing pebbles into the water. Martha McCrae was also on the beach; she had brought Annie, baby Jamie and some of the village children down to the shore to see if they could find any driftwood to fashion into decorations for Christmas. Martha had explained that there were so few trees on the island that had to improvise with other ideas and a fine, imaginative time they had of it.

  The tide was coming in. The water sucked at the pebbles about Beth’s feet, splashing on to the hem of her dress. Beth turned and looked back down the beach. Martha and the children had walked a long way now and were examining some shells that one of the girls had picked up from the sand. The children’s cries mingled with the call of the seabirds, tossed on the wind. There was another cry too, thin and faint, but closer at hand. Beth stared. Martha had put the reed basket with the baby in it on the rocks some twenty yards away, but with the incoming tide it had slid into the water and was bobbing about in the waves, already several yards from the shore. Martha, engrossed in keeping her flock together, had not yet noticed.

  Beth started to run. The wind was cold on her cheeks and the pebbles slid from beneath her shoes, hampering her. By the time she reached the rocks where Martha had left Jamie she could hardly see the reed basket in the dips between the waves.

  Beth waded out to the rocks, feeling the tug of the tide seize her. Even here, so close to the shore, there was a strong tidal race out to sea. A rowing boat was tied up there, dipping on the rising waves. Beth was already up to her waist and her soaking skirts wrapped about her legs so that she almost fell. The basket was bobbing further away all the time and she knew she could not swim out to it, knew that the tide race was pulling too fast for her to catch up. She heard Jamie wail again as a wave splashed over the side of the basket and it threatened to tip over. In desperation she grabbed the rowing boat and tumbled over the side. The rope burned her palms as she pulled it free of its mooring, then she had grabbed the oars clumsily and turned it out to sea.

  Beth had never rowed a boat before and whilst she soon realised that the tide was carrying her in the right direction, she had no skill to direct her course. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the shoreline receding with frightening speed. The children had realised now that something was wrong; one of them had grabbed Martha’s skirts and started to cry. Several were screaming whilst one little girl, more resourceful than the rest, was running in the direction of the harbour and help, as fast as her small legs could carry her.

  Beth was within a few feet of the basket. She could see Jamie’s crumpled little face and hear his screams above the splash of the waves. She leant out, almost overturning the boat in her desperation. A wave hit her in the face and she gasped, shaking the blinding water from her eyes. Then her
fingers grazed the edge of the wicker and she clung on and pulled, regardless of the cold that numbed her hands and the force of the waves that threatened to pull her arms from their sockets.

  When she finally heaved the basket aboard, Jamie was soaking and screaming and Beth was exhausted and her clothes stiff and face sore with salt spray. She had paid no attention to the shore for several minutes and was horrified to discover that they were now at least a hundred yards out, with the strong tide pulling them towards Rat Island. One of her oars was gone and she had not even noticed. The prospects for both herself and Jamie were looking increasingly bleak.

  ‘Hold on!’

  The shout came from behind her and she squirmed around, collapsing back in the boat with relief as she saw another small craft drawing close. Colin McCrae was in the bows, his face a tight mask of tension as the men behind him rowed like the devil to reach her side. The two boats bumped together and Colin grabbed the bulwark, pulling them alongside. Beth reached for Jamie and thrust the screaming bundle into his father’s arms.

  Strong hands grasped her and half-lifted, half-pulled her into the other boat. She felt Marcus’s arms close around her—she knew it was Marcus even though her eyes were closed—and she turned her face into his neck, breathing in the warm and reassuring scent of his skin. Then she burst into tears. She could feel Marcus’s mouth pressed against the salty coldness of her cheek and heard him say, ‘Oh, Beth,’ as he held on to her as though he would never let her go. The feeling soothed her and she lay still, paying no more attention to their rescue.

  Things became even more confused when they reached the jetty. Quite a crowd had gathered, with other people coming running as word went around about the accident. Colin jumped ashore and handed Jamie to Martha. She was crying as well and squeezed the baby to her so tightly that he promptly started to scream again.

  ‘Nothing wrong with his lungs,’ Colin commented with a grin, giving his wife a hug. ‘I think he has survived the ordeal with no harm done!’