The Winter Secret

by Lulu Taylor

  ‘What?’ Buttercup exclaimed, astonished. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘We do. We’ve talked it over. We’ve not been happy here. Ever since we arrived, things have been going wrong, in hundreds of tiny ways. The boss is not the right person for us to work for. So we’re going back to Scotland to be close to the kids. Steve knows a place in the Highlands where they’re looking for a housekeeper and maintenance man. It sounds perfect for us.’ Carol smiled, her eyes warm. ‘We want you to get away from here, Mrs R. What we’ve witnessed – it isn’t right. And what I saw – well . . . you know how I feel about it.’

  Buttercup grasped Carol by the arm. ‘Thank you!’ she said. ‘That means a lot.’

  ‘Promise me you’ll leave.’

  ‘Yes. I will. I can’t stay. I know that now. I’ll go tomorrow, after the party.’

  ‘It’s the right thing.’ Carol nodded, though her eyes were sad. ‘I always thought it might turn out this way. It isn’t possible for people to be happy in cages, even golden ones.’ She smiled. ‘I’d better get back to the caterers, they’re going crazy in the kitchen. I’ll see you later.’

  Buttercup came out into the hall, a riot of Christmas all around her, and saw Charles examining the decorations on the central table, smartly dressed in a dark suit, ready to play lord of the manor. She regarded him with a kind of detached interest, wondering for a moment in an almost clinical way exactly what she felt towards him; her grief at the end of their love and the pain of betrayal had come out of her on that beach in Norfolk. Ever since, she found that she could bear it. If anything, she felt superbly strong, confident in herself and absolutely sure that she was going to be free in a matter of hours. For Charles, she felt a number of complex emotions – but none of them were love. His lies had set her free from that.

  She walked towards him and he turned to look at her, his eyes cool and remote. The sound of the old front doorbell suddenly jangled through the hall, and they both jumped.

  Charles looked at his watch. ‘We have an early bird. No one’s supposed to be here for at least half an hour.’

  Buttercup went over to the door and pulled it open, finding herself staring into the smiling face of Gawain Ashley, his coppery hair bright in the light from the lantern above. He was dressed in a well-cut jacket over a jumper and jeans, and his polished chestnut-coloured lace-up boots. Behind him was a small, silver-haired old woman with misty blue eyes and a strange, almost fearful expression on her face as she looked past Buttercup into the hall beyond her.

  As if she’s seeing things I can’t.

  ‘Hi,’ Gawain said almost shyly. ‘I hope you don’t mind. Xenia and I have come up a bit early. I particularly wanted to meet your husband, and I had a feeling he’d be pretty busy once everyone started arriving.’

  Buttercup stepped back. ‘It’s absolutely fine, we’re ready as it happens. Please come in, Charles is right here.’

  Charles was coming towards them, a broad smile on his face. ‘Princess, how wonderful to see you again. Thank you so much for coming. And you must be . . .’

  ‘Gawain Ashley.’ He bowed courteously. ‘I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting Mrs Redmain.’

  ‘Yes, she told me. How do you do.’ Charles shook his hand and leaned to kiss the air on either side of the old woman’s face. ‘Princess, I don’t believe you’ve met my wife . . .’

  ‘Buttercup Redmain,’ Buttercup said politely, wondering if she should curtsey, but the old lady simply raised her eyebrows at the unusual name, bowed her head and murmured a quiet hello.

  ‘Please come in.’ Charles summoned a waitress from the corner of the room with an imperious snap of his fingers. ‘Drinks for our guests, please. What would you like?’

  ‘You’re most kind,’ Gawain said politely, ‘but we might wait and have a drink shortly. I wondered if you might be kind enough to show us the wonderful little shrine you have upstairs to the memory of Captain Redmain. Such an unusual thing to have, quite a curiosity.’

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ beamed Charles.

  Buttercup looked quizzically at Gawain but he avoided her gaze.

  Charles was already heading across the hall towards the stairs. ‘Follow me. The house must look quite different to you, Princess, we’ve done such a lot to it.’

  ‘You certainly have,’ said the old lady. Buttercup heard her add under her breath: ‘Though you won’t have changed anything at all.’

  Charles led them up the stairs, talking eagerly about his quest to acquire memorabilia for his collection. Gawain, following close behind, was nodding with interest. As they went up, he turned and looked over his shoulder straight at Buttercup and his eyes contained an expression she was not expecting.

  Apology? What’s he got to be sorry to me for?

  She brought up the rear, behind the old lady, apprehensive to be so close to her. So far, her knowledge of the princess was limited to the unpleasant outbursts, the shouting and fist waving, the fit of temper on Bonfire Night. She was half afraid she would turn round and start yelling, upbraiding Charles and her for what they’d done to her old home. But she seemed quite calm.

  And Gawain told me those sad things about her – her mother being so ill.

  She felt a sudden sympathy for the old woman in front of her. It was so easy to judge people without knowing anything of their story.

  But everyone has their sadness, disappointments and burdens, she reminded herself. Even those who appear to have the world at their feet and their heart’s desire can be horribly miserable underneath.

  I’m proof of that.

  ‘Fascinating,’ Gawain said, walking around the Redmain room and looking at all the exhibits again as if for the first time. ‘Really . . . interesting. What a man he was.’

  ‘Yes, I’m always keen to find out whatever I can about him.’ Charles smiled. ‘It’s a great honour to have such a distinguished ancestor.’

  ‘I bet,’ Gawain said. He stared at the marble bust with its tricorn hat and tasselled epaulettes, and turned to look at Charles. ‘I expect you could give me a blow-by-blow account of his actions at Trafalgar.’

  ‘I probably could!’ Charles laughed.

  ‘And of what happened after the battle? What do you know about that?’

  ‘I know he bought this house and remodelled it extensively. I know he married a Mademoiselle Thierry and had five children, and died of a fever in his late fifties.’

  Gawain was staring at the ornate blade mounted on the wall. ‘Wow, what a fine sword that is! You must be so proud of Captain Redmain.’

  ‘Yes,’ Charles said, his eyes narrowing. ‘Of course. I would have thought that goes without saying.’

  Gawain put his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to rain on your parade, Mr Redmain, but you might need to prepare for a bit of a shock. I’ve done some investigating down in Portsmouth at the naval museum and at the British Library, and I’m afraid it’s not quite as straightforward as it seems.’

  Charles’s eyebrows lifted and he said coldly, ‘Oh? What do you mean?’

  Gawain looked about, scanning the whole room. ‘Redmain bought this house with his prize money, that’s true. But he also bought something else with his loot: a sugar plantation, in Antigua, in the Colonies. And for his valuable cash crop, he needed lots and lots of workers. According to my research, he had at least two hundred and fifty slaves, imported from South Africa.’

  The princess raised her eyebrows, her expression grim. She hadn’t looked at the collection but had been watching Gawain intently. She sighed softly and shook her head.

  Buttercup gasped. ‘Slaves? Oh no . . .’

  Gawain looked at her, sombre now. ‘Yes. Slaves. And they made him a fortune. That money paid for the rebuilding of this house.’

  Buttercup felt sick. This beautiful house, built on such misery. This is terrible.

  Gawain continued:

  ‘Then slavery was abolished. No more lovely free labour to sweat and
toil to make Captain Redmain rich!’ His voice took on a lightly sarcastic tone, one Buttercup knew would infuriate Charles, whose face was stony with a vein throbbing dangerously in his temple. Gawain went on: ‘But all was not lost. The British government paid him compensation for the loss of his unpaid labour. He got a great deal of money – hundreds of thousands in today’s money. His slaves, however, got nothing but their freedom.’ Gawain paused. He looked serious as he turned back to Charles. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Redmain, but your house – lovely though it is – has an unfortunate history that includes the civil war slaughter of women and children, and the blood and sweat of slave labour. The princess has told me it’s an unhappy place – she thinks it’s cursed, actually – and perhaps she has a point.’

  Buttercup looked at Charles, who had now gone red in the face. He seemed lost for words, spluttering as he reached for something to say.

  ‘What an awful story,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m shocked. We had no idea.’

  Charles found his voice, his tone indignant. ‘How dare you come here and say such a thing, and so rudely?’ he demanded, furious. ‘I’m no apologist for slavery – it was terrible, inhuman and wrong. But plenty of institutions and buildings that we treasure, revere even, were built on the proceeds of it. It’s hardly the fault of the building! Cursed?’ He laughed contemptuously. ‘What bloody nonsense. I won’t have you spouting such superstitious nonsense, upsetting my wife in the process.’

  ‘I’m not upset,’ Buttercup said coolly. ‘But I am appalled. Maybe the princess is right.’ She glanced at the old lady, who sighed softly, her face slack with sadness. ‘I’ve felt it too. The chill here. The sadness. No one seems to have found what they wanted here.’

  Charles shot her a scornful look and said dismissively, ‘Rubbish.’

  Gawain was moving slowly around the displays in the room. ‘It’s not just that slave money built – or rebuilt, if you’d rather – this house. I’m afraid it’s much worse. Redmain himself was a tyrant, both to the sailors under his command in the navy, and to those poor souls unfortunate enough to work for him in the Caribbean. He was harsh, cruel, unfair, an inflictor of violent and inhumane punishments. A man who fathered many children on his unwilling female slaves.’ He turned to look apologetically at Charles. ‘You may not like to hear it, Mr Redmain, but I’m afraid it’s a matter of record. I’m surprised you haven’t discovered for yourself what a thoroughly unpleasant man Redmain was.’

  Charles could only stare, speechless and utterly taken aback.

  ‘Or,’ Gawain said thoughtfully, ‘perhaps you did know, but decided that the likelihood of others finding out was pretty slim, when you had all these lovely things to show off.’

  Buttercup looked at Charles and instantly knew that Gawain was right. Charles had known. He knew full well what a monster his ancestor was, but revered him anyway.

  Charles would have made it his business to know everything there was to know about Redmain. But it didn’t suit him that his hero was a beast, so he decided to ignore it and focus on building this shrine to him instead. And Charles is his descendant. No wonder he’s capable of such things. Maybe this place helped him channel his own brand of ruthlessness.

  Charles stiffened, his hands tense, and said in a low voice, ‘Get out of my house, you shit. How dare you come here with your baseless rumours and unfounded gossip? I’m appalled and offended.’

  Gawain turned and stared at him, his warm brown eyes suddenly hard and his expression contemptuous. ‘Hardly unfounded, I’m afraid. Read the records in the naval archives and the British Library. And you know what? This nasty little exhibition offends me and it should offend you too. I’m happy to leave. In fact, I can’t wait to shake the dust of this place off my shoes.’

  He strode past the outraged Charles and out into the corridor.

  The princess spoke for the first time in a clear, precise voice. ‘Madness and misery and death. That’s all this wretched house has ever brought anyone.’ She turned and followed Gawain out into the hall and Buttercup heard them descending the stairs.

  Charles was glaring at her, his face suffused with anger. ‘You brought that disgusting man into my house!’ he hissed.

  ‘I had no idea what he was going to say, any more than you did.’ She took a step towards him, her shoulders straight. ‘Don’t blame me for this. You knew all along about Redmain, didn’t you? But you thought you could keep it to yourself. Because nasty little secrets don’t matter if only you know about them, right?’

  Charles took a step towards her. ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense. Your little tantrum has gone on for long enough. If you have something to say, then say it.’

  ‘Little tantrum?’ Fury boiled up inside her. How dare he dismiss her so easily? ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Let’s stop pretending that you’re going to leave me. You know you won’t. The luckiest day of your life was when Lazlo introduced us, and you know it. So why don’t you be a good girl and stop this silliness? Things are done my way, and that’s how it is.’

  She stared at him, speechless and disgusted.

  ‘Come on.’ He took a step towards her, his eyes glittering. ‘Marriage is a bargain, you knew what you were getting when you married me. I would give you this life, this smooth and comfortable life, give you my love and my adoration, but it would be on my terms. That’s what we agreed.’

  ‘We never agreed any such thing!’

  ‘You agreed every day, in many little ways. Don’t pretend you didn’t. What have you got without me? You’ll find out what Ingrid discovered – that life is difficult, unpleasant and grim if you cross me. So.’ He put his hand towards her and smiled. ‘Why don’t you agree that we’ll put this behind us and pretend it never happened? I’ll forgive and forget. You start behaving. Do we have a deal?’

  She stared at him for a moment, disgusted. ‘No, we don’t have a deal.’ She spoke clearly and carefully. ‘I never wanted this, and I never agreed to it. You don’t seem to understand that I’m leaving you, and I never want to see you again. There’s no bargain. No deal. I won’t be behaving. And I won’t be keeping quiet either – about any of this.’

  Charles was suddenly still. ‘Are you sure? Because there’s time to save this unfortunate situation.’ Unexpectedly, he smiled, his eyes softening and suddenly tender. ‘I still love you, darling.’

  ‘Darling. You never call me by my name!’ she cried. ‘I can’t remember when you last called me by my name. Do you even know who I am? Do you?’

  ‘Calm down, dar—’ He caught himself and amended it to: ‘Buttercup.’

  The name sounded awkward in his mouth.

  Buttercup shuddered. ‘I can’t stand it in this room. I can’t stand being surrounded by this awful ancestor of yours. I’ve got to get out.’

  She turned and headed for the door.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Buttercup dashed out into the hall, feeling as if she was suffocating. The noise coming from downstairs told her that some of the guests had arrived and more were coming. She stopped on the landing, gulping for air, as though the atmosphere in the Redmain room had been fetid and rotten. Charles came up swiftly behind her.

  ‘This isn’t going to happen,’ he said ominously. ‘You’re not leaving me.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I’m going.’

  He reached out swiftly and took her hand. She whisked it away as if she had touched something red hot.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Not any more. Never again.’

  Suddenly, to her surprise, his cold expression changed. His eyes were full of pain. ‘Why? Why? You have to tell me.’

  She closed her eyes, her breath coming out in shaky exhalations. It all led to this, she could see it now. This moment had to come. Her time in the house and with Charles was almost up. Downstairs, she could hear laughter and children shouting, and the clinking of glasses. The front door was open and a stream of people were coming in. They would be looking for her and Charles soon.

&nbs
p; I need to go. Now. I just don’t know where.

  She opened her eyes. ‘All right, Charles. If you insist. Just so you know that there’s no coming back.’ She took a breath, still rocked with pain when she thought about it. It needs to be said. The last secret between us has to be dragged out into the open. ‘There’s the little matter of the operation you had, that you decided not to tell me about. The month after I got pregnant, you booked yourself into a private hospital in London for a vasectomy. It’s in your medical file, there’s no point in denying it. I never had a hope of conceiving with you. You didn’t want any more children, and the strange thing is that somehow I guessed that you didn’t. But it never occurred to me that you might do such an awful thing – string me along, letting me go through it all, month after month, hoping and waiting and having the crashing disappointment when it didn’t happen . . . when all along you knew that I wouldn’t get pregnant. No wonder you refused to go to the fertility clinic. It would have taken them about five minutes to work out that you weren’t producing anything.’

  Charles’s face was closed, his eyes cool. He’d been caught, but she could see that with one easy leap, he discarded the old state of affairs and moved on, only thinking of how he could make the best of the current situation.

  He’s not sorry, she realised with a horrible stab of pain. He’s not remorseful at all. Oh my God. He’s not sorry.

  Charles took a deep breath and put his hands up. ‘Okay. Yes. You’re right. I know – it’s inexcusable.’

  ‘I agree,’ she said simply. I don’t even sound angry. Any last, small vestige of her old love for him withered and died. He’s not sorry. At least he’s making this easy for me. He’s killed my love like he killed our chance of a family together.

  ‘It was madness. I don’t know why I did it. I can have the operation reversed, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘And that will make it all better, will it?’ She smiled bitterly. ‘I don’t think so, Charles. Can’t you see? You deceived me. Our life together is at an end. You can stay here with your beloved Captain Redmain. The pair of you make a perfect partnership.’