“I should have trusted you to take care of yourself.”
“Yes, you should,” I told him, “but you should have received that note.”
“I’ll speak to Brangwyn in the morning. Don’t concern yourself with that.”
He got to his feet and faced Tom. “It seems we can’t hide it any longer. You should know Rose is increasing and she feels faint if she stays on her feet for too long.”
Tom stared at me. I smiled happily at him and took Richard’s hand. “June, we think. But don’t tell anyone else, please, until we’ve had a chance to tell our families.”
Tom and Georgiana stared at us, open-mouthed. “I never thought—” Tom said, amazement in his face and perhaps a little hurt, too. “Congratulations.”
“Oh no, and I caused you all that trouble!”
I smiled up at Georgiana. I could afford to smile now. “Don’t worry about it. I could have easily fainted anywhere.”
“Congratulations.” Georgiana’s felicitations weren’t as fulsome as Tom’s.
“Thank you.” Richard turned back to me. “You should go up to bed, my love. Shall I carry you, or do you feel well enough to walk?” His solicitude overwhelmed me, as if he was trying to make up for his previous behaviour. It had only been a flash of anger, but I had not liked it and I didn’t want him to think he was immediately forgiven. Anger borne of his concern for me, but it was not appropriate for him to behave so. From the way he gazed at me he knew it, too.
“I’ll be all right in a moment. Let me finish this milk and I’ll go right up. I thought Tom and Georgiana should stay tonight, there’s no point in rousing Hareton House at this hour.”
“All right.” Richard went and found a chair, throwing the mask that lay on it to the floor. Tom and Georgiana also sat. “So what happened tonight? Was it the Drurys’ doing again?”
Tom sighed. “Not entirely. Georgie left me a confusing note and all I thought was that Vauxhall on a masquerade night wasn’t the right place for her, so I came to see you, as I didn’t want to alarm anyone at Hareton House.” Richard nodded and glanced to where I sat with my feet up. “I came here and Rose insisted on coming when I told her. Of course, I wouldn’t have dreamt of allowing her to if I had known—” he broke off, blushing but then resumed, “but she came with her maid and the footmen and they both armed themselves.”
I drew the knife out of my pocket. “Only this. Though Nichols might have had something else.”
Silently Nichols, standing behind my sofa, drew out a small pistol. Richard nodded. “Good.”
Tom raised his thick eyebrows in surprise but he made no comment. He continued to tell Richard about the misadventure at Vauxhall and Richard listened in silence. He sighed when Tom was done. “Drury may have been wanting to hurt us through Georgiana. It’s his way to find weaknesses and Georgiana is young and inexperienced. He may have been trying to see how far she would go, or to hurt her. We know he’s capable of that.” He glanced at me, then away to Tom.
I had to mention her. “What about his wife?”
“Julia?” His tone was disparaging. “Feather brained. Look at the assassination attempt. I don’t think she remembered it until we brought it back to her.”
“I think you’re mistaken. She’s quite capable.”
Tom’s brain had just caught up with what Richard had said. “Assassination attempt?”
“The Drurys paid someone to have us killed.”
Tom visibly paled and Georgiana clutched his arm in her shock. “Steven Drury? I never thought he was capable of that!” Tom cried.
Richard crossed to the sideboard and poured out a drink. “I’ve had enough for one night but you seem to need this.” He gave the brandy to Tom and glanced at Georgiana in enquiry but she shook her head. Richard resumed his seat.
“Julia is more than capable of carrying out such a scheme,” I said.
Richard regarded me, one eyebrow raised. “I never found her so. She didn’t seem to be able to hold more than one thought in her head at a time and even that was an effort.”
“She did that for you. Thinking that was what you wanted, she did it to please you, to bind you to her. She has Steven now.”
“I wish her joy of him,” Richard said sourly but on looking at me again, he got to his feet and held out his hands. “Time you were in bed, my lady.” I put my hands in his and let him draw me to my feet. He nodded to Nichols, who was on her way to me and kissed me tenderly. “Goodnight, my love, I’ll be up soon.” I determined to be asleep when he came upstairs, to give him time to think on his behaviour. I bade him and our guests goodnight, going out of the room with Nichols and trying not to look too closely at Tom.
WHEN I WOKE THE NEXT day, I found Richard awake already. He took me into his arms and bade me good morning. “I’m sorry about last night. You know I don’t doubt you, don’t you?”
“I know. Otherwise one of us wouldn’t be in this bed.”
He drew back and met my stare. He wouldn’t seduce me into forgiving him. I wanted this clear. “Richard, I left a note that went astray. You should have trusted me enough to know I would do nothing to risk my health or the health of our baby.”
He dropped his head so his hair grazed my chin. I couldn’t see his eyes. When he lifted his chin again his eyes held misery. “I know. My lamentable temper has led me into trouble more than once. As it has now.” He sighed. “I have never felt so protective towards a woman before. I want to surround you with fine cotton, swaddle you like a baby and sometimes I go too far. Especially when I’ve drunk too much.”
My mouth firmed. “I did notice that.”
“Yes. I will try not to drink too much.”
“And try not to suspect me of recklessness when it is you who is reckless.”
“Yes. I swear it.”
We sealed the bargain with a kiss, a solemn kiss of an oath given and accepted.
He studied me without speaking for a moment. “I knew I was right.”
“In what way?”
“When I said on that first morning, that I’d never get used to waking up with you. It lifts me to see you when I wake, even like this, even when I have a humble apology to make.”
I smiled and stretched up to kiss him. “Make sure there aren’t too many of them. Do you think Brangwyn forgot to give you the note?”
“I met him in the hall as I came in. I bade him good evening and asked where you were and he said you’d gone out with Tom Skerrit, dressed for a masquerade. No, I don’t think he forgot.”
I was bewildered. “Then why would he do it?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He drew his hand gently up my arm, touching my breast as if by accident, then lingering there. “I think he wanted to create trouble between us. If we trusted each other any less, he would have done so.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked but then, as I slipped my hand around his waist, the realisation dawned. “Oh no,” I breathed and I looked up into his face. “Not Brangwyn. He’s Julia’s spy? He knows exactly where we’re supposed to be, when—” I broke off, appalled at the thought. “We’ll have to dismiss him immediately.”
“Oh no. I stayed awake for some time after I came to bed, watching you and thinking over the events of the evening. Brangwyn told me enough to stoke my anger, but instead of believing you had gone off with Tom on some clandestine affair, as he obviously intended me to, I was only concerned for your health. That was what caused my anger. Brangwyn withheld the note and gave me misleading information. We can use him, as he tried to use us.”
“But I don’t like the thought of him knowing so much about us, if he’s in the pay of the Drurys.”
His caresses were soothing rather than stimulating. I let myself be stroked and listened to him. “I know, my sweet life, but think. While they believe they have Brangwyn, they think they have the upper hand. But if we know, we can use that. If you really can’t bear it, then we’ll dismiss him straightaway but we could use this and see what they do next.”
“Are
you sure it’s Brangwyn?” I lifted myself up on one elbow and looked down at his dear face.
Richard nodded. “I’m sure. The Drurys have known our every move in society. They know we want to talk to that girl Julia is keeping so close and they’ve taunted us, not letting her speak, showing her to us. Think, my love, who else could have told them all that?”
He was right. Although Brangwyn had come from Thompson’s, he was not from the special box. Julia, knowing we had a financial interest in the agency, could have put him there for us to discover.
“So what do you think we should do?”
He smiled. “Let him think that his strategy was successful and we’re estranged, that your evening at Vauxhall forced us apart. We can tell Nichols and Carier, and I will get Carier to ruffle the sheets on the other bed, to make it seem as if I slept there. Then we wait upon events. They won’t be long in coming.”
“They’re spreading the rumour about you and Eustacia Terry. Steven made a point of mentioning it last night.”
“I know. Shall I put a stop to it?”
“Can you?”
“Eventually. I can let it be seen how I feel about the girl.”
“Won’t that mean cutting her?” I didn’t want her to be hurt. We had executed her father, and although she didn’t know this, the guilt ate at my soul. That was why, despite disliking her, I tolerated her.
“It’s that or ruin her reputation. Drury is just using her as a weapon.”
I sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Then leave it to me. Eustacia played into their hands, letting them spread stories like that. She did it—I know she did, don’t try to deny it—to spite you and she can’t expect to emerge scot-free.”
“What do you think the Drurys want to do?”
“Separate us, play with us, make us unhappy. I don’t know. We’ll continue to allow Brangwyn to arrange our social calendar, then they will find us whenever they want to. So can you go along with the masquerade?”
“I don’t know if I can be cold to you, even if it is just in public.”
He laughed and continued his caresses, filling me with an urgency that had nothing to do with our present conversation. “It won’t be for long.” I decided to show him my forgiveness in the best way and moved, covering his body with mine. “Don’t you think it might add an extra…piquancy?” He would have said more but I had just moved that extra inch and made us one, so he drew in a delighted breath instead.
“Perhaps,” I said, lifting gently but rhythmically, watching his face, seeing the pleasure reflected there. “We could try, I suppose.” Then I felt his strong, urgent response to my loving and I forgot everything else.
Sometimes I wondered if another man could have provoked these responses, could have given me so much physical pleasure. Richard’s breadth of experience meant I didn’t need it, as he brought all the variety and adventure that several lovers might have done and I could never have loved anyone else in this way. We had fallen in love with the kind of relentless finality that swept everything else away, leaving us both breathless and beached on strange shores. We were still finding our way.
I cancelled my levee for that morning, hearing the disappointed mutters outside my bedroom, as Nichols informed my visitors that I had the headache. I smiled and settled down in the warm bed with my now exhausted husband for another hour and we decided we must tell our families about our condition today. My pregnancy was becoming obvious, if not in my shape, then in my propensity to faint, so we couldn’t keep our secret any longer. This was the last morning I could hug my secret to myself. I determined to make the most of it.
TOM AND GEORGIANA WERE waiting in the dining room when I entered. Richard had gone to see Brangwyn, so it was safe to tell them what we had worked out while he kept the secretary busy.
“Good God.” Tom said. “Why would the Drurys go to such lengths?”
I finished filling my plate from the sideboard and returned to the table. “Because they hate us. Because they share a vindictive turn of mind. But there’s something else. More than revenge.”
“What? What can you give them?”
I thought of Thompson’s. “Power. They may want to kill our interest, or even win us over to their side. It’s one of the things we must find out. We intend to let Brangwyn think that his ploy last night succeeded, that we’re estranged for the time being.”
Georgiana looked frankly sceptical. “You don’t have anything the Drurys want, surely.”
I exchanged a glance with my old friend. Tom knew more than his sister and was evidently keeping his own counsel. “I was always taught,” he said, “to think the best of people, to assume they are essentially good but some of the things I’ve learned recently are making me think otherwise.”
I was sorry to hear that. “I never had any illusions, Tom, even when I was living quietly in Devonshire. I saw more about the realities of human nature sitting against the wall in Exeter Assembly Rooms than I have almost anywhere else. People are a mixture for the most part, neither all good nor all bad but I’ve seen enough of the world to know what they’re capable of.”
Tom nodded in agreement and applied himself to his breakfast.
When I got up to pour some tea, Tom stood, too, then looked away when I tried to smile at him. I knew immediately what was wrong. “I’m not ill, Tom, just pregnant. We’re going to tell our families soon, so it won’t be a secret much longer.”
“I’m pleased for you both.” He still wouldn’t look at me.
Richard entered the room, closely followed by Brangwyn, and after one glance at him, I immediately looked away. My husband’s eyes were cold, unfeeling, in the way they had been when I had first met him but I knew mine might give me away if I gazed at him for too long. “We should be leaving, my lady,” he said.
“Indeed.” I tried to match his frostiness.
Telling our families proved to be a joy. After enduring the embraces of Martha, James and my sisters, we went on to Southwood House, where the joy was less unconfined but just as heartfelt. With our families we could behave as we always did but it was hard to be cool in public, as we had agreed.
Chapter Sixteen
THAT SAME EVENING WE attended the opera and we had every expectation of seeing the Drurys there, since Brangwyn also knew of the event. We were not disappointed.
This was the first time I had attended the opera in Covent Garden, the place where the cream of society liked to be seen and the place we had chosen for our first tussle with the Drurys. The auditorium dazzled and excited me, and while Richard couldn’t be his usual attentive self, I knew I would still find some enjoyment in the evening.
We had a box at the front of the house. We’d invited Gervase and Lizzie to join us there, both of whom knew by now about our ploy to draw to out the Drurys, so they weren’t surprised to witness Richard’s coldness to me, nor mine to him.
“You make a daunting couple like this,” Gervase commented in a low voice. “You could depress the pretensions of a prince. Both of you.”
The opera was at the centre of fashionable life and it was magnificently appointed. The proprietor was well aware of the primary source of his income. Two great chandeliers lit the auditorium and gilding gleamed everywhere, enhancing the glitter of the people inhabiting the boxes that lined the front of the house. The great and the good filled the pit and they watched each other, commenting and criticising. Richard and I sat together, deliberately not looking at each other, gazing around until we caught sight of our quarry.
“There,” Richard said softly.
I trained my opera glasses in the same direction as his. They had a box opposite ours, but lower down, nearly on the stage. Miss Terry accompanied them and the little maid stood at the back, next to Julia’s maid. “I see them.”
When Steven saw us looking, he stood and bowed, so we acknowledged him, then turned away, leaving the rest to them. “They must know this can’t be a permanent rift, especially when they hear about your conditi
on,” Richard murmured. “They’ll strike soon, I’m sure of it.”
We settled down to watch the first act. The quality of the music thrilled me. At great expense, the owners enticed the best sopranos and castrati, usually from Italy. Richard informed me that although some of them had Italian names, they might hail from Lancashire; a voice wasn’t considered worth listening to in this place unless it had an Italian name attached.
It was a shame the castrato tonight had run to fat and passed his first youth, as his fine, ethereal voice was one of the best I’d ever heard. In his rôle as handsome hero, he was best listened to with the eyes closed. The soprano was taller than her hero but her attitudes were splendid and hardly a note was flat. They enacted the story of Dido and Aeneas and if their bodies weren’t suitable for the parts they played, their voices were.
I wondered how artists who depended on their voices for expression felt when they had a sore throat or a cold. Much as I would feel if my fingers were hurt and I couldn’t play the keyboard for a time, I supposed. I shuddered at the thought and felt Richard’s hand briefly close on mine under the cover of the edge of the box. It heartened me to know that however much he was feigning indifference, his observation and care were still there.
Lizzie enjoyed the performance as much as I did but for different reasons. The costumes were of the finest and the special effects spectacular. I heard her indrawn breath as the scenery rolled back on hidden wheels, revealing a new vista. I turned to her to exchange a smile.
“This is one of my dreams,” she told me. “When we were immured in Devonshire, I used to dream about coming to the opera in London. And now, here we are.”
“No one could have deserved it more than you,” I told her. “I always wanted you to have your dreams but I was never a part of them, not in my mind.”
She laughed softly. “You were always a part of them in my mind. The only difference is,” she lowered her voice even more, “I never imagined you would be somewhere else, with someone else.”
“Who could possibly imagine Richard?” I countered. Sighing, she admitted it was true.
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