He drew me close and kissed me again. The desperate desire I had felt in him when first he held me was back in his control. We were sealing some sort of bargain now, having given ourselves a little time to recover from the shock. I could now return his kisses with a little more safety. In any case I couldn’t think what else to do. Well bred young ladies were not supposed to think of love, at least, not until they were safely married, and I’d thought that particular fate had passed me by.
Completely content in his embrace, everything stopped for me. He pushed his fingers into my hair to cradle my scalp, murmured, “I knew I was right,” and he kissed me again. His mouth was warm and gently demanding on mine. I could think of nothing I’d rather be doing. He pressed against my lips, encouraging me to open my mouth for him and when I did so, he slipped his tongue inside, tasted me as I absorbed his unique flavour, his passion and his need.
The sound of a horse as it walked past outside brought me back to my senses. “My lord, we should go.”
He touched my mouth with another kiss, soft and gentle. “Never ‘my lord.’ Never again, when we are private. Richard, my name is Richard. Say it.”
“Richard.”
“How do you do that? It never sounded so sweet before.” He kissed me again, another bargain sealed.
I smiled, saying, “My name is Rose. Rosalind, actually, but nobody calls me that.”
“I can’t imagine why. It suits you charmingly. Rose.” His lips relaxed into a smile that threatened to melt me into a puddle at his feet.
When I saw the coach looming before us, hiding us from onlookers but reminding us of the terrible events of the day before, I remembered why we were here and pulled away. “What about the coach strap? What should we do about that?”
His face settled into a serious expression again while he considered what I had asked, but he drew me back into his arms and I was too weak to pull away again. “It’s been cut. Only on one side, so the coach would lurch when the strap gave way but the other was too worn to hold the weight on its own. It amounts to murder, but if it becomes known it could cause trouble for you and your family.” He studied my face, frowning in concentration. “Will you leave it with me for now? I need a clear head to think and when I look at you, I have anything but a clear head.”
I agreed at once. “Of course.” I knew I could trust him in this matter. We gazed at each other, hands linked, his good arm around my shoulders, holding me close to his heat.
“We should go.”
He agreed, his innate good manners coming to the fore. “Indeed we should. Though I’d prefer to stay here all day, with you. Getting to know you. Confirming what I already feel in my heart.” He got to his feet and helped me up. “One more kiss, to take with me?” When I granted him that gladly, he released me.
He held out his good arm. I took it gratefully, needing support.
Passing by the ruined coach, I asked, “What will you do?”
He thought. “Nothing, for the present. There’s too much for us to take in, now. We should give it a day or two. I’ll have some enquiries put in hand, and we’ll see what that turns up.” He smiled at me. “And the investigation will give us more time to accustom ourselves to our new discovery.”
I didn’t flush when I met his gaze. It was almost as if we’d been fated to meet. Although fate had terrible timing.
Chapter Seven
We entered by the side door. Martha, passing by, saw us come in, and stopped, looking at us quizzically. I hoped my new feelings didn’t show, but knew better than to take my hand hastily away from his arm.
Martha faced us squarely, disapproval clear on her face. “How are you today, my lord?”
“Much better, ma’am. My valet sent me out for some fresh air. My good nurse kindly offered to accompany me.” He glanced at me and I smiled timorously back.
Martha gave me a look full of censure and warning. Lord Strang bowed and went upstairs, while I tried to assuage Martha’s suspicions. “We didn’t go out of sight of the house.”
She pursed her lips, shaking her head. “You should be more careful. That man has a bad reputation.”
“I know, Martha. I’ll take care.” Who would know better than I how well he’d earned his reputation?
We walked to the breakfast room.
I sat as far from Lord Strang—Richard—as I could during the meal, feeling stunned and unreal. Thoughts chased through my head, making no sense at all, but I couldn’t bear to be near him in public in case I betrayed my feelings.
Fortunately, most of the household came in to eat so there were a lot of reasons not to look in his direction. Lizzie watched us surreptitiously, probably because of what I’d told her last night. Presently, she began to converse with Mr. Kerre, getting along famously with my lord’s brother. I wondered why I wasn’t more taken with him. They were so alike, and yet to me a world of difference existed behind those faces.
The crisp, white cloth on the large table complemented the clean cutlery and the fresh, hot food. The kitchen staff and the housekeeper had felt the presence of a competent manager, and had responded to the call.
When Steven arrived, he mentioned he’d been to see the vicar in the village. There would be a double funeral for the late earls the next day, Thursday. It would take place in the private chapel here in the Abbey, but all who wished to attend would be welcome.
James declared himself happy with the arrangements, asking Steven to inform Mr. Pritheroe.
Steven bowed. “Yes, my lord.”
James looked at him, his eyes wide with startlement. Sir James had become Lord Hareton overnight, but it would take some time for him to grow used to the idea. I grinned at my brother, and he grinned back. The ten years difference in our ages made little difference to our closeness. “At least I’m still Miss Golightly.”
“I thought you’d be a ladyship,” James said, frowning.
“No, I’m the sister of an earl. Not the daughter of one. I don’t understand it completely myself, but I daresay someone will explain it to us.”
“Oh.” James’s brow cleared. He wasn’t the quickest person on the uptake.
Lizzie shook out her napkin with a snap of well-starched linen. “We can be ladies if we wish. There are plenty of precedents for us to use the title.”
“Not,” Martha said firmly, “until we are certain. After all, Lady Hareton may still be enceinte.”
Steven tried to catch my attention. I avoided him, but I knew he wouldn’t give up. I would have to face him sooner or later, but not today. No, not today. I risked glancing across the table to Richard, currently engrossed in conversation with James, and took comfort from his presence, although he didn’t look my way. Perhaps it was just as well, because I knew I would have given myself away if our eyes met. I looked away to see Steven watching me closely. I forced myself to smile at him.
“I’ve asked the housekeeper to take me round the house after breakfast,” Martha said. “If anyone would care to accompany us, they would be more than welcome.”
Most of us agreed to go. We were all very curious to see the state of the house, especially in the light of the recent revelations about the ready availability of money. It raised the question of why all this had happened even more starkly than before. I had agreed to help Martha, so I must go. It would give me something to chase out the thoughts rambling in my restless mind.
To my dismay, Miss Cartwright said, “I’d love to come. I feel so useless. Carier looks after Strang so well there is hardly any need for me to be here.” She turned to her fiancé. “Have you the strength to come with us?”
“Of course.” He regarded her with a level stare.
“You know, you must let us know if you feel too weak to continue,” she said solicitously. “I can send for Carier in an instant.” But not help him yourself, I thought, savagely. Whatever his feelings for me, he deserved better than Julia Cartwright.
Richard docilely agreed to accompany his betrothed. Why should she want him with
us? I noticed he was paler than earlier, and after such severe blood loss, he needed to rest. “You lost a great deal of blood.”
He looked at me, and everything else went away. It could have been the two of us alone in that room. I hated my weakness, marvelling that it should be so, but had enough control left to keep it hidden. I was concerned for him, else I’d have remained silent.
“My good nurse.” I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such soft tones on Monday. “I promise not to get overtired. I’ve already promised Carier.”
I smiled, nodding. “You should rest until you’ve recovered your strength, sir.”
“I know. Carier said that too.”
“That man has too strong a hold on you,” said Miss Cartwright. “After we’re married, I shall ask you to dismiss him.”
“I’m afraid you are doomed to disappointment in that respect.” Richard’s voice regained a chill. “No one shaves me as close as he does or has his way with a neckcloth. He has me hog-tied and I can no longer do without him.”
At least he had looked away from me, but that chill in his voice reminded me that he was formidable, capable of great iciness. He possessed vast experience, much more than I had. I must be wary.
I pushed back my chair. “I should change.” I could eat nothing more, though I’d had very little.
“Wear something old,” Martha warned. “Whatever you wear is bound to become soiled. Those rooms haven’t been touched in ten years or more.”
I changed into my drab travelling gown with a heavy heart. I so wanted to show Richard that I could look attractive when in the right clothes, but I seemed to live exclusively in old clothes these days.
I stepped into a small hoop that wouldn’t get in the way of the furniture. For formal wear and Court appearances side hoops were de rigeur, but thankfully, except for Court, much smaller than they’d been ten years ago. Briefly, I wondered if I would have to wear finery every day if I married a nobleman. Miss Cartwright certainly did.
Downstairs, I found quite a crowd in the Great Hall. Martha, James, the two Misses Cartwright, Lizzie, Steven, Richard, Mr. Kerre and a female servant. Quite a crowd.
“This is Mrs. Peters,” Martha said. “She was promoted from head parlourmaid and retained as housekeeper after the third earl died.”
The woman curtseyed. Like the manor’s other inhabitants, she was half starved and thin. Her gaunt face showed unhappiness, stoicism, lines graven deeply, making it impossible to guess her age.
Mrs. Peters took a deep breath, turned to us in a businesslike manner, and began the tour, just as she might have done to visitors, had there been any. She pointed out the treasures of the Great Hall; the life sized statues that had been brought back by the third earl from the Grand Tour. We went upstairs and into the State Rooms.
They must have been magnificent once. “Goodness,” Lizzie said.
The first room was a drawing room. Huge satin upholstered sofas stood against the tapestry hung walls, enormous gilded pier glasses set over half moon tables between the windows, silent portraits of ancestors hung on the walls.
Everything had been shockingly abandoned. This was the realisation of Sleeping Beauty’s Palace, and it looked as though it had been abandoned for the legendary hundred years instead of the actual ten.
“It’s been like this since the third earl’s death, my lady,” Mrs. Peters said.
“Ten years?” Martha dragged her gaze away from the murky magnificence before us to stare incredulously at the housekeeper.
I looked around, hardly daring to draw breath. Who would kill for all this, who would cut the traces of a battered old coach? Someone pained to see treasures like this left to rot, or someone who wanted to get their hands on it all? Even in this condition it was worth a lot of money and the contents of the house wouldn’t be included in the entail, so didn’t have to go to the heir. Perhaps it was for gain, after all. Or to cover something up. It would be easy to steal treasures from these rooms. I studied the rooms with more purpose, looking for where the dust was less thick, revealing the absence of a treasure, but I could see none.
Miss Cartwright repeatedly moved her gleaming lilac satin skirts away from the dust-encrusted furniture. Her supercilious expression showed what she thought of such a ramshackle place—she didn’t bother to hide her disdain. The expression marred her pretty, round face. She would do well to hide it. I chided myself for ill wishing her. She had done me no wrong, not yet. I just didn’t like her.
Her betrothed didn’t look at me beyond an initial cold bow, but joined his brother. They walked around the room, and examined the treasures there. Mr. Kerre seemed very knowledgeable, and pointed out several items of distinction in the cold, unlived in room.
Martha carried a cloth, and from time to time, she wiped away a part of the dirt to see what lay underneath. She seemed satisfied with her investigations, and occasionally made a comment about the quality of the things on display, all of it fine. I joined her, glad of the opportunity to stay by her side.
Steven moved closer to me but I tried not to look at him. I wanted to hold my happy secret to myself, just for this day, and not face any problems until tomorrow.
The interior decoration in the room wasn’t particularly distinguished, like a plain wooden box that held diamonds inside it. The treasures in the rooms indicated collectors of rare and beautiful things. “The third earl,” Mrs. Peters told us, “always planned to decorate the interiors as elaborately as the outside of the Abbey but at his death everything changed, and the rooms were all closed.” The curtains had been drawn and some of the great windows opened, but the fusty, unpleasant smell of disuse still permeated the air. Black mould encroached at the edges of the ceiling, and if left unchecked would destroy everything here.
The great Rooms of State were arranged in enfilade at the front of the house, so when the doors all lay open, the onlooker saw the end of the procession of rooms from the beginning. They were grand indeed, but in their heyday they would have intimidated, too. I understood why Martha had been so nervous at the prospect of another visit here, even when she assumed the house was being run properly.
“We’ll come again in a day or two,” Martha said to me. “Then we can bring a notebook and make our plans.”
I saw Martha had already cast me in the same mould I had at home—that of dutiful spinster, a helpmeet to my sister-in-law. To help with the revival of such a great house had its appeal, but one way or another, I would have a life of my own, with or without my newfound love. I shot one or two looks at him, and Lizzie saw me once and frowned, but he seemed sublimely unaware of my presence. He didn’t look at me once. I found his self control unnerving; I wondered if I could live with that.
At the end of the enfilade Miss Cartwright declared she would like to go back to her room and rest, so Richard offered to accompany her. I was glad to see him go, as I found his presence increasingly unsettling, afraid someone would notice. He didn’t look at me, but his hand gently brushed mine, as though by accident, when they passed close by me.
With him gone, I felt entire once more, as though he had leeched me of my own self. Then I understood what Lizzie had meant last night, that I should keep myself intact in his presence. It would have been so easy to succumb without reserve, to do whatever he wanted me to do, but I would have to fight to retain my own independence of spirit.
Steven also left us, saying he had arrangements to make in the chapel. He had found the old vestments and sacred vessels locked in a cupboard, and commandeered all the maids he could find to clean and polish the chapel in readiness for the funeral the next day. “The maids won’t work there on their own.”
“Why ever not?” Martha asked.
“Because of the two earls lying in state there.”
“Afraid they’ll jump up and attack them?” Amusement coloured Mr. Kerre’s voice.
Steven glared at him. “Just so. But I’d like to check on the progress and make certain everything is ready for the funeral.�
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Steven left, with a speaking glance at me. He wanted to meet me, perhaps to make good his hold over me. He must have known it had been weakening for weeks, but he couldn’t know by how much.
To our surprise, the elder Miss Cartwright decided to stay. To our greater surprise, when on her own she proved to be a capable, practical woman, offering useful suggestions.
We went into the wing at the end of the enfilade, and found a dismal series of rooms. Before the Haretons had abandoned the greater part of the building, these had been the family rooms. An old piece of embroidery, still only half finished, sat in its frame by a window, and books lay on tables. Dust smothered everything.
“I’d like to restore this wing,” said Martha. “We’ll live in the west wing, for now, and move here if we stay. It’s a shame to waste such potentially pleasant rooms.”
“Do you plan to redecorate?” asked Mr. Kerre.
“I shall have to decorate some of the rooms. The upholstery is perished and there’s mould creeping in. If only they had used dust covers.” Martha sighed deeply, giving her ample bosom some exercise, her mind evidently on all the beautiful things that had been destroyed here by simple neglect.
We left the rest of the east wing for another day.
Martha took Lizzie to the kitchen, to direct the maids in a thorough scrub down. “For it’s clear they need personal direction, and I won’t eat out of the gutter any longer.” That was Martha’s way of indicating that the corners hadn’t been swept in a long time.
Martha had instituted the kind of meal we were used to at breakfast the next morning: a sideboard packed with dishes of hot food to which we helped ourselves. It was pleasing to have such a semblance of normality, almost as though we were at home again.
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