Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘She told me that Bertie had told her—’ She stopped and cleared her throat. ‘She told me that Bertie had told her you killed Merle Jameson,’ she said. ‘She said that you murdered her.’

  There was a silence. Behind them the fountain in the courtyard splashed softly. A swan floated past on the smooth waters of the moat, its head tucked beneath its wing as it slept.

  ‘And did you believe her?’ Jack asked quietly.

  Sally looked at him. ‘You told me yourself that she had died,’ she said slowly, knowing that it was no answer.

  Jack took a step closer to her. ‘You don’t trust me,’ he said, and his voice was hard.

  ‘I don’t know!’ Sally spun around on him. Her heart felt torn. ‘God knows, I don’t want to believe you capable of murder. I cannot believe it! I cannot even imagine that you might hurt her by accident. But you have never told me the truth, Jack. You told me Merle died, but you never told me what happened.’

  ‘And because of my reticence you think I may be guilty?’ Jack’s icy tone flayed her to the bone.

  ‘No!’ Sally spoke, once again on instinct, and when he turned away from her she felt sick and dizzy all over again. She did not want to believe it, could not believe it was true …

  ‘Connie was right.’ Jack drove his hands into his trouser pockets and stood braced, staring out into the darkness. ‘I did kill Merle.’

  ‘No,’ Sally said again, but this time it came out as a whisper. She felt cold with shock.

  ‘I did not pull the trigger myself,’ Jack went on, as though she had not spoken. ‘But that does not matter. I was guilty. Her death was my fault. And I have carried that guilt ever since.’ He turned slightly towards Sally, but when she reached out a hand to touch his arm he drew back as though he could not bear it.

  ‘It was my fault,’ he repeated. His tone was violent. ‘You wanted to know the truth and now you have it.’

  ‘What happened?’ Sally felt cold through and through. She had thought she wanted to know the truth, but now she was desperately unsure. ‘Was there an accident?’

  Jack folded his arms. ‘I told you before that I was young and foolish. I fell madly in love with Merle and was desperate for her to leave her husband and run away with me. When she agreed I thought I was the happiest man on earth. Merle wasn’t happy, though. She was afraid. She was afraid of what her husband would do when he found out. And I …’ he sighed ‘… I laughed off her fears. Jameson was frail and I was young and strong and arrogant and thought I could protect her.’

  His face was bleak.

  ‘When Jameson caught up with us he had a gun. I thought he was going to challenge me—kill me, even. That would have been just. I never thought that he would kill Merle instead. Up until the last moment, his attention, his hatred, was focused entirely on me. I was afraid too by this point. I thought I was going to die. But he shot Merle, not me, and it was my fault. Her death was my responsibility.’

  ‘No,’ Sally said. Her lips shaped the word, but made no sound. ‘It was not your fault,’ she said. ‘You did not pull the trigger.’

  ‘As good as,’ Jack said. ‘I was the one who persuaded Merle to elope. I was the one who swore to protect her. I was the one who failed.’

  ‘She chose to go with you,’ Sally argued. ‘It was her decision, just as it was Jameson’s decision to pull the trigger. You cannot bear that blame, Jack.’

  Jack’s expression was blank and Sally despaired of her words ever reaching him. He had kept his guilt and his misery locked away inside for ten years. At last she understood that part of him that was unreachable; the bitter part that had abandoned the idea of love. She felt hopeless of being able to change that now.

  But she had to try.

  ‘You told me you loved Merle sincerely,’ she said, ashamed that even at a time like this she could feel jealousy over Jack’s deep love for the other woman. ‘You loved her and you wanted her to be happy. You thought that happiness could be achieved if the two of you ran away together. And who knows—you could have been right if matters had fallen out differently.’ She fixed her gaze on the dark trees etched against the night sky. ‘You knew that Michael Jameson was a dangerous and violent man. That was one of the things that you wanted to save Merle from, because you loved her. So you did what you thought was right. You asked her to elope with you and she agreed. She chose to go with you.’

  Jack did not speak, but she sensed that his dark eyes were fixed on her face. ‘Neither of you could have foreseen what would happen,’ Sally said. ‘Neither of you knew what Michael Jameson would do. Merle’s death was his responsibility, Jack. It was his fault.’

  ‘You did not go with Gregory Holt,’ Jack said.

  ‘That was different,’ Sally said. ‘I did not love him. But if I had, I would have chosen to run away with him exactly as Merle did with you.’ She smiled at him, but his face was set hard in the moonlight. ‘I think that you could love again,’ she said softly, ‘though I expect it will be different from your feelings for Merle. But it need not be less profound.’

  She took a deep breath. This was the hardest part. ‘Which is why,’ she said, ‘you should not marry, Jack, until you find someone you can love. Least of all should you marry me.’ She stopped, her voice threatening to break. She wished she had guarded her heart more carefully when they had first met instead of tumbling into love with him like a young girl fresh from the schoolroom. But it was too late for those regrets now. She loved Jack Kestrel, but he could not love her in return and, foolish as she might have been, she would not be so unwise as to marry him and then watch him fall in love with someone else when his heart had healed.

  ‘Good night, Jack,’ she said. ‘Think about what I have said. It was not your fault. Let it go.’

  She heard him call her name, but she did not wait. She knew she had to get back inside the house and into the privacy of her room before she was tempted to reveal her most secret feelings. She could not tell Jack that she loved him and expose the deepest vulnerability of all.

  Jack stood on the darkened terrace for a long time after Sally had gone. He could smell the faintest, most elusive hint of her fragrance still in the air and for a shocking moment he felt so bereft without her presence that he was hollow with longing. For the first time in ten years he felt at a loss, unsure of himself in his relationship with a woman. He had told her more of his feelings for Merle than he had ever told another living person. He had locked that pain and that grief away for all those long years, but Sally had gently brought him right to the edge of the precipice. He was so close to opening his heart to her and revealing his true feelings. Except that now he was not sure what those feelings were.

  A few days ago it had all seemed so easy. He had desired Sally Bowes. He had felt so powerful a passion for her, but he had thought it no more than lust. He had told himself that he could manage his lusts. He had always done so before. His emotions had never been involved.

  But one night with Sally had made him realise that he needed her as well as wanted her. Yet still he had not seen his danger. He had assumed that because he had kept the memory of Merle preserved so perfectly, because he had loved her with a youthful and idealistic first passion, that nothing and no one could ever match that. Now he was not so sure. He did not feel for Sally what he had felt for Merle. His first love had had an innocence about it, despite the circumstances. It had been rash, idealistic and magical. What he felt for Sally was deep; his desire for her was the least complicated part of his feelings. He had tried to pretend that they were his only feelings, but he knew now that he needed her. He wanted to spend his life with her. He wanted to grow old with her and for her to have his children.

  He did not want to have to live without her.

  He admitted to himself that he was afraid. He, who had fought for his country in the cause of freedom and justice, who had shown extreme physical bravery and made difficult decisions of life and death, did not have the moral courage to confr
ont his fears of love.

  ‘You should not marry, Jack, until you find someone you can love. Least of all should you marry me.’

  Sally’s words seemed to hang on the night air. She had been generous, just as she had been to Gregory Holt when she had refused to take advantage of his love for her. Jack had misjudged her and insulted her, yet now she was generous enough to try to help him and to prevent him from making an error that could conceivably lead him to repeating the mistakes of the past. She had thought that he might marry her and then fall in love with another woman and be trapped.

  Except that he could not imagine wanting to be with anyone other than Sally …

  Jack swore softly under his breath and started to walk slowly back towards the house. He knew where his thoughts were leading him and he did not like it. He did not like it because he was not in control. Sally had the power in their relationship now. He thought about the power that she had over him because of his emerging feelings for her. He was afraid to confront them.

  They terrified him.

  Sally slept badly and awoke to a bright, sunny Sunday morning that seemed an ill match for her feelings. They rode to church by horse-drawn carriage—Lady Ottoline would not dream of permitting anyone to be conveyed to the service in a motorcar—and immediately the difficulties of precedence raised their head again when Connie insisted on riding in the first barouche with Lady Ottoline and Charlotte, leaving no space for Sally.

  ‘As a widow woman,’ Connie said to her sister, ‘you must become accustomed to taking a step back, Sally.’

  ‘I am a spinster, Mrs Basset,’ Lady Ottoline said sharply, her bright gaze fixed on Connie’s petulant little face, ‘not even a widow, and I have never been accustomed to taking a step back in my life.’

  ‘Oh, but it is different for you, ma’am,’ Connie said blithely, ‘for you are the daughter of a duke.’

  ‘And Miss Bowes is your elder sister,’ Lady Ottoline said, ‘and, for reasons that I cannot quite fathom but that do her great credit, she has wanted the best for you all your life. The least that you can do is show her a little respect.’ And she patted the seat in the barouche beside her and gestured to Sally to join her.

  Not even Connie’s elephant hide was proof against such a set-down and she rode in the second carriage with Bertie and the Harringtons, all the while shooting venomous glances at Sally and Lady Ottoline and waving her hand in ostentatious display at the villagers so that everyone could see her enormous diamond ring.

  ‘Truly, Sally, I do not know how you tolerate her,’ Charley whispered to Sally as they slipped into the family box pew in the little fifteenth-century church and Connie’s complaining tones bounced off the rafters as she sent the hapless Bertie off to find her extra cushions. ‘I am afraid that I would have strangled her long since if she was my sister!’

  ‘I know,’ Sally whispered. ‘I am sorry. She has become much worse since the wedding. I think that her status has gone to her head.’

  Charley snorted. ‘Bertie is no great catch! Not like Jack. And it is not for you to apologise for her, Sally. It’s not your fault! Besides—’ she shot Sally a mischievous look from her dark eyes ‘—I think that Aunt Otto will utterly crush her. I know Aunt Otto, and I am not taken in by her quietness. She is working up to something tremendous!’

  Sally did not have a great deal of spare energy to worry about Connie and her discourtesy. She was far more concerned about Jack. The pleasure that they had taken in each other’s company the previous day had vanished. Jack had sat across from her in the barouche, moody and withdrawn, and once again Sally had felt a helplessness that she could not reach him and barely knew him at all. Charley had also noticed Jack’s bad mood and had sought to reassure her:

  ‘It is just a way that men have, you know,’ she confided. ‘I have observed that if Stephen is wrestling with a problem he barely speaks to me at all until the matter is solved.’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘Such silence is quite incomprehensible to me and it used to worry me dreadfully in the early days of our marriage, until I realised that it was just his way. Jack is the same.’

  Sally smiled, but was not reassured. She knew the nature of the problem that must be troubling Jack. It was the same matter that had kept her tossing and turning all night. Their engagement was surely at an end now. She had finished it the previous night when she had told Jack he should not marry until he had found love again. When they travelled back to London the following morning they would go their separate ways.

  ‘Thank goodness that Greg Holt has gone,’ Charley added irrepressibly as the choir procession heralded the start of the service. ‘I think his continued compliments to you would have made Jack intolerably bad-tempered!’

  It did not help Sally that the vicar preached on the benefits of a happy marriage and Connie beamed and sat with her wedding and engagement bands on prominent display. Lady Ottoline nodded sagely at various points in the sermon and when the vicar quoted that the value of a good woman was above that of rubies, she shot Connie a very hard look indeed.

  Jack excused himself immediately after Sunday lunch and he and Stephen went off to look at the hedge-laying work on the home farm, whilst Connie and Bertie set out to look at properties for sale in the neighbouring villages. Charlotte had turned pale at the news that she might have Connie as a neighbour and had sworn to bribe anyone with property on the market not to sell. She and Sally and Lady Ottoline took their parasols and took afternoon tea on the terrace overlooking the lake.

  ‘It is entirely delightful,’ Lady Ottoline opined, as she watched Lucy playing by the lake, ‘to see children enjoying themselves here at Dauntsey. When you and Jack are married, you must encourage your sister Petronella to bring her children here. Jack is very good with children.’

  ‘I have observed it,’ Sally said. The sadness clutched at her heart.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lady Ottoline continued, ‘you have talked about setting up your own nursery?’

  ‘Great-Aunt Otto!’ Charley said, laughing. ‘Sally and Jack are but recently engaged!’

  ‘I am only asking,’ Lady Ottoline said mildly. She turned her bright stare on Charlotte. ‘If Sally were to become enceinte, it might even encourage you to increase your nursery, Charlotte!’

  Charley laughed again. ‘Stephen and I have only been married for four years, Aunt Otto, and we have already produced Lucy. Give us time.’

  ‘You could have had at least three children in that time,’ Lady Ottoline observed. ‘I cannot think why you delay.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Charley said, her mouth full of sultana scones and jam, ‘because we are simply enjoying one another’s company, Aunt.’

  Lady Ottoline sniffed. ‘If you enjoy each other’s company that much, Charlotte, you would definitely have more children by now!’

  Charley caught Sally’s eye and rolled her eyes. Sally hid her smile in her teacup. It was pleasant sitting here by the lake in the afternoon sunshine—so soothing that she could almost forget that her engagement to Jack was a sham that would shortly be at an end and there would certainly be no children for them, not now, not ever. It was even more pleasant to be wearing one of Charley’s tea gowns, blessedly free of the constraints of the corset beneath. Its loose and flowing lines were cool on such a hot day and made her feel relaxed and sleepy.

  ‘I expect that Jack will be purchasing a country estate for the pair of you shortly,’ Lady Ottoline said, turning her observant dark gaze on Sally. ‘Of course, he will have both Saltires and Kestrel Court in Suffolk one day, but a man cannot have too much land, I always say, and at least he has the income to support it.’

  ‘We have not discussed it, your ladyship,’ Sally said truthfully, wishing that Lady Ottoline would leave all questions relating to their imaginary future.

  Lady Ottoline snorted. ‘You seem to have discussed nothing! Young people today are remarkably lax in their planning!’

  Charley opened her mouth to spring to Sally’s defence again, but there was a sudden scre
am from the lake where the nursemaid was supervising Lucy’s games. They all turned to see what was going on. The maid was shrieking ineffectually and running along the edge of the water. Of Lucy there was no sign other than her bonnet floating out on the lake.

  ‘Lucy!’ Charlotte said in a horrified whisper. She was half-out of her seat, the china cup falling from her hand to smash on the terrace. ‘She’s fallen off the jetty into the deep water! What can we do? I can’t swim.’

  Sally did not hesitate. She ran down from the terrace towards the lake. All she could see was a hot day in June on the River Isis so many years ago, and her father losing his footing in the punt and toppling backwards, oh so slowly, into the water. She had waited then, waited for him to surface and swim to the bank, but as several frantic moments had passed there had been no sign of him. She had never seen him alive again.

  That had been her mistake, to take no action, to wait. She had blamed herself for failing him and she had been terrified of water ever since. But she could not afford to let that fear rule her now.

  Sally could feel the planks of the wooden jetty hot underneath the soles of her thin slippers. The maid had stopped screaming now and was running back up the slope of the grass towards the house. Charlotte had already disappeared around the corner of the stables to get help.

  Sally ran to the end of the jetty and jumped. The water was deeper than she had imagined, closing over her head for one brief, terrifying moment before she broke the surface, gasping for air. It was shockingly cold and thick with weed and sludge. The beautiful lacy tea gown was immediately soaked and wrapped around her legs, weighing her down.

  Gulping a breath of air, she dived under the water and felt a mixture of inexpressible relief and abject fear as she saw Lucy’s frighteningly inert body floating beside the jetty uprights. She swam over and grabbed the child, hoping and praying that Lucy had not swallowed too much water or hit her head on the wooden frame of the jetty when she fell. The little girl’s body felt heavy, weighed down by water, threatening to slip from her grasp. Sally’s arms ached as she tried to hold her up.