“What do I not understand?” she said simply. “Tell me.”
In the end Owen found it easy to tell Tess the one thing that caused him so much shame he had never spoken of it, not even to those of his friends who knew what had happened. He talked and Tess sat with her chin resting on her hand, listening.
“You asked me if I had a compulsion to help women in trouble,” Owen said. “I had never thought of it that way before but I suppose that I do.”
Tess’s eyes narrowed but she said nothing. He had thought she might ask him about his feelings for Joanna again but there was a new awareness in her face as though she had moved beyond the jealousy that had driven her before. She waited.
“There was a woman, a long time ago,” Owen said. “A girl.” He glanced at Tess quickly as she moved a little. “Oh, not like that,” he said. “I did not love her. I did not even know her name. I was a young midshipman in those days and full of ambition. We were in Southampton, and a rougher port you’d be hard-pressed to find.” He shrugged. “We had been drinking that night and I was more than three-parts cut. As we came out of the tavern I saw that the ship’s first officer—a brute called Bates—had picked up a girl. They were arguing and then he started to hit her.” He stopped. The image of that dark alley and the woman’s pale flesh and ripped clothes, and the sound of her screams were seared on his mind, something he had never forgotten.
“She was a prostitute,” he said. “Little more than a child. It was hideous. Intolerable.” He moved uncomfortably as the unbearable memories flooded his mind. “I had always been brought up to respect women,” he said. “I was young and it gave me a shock to see things differently. Oh, I knew—” He stopped and shifted his shoulders again. He could not feel comfortable. The memories were too bleak and their legacy too painful. “I was not naive. I knew such things went on. But this was my commanding officer. So perhaps I was naive after all if I thought that such men would always behave with honour.”
Tess was sitting very hunched and still. “What happened?” she whispered.
“I wanted to intervene,” Owen said, “but the others held me back. I shook them off—I was full of idealism and pride and nobility.” He gave a short laugh. “I went to plant Bates a facer. I was spoiling for a fight. And he was so angry to have his authority challenged. He was full of violence and fury. But instead of hitting me he took the girl and …” His throat convulsed and he swallowed hard. “He hit her so fast and so hard that she fell and cracked her head against the wall and was killed. He did it deliberately, like a display of power, to show me his absolute dominance over her, to prove that nothing I could do would make a difference. I hated him for it.” His voice shook. Tess was silent, watching him. “And after that, subordinate or not, I laid into him as though I was possessed by the devil himself. I lost control and let my anger drive me. The others pulled me off in the end, but by then …” He paused. “I had half killed him.”
He heard Tess give a horrified gasp. The colour left her face, leaving it white and stark. “That was why you left the Navy,” she said.
Owen raised his eyes to hers. “I had no choice,” he said. “There was a frightful scandal. I lost my commission and was thrown out. My family had scrimped and saved and gone without and I threw away all that they had given me in one careless night because I lacked the self-control to restrain my violence.”
“Oh, Owen.” Tess put her arms about him and burrowed closer into his side. She felt warm and soft and very giving and Owen felt the cold tension start to drain from his bones. He pulled her to him and buried his face in her hair. “It was not your fault,” she said, her words muffled against his skin. “That was not justice.”
“It may not have been justice but it was my fault that I could not control my anger,” Owen said. The bitter taste of failure was still in his mouth. “Over and over, time and again, I have reproached myself. I could have stopped Bates, reasoned with him—”
“You could not have known what the outcome would be,” Tess argued. “His was the crime, not yours.”
“My crime was a lack of judgement and control,” Owen said tonelessly. “And I failed the girl. I couldn’t save her. She was young and defenceless but I could not help her.” He loosed Tess a little. “And as if that were not bad enough, I threw away all that my family had given me. I owed them so much and I let them down.”
Tess touched his cheek. “You were young,” she said softly, “and idealistic. We have all made mistakes.”
“I was not making any more,” Owen said fiercely. He realised that he was holding Tess hard, tension in his grip, and deliberately freed her, running his hands down her arms to link his fingers with hers. She held him tightly. Her eyes were steady on his.
“After I was thrown out of the Navy I went my own way,” he said. “I had my own code. I worked for all I had because I had to prove myself.” He slanted a look at her. “You once asked me if I was a pirate. Well, I was never that because I respected the rule of law too much to break it again.”
“That was why you worked for Sidmouth, wasn’t it?” Tess said slowly. “Because you wanted to uphold the law and do what you thought was right. You have spent your life trying to make amends.” She leaned forwards and kissed him. Owen felt the brush of her lashes against his cheek. “You are a good man, Owen, but even good men can make mistakes.” She drew back; smiled at him. “I understand about Joanna now,” she said simply. “When you saw the way that her first husband treated her you must have hated him so much.”
“David Ware was a bastard,” Owen said. “Everyone thought him a hero but all I saw in him was abuse of power and disrespect. I had nothing but contempt for him. I wanted to kill him—that damned violence in me again—and to take Joanna away from him and show her that it need not be like that.” He shook his head. “Then Joanna married Alex and she seemed unhappy again. It made me angry.”
“I’m sorry,” Tess said. She was looking down at their interlinked hands. “Sorry that she hurt you.”
Owen smiled ruefully. “It was lucky that she did,” he said. “Joanna was wiser than I. She knew that to run away with me was no answer. She loved Alex and he loved her and they were able to resolve their differences. I am glad for them.” He rubbed Tess’s bare shoulder very gently beneath the loosened bodice of her gown, relishing the silken smoothness of her skin, her warmth. She felt so bountiful, so giving. He had not known such generosity in a woman and had not thought to find it in Tess.
“You should not think that I love Joanna still,” he said, wanting to meet Tess’s openness with the honesty it deserved. “It is not true. I stopped loving her a while ago but I did not realise it.”
He saw Tess’s face light with soft pleasure. “I am glad,” she admitted. “I was very jealous. It hurt so much and I was so unprepared for it.” Her lips curved into a smile. “You had been patient with me and generous and endlessly considerate.” She laughed. “I thought you a saint and then when I heard you had wanted to run off with your best friend’s wife I felt disillusioned as well as horribly jealous.”
“A saint!” Owen said. He started to laugh. “I am very far from sainthood, I assure you.”
Tess looked down at their dishevelled clothing. “So it seems,” she murmured. “And actually I find I much prefer you as a mere man.” She leaned forwards and took his face in her palms, kissing him. Her bodice gaped open, and Owen saw her breasts, lush and round, pink-tipped, so tempting. His whole body leapt to arousal.
“I understand that you feel a need to keep control,” Tess whispered, against his mouth, “but you need not be so careful with me anymore.” She nipped his lower lip, sliding her tongue into his mouth where it entwined with his in an erotic dance.
“I like what I have learned about myself,” she whispered, “and I like what you do to me.”
She slid her hand into his pantaloons and took his cock, already hard, in her hand. Owen groaned and grabbed her, tumbling her back into his arms where she lay smiling up at hi
m, all wanton provocation.
“I suppose we should not do it again,” she said quickly, regretfully. “The door is not locked and anyone might walk in. Poor Houghton might announce a guest. Your aunt Martindale, for example. That would sink my reputation with her beyond repair.”
“God forbid. You are quite right.” Owen freed himself and strolled over to the door, registering the look of keen disappointment on Tess’s face as she started to button her bodice.
“Don’t do that,” he said, turning the key. “I shall only be obliged to undo them all over again.” He tugged his cravat off and threw it aside as he walked back towards her.
“Owen!” Tess’s face flushed rosy-pink. “Can we? Again? Here? Now?”
“Certainly we can,” Owen said. And did.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS MUCH LATER, WHEN OWEN had left belatedly for his meeting with the maritime broker, that Tess wandered upstairs to her bedroom where Margery was stolidly placing clean linen into the armada chest, folding it in with sprigs of lavender and rosemary. The room was fresh with the scent of herbs and bright with the cold winter light of early afternoon.
“Is all well, milady?” Margery asked, viewing Tess’s crumpled gown and inexpertly pinned hair with some amusement.
“All is very well, thank you, Margery,” Tess agreed, and the maid smiled and turned back to the linens.
“Perhaps you should change gowns if you are thinking of going out, ma’am,” she said.
“Perhaps I should,” Tess agreed dreamily.
It had been a long journey, she thought, but now, against all odds, she felt whole again. In the beginning she had been a frightened girl who had lost so much, and endured so much. She had taken up Robert’s political cause to fill the empty spaces in her life and she had developed a true passion and loyalty to it. But now her loyalties had changed.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and took Robert Barstow’s miniature out of the drawer and looked at it for a moment. His painted picture smiled at her, young, boyish, idealistic. He had had so many hopes for the future. Death had robbed him of his plans, but she had picked up his cause and she had done her best, and now it was time for others to take on her role. There were many, many people now who supported the radical movement. In time they would achieve the reforms that they sought, fair wages and food on the table for all and the right for their voices to be heard. And she might no longer draw satirical cartoons or run the Jupiter Club but she could still fund her charities and be a philanthropist.
Margery was looking over her shoulder at the portrait. “Handsome boy,” she said.
“My first husband,” Tess said. “He was …” She paused. Robert had not been her love, she thought, but she had loved him dearly. “Very special to me,” she finished.
“But now you are in love with Lord Rothbury,” Margery said.
Tess’s lips twitched at her maid’s matter-of-fact manner. “Yes,” she said. “It is quite different, Margery.”
“So it seems,” Margery said, her gaze flickering over Tess’s ruined gown once again. She went to the wardrobe and started to sort through Tess’s petticoats.
“Will you be going to the radical meeting this afternoon, ma’am?” she said. She glanced at Tess over her shoulder. Her face was troubled.
Tess jumped. “I didn’t know anyone knew about that,” she said. She felt a stirring of guilt. Today was the date of the largest political rally of the year, but she had not mentioned it to Owen because she had not wanted to stir up trouble between them. She had wanted nothing else to spoil her happiness. Not now, when it was so new and precious and felt so true.
“All of London knows that Orator Hunt is to address the crowds, ma’am,” Margery said. “Spa Fields, isn’t it? You should stay away, ma’am. There’s bound to be trouble.”
“I know,” Tess said. She thought of Owen warning her that Justin Brooke was not to be trusted. But Justin did not need to know that she would be there. No one would know. She could go one last time and make her farewell to the radical cause. She needed to do it for Robert’s sake. This was the last thing that she had to do before she could close the door on the past.
“I swear I’ll be careful,” she said. She looked at the maid’s stubborn face. “It’s the last time,” she said. “I have to say goodbye.”
She pushed Robert’s miniature into her pocket, dressed swiftly and went out.
OWEN WAS LATE COMING BACK from the city. The appointment with the maritime broker at Lloyds had taken longer than he had expected. He did not like the atmosphere on the streets. It felt loaded and dangerous with the promise of trouble. Those people who were out were scurrying furtively, heads down, wanting to reach their destinations as quickly as possible.
Owen had thought about mentioning the meeting at Spa Fields to Tess but had decided against it because he did not want it to appear that he did not trust her. She had given him her word that she would not involve herself in politics again and he had accepted it. But as the carriage rolled through the quiet streets, the wheels echoing ominously on the cobbles, he felt a clutch of fear about his heart, a question impossible to avoid, difficult to answer. He was not sure if he really did trust Tess to have abandoned her political affiliations. Her devotion to the radical cause had been a part of her life for so long. It had been fundamentally important to her and to the person she was.
“Where is Lady Rothbury?” he demanded, as he strode into the hall at Clarges Street, throwing his gloves down onto the table and loosening his greatcoat. He wanted to hear that Tess was in the drawing room, or perhaps shopping with Joanna Grant. Then the shadow of doubt that dogged his heels could be put to rest.
“Her ladyship is from home, my lord,” Houghton said. “She left several hours ago.”
Cold fear grabbed Owen’s heart. “Did she tell you where she was going?” he asked.
The butler shook his head, his long face growing even longer.
“Did she call a hackney?” Owen could feel both his anger and his fear rising sharply now.
“She went to the political meeting.” It was Margery who spoke up from the shadows of the hall. She came forwards, bobbing Owen a curtsy. “Your pardon, my lord. Lady Rothbury has gone to Spa Fields to hear Orator Hunt speak. She said …” Margery hesitated. “She said that she had to make an end. She took the miniature with her, sir.”
“The miniature?” Owen questioned.
“Of her late husband, sir. Mr. Barstow,” Margery said. “She said she had to say farewell.”
Owen felt simultaneously vastly relieved and almost blinded by anger. So Tess was saying goodbye to the cause she had held fast to for so long. He felt a huge tenderness for her swell inside him, but it was almost eclipsed by anxiety and dread. If Brooke should see her, if Sidmouth’s men should identify her, then this time Tess would be undone. They would have the evidence they needed to link her to the radical cause. And Sidmouth would without a doubt be using this opportunity to incite the crowds to riot so that he could arrest the most prominent radicals and crush the movement once and for all. It was foolhardy in the extreme of Tess to go, even if she had felt driven to it.
He grabbed his coat again.
“Do you require the carriage, my lord?” Houghton asked.
“No,” Owen said. “I’ll take a horse. It’s quicker.” He would never be able to drive through a rioting mob, he thought grimly. They would smash the coach and then he would be obliged to shoot someone and the whole thing would become even more of a disaster than it already promised to be.
It was a shade darker out on the streets, the short winter afternoon turning to evening. The wind cut like a blade. As he rode back into the city Owen saw the first signs of trouble. There were bands of drunken men roaming the streets armed with clubs; there were carriages broken in the road and set on fire, windows smashed, shops looted. Rolls of black smoke mingled with sudden bursts of flame. And everywhere there was the feeling of violence hanging in the air.
Scraps
of paper were fluttering in the wind, pamphlets and cartoons. Owen leaned down and grabbed one. His heart contracted. It was a caricature of Lord Sidmouth bestriding the country, trampling the people beneath the heel of his boot. It was signed in that unmistakable black scrawl, Jupiter. Owen jumped down from the horse and grabbed another. There was another, and another, dozens of Jupiter’s cartoons, vicious incitements to violence. There was an element of cruelty in them that Owen had never seen before, their humour gone and in its place a raw anger that made his heart jolt. This had to be Tess’s work. It could be no other. Owen felt as though he had never really known her at all.
A chill disillusionment swept through him. Tess had given him her word that she had abandoned the caricatures and he had believed her sincere. Now he found she had been sketching these ever since they had wed. He had thought that they had built up something very honest and real between them, but Tess evidently had older, deeper loyalties and all the time she had been true to them and not to him. She had deceived him from the first and she had never really stopped. Owen tasted the bitterness of betrayal and savage disappointment. He was angry with Tess but he was even angrier with himself for believing in her.
It was then that he caught sight of her, cloaked, scurrying down a side alley. For a second the wind blew back her hood and the faint light gleamed on her hair before she raised her hand to pull the hood back into place. Owen turned his horse. He caught her from behind, reaching down to capture her about the waist and swing her up onto the horse in front of him. She screamed and spun around, her knife at his throat, and he closed his hand so hard about her wrist that she dropped it with a clatter on the cobbles.
“Owen,” she said on a breath of profound relief. “Oh, thank God.”
He did not reply, could not. He was so angry with her and yet he was shaking with relief that she was safe. She was trembling too.
“It’s terrifying out here,” she said.
Nicola Cornick Collection Page 73