‘Where is Blanche?’ she asked tentatively.
‘She’s taken James into the garden. She’s expecting you and will be in shortly. I have to say James is such a lovely little boy. We’re going to miss him when she takes him to Carlton Bray.’
* * *
Blanche received Catherine with surprising warmth. She looked relaxed and happy. Catherine returned her smile with a lifting of her heart. Perhaps it was right that time healed the wounds of the past.
* * *
The following morning, with James scampering on ahead of them, they strolled together in the wintery garden, down the walks that in summer would be a blazing riot of flowers.
‘This is a lovely house, don’t you think, Blanche?’
‘Yes, and the garden. You are so fortunate to be living here, Catherine. The sea is close. We took James to the beach. He loved it.’
‘John has told you about his plans for Carlton Bray, Blanche. Does the idea of living there please you?’
‘I could not be happier. I never expected him to do that. It is a generous offer and I appreciate it so much.’
‘It must be a satisfaction for you.’
‘Yes. I can’t tell you what that means to me, that James will inherit the estate some time in the future and pass it on to his descendants—when all the politics have been worked out. He will get to know his father there.’
‘He will have you to tell him.’ Catherine smiled. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, that I was Thomas’s wife and yet I didn’t know him at all. I’m sure you’ll be happy there—although Carlton Bray is far removed from London. It’s very quiet—but the people of Carlton village have always been loyal to the Stratton family. I know they’ll welcome you both.’
‘That is what I hope. And you, Catherine—you are to live here in Sussex. Will you sell Oakdene?’
‘No—at least, not yet. It’s early days. For the present I’ve decided to rent it out. I’ve instructed my lawyer to look for someone. I’m sure there is someone who would like to live there.’
‘Yes, there will be. I hope they will be happier than I was. You know, Catherine, you are fortunate in your husband. I did have designs on him myself. I think I saw him as the father James has never had and he would be my link to Thomas. John is an attractive man, but I saw in which direction his attraction lay when he brought you back to Oakdene.’
‘You did?’
‘I’m not blind, Catherine. But see—everything has turned out splendidly.’
* * *
Living at Inglewood House, Catherine came to the realisation that she had never been happier in her life. When the weather improved, Lady Margaret and Elizabeth left for Kent for an extended visit with John’s youngest brother and his family. An excited Blanche and James left for the Welsh Marches with an escort provided by John. After several weeks she wrote that she and James had settled at Carlton Bray very well and how helpful Will Price was to her. In fact, she even went as far as to indicate that she would be very sorry should John decide to recall him. On reading this John and Catherine looked at each other with raised eyebrows and then very slowly they smiled when they realised what this might mean. Was it possible that Blanche and Will were attracted to one another?
‘You will leave him there, won’t you, John?’
‘Will is free to do as he wants, my love. If staying at Carlton Bray with Blanche and James is what he wants to do, then so be it. Although how he will withstand living in Thomas’s shadow remains to be seen.’
* * *
Catherine had settled down to life at Inglewood with remarkable ease. It was like being enfolded in affectionate, warm and willing arms. It was like a dream, a rainbow-coloured dream. But here was John, reminding her that it was actually happening after all and that all those unpleasant events of the past had happened to someone else.
Their son came into the world in late summer. Named William Henry Stratton, he was a lusty boy who was adored and spoiled by all. John was a proud father. On the child’s birth he had taken the small bundle in his arms as his wife looked on with a deep and abiding love in her eyes. After a moment he raised his eyes to hers.
‘I told my mother when I married you that you are a remarkable woman, Catherine. I did not exaggerate.’
His compliment brought a flush to her face. It touched her heart to have him looking at her so, as if she had accomplished some great deed—which he assured her she had. She wanted to live every moment of what the future brought to the full. But for now, she would live this moment, this wonderful moment, and savour the joy of loving and being loved.
‘Thank you,’ he said, the soft tones of his voice warming her as she gazed into his eyes.
Catherine felt herself being drawn into his gaze and she couldn’t miss the approval in the tender smile he gave her. ‘It was my pleasure,’ she replied, reaching out and caressing the curly-headed infant in his arms. ‘I love you. I shall love you until the day I die, John Stratton. Promise me that nothing shall ever come between us.’ She put up a finger and traced the line of his jaw.
‘I do. I promise.’
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, why not check out
these other great reads by Helen Dickson
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A Vow for an Heiress
The Governess’s Scandalous Marriage
Reunited at the King’s Court
Wedded for His Secret Child
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Viscount’s Unconventional Lady by Virginia Heath.
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The Viscount’s Unconventional Lady
by Virginia Heath
Chapter One
Rumours abound, gentle reader, concerning a certain young poet of great regard and the eldest daughter of one of England’s premier portraitists after the pair were seen together again yesterday at the British Museum. Could this mean there is finally a betrothal in the offing for the unconventional Miss B. from Bloomsbury...?
Whispers from Behind the Fan
February 1814
‘Are you absolutely certain you cannot do this alone?’ Her mother’s eyes were shooting unsubtle daggers at her father across the tight confines of the carriage in one last-ditch attempt to get him to change his mind. ‘Surely I do not need to remind you, Augustus, that the eldest boy is a...’ She dropped her voice to a pointed whisper and drew each letter in the air with her finger. ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E-E.’
Faith rolled her eyes, groaning aloud, exasperated in equal measure at both her mother’s unnecessary overprotectiveness and her continued insistence at spelling unsavoury words out in the presence of any one of her three daughters as if they were all too stupid to piece the letters together. Typically, it was ignored.
‘And he’s a nasty piece of work to boot, by all accounts.’ Her mother shuddered theatrically. ‘Completely and utterly R-U-T-H-L-E-S-S.’
‘I have been reading fluently for twenty years, Mama.’ Faith watched her father stifle a laugh at her matter-of-fact tone. ‘Although even if I was so daft as to be unable to decipher your complicated secret code, I can assure you that the world and his wife are already well aware of Viscount Eastwood’s scandal.’
It was impossible not to be.
For the entirety of last spring and summer it was all anyone talked about. After all, it wasn’t every day polite society got to watch a peer of the realm force a rushed petition through Parliament to offload his wife before she gave birth to their child.
Yet against all the odds, and no doubt thanks to his family’s superior connections, their mountains of very old money and Lord Eastwood’s important positio
n in the government, he managed to get shot of the poor woman in under six months, on trumped-up charges of infidelity, simply because he bitterly regretted marrying beneath him. Quite an achievement when such things usually took years—if they were ever achieved at all.
He had even managed to get the deed done and dusted within a few days of the unfortunate woman going into labour. It had really been quite something to behold. Unheard of, truth be told. Unbelievably shocking, undeniably unpalatable, as it rendered the innocent child entirely illegitimate, and thoroughly engrossing to follow in the newspapers. So much so, Faith had been riveted, consumed with a visceral anger she had found extremely difficult to mask because she empathised with the wronged wife entirely. Because she too had once been deemed unsuitable by another viscount who was a presumptive earl-to-be, although thankfully her private shame and utter humiliation had not been in the public glare, or even the personal for that matter.
Her lily-livered, duplicitous and callous beau had always insisted on secrecy, and like the naive, stupid young fool she had once been, she had blithely complied. And what really galled now was that she had even enjoyed all the intrigue at the time. The stolen moments, the illicit kisses, even those under her parents’ own roof, had added a delicious frisson to her ill-fated romance which he had no doubt known was as seductive as his lies to an adventurous young woman who was as green around the gills as she had been. The only positive from the whole sorry debacle was that her dear family were still oblivious of her dreadful mistake.
Thank goodness!
Else she’d be in exactly the same leaky rowboat as the former Viscountess of Eastwood. Ruined as well as abandoned by the unworthy man she had thrown caution to the wind for—and doomed for all eternity to be maligned for ever as a result.
The stark similarities between her and this faceless, voiceless woman were uncanny. The only difference being that Faith hadn’t managed to get her morally moribund presumptive Earl to marry her, which was probably just as well, all things considered, even though it hadn’t felt particularly fortunate at the time. Which made Lord Eastwood’s ruthless behaviour all the more abhorrent. When one made one’s bed, one should have the basic decency to lie in it. Especially when one had taken holy vows to keep the thing for all eternity.
However, as much as she disapproved of the callous Viscount’s ungentlemanly behaviour, she couldn’t deny she was curious to finally meet him in the flesh. Thanks to her parents’ bohemian lifestyle she had met many scandalous individuals in their eclectic little corner of Bloomsbury, more still among the illustrious ranks of the aristocracy, but the cold and calculated Lord Eastwood was going to be her very first truly infamous one. Would his innate heartlessness be blatantly obvious from the outset or was it something he could mask? Her keen artist’s eye wanted to know.
‘I just don’t like the thought of it, Augustus! My poor nerves are already shot to smithereens with the worry and you haven’t even started working for the beast yet!’ Her mother was clearly agitated as she gripped her father’s sleeve. ‘I think it would be much more prudent if you paint him alone, two men together, rather than expose our daughter to his badness. Faith can accompany me to my fitting today instead and perhaps later, in a few weeks once you have enough preliminary sketches of him...’ She curled her lip in distaste. ‘She can work on the background for you safely from home. Well out of The Beast’s beastly clutches.’
‘Roberta—you are letting your imagination run away with you again.’ Her father knew full well a day spent idly twiddling her thumbs in the bowels of the Covent Garden theatre, while her soprano mother was fitted for her flamboyant stage costumes, was Faith’s idea of a living hell. As much as she loved her mother, they were cut from a very different cloth. ‘This is a huge commission, my darling.’ He squeezed his wife’s hand in reassurance. ‘And once again, to clarify for the umpteenth time, I am not actually working for The Beast per se—but his esteemed father who is an altogether more agreeable kettle of fish. Only a tiny fraction of our time over the coming months will be spent exclusively with the Viscount.’
He held up his finger and thumb an inch apart for emphasis. ‘The minutest fraction, which will be undoubtedly considerably less if his blatant lack of enthusiasm for the project is any gauge. When I met with the family last week, Lord Eastwood made no secret of the fact he was there on sufferance and made certain I knew he considered self-indulgent family portraits a complete waste of his valuable time and energy.’
‘I dare say much like his poor unfortunate wife was.’
Faith’s quip earned her a warning look from her father, one which obviously translated to you are not helping, before he covered it with a convincingly pained expression for the benefit of his own worried wife and changed tack.
‘Such a large composition will take several more months if Faith doesn’t assist me and despite the recent unfortunate scandal, it is still a prestigious and lucrative commission. I would be a fool not to give it my all. Especially as it’s been in the planning for over a year and society is already abuzz about the sheer scale of the project. The Earl of Writtle is a favourite of the King and a great friend of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. They are the very pinnacle of society, and instead of choosing Sir Thomas Lawrence like all the best ton inevitably does, they wanted me. This commission is a tremendous coup, Roberta! I am unequivocally committed. Left stranded without Faith’s help, I would need to work longer hours to get it completed in time to meet my other commitments. Significantly longer hours. I’d barely be home, Roberta...’
He let that reality hang for a moment, knowing his absence would bother her mother more than any association with a passing scandal ever could, when to all intents and purposes the Brookes family were a positive scandal in their own right anyway even without Faith’s secret but massive faux pas. The mason’s son turned artist, and the draper’s daughter turned opera singer, were only tolerated by society because they also happened to be the very best artist and the very best opera singer in all of Christendom. Her father’s rising star was shooting past all his rivals, including the painter-in-ordinary to His Majesty, Sir Thomas Lawrence. And now that he had been newly elected by the Royal Academy of Arts as their latest Academician, that star was destined to rise even farther.
‘Aside from the eldest Lord Eastwood...’
‘Please do not call him anything other than The Beast henceforth in my presence, Augustus!’ Her mother refused to be placated. ‘I have the measure of him and will never be swayed from it!’
‘All right—aside from the beastly Beast, the rest of the Earl of Writtle’s brood are delightful. You know they are. You have met them on many occasions. In fact, it was you who first introduced me to the family and saw the potential else I never would have accepted such a huge commission in the first place. You know I prefer the freedom of variety instead of months toiling over the same subjects. They were good people, you said. Influential people. And the Countess’s greatest wish was to have her nearest and dearest immortalised in oils, you said...by me.’
Hardly a tremendous surprise when her father’s work had become quite sought after in the last few years, especially his informal group tableaus, and the waiting list for a painting had been long. However, there was no denying since the Writtle commission and his recent elevation with the Academy, that list was now enormous. His schedule was packed and, keen to monopolise on his good fortune, her father had promised the Countess of Writtle her painting would be completed before the end of the Season and the grand ball the family always held at the end of May. Hence, he would have to renege on that lofty promise without an effective assistant who could effortlessly mimic his style and share some of the burden. Faith was his most promising student and the only one he trusted enough to delegate to.
‘But that was a year ago, dear. A great deal has changed since then. Tell them you are suddenly unavailable, and this argument becomes moot.’
‘Roberta...’ Her father shook his head in disappointment. ‘Aside from the fact that would be very poor form and potentially catastrophic for my good reputation, I pride myself in being a man of my word and I will not entertain the idea of letting anyone down—no matter who they might be associated with or what that associate might have done. And while I understand that all your concerns are because Faith is our daughter, it would be grossly unfair of us to tar all the Earl’s family with the same brush now, wouldn’t it?’ Her father always saw the good in everyone—although from time to time that innate belief was grossly misplaced. ‘What sort of people would we be if we deserted decent folk simply because of some selfish individual’s actions which fall completely out of their control? Not to mention the Earl and Countess of Writtle are true patrons of the arts and we both know those are few and far between. They do not deserve such shoddy treatment and I will not be party to it.’
‘You are right.’ Roberta Brookes was nothing if not fiercely loyal to her legions of devoted fans, irrespective of whether they were paupers or peers. And despite all her current misgivings about Lord Beastly and his scandalous divorce, she really did have a generous nature and a heart of gold. ‘Absolutely right... The Earl and Countess of Writtle are good people...’
‘Of course they are!’ He winked at his daughter as they both watched the older woman waver. ‘Besides, my darling, Faith will be with me. What possible harm could come to her under the watchful eye of her own father?’
‘But he is such a handsome and titled D-E-V-I-L and she is such a pretty thing. What if her head is turned? I worry for the sanctity of her V-I-R-T-U-E.’
While Faith blinked in shock at the ludicrous suggestion, not having the heart to shatter her prudish mother’s illusions by telling her that she had stupidly given away her precious virtue to a lying blackguard years ago, her father’s spontaneous bark of laughter was genuine. ‘Have you gone completely mad, woman? You know our eldest better than anyone. It would take more than a handsome devil to turn her clever, discerning head. Edward Tate is possibly the handsomest man in London, and perhaps the entirety of England, and even he has failed to turn her head.’
Resisting Her Enemy Lord Page 22