So they put their basket down beside the signpost and sat on the grass at the top of the little mound, both intensely aware of one another.
‘You are well?’ he said, admiring that apricot blush. Why, she was quite herself again!
‘Quite well, thank ’ee kindly. Have you news of my parents, Mr Easter?’ How very handsome he looked in the sunshine and how very brown his eyes were. Like pansies.
‘Mr Teshmaker has written to suggest that they come up to London at the end of the month for a meeting with me and my mother and our lawyers.’ If only we were engaged I could lean forward and kiss her. There being no one here to see us.
‘Have they agreed to it?’ How kind he is to take such pains. And so gentle. Look how he helped to carry the basket.
‘We await their letter. In the meantime the lawyers have asked me to ask you …’ Would it seem impertinent to be asking her age? Oh, he mustn’t upset her. Not now when she was recovering so well.
‘To ask me what, Mr Easter?’ How dear he is to be so worried about me. I know how worried he is, for he squints with worry. Oh I love him when he squints with worry.
‘How old you are, Miss Sowerby.’ Please don’t take offence, dear Harriet. I have to ask you.
‘I was sixteen in January.’ Is that the right answer? Oh yes, it must be, for the squint is going.’
‘Thank ’ee kindly.’ Sixteen! Sixteen! What good fortune. Too old for child-stealing and just right for marriage. He was smiling at her rapturously. He couldn’t help it.
‘Should we deliver the washing now, Mr Easter? Or is there anything else you have to ask me?’
Oh there was. There was. So much. But it could wait. There would be a time for it, when the Sowerbys were settled.
He stood up and offered her his hand to help her to her feet. ‘Tell me what has been happening in Rattlesden,’ he said. ‘Who were those bald-headed children in the garden?’
‘They are Mr Abbott’s children,’ she told him, adding with some pride, ‘he has no work and nowhere to live and we are looking after them all.’
Chapter Fourteen
Matilda Honeywood was dressing for a very important occasion. Her mother and father were under the impression that they were hosting a rather ordinary supper party with dancing afterwards, but Matilda knew better. For this was going to be the evening when Billy Easter would propose to her for the very first time.
She didn’t particularly want to marry him, or at least she didn’t think she did. She didn’t particularly want to marry anybody really. She wanted to be loved because she knew from her friend Tabby, who had tried it, that it was the most exquisite pleasure in the world. But apart from that she didn’t really know what she wanted. Her moods changed from day to day. And sometimes from minute to minute.
She knew it was her business in life to catch a suitable husband. Both her parents had made that perfectly clear to her, warning her away from young men who ‘wouldn’t suit’ and singing the praises of those who would, like Billy, and Jeremiah Ottenshaw, who was actually in love with her cousin, and a truly awful man called Scatchard, whom no girl in her right mind would even want to speak to, leave alone marry. Billy was certainly the best of the bunch so far, and very good-looking. She would probably marry him in the end, so it wouldn’t hurt him to propose. She would tease him into several more declarations before she finally agreed to accept him, but this was going to be the first. So naturally she was taking great care to be as beautiful as possible.
The hairdresser had spent a miserable afternoon, trying to arrange her hair in exactly the way she wanted it, and having hot curling tongs flung at him for his pains, and now Lizzie Moffat and her cousins were being abused for being clumsy as they hooked her into her new gown.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’ she shrieked at Sophie. ‘If that hem gets trod I shall never forgive you.’
‘It ain’t trod, Tilda,’ Sophie said, wincing. ‘I held it up most particular, didn’t I, Lizzie?’
‘Weally high,’ Lizzie said, nodding her head so violently that her lank curls swayed before her eyes.
‘Which you could see for yourself if you spent less time shouting,’ Maria said tartly.
‘Oh, Maria,’ Matilda said, smoothing her new skirt and instantly remorseful, ‘I don’t mean to shout, truly I don’t. But if I ain’t at my very very best and he don’t propose I truly think my heart will break.’
‘You look lovely,’ Sophie said earnestly. ‘I don’t see how he could help but propose.’
‘Do you truly think so?’ Matilda said, gazing at her reflection in the long mirror. Oh yes, yes, she did look lovely, with her skin powdered so white and smooth, and her lips so pink, and her grey eyes so big and innocent, and her hair in such nice thick bunches of glossy ringlets dangling on either side of her face, no thanks to that fool hairdresser. Her gown was exquisite, too, with all those little pink rosebuds embroidered all over it and those three deep flounces making the hem froth like a tumbling wave and the décolletage cut so very low that if she leant forward she could see her pretty pink nipples. How could he resist her? He couldn’t, surely!
‘You are the dearest cousins anyone could ever have,’ she said to Sophie and Maria, and feeling she ought to make amends for her ill-humour, ‘and I love you dearly so I do, and if you like I will hide you where you can actually hear him propose. How would that be?’
‘What sport!’ Sophie said. ‘Do you think he really will?’
‘Thwilling,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘Shall you get him to say widiculous things, Tilda dear? I should like to hear a man say widiculous things.’
‘Personally,’ Maria said, ‘I shall be surprised if he says anything at all. But I will hide with the others if you wish it.’
‘The carriages have started to arrive,’ Claude said, putting his head round the door, without knocking. ‘Ain’t you ready yet Sis?’
The sight of him brought back his sister’s irritation in such a rush that her cheeks burned scarlet with it. Little brother Claude who could do no wrong, who was spoilt and pampered and treated like a god, who didn’t bother to knock, who would inherit all Papa’s land and most of Papa’s money without having to do anything to earn it, while she would only get her dowry if she caught a suitable husband. She fanned her hot cheeks furiously, pouting at her reflection. Life was quite horribly unfair. Oh, why couldn’t she have been born a boy? Boys had all the fun. Well, Billy Easter had better look out, that was all. She would tease him ragged.
‘I will coax him into the green parlour,’ she said to Lizzie as they walked downstairs side by side. ‘Nobody ever goes in there and you can hide quite easily behind the curtains.’
But first there were arrivals for her to greet, standing prettily beside her parents and remembering to say the right things, and plenty of partners to tease and Billy to bewitch, before there was supper to eat, which seemed to take for ever because the servants were being really beastly slow.
But at last the long boring meal was done and the guests had left the supper room and were drifting back to the drawing room to dance, or to the card room to gamble, and Matilda was able to signal to Lizzie and her cousins that it was time for them to slip away to the green parlour while she went in search of Billy. She felt like a cat flexing her claws, full of power and ready for the hunt. Watch out Mr Billy Easter, she said to herself, for I mean to have your heart before the evening is out, so I do. Oh ’twould be fine sport to see a man propose.
She found him in the drawing room standing beside the punch table talking to Jeremiah Ottenshaw, who was looking for her cousin Maria, and that long-legged idiot Ebenezer Millhouse who was looking drunk.
‘La, Mr Billy Easter,’ she said, giving him the full force of her grey eyes and attacking at once, ‘if you ain’t the most provoking creature.’
‘Why, Miss Honeywood, what have I done?’ Billy said, feigning alarm. ‘I’m sure it ain’t intentional. Never provoke a lady, would I, Jerry?’ He’d learnt the rules of her teasing
game now and could play it to perfection.
‘Never,’ Jerry agreed easily. He was far too full of supper to argue.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked, catching Billy by the arm because she simply had to touch him. ‘You promised to escort me in to supper and you did no such thing, you bad boy. I declare I feel quite neglected.’
It was a little hard, since she’d deliberately walked in to supper with her father and Billy had seen her do it, but although he blushed he was too gentlemanly to argue. And besides you never knew with Matilda. Sometimes she was teasing and sometimes she seemed to mean things, so he often found it difficult to know how to answer her. If only she’d be serious.
‘Ain’t a feller to spend any time with his friends, damnit?’ Eb Millhouse protested. ‘Deuce take it, Miss Honeywood, you do rag a feller.’
‘Oh well,’ Matilda said, pouting with mock resignation, ‘if I’m to compete with your friends …’ And she started to drift away, but slowly, of course, so that he could catch at her hand and pull her back.
Which he did, ‘Yours to command, Miss Honeywood,’ he said, bowing to her with excessive gallantry.
‘That’s all very well, Mr Easter,’ she pouted, ‘since you don’t mean a word of it. You gentlemen are all the same.’
‘Put me to the test,’ he challenged, squaring his shoulders and standing tall before her. ‘You’ll find I mean every word I say, so you will.’
She was very aware of how handsome he was, and growing handsomer by the second. Why those side whiskers and that thick sandy hair of his were positively bushing.
‘I’ve a secret to tell ’ee,’ she said confidentially, leaning towards him so that the others couldn’t hear her and she could touch his chest with her fingertips. ‘But you shan’t hear it ’till you’ve caught me. If you can!’ And she ran off at once, tripping through the crowds and not looking back.
He charged off after her, running awkwardly through the crush of dancers who were now rapidly filling the room, and was just in time to see her cross the hall and dart through the door into the green parlour.
He caught at her hand as she reached the fireplace. ‘Now tell,’ he urged breathlessly. ‘What’s the secret?’
‘Well as to that …’ she said, glancing at the curtains. Were they all in place? The long velvet was very still.
‘It’s a sell,’ he said with bristling triumph, still holding her hand. ‘There ain’t a secret, is there, Tilda? Confess.’
‘Oh yes there is,’ she said, daring him with her eyes. And she leant towards him and reaching up, fluttered her eyelashes against his cheek. ‘’Tis called a butterfly kiss,’ she murmured. ‘Would ’ee like another?’
The teasing, gentle touch triggered his desire so strongly that he was quite dizzy with the pleasure of it. ‘Tilda,’ he groaned. ‘My love!’
She stepped back so as to get a good view of his face, delighted by the effect she was having.
‘Am I your love, Mr Easter? Am I truly? I’m sure I don’t recall any words being spoke upon the subject, nor no hints gi –’
But the sight of his face stopped her in mid-sentence, for it was blazing with such open affection that he was quite transformed by it, his mouth so soft and his eyes so dark and tender, and that fair hair gilded by firelight into a bronze mane about his temples, a carved helmet, a halo.
‘Oh Tilda,’ he said, shivering with emotion, ‘I adore you. You must know that. I always have, from the very first moment I saw you. Always. Oh Tilda, Tilda, my dear, dear love!’
She had no words to answer him. This wasn’t what she’d expected to provoke at all. This was overwhelming. She put her hand to her mouth instinctively, her eyes wide with surprise, forgetting herself, her scheme, her envied brother, even her listening friends behind the curtain. And her face grew soft with wonder, losing the mocking brightness that until this moment had put him on his guard and forbidden the truth. It was as if the blaze of his affection had melted all the barriers between them.
And then she was in his arms and he was kissing her mouth with such urgency it took her breath away. And his hands were stroking her arms and her shoulders, touching her nipples, sliding down her spine, gripping her buttocks, pulling her closer and closer until it felt as though they were fused together. And his every touch was magical, trailing a hot, tingling pleasure through her flesh. ‘Oh Billy, Billy!’
‘Say you love me,’ he urged between kisses. ‘Oh you do love me, Tilda. Say you love me!’ His face was only inches away from her eyes, blazing, blazing, and his eyes were enormous.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, as those magical hands trailed pleasure down her spine again. ‘I do. I do. Oh Billy I do love ’ee. Kiss me again. I do love ’ee.’
He kissed her again, and again, and again, until they were both panting. And just as he lifted his mouth away from hers to catch his breath a little, a coal fell in the grate and split in two with a fizzing eruption of sudden flame. The sound restored her to momentary memory. How unkind she was being, putting him on display like this. ‘Not here, Billy,’ she whispered. ‘Somebody might come in and find us.’
‘Where then?’ he said, still glowing with that last kiss, holding her locked against his body.
For answer she took his hand and led him to the hidden servants’ door, opening it quietly and slipping through into the musty chill of the unheated corridor behind it. ‘Quick, quick, quick,’ she said.
Behind the curtain, Sophie and Lizzie were in tears, and even Maria was gulping.
‘That was the most romantic thing I ever heard,’ Sophie said rapturously. ‘Oh Maria, oh Lizzie, to be spoken to like that. What bliss!’
‘I shall never be spoken to like that,’ Lizzie said sadly. ‘I know. I’m a deal too plain to be spoken to like that. Oh Sophie, the womance of it!’
‘Do ’ee think she means it?’ Maria wondered. ‘Does she truly love him?’
‘Oh yes,’ her sister said. ‘How could ’ee doubt it, after that?’
‘Where do ’ee think they’ve gone?’
‘To Heaven,’ Lizzie breathed.
Actually they’d gone to her bedroom, scampering up the steep servants’ stairs with their arms about each other, stopping to kiss again and again, running arm in arm and thigh to thigh like a three-legged race, along the upper gallery, tumbling back into warmth through yet another servants’ door, falling together into her welcoming bed, with no one to see them and nothing to stop them. Not that either of them could have stopped anyway, with desire burning so strongly in them both. For now the pleasure they were rousing in each other was too intense to be denied. Her hair was in her eyes and her gown was crushed about her waist and there was warm bare flesh under her hands and that marvellous tingling pleasure had gathered into one place, growing better and better and better like an arrow pointing him the way, pointing her the way, up and up and up until it exploded into such exquisite feeling that she gasped and cried aloud.
Lizzie was right. It was the nearest thing to heaven that either of them had ever experienced.
Afterwards as sensation dimmed and sense gradually seeped back to them, they were both a little confused by what they had done. It had been so quick and so overwhelming, and so pleasurable and so right, but now they wondered.
‘Should we have?’ she questioned. Was that why girls were chaperoned so closely?
He wasn’t sure himself but he answered stoutly so as to comfort her. ‘Of course. We’ve only done what we would have done when we were married.’ That sounded highly ungrammatical, so he tried again. ‘When we are married we shall make love every night and no one will worry about it then, will they?’
That was a delicious thought. Every night!
‘We will marry, will we not?’ Billy said, stroking the side of her face. He had laid claim to her now. She was his, wasn’t she?
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh yes, Billy.’ Of course they would marry. It was the natural thing to do. Now.
‘Soon?’
‘Yes,
very soon.’
‘I shall speak to your papa?’
‘Tonight?’
‘If you think so.’
She thought about it, snuggling into his neck. ‘He will agree,’ she said easily. ‘He considers you suitable.’
‘Did he tell you so?’ He was surprised that his courtship had been taken so seriously.
‘Oh yes. You must not be angry, my dearest Billy. He and Mama discuss everybody. They are always on the lookout for a match for me. ’Tis all they ever think about, marrying me off. He will suit, he won’t. ’Tis their manner.’
‘And you?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Is that your manner too?’
‘Until tonight,’ she said with total honesty, ‘I did not think of love at all, or marriage, only of teasing, playing games.’ And scoring little victories, which now seemed horribly petty. ‘Oh how badly I treated you, Billy my love, playing such games. What must you have thought of me?’
‘It ain’t a game now, is it my lovely Tilda?’
Oh no. It wasn’t a game now. It certainly wasn’t a game now. ‘How quickly everything changes,’ she said.
Down below them the musicians were playing a gallop. They could hear the fiddle scraping and dancers’ feet thumping and thudding. ‘We must go down again,’ Matilda said, ‘or they will miss us.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. But he lay where he was.
‘Get up,’ she said, sitting up beside him and brushing the feathers from his jacket. And was kissed for her care of him, and still insisted.
‘Oh very well,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and rearranging his cravat, which had untied itself and was trailing about his shoulders like a scarf.
‘You must go down first,’ she said. ‘’Twill be safe enough by the main stairs if we ain’t together. I will follow presently.’
So he made himself presentable, kissed her goodbye, and did as he was told. ‘I will speak to your father as soon as ever I can,’ he promised as he left her. ‘And you must dance with me when you come down. You will, will you not?’
‘Yes,’ she said ‘I promise. Now go, before they come searching.’
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