Kitabı oku: «Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1», sayfa 17

Chapter Twenty-Two

The new Lady Arndale sat up nervously against the pile of lace-trimmed pillows in her big bed. Her bed, her suite of rooms, her house. Heronsholt, hazy in the evening light, a mass of grey stone and warm red tiles, the impression of a classical frontage and a hint of more chaotic wings behind.

But Nick had given her little opportunity to study the house nestling in its woods overlooking a sweeping Hertfordshire valley. He had ushered her past a confusing number of bowing and curtsying servants, delivered her into the hands of the beaming housekeeper and announced that dinner was required within the hour.

When she had joined him in the dining room there was a full contingent of footmen and an impressive butler to face. Tallie sent a look of pure panic down the length of polished mahogany to where Nick was getting to his feet and met his eyes. They were steady, confident, approving. Her chin went up and she returned the look with a smile that was suddenly calm. Her footmen, her butler—and she was not going to be intimidated by any of them.

Nick was at her side, holding her chair and she smiled up at him. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘Thank you, my lady,’ he whispered back. ‘Tomorrow we will have three leaves taken out of the table and will dine in comfort.’

But tonight he wanted her to impress the servants, she could tell. He had told her all their names on the journey from London, a dreamlike journey after the equally dreamlike wedding ceremony and the wedding breakfast organised on a lavish scale by Lady Parry. Flashes of memory came back to her: Millie looking radiant as she sang at her first private engagement, Mrs Blackstock in earnest discussion with Mr Dover as she explained the problems of finding reliable servants for three lodging-houses and Zenna shamelessly cornering Society ladies and lecturing them on the advantages of an education for girls at her select new seminary.

Nick had dealt with her obvious inexperience of managing a large household and her nervousness about the staff not by referring to it, but simply by giving her the information she would need.

‘Thank you, Partridge,’ she had said firmly, turning to the waiting butler. ‘You may serve now.’

But coping with the servants was one thing—that merely needed acting and a show of self-confidence until she acquired the real thing. Of all her new acquisitions, there was one that could not be dealt with in such a way. Her new husband.

Tallie swallowed, pulling the sheets up to her chin before she realised what she was doing and turned them down again. He has kissed you countless times, she chided herself. You have been in bed with him, for goodness’ sake. He has seen you naked. You have seen him, if it comes to that. Why so shy now?

If Nick had not been so restrained and proper for the four interminable weeks before their wedding, she might not have felt so nervous. But he had acted with the most scrupulous propriety, which unnerved her to the point where she almost convinced herself he was regretting the entire thing and was not in love with her after all. Then she would catch his gaze, see the passion burning in his eyes, hear the tenderness in his voice and she no longer doubted him.

A board creaked outside the door to her dressing-room. It opened onto a tiny lobby and then into his suite. Tallie swallowed, folded her hands over the crumpled wreck of the sheet edge and attempted to look calm. There was a scratch on the panels and the door opened to reveal her husband clad in a splendid dressing-gown of heavy crimson silk, his feet disconcertingly bare.

‘You look very small in that big bed,’ he observed, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. ‘Is it comfortable?’

Tallie’s voice vanished into a squeak. She coughed and tried again. ‘Very, thank you.’ Why did he not come in?

‘I wondered if perhaps you were very tired and would prefer it if I stayed in my room tonight.’

For a moment a ripple of relief ran through her. She would not have to face the horrible possibility that she might not please him tonight. Tomorrow she would be rested, not so tense. A good night’s sleep would surely banish this quivering, feverish feeling that had been spreading through her limbs ever since she had placed her hand in his at the altar.

She opened her mouth to agree and heard herself say, ‘Oh, no, Nick, no. I am not so very tired.’ Before she could correct herself he was at the bedside, flipping back the covers to reveal her modestly clad in the long nightgown of fine cambric that she had nervously chosen to wear. With one hasty, appalled glance she had rejected the dozen or so outrageous pieces of nonsense that Lady Parry had encouraged her to buy and which her new maid had spread out for her choice.

‘Very restrained,’ Nick observed. ‘How does it come off?’

‘Er … over my head.’

‘And are you very fond of this garment?’ His long fingers were toying with the chaste satin ribbon which gathered the neckline.

‘No. Why?’

In answer Nick simply took the neck edges in both hands and ripped the nightgown firmly from top to toe, leaving Tallie naked. Before her hands could grasp the edges again he bent down, scooped her up and strode back towards the door. ‘I have been having the most improper thoughts about doing this since the first moment I saw you in Harland’s studio.’

‘You have?’ Tallie gasped, wrapping her arms around his neck as they swept through both dressing-rooms and into the master bedroom.

‘Hmm.’ Nick’s voice was a throaty growl of anticipation that sent an answering echo through her. ‘And your hair …’ He set her on her feet, tugged at the ribbon that was tying her hair back and swept the freed mass out over her shoulders with both hands. ‘And that scent of jasmine has been haunting me.’ He buried his face in her hair and Tallie found herself pressed against the warm sensual silk. It slid across her naked skin. She shivered and instantly Nick cupped her face in his hands and looked intently down at her.

‘Are you cold? No? Then are you frightened?’

‘Um, a little bit,’ Tallie admitted. Nick seemed so big, so dominant, so possessive.

‘Did Aunt Kate say anything to you?’

‘Only that it would be all right and you were much too experienced to make a mull of it.’

‘Oh, did she?’ Nick said indignantly. ‘And did you find that reassuring?’

‘Not very.’

‘Then let me assure you, Tallie, that I am not experienced in bedding virgins and I intend this to be the first and last time I do so. So we are going to have to muddle through this together and try not to make a mull of it jointly.’ She suppressed a little snort of amusement and he smiled. ‘That is better. Now, then, where were we?’

Fortunately that appeared to be a rhetorical question, for Tallie very much doubted that she could come up with a coherent answer. She burrowed closer against him as though to cover her nakedness with his robe and found that her fingers—quite of their own volition—were untying the knot of the sash. The edges fell apart and she was against Nick’s body.

Tallie froze, absorbing sensations, recalling how it had felt when she had woken in his bed and was held in his arms. This was different. For a moment she was puzzled, then realised that, standing, she was pressed against Nick in a slightly different way. She could rest her head on his shoulder, which meant she could let her lips graze against the side of his neck where the pulse beat so hard. The strangely exciting friction of his chest hair against her softness was the same; she wriggled and caught her breath at the way his breath caught in turn.

And like this, tight against him, there was no mistaking the extent to which she had aroused him.

‘Tallie,’ Nick murmured against her hair.

‘Mmm?’

‘Let me kiss you.’ She tipped back her head and his hands came up to her shoulders to push off the wreck of her nightgown. The fine cambric whispered to the floor as he bent to her lips and Tallie responded, opening to him, yielding to the demands of tongue and lips until suddenly this was no longer enough and the aching, throbbing feeling inside built into a clamorous demand that she could no longer pretend she did not understand.

Nick seemed to sense the change in her. He bent, caught her up in his arms, laid her on the bed. With one fluid movement he had shrugged out of his robe and was on the bed at her side.

Tallie swallowed, struggled to calm her breathing, still the turmoil that racked her. Then the world seemed to stop as she met Nick’s eyes. She had thought she had seen love in them before. She had glimpsed admiration, desire, love. But what she saw now took her breath away. There were all those things in the deep grey gaze, but mixed with them was awe, tenderness, strength and an aching vulnerability.

‘I love you,’ he whispered.

‘I love you too,’ she answered and saw the vulnerability vanish, showing her the banked fires of controlled desire behind the gentleness. And suddenly she did not want him to treat her like a fragile butterfly cupped in his hands, for the desire was welling up in her too, threatening to overwhelm her. ‘Love me, Nick. I will not break.’

Even then he was careful, controlled. She learned to surrender to him, to his clever hands, to his mouth, to the heat and strength of his body until her own was arching in supplication beneath his. When he entered her Tallie was already so tense with the passion he had been building for her that the momentary pain passed in a flash to be replaced with an explosion of sensation.

Tallie cried out, her hands locked about Nick’s neck, her head thrown back on the tumbled pillows, her entire body and mind swept by a crashing wave of sensation.

Slowly, slowly she came to herself, marvelling at the weight of him capturing her so powerfully, so tenderly. Then she realised that he still possessed her, filled her, completed her and her newly awakened body quivered around him.

‘Oh, my love.’ Nick’s eyes were on hers as she smiled tremulously up at him. ‘My beautiful, beautiful Talitha.’ And he began to move again, thrusting, possessing until she found that she was no longer just marvelling at the feel of him within her but that her body was responding, answering his. That extraordinary sensation was building again inexorably, even more overwhelmingly. She drowned in his eyes, convinced she was going to shatter now, break into pieces.

Then as her body convulsed around him again she heard his cry and saw, as her vision blurred, the expression of triumph and love and utter completion that transformed his face.

* * *

Tallie woke slowly, languorously. She stretched, reached out a hand as one or other of them had done at intervals throughout that incredible night—and found the bed empty. Her groping hand found only the warm rumpled hollow where Nick had lain. Tallie opened her eyes, blinking in full daylight and lay looking up at the underside of the bed canopy while she thought about just how new and strange her body felt.

It was as though every muscle was sleek and polished, as though her skin had been oiled and as if she should stretch and purr like a cat instead of simply sitting up in bed. She compromised, wriggling up against the pillows, arching her back and raising her arms in a long, luxurious stretch.

Her husband was standing across the room from the bed, reaching up to turn a small key in a hole in the panelling. As he heard her move he turned and smiled at her. Tallie felt her heart give a sharp beat. Loved and loving, that was how she felt, how she knew she would always feel with Nick.

‘Good morning, my lady wife.’

‘Good morning, my lord.’ He had not troubled to pull on his robe and Tallie regarded him unashamed and admiring. ‘What are you doing? That panelling is new, is it not?’

Nick turned back and opened what she could now see was a pair of doors above the dado level, then stepped aside to repeat the action on the next length of wall.

Tallie gasped. Revealed by the opening doors was a large oil painting, a scene of a classical temple with a nymph placing an offering before the altar.

‘But that is one of Mr Harland’s canvases …’ She swung her feet out of bed and ran to Nick’s side as he opened one panel after another. ‘And that, and that one and that is the Diana picture! Nick, have you bought all the paintings he did with me as the model?’

In answer Nick swept a hand around the room. The locked panels were open to reveal six scenes of the ancient world, each with the slender blonde-haired figure of the new Lady Arndale gracing it. ‘It seemed the safest way of keeping them from prying eyes, and, when I saw them, how could I resist?’

He watched, hardly conscious of the smile on his face as he regarded his wife walking slowly around the room gazing up at the luminous pictures, her hands pressed to her flushed cheeks. Each image was lovely, but none matched the real woman he knew. For a moment he shivered at the thought of how he would be feeling now if she had refused him. To possess those still images and know that he had lost the one being who completed him as a person. Unbearable.

Tallie turned slowly to face him and he felt his spirits soar again, the unthinkable vanishing in the warmth of her smile. ‘There is still one space.’ She gestured at the central panel between the windows.

The half-formed idea he had entertained but never thought through came to his lips before he could check it. ‘Perhaps you could … no.’ No, the idea of his Tallie exposed to the eyes of any other man again, even the apparently sexless Harland, was unbearable. Then he saw her face and could not have felt worse if he had struck her.

‘Tallie, darling, I am sorry, I would not have you go through that again for anything. I am a thoughtless beast.’ He caught her in his arms, burying his face in her hair. Damn it! This business of being in love was far harder than he had ever imagined. You opened up your every thought and feeling to another and they to you—and that made it so easy to hurt them. He was aware of her slender body shaking against him. He had made her cry.

‘Tallie, sweetheart … You are laughing.’ She struggled to get her expression under control. ‘You were teasing me?’

Instantly she looked all contrition. It was incredible the way she could hide every feeling or let down every barrier and expose her soul to him. ‘I am sorry. It was just your face when you were contemplating it, and then instantly you came all over-possessive. I think perhaps people would expect a nice conventional portrait of both of us for the main reception rooms, but I have a much better idea for this wall.’

‘Yes?’ Nick said cautiously, telling himself that he had better learn fast how to deal with this infuriating minx of a new wife before she ran rings around him.

‘It was Mr Harland’s suggestion, and I have to admit that I have thought of it often since he made it.’ Nick waited, hands on hips. ‘He said, the first time he saw you—when I, of course, did not see you—that he would like to paint you as Alexander the Great. I found it a powerful image,’ Tallie added reflectively.

‘Alexander? I suppose I must be flattered, but you do not want a picture of a man in armour in the bedchamber, surely?’

‘Oh, no, not in armour.’ For some reason Tallie was edging away from him round the edge of the bed. ‘In the antique style, carrying a shield and sword and wearing sandals.’

‘And what else?’

‘Why, nothing at all.’

‘You little wanton! You expect me to pose naked for some da—blasted artist?’

‘Why not? What is sauce for the goose …’

Nick stared at her. The thought that Tallie could think of him with quite the same physical admiration that he thought of her—in fact, had thought about the image Harland had conjured up with a no-doubt idle suggestion—that was powerfully erotic. He felt his body tighten and stir and caught the spark of wicked acknowledgement in his wife’s eyes.

‘Madam, this gander is not for plucking. And if you need any convincing about just who is master in this house, I am afraid I am just going to have to show you all over again.’ He grinned as she dodged laughing away from his reaching arm and then tumbled of her own accord onto the big bed, stretching out her hands to him.

‘Of course, my lord, if you dislike the idea we will say no more about it …’

Nick let himself be pulled down onto the bed then rolled Tallie over to hold her trapped tightly beneath him. ‘For some reason, my adorable new wife, I suspect that this show of meek obedience is just that—show. I have no doubt that I am going to be cajoled, lured and tricked into Harland’s studio.’

Tallie attempted a hurt pout and only succeeded in looking adorably flustered. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Not in the least. I fully anticipate years of enjoyment from your wiles, my love—and from attempting to take your mind off further schemes. Like this, my very dearest love …’

And Tallie, gasping with delight in his arms, could only murmur against his lips, ‘I do love you so, Nick. So very, very much. And for ever.’

* * * * *

The Marriage Debt

Chapter One

The tall man in the frieze coat sat cross-legged on the hard bench, put his elbows on his knees, his chin on his clasped hands and thought. It required some concentration to ignore the shackles on his legs, the cold that seeped out of the damp walls, the rustles and squeaking in the rotten straw that covered the floor and the constant noise that echoed through the long dark corridors.

A few cells away a man was screaming an incoherent flood of obscenities that seemed to have gone on for hours. More distantly someone was dragging a stick across the bars of one of the great rooms, a monotonous music that fretted at the nerves. A boy was sobbing somewhere close. Footsteps on the flags outside and the clank and jingle of keys heralded the passing of a pair of turnkeys.

Long ago his father had said he was born to be hanged. At the time he had laughed: nothing had seemed more improbable. Now the words spoken in anger had been proven right: in eight days he would step outside Newgate gaol to the gallows platform and the hangman’s noose.

One small mercy was that they had put him in a cell by himself, not thrown him into one of the common yards where pickpockets and murderers, petty thieves and rapists crowded together, sleeping in great filthy chambers as best they might, fighting amongst themselves and preying on the weakest amongst them if they could.

Apparently his notoriety as Black Jack Standon was worth enough in tips to the turnkeys for them to keep him apart where he could be better shown off to the languid gentlemen and over-excited ladies who found an afternoon’s slumming a stimulating entertainment. The sight of an infamous highwayman who had made the Oxford road through Hertfordshire his hunting ground was the climax of the visit to one of London’s most feared prisons.

He had hurled his bowl at the group who had clustered around the narrow barred opening an hour or two ago and smiled grimly at the shrieks and curses when the foul liquid that passed as stew splattered the fine clothes on the other side of the grill. He doubted they’d feed him again today after that. It was no loss, he seemed to have passed beyond hunger after the trial—if such it could be called.

Footsteps outside again, slowing. He raised his dark head and regarded the door through narrowed eyes. There was nothing left to throw except the coarse pottery mug and he was not prepared to give up water as easily as food.

The slide over the grill rasped back and he squinted in the beam from a lantern directed through the gap. It was probably daylight outside; all that filtered down into his cell was a dirty smudge of light that hardly had the strength to reflect off the rivulets of water on the walls.

They did not sound like society sensation seekers. One man talking. No, two, low voiced and apparently arguing. Suddenly moved to real anger at being exhibited like a caged animal at a fair he swung his legs off the bench and took a stride towards the door before the shackles jerked him to a standstill. The grill shutter slammed closed. All he heard was ‘She’ll never agree …’

With an awkward shuffle, the man they called Black Jack got back to his bench and hoisted his feet up again away from the foul straw and the rats who lived in it. Better get used to being stared at, he told himself grimly. In eight days he would walk out of here to die in front of a vast crowd. They expected the condemned to ‘die game', defiant in their best clothes, a joke on their lips for the onlookers. They would have to do without the fine clothes, all he had was the ill-fitting ones he was wearing and not a penny-piece in his pockets to buy anything else.

So, he continued his inner dialogue, Better get used to the idea and think up something witty to say. Was it too late to save himself? Yes, days too late. If he had sent word when they first took him, the message might have reached Northumberland; help might have come. Or might not.

He had made this particular bed. Pride had kept him away for six years, pride was damn well going to have to get him through to the end. Meanwhile pride and a hard bench made for little sleep. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift. At least it wasn’t raining, at least there was no mud and nobody was going to try and kill him for eight days. That was an improvement on the night before Waterloo. ‘Count your blessings,’ his old nurse was wont to say. The bitter twist of his mouth relaxed a little and he began to doze.

Katherine Cunningham looked up from her book in some surprise as the front door opened and she heard male voices in the hallway. A rapid glance at the mantel clock showed it still lacked half an hour before six: what was Philip doing home at this time in the afternoon?

She got to her feet and went to the door of the small back parlour of the Clifford Street house where she had been indulging in some snatched leisure for reading. With virtually no staff, it was easier to keep only the one small reception room in use; the rest were under holland covers with the exception of the room that Philip liked to call his study.

He was approaching it as she stepped out into the hall, Arthur Brigham, his friend from schooldays, at his heels. At the sight of her they both stopped dead.

‘Good afternoon, Arthur.’ She studied their faces. ‘What on earth is the matter? You look as though the pair of you have seen a ghost.’

‘Good … good afternoon,’ the young lawyer stammered. ‘I was … we were just going to look at something in Phil’s study.’ As he spoke he gave her brother a firm shove in the back, propelling him into the room before Katherine could get a good look at him.

The familiar wave of apprehension swept over her: now what was Phil up to? Drunk again, that would be almost inevitable despite the hour. But there was something else afoot, she could sense it.

‘Philip, what is wrong?’ She swept neatly through the open door before Arthur could close it, then stopped dead as she saw Philip’s face. It was blotched—with drink, doubtless—but also with dried tears. The expression in his eyes was desperate and his mouth, so like hers, too feminine for a man, quivered. Something clutched at her heart. ‘Phil! Sit down, quickly. Arthur, is he ill?’

Thank goodness for Arthur, she thought, kneeling beside Philip’s chair and trying to get him to meet her eyes. He might be wild to a fault and perfectly capable of neglecting his studies or his duties in his uncle’s law firm when it suited him, but he had none of Phil’s fatal weaknesses for drink and gaming. And he was patient and loyal enough to keep hauling his friend home whatever the scrape he was in.

‘You must tell her, Phil,’ Arthur urged. ‘She has to know sooner or later.’ It seemed to Katherine as she knelt there that he could not meet her eyes either. The grip on her heart tightened.

‘Oh God, oh God, I’m sorry, Katherine.’ To her horror her brother burst into tears, his head on her shoulder. Ignoring the blasphemy, she patted his arm, stroked his hair until he suddenly jerked upright. ‘We’re ruined, Katy, absolutely ruined.’

‘How can we be?’ Somehow she could not get to her feet, her knees felt like jelly. She stayed there by his side, the wetness from his tears soaking the front of her old blue dimity gown. ‘You said you had won at the races, you said you had won at cards and we could pay off that money you borrowed and everything would be all right.’

He buried his face in his hands. She caught the muffled words, ‘Lost it again. Payment due.’

‘What? All of it?’ Philip was beyond listening to her, so she twisted to look up at Arthur. ‘Arthur, what is he saying?’

‘He went to a new hell in Pickering Place last night. Said I’d meet him there, but by the time I arrived most of the money was gone.’ The young man shot her a look of mingled shame and apology. ‘I couldn’t get him to leave, Katherine, he was drunk as a judge, convinced it would only take one more throw of the bones.’ He bit his lip, his eyes shifting under her horrified gaze. ‘I did get him out eventually, before he actually wrote any vowels.’

‘Small mercy,’ she said bitterly. ‘They would have joined all the other debts and the tradesmen’s bills. But thank you for trying, Arthur. Where have you been today?’

‘To the moneylender, to see if he could get an extension on the loan, some more money. But the old bloodsucker just laughed in his face, said he’d give him two weeks’ grace, then send the bailiffs round.’

‘Merciful heaven.’ Katherine sank back on her heels, her fingers pressed to her lips. ‘Philip!’ She shook his arm. ‘How much do you owe them?’

‘Five,’ he muttered, head averted.

‘Five hundred … Let me think, what is left we can sell …?’

Arthur cleared his throat. ‘Er, no, Katherine. Five thousand.’

The room swam. Surely she had misheard him? ‘Five thousand?’ she whispered. ‘Five thousand pounds?’

Philip nodded mutely.

‘And there are all the other debts and bills.’ Her stomach seemed to have risen so she could not breathe, would be sick at any moment. Katherine gulped air and clenched her hands until the nails bit into her palms. When she could speak, she said flatly, ‘We must sell the house and the furniture, it is all we have left that even approaches that sum.’

‘Can’t.’ The single word was choked out of Philip. Like an old, sick man he dragged himself upright in the chair and passed a trembling hand across his face. ‘I’ve already sold them.’

‘What?’ Arthur’s exclamation cut across hers. ‘You’ve sold the house? How could you do that and Katherine not know?’

‘Did it the month before Christmas when she went to stay with Great-Aunt Gwendoline, just before she died. Waste of time and effort that was,’ he added. ‘Never left us a brass farthing.’

‘Philip, how could you?’ Katherine shook her head, too buffeted at the rest of his news to scold him for his callousness as he deserved.

He shrugged. ‘Anyway, sold it then. And the furniture. Man I sold it to agreed to rent it back furnished. I paid off the worst of my gaming debts and kept some back for the rent, but that’s gone now too.’

Katherine tried to get to her feet and found Arthur’s hand under her elbow. ‘Here, better sit down. Shall I ring for some tea?’

‘Yes, thank you, Arthur. I think Jenny is in the kitchen.’

They sat in silence, all unable to find words. Mercifully Arthur showed no sign of wanting to leave, although Katherine realised he must wish himself anywhere but in the centre of this family crisis. She shot him a grateful look. Goodness knows how she could cope with Philip without his help.

Jenny, once Katherine’s maid and now, since all but one of the other servants had left, their maid, cook and housekeeper rolled into one, put her head round the door. ‘You rang, Miss Katherine?’ Katherine swallowed, trying to get her tongue around a simple order for refreshment. Jenny took one look at their faces, said simply, ‘Tea. Yes, Miss Katherine', and went out.

The silence stretched on. Philip scrubbed his handkerchief over his face and sat cutting and recutting a pack of cards that lay on his desk. Arthur simply waited, studying his clasped hands, and Katherine forced herself to try and make a plan, find some way out of this trap. But all she could see were doors slamming in her face however much her mind twisted and turned.

Jenny returned with the tea tray, put it down and left. Somehow the simple presence of this symbol of everyday social life woke Katherine from her trance. She poured tea, passed cups, insisted Philip drank, then began to ask the questions that were beating on those locked doors in her mind.

‘What will the moneylender do if you do not repay him?’

‘Send the bailiffs like he threatened,’ Philip said dismally.

‘But there is nothing to take. You say the house and furniture are sold, what is left?’

‘The kitchen utensils, the china and silver, your clothes.’ Arthur spoke when Philip lapsed into silence again.

‘The very clothes off our backs? But none of that will make up five thousand pounds? What can they do?’

‘Debtors’ prison,’ Philip choked out.

‘Prison? No, oh, no, Phil, I cannot bear it if you go to prison!’ Katherine stared white-faced at Arthur. ‘Arthur, you must know how to stop that happening?’

‘Nothing I can do.’ He shook his head. ‘And the moneylenders will soon find out who else money is owed to. They’ll all see to it that it’ll be prison until the debt is paid in full. They have a perfect right to do it.’