Kitabı oku: «The Rake's Bargain»

Chapter One

June 1803

Miss Deborah O’Hara pressed herself close to the ivy-covered mansion and tried not to flinch as the rain trickled off the brim of her cap and dripped steadily—coldly—down inside her jacket collar. She’d scrambled over the boundary wall and run here through the shrubbery, keeping her head low; but now she was able to look around. Now she was able to see that the acres of formal gardens stretching away on all sides were quite deserted—and as waterlogged as the overcast sky.

Hardgate Hall. The very name was enough to send shivers down her spine. Swiping fresh rain from her cheeks, she glanced up once more at the small window on the second floor that some servant must have carelessly left open. It was almost sixteen years since she’d last entered this house, a bewildered six-year-old clutching her mother’s hand; though a few minutes later they were being hustled out again and Deb’s mother was weeping.

‘You made your choices!’ Deb remembered Hugh Palfreyman declaring harshly. ‘You made your own bed, sister mine. And you can lie on it.’

Deb was twenty-two now and her mother had died long ago. But she’d never ever forgotten this place, and she always imagined it under grey skies, just as it was now.

She scanned the garden once more, trying to suppress her growing anxiety, and relaxed just a little when she saw two familiar figures hurrying towards her through the rain. ‘Luke. Francis. There you are. I was beginning to think...’

‘Think what, Miss Deb?’ Young Luke’s straggly blond hair was plastered to his face.

She was beginning to fear they might have been caught by Palfreyman’s men. Deb said instead, ‘You took your time. What news?’

‘We looked to see if there was anyone around. Just as you told us to, Deborah.’ This time it was the older one, Francis, who spoke. ‘Though we were careful to keep under cover, always. And we’ve good news—it looks as if all the groundsmen have been ordered to spend the afternoon tidying up Palfreyman’s glasshouses, on the far side of the south lawn.’

Deb nodded. ‘So they’ll not catch sight of us here. What about the guard dogs?’

Young Luke spoke up next. ‘We heard them barking in the distance and they sound big.’ He shivered. ‘But they’re kept in a yard close by the stables—though I’ve heard they’re let loose after nightfall, when they prowl around the grounds with teeth so sharp they’d take a great lump out of your thigh, and—’

‘Thank you, Luke,’ Deb interrupted. ‘That’s enough.’ More than enough, in fact. ‘So we’re safe for now?’

Francis tipped his black hat with the feather in it to gaze up at the vast house that loomed before them. ‘It depends,’ he said narrowly, ‘on what you mean by “safe”, Deborah.’

Deb sighed inwardly. Francis Calladine, almost twice Luke’s age, was a stalwart friend, but he’d been dubious about Deb’s plan from the start. Although it was Francis who’d spotted earlier, as they’d examined the house from the far side—the safe side—of the boundary wall, that the rooms to the north of the building looked dark and little used.

‘And if you’re really intent on breaking in,’ he’d added, ‘all that ivy growing up there is a burglar’s delight.’

Deb’s response had been instant. ‘I’m no burglar!’

‘You’re planning on getting inside,’ Francis had said quietly. ‘Though why you’re so intent on taking such a risk when the owner’s a Justice of the Peace and has already threatened us all with prison remains a mystery to me.’

If Francis had known that Hugh Palfreyman was her uncle, he’d have been quite speechless. But by Deb’s reckoning, desperate times called for desperate measures.

‘I’m not turning back now, Francis.’ Deb spoke with utter calmness, utter certainty. ‘I’m always grateful for your advice, believe me. But I hope you’ve not forgotten that you promised my stepfather you’d trust me.’

‘I also promised your stepfather that I’d keep you safe, Deborah,’ said Francis, who was distinguishable always by his wide-brimmed hat and his ancient, rust-red coat. ‘But I’ll do as you say. Young Luke and I will be here, waiting for you—’

‘No!’

‘What?’ This time Francis looked really outraged.

‘No.’ Deb shook her head decisively. ‘I’ve changed my mind about you waiting for me here. It’s just too risky.’ No one at all was around, but it was very possible their luck wouldn’t hold, especially if this rain eased off. And in that case—better for only her to be captured, rather than all three of them. ‘I’ve decided,’ she went on, ‘that it would be a good idea for you and Luke to return to the horses and wait for me there.’

They’d ridden from Oxford by cutting through the Ashendale Forest and taking a track which brought them almost to the edge of Palfreyman’s estate. There they’d left their three horses, carefully tethered, although the sturdy old creatures were most unlikely to gallop off.

Francis clearly didn’t think much of Deb’s instructions. ‘You want us to just leave you here? But what if you get caught? By the servants, or by Palfreyman himself?’

As if she hadn’t thought of that. ‘And how on earth could the two of you do anything if I did?’ she pointed out. ‘You can help me get started—but then you must go, do you understand?’

‘But...’

‘What would my stepfather, Gerald, have said, Francis? What did he say to you, when he called the Lambeth Players together and spoke to us all for the very last time?’ It was two years since Gerald O’Hara had died, but there was still a catch in her voice whenever she spoke his name.

Francis too looked affected. ‘Mr O’Hara said he was leaving the Lambeth Players in your charge.’

‘He also told you, I believe, that you were to all work with me and heed me in every way.’ Deb surveyed them both with her cool gaze. ‘So are you going to wait for me in the woods?’

Luke glanced anxiously at Francis, who still hesitated. ‘Very well,’ Francis said at last. ‘But—’

‘Thank you—both of you,’ Deb cut in quickly. ‘And if I don’t turn up in the woods by five, you’re to ride back to Oxford and the others. Do you understand me?’

Francis’s brow was growing dark again and he looked as if he were about to utter some fresh warning. Deb couldn’t blame him for having doubts, because she certainly did. ‘Remember, Francis! I only let you come with me on the condition that you obeyed me in everything. And what’s the motto of the Lambeth Players?’

‘Triumph over adversity!’ declared Luke.

‘Exactly. Now, the sooner I get up there—’ she pointed at the rambling ivy ‘—the sooner I’ll be back with you, safe and sound.’

To Deb’s relief, not another objection was uttered. She could sense Luke’s and Francis’s tension as she grasped the ivy and began to climb, but she turned round from her perch and gave them a cheerful nod. ‘Go, both of you. I’ll be fine.’

She saw them cross the lawns in the rain, then weave through the sodden shrubbery. Any minute, she feared she might hear the barking of Hugh Palfreyman’s guard dogs, or the shouts of his groundsmen, but, no; Luke and Francis made it to the wall and inwardly she cheered them on. Up and over. That’s the way.

Taking a deep breath, Deb pulled down her cap over her thick chestnut curls and pressed on with the scariest and most necessary climb of her life.

* * *

Triumph over adversity. That was an apt motto for the troupe of travelling actors who moved between fairs and country markets each year from March to December, with their old carts full of costumes and scenery. The Lambeth Players were Deb’s family and her life.

She’d initially resolved to complete her task today without telling a soul. But as ill luck would have it, sharp-eyed Francis, the senior actor, had spotted Deb saddling one of their horses outside the Angel Inn on the outskirts of Oxford where the Players were staying, and of course he wanted to know exactly where she was off to.

In the face of his determination—we swore to Gerald O’Hara that we’d take care of you and we will!—she’d been forced at last to tell him that she was riding to Hardgate Hall. That she was, to be precise, planning to enter Hardgate Hall in secret—though she refused to tell him precisely why. Glibly she’d dismissed the dangers—it would be an easy matter, Deb assured Francis, for her to get in and out of the house in no time at all.

But Francis’s face was a picture. In fact, he was horrified, and he made so much fuss that she at last consented to let Francis and Luke accompany her on the ride through the Ashendale Forest. And here she was; though she was beginning to have the sinking feeling that this whole idea of hers was a bad mistake.

And the rain didn’t help. What if she slipped, or the ivy gave way? It was a long way to fall. Or what if someone came round this side of the house? A gardener, or even a gamekeeper with a gun... Stop it. Stop it. Carefully finding footholds with the toes of her lace-up boots—don’t look down, whatever you do—she could only be grateful she was as wiry and nimble as a boy.

‘Why, there’s nothin’ to you, lass. You’re all skin and bone,’ the innkeeper’s wife had declared last night, slamming down a bowl of rather greasy stew before her in the shabby public room of the inn. ‘You need to put on a bit of flesh if you’re to catch yourself a man!’

Just at that moment, her own spouse—a surly creature who was over-fond of his homebrewed ale—had come in, and Deb thought, Catch myself a man like yours? No, thank you.

Deb didn’t want a husband. Her dream was to establish a theatre for the Players—a proper theatre, in London—instead of them having to tramp round the country every season. And after today, she would be able to concentrate on her dream once more. Hugh Palfreyman, you might be a Justice of the Peace. But you are nothing to me, she breathed as she clambered on up the ivy. And I will teach you that you interfere with the Lambeth Players at your peril!

At last, the small window was within her reach. Heaving it open, she hauled herself in, knowing that at last she was in the forbidden domain of her uncle—and not a sound pierced the silence, except for the thudding of her own heart.

* * *

Her mother had wept after that visit to Hardgate Hall sixteen years ago and Deb had crept into her arms ‘Mama? Mama?’

‘My darling girl.’ Her mother had hugged her tightly. ‘I shouldn’t have taken you there. But I’d thought—I’d hoped...’

Deb couldn’t understand how anyone could want to make her sweet mother cry. ‘Is he a bad man, that man in the big house?’

‘That man is my brother,’ her mother said quietly. ‘He is many years older than me and became master of Hardgate Hall when I was still a child. I thought he might have changed. I was wrong.’

‘But why was he so cruel to you, Mama?’

‘I think he is very unhappy. I think he always was. He was a solitary creature and used to go out for long rides alone, or lock himself away in a room upstairs for hours on end. I think he had secrets.’ She’d added, half to herself, ‘And what those secrets were, I never wished to find out.’

Deb heard her mother recounting the same tale to Gerald O’Hara months later. I used to wonder why he allowed no one but himself in that room up in the north wing. None of the servants ever entered it. The room was on the second floor; the door was locked and only he had the key...

Deb progressed steadily along the passageway, trying door after door; only to find that not one was locked, and each room she peered into contained nothing but old furniture shrouded with dust sheets.

And then—just as she was beginning to fear that she’d got everything wrong—she came to a door that wouldn’t open. Swiftly she pulled out her small, sharp-pointed knife, used it to slip the lock and stepped inside, alert and aware. In the centre of the room stood a big old mahogany desk, behind it a leather armchair. Heavy red-velvet curtains half-shrouded the windows and every wall was lined from floor to ceiling with books.

This was a private library, a secret library. But it wasn’t because her uncle Hugh Palfreyman was a scholar of the classics or some other clever subject. Far from it.

* * *

A little over a week ago Deb had visited the stall of a travelling bookseller at the Oxford market, for she was constantly on the lookout for any half-forgotten plays for her company to use. Comedies, tragedies, it didn’t matter which, as long as they kept the crowds entertained.

‘Aren’t you the young lady from the Lambeth Players?’ the bookseller had enquired. ‘I saw your lot doing that fight scene from Tamburlaine on the village green the other night. By heaven, it was a treat.’

‘I’m so glad you enjoyed our performance,’ said Deb politely. She glanced through a few more books laid out on his stall—no, nothing much of interest there—then went to investigate a box at the back. But the bookseller dived across to stop her.

‘Oh, no, missy. Those books in there ain’t for the likes of you. They’re—’ he coughed ‘—they’re some serious works of literature. For my private customers only.’

Deb had already glimpsed two of the titles. Serious works of literature? That was a joke. Artistic Treasures of Venus. Classical Collections for Gentlemen of Discernment... She would stake her life that every single one of them was packed with erotic prints and libidinous tales.

‘I’m sure you’ll get a very good price for them,’ she told the bookseller demurely and moved on.

But a little later, when she happened to be passing back that way, she saw the bookseller deep in conversation with someone else, and her heart began hammering against her chest. She’d been only six years old when she last saw him; but Hugh Palfreyman had changed very little, in Deb’s opinion, except that perhaps his beaked nose was more protuberant and his little pursed-up mouth even tighter. As Deb watched, she saw the glint of coins being passed. Saw the bookseller reach furtively into that box at the back for several slim volumes, which he proceeded to wrap in brown paper, then give to Hugh Palfreyman.

Palfreyman hurried away, while Deb stood absorbing the full impact of what she’d just witnessed.

Her mother’s brother—a Justice of the Peace—was a connoisseur of the kind of literature that was described in polite circles as ‘stimulating’. Well, button my boots, as her stepfather, Gerald O’Hara, would say.

* * *

Deb found herself thinking rather a lot of other things about her Uncle Palfreyman as she stood in the confines of his secret library while the rain pounded against the window. Hypocrite was the most polite of them. Still listening hard for the sound of anyone approaching, she tiptoed over to the bookshelves and eased out some volumes to lay on the desk.

Not all the books were English—some were in French and some in Italian, but—oh, my. It didn’t really matter in the slightest what language they were in, because there wasn’t much writing anyway, and the pictures were just—well. Deb’s eyes widened, but at the same time triumph swelled within her heart. For she’d realised that—incredibly enough—each volume had a gilt-edged bookplate just inside the front cover on which was carefully inscribed the owner’s name—Hugh Palfreyman.

What a fool, Deb marvelled. To keep all this so secret, then provide such glaring evidence of possession. What a gift, for her.

She’d hoped never to have to come into contact with her uncle again, since he’d banished her and her mother from his house. But all that had changed; for one Saturday, almost two weeks ago, a sweet old lady had sought Deb out at the inn and told her that Shakespeare was her husband’s passion, but he was too frail to visit any of the Players’ outdoor performances. Would one or two of the actors be kind enough to visit him, she asked, and perhaps read out some of his favourite lines?

Deb and three others had gone to him the very next afternoon and had performed the last, lovely scene of The Tempest. The old gentleman’s faded eyes had lit up with pleasure, and afterwards his grateful wife had tried to press money on the actors, but they’d refused. Apart from knowing anyway that it was illegal for them to perform on a Sunday, they wouldn’t have dreamt of taking the coins, because that sort of performance and the pleasure it brought was beyond price.

But somehow, Hugh Palfreyman had got to hear about it. And he was chairman of the local magistrates.

‘Acting, on the Sabbath Day,’ he’d apparently stormed—Deb had heard talk of his rage all around Oxford. ‘It’s a direct contravention of the law!’ And he’d threatened the Lambeth Players with a crippling fine, or even gaol.

Thank goodness Palfreyman didn’t know that the leader of the Lambeth Players was his own niece. Swiftly Deb selected three small but explicit volumes, then she sat at Palfreyman’s desk and, after pulling a clean sheet of notepaper and a pencil from her inner pocket, she carefully wrote a letter.

To Mr Hugh Palfreyman

This is to inform you that it is very much in your interest to take back the accusations that you recently made against the Lambeth Players. I enclose something to explain why. Please confirm in a letter that the threats you made will be completely withdrawn, and leave the same letter beneath the stone horse trough beside the wall of St Mary’s churchyard, by ten o’clock tomorrow morning at the latest.

Then Deb drew out her pocket knife and leafed through the pages of the books she’d selected. Oh, my goodness—the Italian one was the worst, she decided. It was illustrated by someone called Aretino, and her eyes widened again as she looked at picture after picture. Was that really anatomically possible? Carefully she detached one page—I’m not going to look at it, they’re all just too dreadful—then she folded the sheet inside her letter, sealed it with a wafer she’d brought, and wrote Palfreyman’s name on the outside. The books and the letter fitted—just—into her inside pocket.

After that, climbing back out through the window and down the ivy-clad wall was easy. Running stealthily to the front door—keeping to the wall and ducking below windows—wasn’t so easy, and she heaved a sigh of relief as she pushed her sealed message into the letter box there. Then she ran as fast as she could for the shrubbery, weaving through the tangle of lilacs and rose bushes as the rain poured down, and giving a flash of a smile as she climbed nimbly over the boundary wall.

Job done, she silently congratulated herself.

* * *

As Damian Beaumaris rode steadily along the track through the woods, the rain streamed off his multi-caped greatcoat and down the flanks of his big bay gelding as if someone was hurling buckets of water over both of them.

A lesser man might have been put off—but not Beaumaris, who was known as Beau to his friends. When he’d first written to Palfreyman two weeks ago, to demand an immediate meeting in London, Palfreyman had tried to wriggle out of it by pleading that ill health prevented him from leaving his Oxfordshire mansion. So Beau had promptly ordered his business secretary, the ever-efficient Nathaniel Armitage, to write back and explain that since Palfreyman found himself indisposed, Beau would travel to Oxfordshire.

My employer trusts, wrote Armitage in his careful script, that it will be convenient if he arrives at Hardgate Hall on the thirteenth of June, at four o’clock precisely.

Armitage had pointed out to Beau that the thirteenth of June just happened to be a Friday. Beau had swiftly responded that as his long-standing secretary, Armitage ought to know that superstition played no part whatsoever in his meticulously ordered life. Though after Armitage had gone, Beau reflected that the day and date certainly boded ill for Hugh Palfreyman, who Beau had concluded was as cowardly and conniving a wretch as he had ever come across.

On the morning of the twelfth of June, Beau had set off on the journey to Oxfordshire in his brand-new and speedy travelling carriage, driven with great pride by his faithful coachman, William Barry. After spending the first night at the Greyhound Hotel in Reading, Beau and William departed early with fresh horses, Beau’s plan being to lunch at noon in Oxford, then proceed to Hardgate Hall. But as the spires of Oxford came within sight, the rear axle of the coach began to make ominous grinding noises.

William Barry took any such event as an insult to his own skill and, after pulling the horses to a halt, jumped down to investigate. Beau quickly followed.

‘It’s not good,’ William pronounced, shaking his head. ‘Not good at all.’

He proceeded to nurse the vehicle as far as a blacksmith’s on the outskirts of Oxford, where the proprietor, Joe Hucksby, also examined the curricle with a deepening frown.

‘I’d say this axle needs a new cross-pinion, sir,’ he said to Beau, after scrambling up from beneath the vehicle. ‘And three hours is about the fastest time that my lads can do it. You see, with a top-notch vehicle such as this, everything has to be right and tight as can be, so maybe, sir, you’d like to go on into town and take a nice meal at one of the inns there? Especially since it’s starting to rain.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t wait. I have an appointment at Hardgate Hall this afternoon.’

‘You’re visiting Mr Palfreyman?’ Joe Hucksby looked surprised. ‘Well, if that isn’t the oddest thing! We just happen to have a fine riding horse of his stabled here. Mr Palfreyman left it yesterday to have it shoed, and—’

‘You’ve got Palfreyman’s horse here? Is it fit to ride?’

‘Why, yes, sir! In fact, Mr Palfreyman asked me to send one of my lads over to the Hall with it this very afternoon, as it happens.’

‘Then there’s no need to send one of your lads. I’ll ride his horse to Hardgate Hall myself.’

Joe Hucksby looked startled. ‘It’s a spirited beast, sir. Took two of my lads to hold it while I did the shoeing—’

‘I’ll take it,’ Beau repeated decisively. He was clad anyway in buckskins and riding boots and was impatient to get on with his journey. But he could see that William was fretting.

‘Should I see if there’s another horse, so I can come with you—sir?’ his coachman suggested quietly.

Beau shook his head. ‘Better if you stay around here, William, and check that the job’s being done properly. Oh, and you could take the opportunity to find a decent inn nearby. Book us two rooms for the night and get yourself a meal while you’re at it.’

‘But you, sir? You haven’t eaten since breakfast!’

‘Hugh Palfreyman’s bound to offer me refreshment of one kind or another. And, William—don’t tell them any more than you have to about me or my business at Hardgate Hall, you understand?’ He’d already instructed William to address him by nothing but sir for the whole of this journey.

As William nodded, Beau turned back to the blacksmith. ‘I’ll return for my coach later this evening, Hucksby. Here’s some payment in advance.’ He’d thrust his hand in his coat pocket and drew out some coins to put in the man’s big fist.

‘Well, that’s mighty obliging of you, Mr...’

‘My name’s Beaumaris.’

The blacksmith nodded, clearly disappointed that he wasn’t a lord at the very least. ‘Thank you kindly, Mr Beaumaris, sir. And I’ve no doubt that Mr Palfreyman would himself suggest that you take his horse if he were here, yes, indeed.’

Beau privately doubted it very much. But within ten minutes, the horse in question—a handsome bay gelding with a white blaze down its forehead—was saddled up and ready, though just as Beau was about to mount, the blacksmith darted away and returned with a sturdy whip.

‘You might be needing this, sir,’ Joe Hucksby pronounced. ‘Mr Palfreyman warned us this bay can be a stubborn brute and don’t like being told what to do.’

Already realising that the horse was trying to back away in pure terror at the sight of the whip—and that the blacksmith’s lads had gathered to watch the entertainment—Beau pushed the implement back into Joe Hucksby’s hands. ‘A man who needs to use a whip like that,’ he said flatly, ‘doesn’t deserve to be entrusted with any animal.’

William nodded his approval and Beau mounted, aware that the horse, on feeling his weight in the saddle, was already sidling and snorting with fear. Beau soothed the beast and thought, Damn. What has Palfreyman done to this animal?

He had a pretty good idea, for if he looked back at the horse’s flanks, he could see the marks where the whip had been used to lash the beast only recently. Palfreyman, he thought grimly, if my opinion of you wasn’t already at rock bottom, it certainly would be by now. He tensed his muscular thighs to let the gelding know that he was in control, while at the same time he stroked its neck. ‘There. There,’ he murmured. ‘Easy does it, now.’

The horse at last moved forward, showing obedience, even willingness. Beau was rather pleased to see the blacksmith and his boys gazing after him, open-mouthed. ‘Which is the best way to reach Hardgate Hall?’ Beau called to them over his shoulder.

‘The track through the Ashendale Forest is quickest, sir,’ one of the lads piped up. ‘You’d best take the road for Reading—you’ll see it just past the church. At the first crossroads you turn left, and then you want to head over the bridge and follow the path into the woods—’

At that point the blacksmith interrupted him. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t advise that way at all, Mr Beaumaris, I really wouldn’t. It’s easy to get lost and there are sometimes footpads.’

‘Is this track through the forest quicker than the turnpike road?’

‘Much quicker, sir.’ The lad was still eager. ‘It takes—oh, at least a mile off your journey!’

Then that’s the path I’ll take. And Beau was on his way.

* * *

The lad’s instructions were easy to follow and Beau was pleased to discover that the big bay, once he had its trust, was an energetic and speedy mount. He was even more pleased when he looped the reins over one hand and with the other delved for his pocket watch, to find that it was not yet half past three—there was still time to arrive punctually at Hardgate Hall. The one factor he hadn’t bargained on was the rain, which drove straight into his face and was becoming heavier by the minute, slowing his pace; but he never once thought of turning round, because this meeting with Palfreyman was long overdue. Palfreyman had questions to answer and consequences to face.