All I Want Is You (8 page)

‘So he shot about as many Germans as you, then,’ said Betsey. Which put paid to Robert’s smart talk for a while.

Lady Beatrice was also often seen in the company of an American called Guy Fawcett. Mr Fawcett was a dark, thickset man in his thirties –
a dish
, Betsey called him, but I’d hardly noticed him at all, until one night Margaret woke me. It was around two or three in the morning, I guessed.

‘Shh.’ Margaret put her finger to her lips and motioned to me to follow her. Very quietly she opened our bedroom door then led me – I was still in a fog of disturbed dreams – across the carpeted floor of Lady Beatrice’s sitting room. We walked barefoot on tiptoe between the pieces of furniture, I remember, and when we reached Lady Beatrice’s bedroom I saw that a soft glow came from beneath the closed door, showing that a lamp was lit within. Then I heard a sighing noise which puzzled me, and the rhythmic creaking of a bed.

I didn’t understand what Margaret was intending, but my senses prickled in warning. Margaret bent to look through the keyhole, then moved aside. ‘Your turn,’ she mouthed to me.

My heart was beating so painfully I could scarcely breathe, but neither could I hurry away as I should have done. I bent to look, and in the shadowy lamplight I saw – oh, my, I saw Lady Beatrice, quite naked, kneeling on the bed beside Guy Fawcett. He lay on his back, naked also; his eyes were tightly closed, he had reached behind him to grip the headrail, and…

She had him in her mouth.
She had his erect member in her mouth, and was sliding her lips up and down it.

Guy Fawcett was by no means attractive to me. He was heavily muscular; his chest and limbs were furred with dark hair. Yet I’d never seen an aroused, unclothed man before, and something deep inside me tightened and shook. I watched in horrified awe as Lady Beatrice caressed him with her tongue. And Margaret was watching
me
.

A sound came from the corridor outside. It was most
likely just a draught, but Margaret pulled me away and we stole back to our beds, though I think we both lay awake for a long time after that. I was badly disturbed, I longed to touch myself in the way Margaret had shown me, but I knew that was probably what she wanted, so I resisted, though I burned.

The next day the diplomats left and, in the afternoon, Lady Beatrice went to London, taking Margaret but not me. I tended to Her Ladyship’s clothes, washing the more delicate items myself in grated soap and warm water and airing them in the drying room. I heard them talking avidly about Lady Beatrice below stairs, whispering that she’d had affairs in London with all sorts of men, married or otherwise, and even the discreet Mrs Burdett was heard to mutter that the way she treated the memory of her dead husband, Lord Charlwood, was nothing short of scandalous.

But I considered anew what she’d been doing with Guy Fawcett in the dead of night, and though what I’d seen still disturbed me, I thought, in Beatrice’s defence: why should she waste her youth mourning for a man who was gone for ever, and whom she had never loved anyway?

We heard that Nell was being cared for in a charity home run by Anglican nuns just outside Oxford. I still wrote regularly to Mr Maldon, although I no longer believed he read my letters or even received them. I wrote:
Lady Beatrice, Lord Charlwood’s widow, has come to visit. She is very modern. She wears clothes that you are
probably used to in London, and she has asked me to help her with her wardrobe, because I am quite good at sewing, my mother taught me…

I stopped. I wanted to write,
I saw her. I saw her in bed with a naked man, giving him pleasure with her mouth in a way I would not have thought possible. And I cannot forget it.

One night, disturbingly, Mr Maldon became Guy Fawcett in my dreams. Lady Beatrice was astride him, coaxing him into intimacy, and I was terribly upset. I wanted to push her away and scratch her smooth skin till it bled and take her place. I wanted to protest to the skies that my Mr Maldon was waiting not for her but for me, me, me.

When I awoke there were tears in my eyes and my throat burned.

When Lady Beatrice returned from London, we all saw straight away that she had arrived without Margaret and I waited nervously for her summons. During her absence the Duke had suddenly become quite ill. Normally at this time of year the Duke and Duchess would host shooting parties and entertain a houseful of guests; but instead the Hall was subdued, and the early autumn mists that gathered in the valley at daybreak increased my feeling of being isolated from the outside world.

‘One thing,’ declared Betsey over tea in the servants’ hall one day. ‘If the old Duke croaks his last and we get this new Duke, we might see a bit more life around here.’

‘Don’t count on it,’ put in Robert. ‘If the new chap does become Duke, then from the sound of him he’ll be living the high life in London, Paris and all over the place. Oxfordshire will be far too bloomin’ quiet for
him.
’

I was silent, remembering what Lady Beatrice had said: that she intended to marry him. Then I had to leave, because Lady Beatrice had called for me at last. And she told me why Margaret wasn’t with her.

She’d found out, you see, that Margaret and I had been watching her that night when Guy Fawcett was in her bedroom, and Lady Beatrice was so angry. I thought with desperate anxiety,
I will lose my job here. Everything is ruined.

Lady Beatrice was pacing her sitting room while I stood by the door with my head bowed. ‘That fool Margaret had no right,’ she stormed. She’d had her black hair cropped very short while she was away; she was smoking her cigarette in its long ivory holder. ‘No right at all to spy on me.’

I stammered, ‘When she woke me and led me to your bedroom door, my lady, I didn’t realise what was happening. And then – and then…’

My face flamed. I felt tawdry, making these pitiful excuses, but Lady Beatrice was suddenly standing very still. ‘Did you enjoy watching, little Sophie?’

I could say nothing; she drew closer. The curtains had already been closed against the gathering twilight and I could smell her musky, expensive perfume.

‘
Did you enjoy it?
’ she persisted.

Lady Beatrice was my only chance, and I had to tell her the truth. I met her eyes steadily. ‘You are always beautiful, my lady,’ I said. ‘But that night, I thought you looked like the most beautiful person in the world. I wish – how I wish – I could be like you.’

She let out a little sigh. ‘Do you really?’

I nodded, my heart thudding against my ribs. She could dismiss me for my arrogance now, in daring to compare myself to her, a great lady. Then she touched my cheek almost tenderly, and sheer relief flowed
through my veins. ‘Why not?’ she breathed. ‘Why shouldn’t you be as beautiful as me? Did Margaret tell you that Guy Fawcett wanted
you
, Sophie?’

My breathing stopped. Her fingertips were still stroking my face.

‘He wanted me to bring you to him,’ she whispered. One red-tipped finger stopped on my full lower lip. ‘He wanted to take your virginity, in front of me… You
are
a virgin, aren’t you?’

I nodded numbly.

‘Lord Sydhurst was interested in you too,’ she went on softly. ‘But don’t worry. I have other plans for you.’

Plans.
Hadn’t Margaret said something like this?
My lady won’t half be interested in you.
Suddenly my ribs ached with the need for air. She’d already risen, and was walking across the room to pour herself another drink, but then she turned back to me. ‘There are a lot of things you need to learn, little Sophie. And don’t waste a minute worrying about Margaret, will you? My God, the woman was becoming insolent – I was looking for an excuse to get rid of her.’

Lady Beatrice had been asked to assist the Duchess with one of her enormous flower arrangements. She’d gone downstairs and left me in her sitting room with a day-gown that needed hemming, but my fingers were shaking so much I could not even thread the needle.

She’d said that the American had wanted to bed me, and no doubt there would have been a reward for me, like the coins Margaret had bestowed. That would make me a whore. All my plans, all my dreams – and the only
opportunity that had presented itself so far was to become a whore.

Bitterness welled up inside me.

People judge you by the value you place on yourself, Sophie.

I suddenly let the sewing fall; I pressed my hands to my burning cheeks. If I was going to end up a whore, I preferred to choose my own clients and name my own price. But when Lady Beatrice came back an hour later, she looked excited, almost feverish.

‘The Duke is more ill than I thought, Sophie!’ Eagerly Beatrice sat on the settee and patted it for me to sit beside her. ‘Ah, the old witch will be furious – her husband’s not supposed to die till they’ve dealt with Lord Ashley. And I’ve found out the Duke and Duchess’s plan. They’re going to try and make out that he’s not who he says he is!’

My mouth must have dropped open. ‘
What?
’

She lit a cigarette and waved her hand impatiently. ‘They’re going to claim that he’s a changeling – was substituted at birth, in other words.’

I laughed aloud. ‘That’s ridiculous. Like a fairy tale…’ My laughter suddenly faded at the look on her face.

‘I agree with you – but that’s what the Duke and Duchess are saying.’ She’d drawn closer. ‘Come along, now. I know how servants talk. What do you know about the new heir, Sophie?’

I tried to remember what Cook had said. ‘His father was an English lord who lived abroad, and his mother was a French lady.’

‘That’s right. Ash’s father was an impoverished English baron who fancied himself an artist. His French wife – a nobody – gave birth to Ash in utter obscurity, somewhere in the French countryside.’

She leaned closer. ‘When an important heir’s born, Sophie, there are always doctors and independent witnesses present to verify that the child is really the mother’s. But in Ash’s case, there was no birth certificate, there are no reliable witnesses to be called upon, and both Ash’s parents are dead. After all, who would have thought that Ash might one day be heir to a dukedom? Lord Charlwood was born within the first year of the Duke and Duchess’s marriage, and they could have been expected to have many more children. But they didn’t.’

Her eyes gleamed. ‘The Duke and his Duchess are fighting tooth and nail to get Ash’s claim annulled. But Ash
will
inherit, he will!’ Suddenly her mood shifted again. She was like that, was Beatrice: you would even see her eyes change from dark to light; you would see her pointed chin lift in defiance. ‘Let’s have some music,’ she declared. She’d already jumped to her feet and was putting on her favourite, ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’.

With the music my earlier despair began to dissipate. Things
were
happening, my world
was
changing. She couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. But I would learn from her, oh, I would learn.

She’d started opening up a trunk of new gowns, each of them folded and wrapped in tissue paper, and was pulling them out to show me. ‘Sophie, I’ve brought
these from London – look at them, do.’ Then she started dancing dreamily to the music by herself. The gowns were exquisite, but I preferred to look at her. She grabbed my arms to sweep me up. We danced together, and I laughed with pleasure. I don’t know what dance it was, I didn’t care; my feet just worked, and it was like flying.

‘Oh, Sophie,’ she breathed. ‘Little Sophie. You’re adorable.’ She drew me to a halt. ‘Take your horrid maid’s things off.’

She’d asked me to do this before, and I’d obeyed. But this time my heart was pounding in warning.
Something had changed.
It was the way she’d danced with me. The way she’d talked about the American wanting me. I slowly took off my black housemaid’s dress.

Under it I wore just a plain white cotton chemise. I couldn’t bear to put on my old underwear, my boned corset and bodice, not since she’d said how ugly it all was. She gave me her cigarette to try but I coughed a little, I didn’t like it much, so I simply took the holder between two fingers the way she did, until she smiled in approval, and I suddenly realised she was stroking my shoulder and sliding the strap of my chemise lower and lower until one pink nipple was peeping over the top.

I caught my breath and my pulse raced. I felt excited and a little afraid, but God help me, I wanted her to go on. I wanted to learn.

With her fingers she toyed with both my nipples, one after the other, and I felt a tremor go through me. Margaret had done the same, but this was different,
because I thought Lady Beatrice was beautiful. I think I was slightly dazed with the strangeness of these new feelings, and I found I was squeezing my thighs together to ease the sudden ache down there.

She whispered, ‘Are you thinking of Guy Fawcett, Sophie?’ She drew me down onto the settee, so we were sitting side by side. I shook my head –
no.
She began to chuckle. ‘You’re thinking of someone, though, aren’t you? A man. You want a man.’

I moistened my lips and managed to say, ‘I don’t want just anybody.’ And I didn’t. Not like arrogant Robert, or Eddie, who got Nell pregnant then tried to deny it.

As if guessing my thoughts she said abruptly, ‘How’s that foolish girl who lost her baby?’

‘Nell? She’s gone to some kind of home,’ I said. But I knew they wouldn’t keep her there for ever; she’d have to come back here, probably. Poor Nell.

Beatrice said curtly, ‘Let’s hope the girl’s learnt her lesson. You’ll have learnt from it too, won’t you, Sophie? You’re aiming higher, aren’t you, my dear?’ She stroked my cheek tenderly.

Yes. My God, yes, I am.
Mr Maldon. If he was still alive, if he… I turned to her, my blood pounding, scarcely heeding my chemise falling from my shoulders. ‘Tell me, please, my lady. What do the kind of men you meet want above anything?’

She leaned nearer, her hand still toying with my small breasts. ‘They want adventure, my dear – they hate the predictable. They want oblivion from time to time, through sex, alcohol, sometimes other kinds of drugs. Some want a beautiful slut. Others want a girl who is a
fantasy of purity, of innocence, theirs and only theirs to be taken…’