Lady of the Butterflies (47 page)

“William,” I said, letting my former guardian kiss me. “I was not expecting you.”

“My partners were not expecting to hear that a mob had tried to burn down this house,” he said gruffly. “As I have already told Richard, I fear we will never win them round now.”

“I don’t think we should even try,” I said carefully, with a glance at Richard. “I think we should let them take their money away for good and use it where it will be better appreciated. We leave the common to the commoners. And to the swans and the Swallowtails.”

“What?”

“It seems I am to spend my entire adult life sifting through my father’s principles and beliefs and sorting the pearls from the pebbles,” I said. “But I think in this he was right. It seems to me there is enough land for all to have a share. And yes, it might be better for some who live on the wetlands, the people at least, if the land was dry all year, but until a way is found for us to have dry land and everyone to have enough of it to grow their own vegetables and cut their turfs and graze their cattle, I think it is better that we let well alone.”

William’s eyes flew in appeal to Richard, who looked away.

“I have said all I have to say,” I finished firmly. “Let that be an end to it. And now I would be grateful if you would leave us, William. There are matters Richard and I need to discuss, matters of far more importance than this.”

William stormed out of the room, head down like a charging bull, nearly crashing into Bess, who was entering with a tray of wine and sweetmeats.

“Did I do wrong?” I asked Richard, slipping my hand into his when we were alone.

He gave a slow shake of his head. “It is a pity you cannot join George Digby in Parliament. What a little champion you would be for the poor and the hungry and the dispossessed.” He grinned. “Not to mention the birds and the butterflies. I cannot imagine what Merrick made of that.”

“He can make of it what he will. It is no matter.” I took Richard’s other hand, held both of them. “I found a way,” I said quietly. “I said I would find a way for us to marry, and I have.”

We moved to the chairs by the fire, where Bess had set out the drinks and food on a little table.

Of necessity, a betrothal involving a landowning family was always preceded by such negotiations as I had to have with Richard, but that did not mean I found the conversation easy. No more, seemingly, did he. He sat opposite me, very still and unsmiling, screwing his heavy ring around his finger as he listened while I explained, as tactfully as I possibly could, how the Earl of Bristol, at my behest, would have his solicitor draw up a marriage settlement that would secure Forest’s position as heir to Tickenham Court, leave it in my sole charge, whilst awarding Richard an independent and regular income from the estate once he became my husband. I thought the pair of us no different from a couple of coldhearted traders discussing a shipment of sugar, except that the glasses of spiced wine and plate of sweetmeats remained totally untouched before us on the low table.

“Is this really what you want?” Richard asked me dully when he had heard me out.

“We could not hope to find a better solution,” I said steadily.

“No. I am sure that you could not.”

I saw that he did not like it, not at all. Why not? I felt a flicker of misgiving, turned my head away from him for a moment and then chided myself. It was his complicated combination of pride and insecurity which was standing in the way, that was all, wasn’t it?

“Is it the money?” I challenged, my tone brittle. “Is it not enough?”

His laugh sounded more like a cough, and there was no humor in it at all.

“George Digby suggested a sum he believed to be very generous, that would make good provision for you.” Only after I had spoken did I realize how condescending I had sounded. Oh, why was he making this so difficult? “I am sorry. I did not mean to . . .”

“It is not the money, Nell.”

“It is that you want control of the estate, then. Is that it? Because you can have it, with my blessing, if it matters so much to you.” I tried to summon a smile, tried not to think why it should matter to him. “Believe me, I shall not stand in your way if you want to mediate in endless squabbles about boundaries and rights of pasturing, if you want to harangue the tenants for their rents.”

“You would defend the rights of Tickenham tenants,” he said evenly. “And the damned swans. And yet you pay scant regard to the rights of your intended husband.”

“Rights?”

“You married Edmund without a settlement,” he said abruptly. “You gave him everything.”

“And you therefore assumed it would be the same this time? Is that why you want me?”

He looked at me as if my question was beneath contempt, beneath even warranting a reply.

“I did not even know there was such a thing as a marriage settlement when I married Edmund,” I said shakily. “I did not have children to consider then. Surely you can see that this situation is entirely different.”

“Yes,” he said curtly. “I do see that, all too plainly.”

His attention was diverted by something at the door. I knew who it was before I even looked. Forest was peering round again, wide-eyed with guilt for being caught in the act of spying.

“Darling, you shouldn’t be listening,” I said a little impatiently, wondering how long he had been there and how much he had overheard and understood. “Go and find your shuttlecock and battledores and I will come and play with you in a while.”

He ignored me, bolted round the door and across the floor. I assumed he was running to me but instead he ran straight to Richard’s side. Standing at his shoulder, making it utterly clear where his allegiance lay, he turned to me accusingly. “Mr. Glanville is not going to come and live with us now? He is not going to be my father?”

I looked to Richard, with the same question in my eyes and a lump in my throat. I was not the only person who loved him. Forest clearly did too. But I was doing this
for
Forest. And I could not bear for my little boy to be as distressed as I would be if Richard’s answer was no.

“I want to play battledores with you, sir,” Forest implored, laying his hand appealingly on Richard’s silk-clad arm. “Mama is no good at it at all. I don’t want to play with her.”

That made Richard chuckle, and when he looked at me the laughter was still in his eyes. He knew I considered myself particularly good at the game, which was not unlike catching butterflies with a trap net. He seemed genuinely heartened by Forest’s rush of affection, as if it changed everything for him. Astonishingly, he brought Forest gently round to face him, so they were on a level. He looked into my son’s solemn black eyes, as if whatever he saw there would help him to reach his decision.

I sent out a silent plea: Please realize I am doing what I am doing only for this little boy and his sister. Please agree to it for their sake. Richard was Forest’s sponsor after all. Let that count for something.

“I will come and live here, rapscallion,” Richard said gently to Forest. “I will be glad to be your father. I will play battledores with you until you are so good at it you can never be beaten.” An aside to me. “I will sign the settlement, Nell. I will sign whatever damned paper you want me to sign.”

Bess came to ask Forest if he would like to play leapfrog with her Sam, and he ran off, battledores forgotten for now.

“Tell me you are not angry with me, Richard,” I said.

“I am not angry with you.”

“I am sorry for what I said.”

“I can see that you are.”

“You do still want me?”

For a moment that felt like a lifetime, he did not answer. “Nell, I would want you if you were but a beggar, the daughter of beggars. If you were dressed in rags and had nothing to give me but your heart.”

I realized with a tinge of regret that I was not idealistic enough anymore to believe him wholly, but it was the prettiest sentiment nonetheless, expressed in the manner of the poets he said he admired, and I felt joy bubble up inside me like the springs that bubbled up all over Tickenham land.

He pushed up abruptly from his chair, as if shaking a great weight from his shoulders; as if he had a sudden, urgent need for action, to obliterate something. He came round to my side of the table, grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “I propose that we ride at once into Bristol and hire a coach to take us to Cheapside to buy your ring,” he said with an impulsiveness that made me giggle. “We can go to the New Exchange too, for material for a wedding gown, and anything else we might fancy.”

WE SAT TOGETHER in the rocking coach as we left the goldsmith’s and headed for the New Exchange on the Strand, Mecca for followers of the new fashion for shopping as an entertainment, a place that was filled with all that was rich and new and rare—a place that all the religious instruction I had ever received had taught me to regard as evil and corrupt as Sodom.

I could hardly wait to see it.

Even now, when we were promised to each other, Richard stood by his strange but rather touching resolution not to bed me while I still bore Edmund’s name, while I was Eleanor Ashfield not Eleanor Glanville. But that did not prevent us from spending the entire journey to London touching and stroking and kissing and murmuring little words to each other, until we were both driven half to distraction. We cooled our ardor only by concentrating on discussing preparations for the wedding, planning who should come to the celebration and what amusements we would have, what fresh-killed livestock we’d need for the serving of meats; roast, baked or boiled.

I wrote it all down in the notebook I had once carried with me when I was observing butterflies, in what already seemed like a different life. I had no need of butterflies anymore. I had what I had longed for. I had him right here beside me.

I had the top of the pencil in my mouth, was sucking it as I was thinking about puddings. I felt Richard watching me.

“We should make an application to the Episcopal authorities for a license to marry at St. Mary’s Redcliffe in Bristol,” he declared softly. “Queen Elizabeth herself called it the goodliest, fairest and most famous parish church in all of England. You should be a bride in no less a place.”

“But we can return to Tickenham for the feasting? And have dancing on the grass?”

“Surely. We can do whatever you want, my little Nell. We can have new silver plate for the top table, and gloves and bridal ribbons for every guest.”

“Oh, yes.” My second marriage would begin in color and brightness and joy, and so in color and brightness and joy it would continue. “I have longed for a merry wedding since I was a child,” I said, tossing notebook and pencil aside.

He kissed me, laid his cool cheek against mine, whispered into my hair. “Did you have such sweet dimples then? What were you like?”

I let my hand wander over his thigh, slip round to the inside of it. “I was forever getting into trouble and doing things I shouldn’t.” My hand drifted up slowly to his crotch. “I was very curious, you see,” I whispered. “I still am. I like to experiment.”

He closed his eyes, dropped his head onto my shoulder, shifted nearer to me as I rubbed him, felt his desire rising at my touch. When he rested back against the velvet upholstered seat, I watched the little lines between his brows pucker now with pleasure and I leaned over and put my lips against them, kissed also the grooved crescents at either side of his mouth.

“Nell,” he moaned. “What are you trying to do to me?”

“I want to love you,” I whispered. “I love you so much.”

“Do you?”

“Surely you know that I do?”

But he did not look sure at all.

Too soon the coach came to an abrupt halt and we were there, on the paved street in front of the arcaded façade with its expanses of plate glass, behind which were the most beautiful displays of fans and feathers and lace.

We followed the other elegantly dressed shoppers who sauntered inside into one of the sheltered long galleries. It was lined with merchants’ booths, with counters and glass fronts and awnings, and shelf upon shelf of all that I had been taught to see as foreign and decadent and Popish.

Richard slipped his hand almost possessively round my waist and I felt my pulse quicken again, did not know, though, if it was with desire for him or desire for all the unimaginable and once forbidden luxury arrayed before me. I felt like a child before a table laden with cakes and sweetmeats.

“If I lived in London I should come here every day,” I said.

“Would you?” He gave me an interested smile. “Perhaps we should live in London, then.”

“Oh, I could never leave Tickenham. But we must visit often.”

I was as delighted by the liberty of the women I saw as I was by the goods, the way they seemed free to parade publicly with their friends, to drink coffee and gossip and shop as they chose. After my experience of the closed world of scientific societies and coffeehouse clubs, this was a revelation.

“Are we going to just stand here gawping all day, Nell?” Richard smiled. “Or are we going to shop?”

I carried on gawping. “I don’t know where to start. I’ve completely forgotten what we need.”