Marrying the Mistress (7 page)

‘And you?' said Pierre. ‘You adore him too?'

‘Pierre,' I replied, wearily, ‘I have just lost the man I lived with and cared for. The father of my child. Except for Jamie, adoration has no place in my heart at the moment. I love my mother and brothers, and I am very fond of you as a brother, and I am grateful to you for your care of us. But things are not moving on for
me in quite the direction I hoped for. Rather, they seem to have come to a standstill. Perhaps it's too soon to expect them to. Let's just see, shall we? I wish Mama would come to York where I can tend her. I'm very concerned about her.'

‘She won't, Helene. Your father is still here, remember. She will not leave his grave. She wants to stay beside him.'

I nodded, aware that my tears, so recently shed, were by no means spent. ‘Then I had better not mention it again. But try to understand my position, Pierre. Please. I'm being torn two ways at present.'

‘My understanding matters to you?'

‘Certainly it does. You are family. It will always matter to me.'

‘Forgive me,' he whispered, touching my arm with a tentative forefinger before withdrawing it quickly. ‘You're right, it's too soon for you to see ahead, and you are weary. It's only that…' he sighed ‘…that we meet so rarely and, when the chance arises, I must take it before you're gone again.'

‘Then we shall talk more on the way home. Goodnight, Pierre.'

‘Goodnight, Helene.'

I turned away, but not before I had caught the ‘my love' whispered in my wake, which I pretended not to hear, dismissing it from my mind as one more complication I could do without. Even so, I had witnessed yet again the small signs of rebellion from Finch and Greg as they deliberately ignored Pierre's commands that ought to have been requests, and I prayed that, if only for my mother's sake, the boys would not cause any trouble.

* * *

I had slept that night in my underclothes upon a duck-down mattress with a feather pillow and thick furs to keep me warm. Yet I awoke with limbs that hurt as if I'd run all the way from York, and a splitting headache. Whatever my ailment, I dared not delay my return home, for the thought of Jamie missing me, being upset and refusing to eat was more than I could contemplate. Heaven only knows how I clambered up into the saddle, more thankful than I expected to be that Pierre was with me to lead the pack-pony. Tearful farewells were not my style, but knowing what I did of Mama's condition, I could not have said for certain whether she would still be there to welcome me on my next visit. And for some miles I was very poor company, wondering how and when I would be called upon to bear yet another loss.

Even with Pierre for companionship, the return to York was no more comfortable than before, as by that time I was feeling wretchedly unwell and not at all inclined to converse. With the wind at our backs for much of the way, we made marginally better progress, but the sky was again heavy with snow, darkening by the hour, and we reached York speechless with cold and tiredness. For me, it was another nightmare of a journey, but one that could not have been put off, all the signs being that reserve food supplies at Foss Beck had run drastically low.

* * *

With the light almost gone, Pierre was anxious to unload the goods and then to conduct at least some of his business before it was too late. So although I was desperate to see my Jamie again, we went first to deliver
the much-needed stocks to Prue, and I took the pony and horse back to Linas's stable, grateful that Pierre had agreed without a quibble to leave me to myself. I was sure by then that I was coming down with something more than a cold, for my joints ached unbearably, and I was shaking like an aspen leaf. The walk back to Blake Street took all my last efforts.

Hoping for whoops of joy at my appearance, I encountered only my maid's anxious face as she dealt with my enquiries about Jamie. ‘He's gone, ma'am,' she whispered, round-eyed. ‘Mrs Goode and him.'

‘Gone? What d'ye mean…gone?'

‘Let me help you with your coats, ma'am, and I'll tell—'

‘No! Tell me
now
, Debbie. Where
are
they?'

‘At Abbots Mere, ma'am.'

‘
What
?' It was one of those inane responses that only buys time to think up every dreadful reason and result, every terrible revenge and almighty row that will follow if the matter is not righted that same instant. There was to be no hope of that.

‘Lord Winterson came yesterday after you'd gone, ma'am, and there was Master Jamie—' she pointed to the hall floor ‘—kicking his little heels and screaming and crying, and there was nurse trying to reason with him and could hardly make herself heard, ma'am. Rolling about, he was.'

My head swam; I had to sit. ‘And Lord Winterson?'

‘Strode through the door, ma'am, took one look and said, “Hoy! Enough!” And do you know, ma'am, Master Jamie just stopped and ran to him, just like that. He was sobbing his heart out, mind. Poor little soul.'

I held my head in my hands. I
thought
I had done the right thing, but clearly I had not. I was the worst mother in the world, at that moment. ‘Then what?' I whispered.

‘Well, Lord Winterson picked him up and talked to him, and told Mrs Goode that she should pack things, that they would go to stay with him at Abbots Mere till you returned from Bridlington.'

Where I had not been.

‘Ma'am, you look terrible. Are you all right?'

I swayed unsteadily, holding my head before it fell off. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘I'm going over to Abbots Mere. I shall have to go back to Stonegate first to get a horse. You stay here, Debbie, and tell Mrs Neape where I've gone.'

‘At this time of night, ma'am?'

‘
Yes!
' I yelled. ‘At
this
time of night, girl. I want my
son!
'

She was a Leeds lass, and not easily browbeaten. ‘Then I'm coming too,' she said. ‘Just wait till I get my coat and boots on, ma'am.'

‘Debbie, I have no time to argue. You can't come.'

‘I can, ma'am, and I will. You're not going on your own.'

‘There's only one horse.'

‘Then I'll walk it.'

I turned and went out. It had started to snow again, but Debbie caught me up before I reached Linas's stables. She was carrying a portmanteau. ‘What's that for?' I asked.

‘Things, ma'am. We might have to stay.'

What a treasure she was, that girl. I was wrong about there being only one horse; there were several,
most of them newly arrived. I chose two of the heaviest, ordered them to be saddled and gave the worried groom a silver shilling when he told me Lord Winterson would probably kill him. ‘He won't,' I said. ‘Help me up.'

* * *

It was dark and snowing fast, laying a clean white cover upon what was already there. The two black, wet, agonising miles took us almost an hour, with me clinging to the saddle to stay upright and often my beast stopping when it felt me slip or slouch. Gritting my teeth against bouts of faintness, I forged ahead with Debbie calling and encouraging me to stay on. Then, at last, we passed through the old Tudor gatehouse and headed for the lights of the house and for the fearsome battle that would be raged within minutes of my arrival.

Being no rider, Debbie fell off her horse into the snow, picked herself up and ran to the door, hammering upon it with the heavy iron ring until it opened. The crashing noise in my head stopped; I heard her yelling at someone, echoing from a long way off, then shouts. My face was in the horse's snow-covered mane and I could not move it from the hot-cold sweat that beckoned me into its arms, to sleep. The horse tipped, throwing me sideways into a black gulf.

A deep voice rumbled against my ear. ‘What in heaven's name possessed her to come…?'

‘She would do it, my lord. I tried to reason, but she's unwell, and I could not let her come alone.'

‘But at
this
time of night, in this weather?'

How many times had I heard ‘in this weather' recently? ‘In this weather,' I muttered, ‘I've come for
my son.' The world was still moving, swinging me this way and that. ‘Jamie,' I said. ‘I want Jamie.'

‘You want for some common sense too, woman, coming out here in a blizzard, in the dark too. And how you managed to get to Bridlington and back in two days in this lot is going to take some explaining. Did you fly?'

I was being carried, and not expected to answer. Which was just as well for, at that point, I suppose I must have passed out again.

N
ights and days merged into a timeless blur during which I was fed like a fledgling without knowing whose nest I was in. Shadowy figures lifted and bathed me, tucking me into warm feathery layers, soothing my aching body, cooling my fever. I dreamed, but never managed to trawl them up from the depths. I wept, they said, but could not explain why. And at last the snow-white glare from the casement seeped into my eyelids and brought me back into the room I had sworn never again to occupy, for any reason. I think I felt then that this was one of those bizarre situations that could only have been engineered by Fate itself. It was only with hindsight that I was able to see how I had made Fate a convenient scapegoat.

My infant's delight at finding me silenced all my earlier fears that he would bear me a lifelong grudge for breaking my promise to take him to see Nana Damzell. Without a mention of that particular dilemma at Blake Street he bounced into my room,
picking up the thread of his life from where he'd left it the moment before to tell me about the snowman, the ride with Uncaburl that morning, and the promise of a pony of his own. Of screaming tantrums, Mrs Goode assured me, there had been none, not even when he was opposed.

* * *

I saw nothing of my long-suffering host, however, until the fifth day of our visit when I was at last able to find the energy to walk a few steps. Winterson himself was allowed into my room to carry me downstairs, swathed in blankets, to the warm parlour where he placed me upon a long cushioned chair with eight legs and a woven rattan back. I had been in no position to appreciate the first carrying. With the second, however much I tried to hide the thrill of being helplessly buoyant, the closeness of his face and the memories it evoked must have shown in my eyes whenever he glanced down at me. Which he did several times.

Abbots Mere had once been the abbot's own guest house for visiting dignitaries to the great minster of York. Since the dissolution of the monasteries, the house had been sold off, enlarged and altered at the convenience of each successive owner, though no Georgian styles had been allowed to interfere with the sixteenth-century interior that still showed in every part of the building. The parlour was a large low-ceilinged room, exquisitely plastered and oak panelled, with brightly painted coats-of-arms around the plasterwork frieze. The walls were hung with lace-collared ancestors, the floor covered with mellowed pink-and-blue Persian carpets, furnished with dark oak tables, chairs with tall
backs and barley-sugar legs. In the massive stone fireplace, a log fire crackled and blazed behind cast-iron firedogs, and silver oil-lamps were reflected in polished surfaces. I had been in this room many times before, but always it had been Linas who lounged on the long chair, and never had I been here alone with his brother. I had always seen to that.

He sat opposite me in a red upholstered wing-chair with his face partly shadowed so that I could not tell his expression, though he rarely allowed one to know what he was thinking at the best of times. ‘Inscrutable' sounds like a cliché, but it suited him well. A long-case clock chimed softly, musically, and his three great hounds flopped quietly behind his chair.

‘I've sent for some tea,' he said. ‘Will you join me?'

‘Thank you. I hope Jamie and I have not been an imposition. I really had no intention of…well…' I thought he might interrupt me with a polite denial, but he did not, and when I couldn't think of what to say, he was unhelpful.

‘No intention of what…taking a fever? Coming all this way in a blizzard to rescue your child from my clutches? Well, you can see he's suffered very little from the experience.'

Being in no mood for an argument, not then, I sighed my annoyance and looked pointedly towards the window. ‘Has the snow stopped?' I asked, hoping he would catch my meaning.

‘If you mean, can you escape, then I'm afraid the answer is no. You've missed three days of snowstorms and now all the roads are impassable, according to my information. I hear that the road to Brid has been
blocked beyond Fridaythorpe since the snow started. No one's been either in or out.'

‘That's annoying,' I said, ignoring his reference to Bridlington. ‘I had hoped to go home tomorrow.'

‘You'll do no such thing,' he said, quietly dismissive. ‘You've been ill. My bailiff forecasts a thaw before long, so you'll have to be patient until you're stronger and the roads are dug out.'

‘I have a business to run. Anyway, I'm not ill. It's only a chill.'

‘Yes, and I dare say you've been too busy chasing about the countryside in the snow to give any thought to your own needs. Perhaps it's time you began to think of them, unless you want pneumonia too. If I were you, Miss Follet, I'd take this as an indication that you need some rest, after all that's happened.'

That made me angry. Take a rest? How like a man. Ignore everything that needs attention and everyone who depends on you and take a rest. How
could
I rest?

Winterson's housekeeper, Mrs Murgatroyd, came in with a silver tray of tea things and, while she set it out and poured the steaming amber liquid into fine Queen Anne teacups, I was able surreptitiously to knuckle away a tear of impotent fury and to mop my nose on the back of my hand. Very unladylike. My hand shook as I accepted the teacup, rattling it on the saucer, so she removed it with a smile and set it on the table beside me. Then, bobbing a curtsy, she withdrew.

‘How
can
I?' I said. ‘Customers still need new clothes, even in midwinter.'

He plopped a lump of sugar into his tea. ‘Well, for a start, you can allow Jamie to spend more time here.
Mrs Goode is a very sensible woman and I'm perfectly willing to share the duties of caring for him. Medworth and his wife are too. Their eldest is just about Jamie's age, you know, and there's nothing more respectable than to be related to a country parson's family. He enjoys his visits there, I believe?'

I nodded. ‘Yes, very much, but…'

‘But what? Too countrified for you?'

‘I am a countrywoman too, my lord. Mr and Mrs Medworth Monkton are delightful and charming, and so is little Claude. But Linas was never very happy to see pigs and geese, hens and goats wandering through the house, especially when there are small children and babies about. Last time we were there, the goat chewed the baby's layette; when the donkey wandered into the dining-room, they allowed Claude to feed it with his own bread. I'm used to animals, but I would never go quite that far.'

‘No, I wouldn't feed good bread to a donkey, either. It's far too rich. But you know Linas's attitude to animals, Miss Follet. He could never see the need for them except as food or transport, or inside a kennel. It would be a pity, wouldn't it, if our Jamie adopted the same indifference to them. He's quite fearless with them, you know.'

Our Jamie.
Our
Jamie. ‘Yes,' I replied, stepping gingerly over the implications. ‘I do know. He has a little temper, too.'

His voice dropped, soft and indulgent. ‘That's not temper, lass, it's sheer frustration at not being able to express himself, to tell you how he feels. You offered him the alternative of twiddling his thumbs at home
with his nurse while I offered him the chance to ride in the snow, without you. There's no magic in that. He's a lively little lad, bright and bursting with energy and curiosity. He doesn't always want velvet suits and silk shirts. He's not a puppet. He needs coveralls and some muck to stamp in, and things to climb.'

‘You make it sound as if you know about such things.'

‘I do. I've
been
a three-year-old boy. You have not.'

I had brothers. I knew he was right, but how could I offer Jamie those more alluring alternatives while keeping to my intention not to get involved, more than I must, in Winterson's life?

My silence prompted him to ask, ‘Does he enjoy seeing your family? He was very disappointed not to go.'

‘Yes, he loves it. I promised to take him, then I couldn't.'

‘Because of the snow?'

‘Yes, it was too dangerous.'

‘But you had to go, did you?'

‘Yes, I
had
to go. My mother is ailing. The same as Linas. I knew they'd be snowbound and running low on food.'

‘But they were not snowbound, if you got through to them.'

‘They were, almost. My brothers knew that, if they got away, they'd probably not get back again and, as it was, I only just managed to find them, knowing that I could stay overnight. They told me I was mad, but I'm the eldest and I have a responsibility to them. My mother needs medicines. I cannot let a snowfall stop
me, but nor could I have taken Jamie and his nurse. I tried to make him understand—' I stopped and held a hand to my face.

‘You're not the monster-mother you thought you were, you know. He was as right as rain, once I picked him up.'

He was trying to reassure me, I knew, telling me that there was no magic in it. But Jamie would run to him without any promise of rewards or alternatives, but simply to be noticed by his hero. It had been the same when Linas was alive. Jamie doted on him.

‘Who is Nana Damzell? Your mother?' he said.

I nodded.

‘I see. And there are animals there too. They have a farm?'

‘Yes. Please don't ask me any more, my lord. I cannot tell you.'

‘Why? Are they outlaws, like Robin Hood?'

‘Not at all like Robin Hood,' I said, glancing at my cooling cup of tea. My hand still shook, but I managed not to spill while I drank, wondering how much my chatterbox son had divulged about his uncles and their isolated home. I suspected that Winterson would have liked to ask me about the Bridlington connection, but he apparently thought that enough had been said for one day, for he did not pursue the question of why anyone living in a town the size of Brid should run out of food. Or indeed how I had managed to get there. Or not.

‘Miss Follet,' he said, after a pause.

‘My lord?'

‘I wouldn't like you to think that I shall make a point of asking Jamie about his maternal family. I shall not. I can see that you'd rather not talk about them, so I'll
wait until you do. But neither do I want
you
to use Jamie's inclination to chatter as an excuse to keep him away from me. You're entitled to your privacy, and I shall respect it. That's what Linas did, I believe.'

The truth was more stark than that. Linas had not the slightest curiosity about my family. Not only did he never ask me about them, but even when I visited them for two days at a time, with Jamie, he didn't ask where, who, or how they were, whether they had what they needed or what had happened to their former lives. I didn't complain, for I was able to share my earnings with them and that was all that mattered. But I often found it strange how Linas's life revolved only around himself, until Jamie came.

‘As you know,' I said, very quietly, ‘Linas was a very private kind of person, and I sometimes think that he tended to ignore the possibility that I had a family in case I brought them into the life we shared. I would never…ever…have done that, but I think he believed it was a risk. Some mistresses' families can be quite demanding, as I'm sure you've heard.'

He smiled at that. Lady Emma Hamilton had recently lost her beloved Lord Nelson and, anticipating that he would leave her substantial wealth, the poor woman's relatives were already hounding her day and night. That, at least, would not be happening to me. ‘Well,' he said, ‘now you see how differently Linas and I view matters. I can accept that you have a responsibility to your family whose privacy you wish to protect and who you need to visit from time to time. But to take Jamie all that way without a proper escort is a risk I do not want you to run. In the future, you must
take at least two men with you. Either my men, or your own.'

While we were on the subject, I thought I might as well tell him, though I could easily foresee the reaction. ‘When I told them about Linas, there was some discussion that I might go and live with them again. With Jamie.'

‘Who suggested that?'

‘My mother would like it. She wants me to look after my brothers.'

‘Yes, I can understand the reasoning, Miss Follet, and you must do whatever you can for them, but I would not allow Jamie to live so far away. He will be either at Blake Street with you, or here with me.'

‘I told her that I could not do so. I have my business to attend to, you see, and I need to be on hand. It brings me an income, and, if that were to go,
they
would be much the poorer.'

‘Oh, so your business supports them, does it? I thought…'

‘You thought it was another way for me to line my pockets? Yes, well, that is what mistresses often do, I believe. They usually move on when the going gets rough, and I didn't do that either, my lord. Nor did I shirk from telling Linas that I was pregnant, even when I feared he would surely turn me out.
That
was a risk, I can tell you. A very uncomfortable one.'