Lady violet goes for a g.., p.19
Lady Violet Goes for a Gallop, page 19
“I’m sorry you needed rescuing.” He set aside his hat and looped an arm around my shoulders. “We might not be able to save St. Sevier, Violet. He seems damnably resigned to martyrdom.”
I leaned against Sebastian, having at some point made the adjustment from familiarity with the contours of a tall, sturdy Scottish boy, to the more muscular frame of the adult Sebastian. He was an imposing specimen, and a good friend.
Could we manage as husband and wife? At one time, I’d fancied him madly, as a girl fancies a youth—the only youth—to show her respect and liking.
I let myself sigh, as that tired horse had sighed. “St. Sevier thinks that by resisting enclosure, he is standing between a dozen families and slow death in London. He is not wrong.”
“He’s not, which is why my family has had nothing to do with the clearances,” Sebastian said. “We saw all too well what the result would be. The land overrun with sheep, the only wool we could sell of the coarsest quality, and our people scattered to the four winds. If those hardy breeds of sheep thrive in Scotland, they can thrive anywhere.”
“Meaning the wool market was only a short-term source of profit?”
“Worse than that. The rest of the world was bound to start raising its own sheep, and those places that could raise better-quality wool would soon be shipping their product wherever demand for it was greatest. Scottish landowners would be left to once again make do on the orts and leavings of commerce, so we’ve shifted into shipbuilding, or those of us who can have made that shift.”
“And those of you who can’t?”
“Our land, which once boasted endless forests and the best fishing streams in creation, is now fit only for the rapine of sheep breeds that can tolerate our winters. Then the manufactories put even the cottage weaver out of business, and if our young people don’t take the king’s shilling, they emigrate to places where the land hasn’t yet been ruined by stupidity and greed.”
This was a discussion such as an engaged couple might have, about the situation occupied by the fellow’s family and his outlook on the future. I found the change in topic a relief from the day’s challenges, and even interesting.
“So how do the MacHeaths go on?” I asked. “If you did not sink your fortunes into wool, what does that leave?”
He gave me a one-armed squeeze. “I can support you, Violet. Have no fear on that score. My great-grandfather well understood that the only benefit to Scotland for giving up our sovereignty was access to English ports. He started building ships straightaway and was careful to replant all the timber he harvested. Wood grows slowly in the far north, but that makes it hard as hell and worth a pretty penny. My grandfather and uncle invested wisely, were prudent in their politics, and married wealth. We’ll manage.”
That we might have meant we MacHeaths, or we—you and I.
“St. Sevier begged me to marry you.”
“Are you amenable to begging now? You never were as a younger lady.”
“You were never very adept at groveling, was the problem. St. Sevier admonished me to think of the child, the same point I made to him as he prepares to die for children whose families are hanging on by a whisper in a good year.”
“We should always think of the children,” Sebastian said, “but if marriage to me will make you miserable, then it’s not a solution. You’ve already endured one bad marriage, and it nearly killed you. Your happiness is important to me too, Violet.”
Sebastian had never been one for fine speeches or lofty declarations, but he was unfailingly honest. Marriage to Freddie had become a tribulation, the magnitude of the burden obvious to me only when I’d finally set it down.
I had grieved for Freddie, taken too young, and so forth, but I had grieved as well for my innocence, for five years wasted trying to be a good wife to a bad husband. Not a terrible husband—I could have hated a terrible husband—but a selfish, heedless, faithless husband.
“Did St. Sevier tell tales out of school?” I asked, because Sebastian and I had been estranged during my mourning years.
“He did not, though your brother Felix has made some pointed remarks. St. Sevier worried for you, over a few brandies late at night. He worries for you still, as do I.”
At that precise moment, my own worries were slipping from my grasp. I felt a catnap coming on and closed my eyes.
“And now we worry for him. I’m missing something important, Sebastian. Something obvious, something so obvious we don’t notice it. Freeman has the means to buy Belle Terre, doesn’t he?”
“Freeman has no need for more acres. He’s doing splendidly on what he already has. I have wondered if our hostess doesn’t covet Belle Terre.”
I opened my eyes and sat up. “What makes you say that?” Sebastian’s speculation about Pamela’s possible involvement in St. Sevier’s troubles had the ring of truth to it.
“Mrs. Bonaventure is the grand lady of the shire,” Sebastian said, “with her pretty footmen, lovely estate, and London town house. She is invited to all the house parties and knows everybody. At the opera, her box is never without visitors, most of them single men. She married one of the few good catches in the shire and has lived comfortably ever since. If anybody in these surrounds would know how to go on at Belle Terre, she would.”
I could well envision Pamela amid all that grandeur and elegance, and The Gauges’s deer park marched with Belle Terre’s woods.
“She would enclose the common acres, Sebastian. I believe Pamela buried her finest sentiments with her husband, and she would capitulate to Bellamy’s carping for an enclosure act before the ink was dry on the deed.”
My mind, drifting toward slumber a moment before, began to hum with questions. Did Pamela have the money to buy Belle Terre? Handsome footmen came dear, and a truly wealthy widow might be more inclined to entertaining, to holding house parties as opposed to frequenting them. She would at least entertain her neighbors, and yet, I had heard no mention of Pamela’s reputation as a hostess.
Her wine cellar did not recommend her as such, and her menus were unremarkable. But then, I was a guest she’d not been expecting and would probably not bother impressing.
“Enclosing the commons would be expensive,” Sebastian replied. “Miles of wall don’t build themselves. Land doesn’t clear itself. I’d be surprised if Mrs. Bonaventure could both buy Belle Terre and enclose the remaining common land. Her house is not… There’s thrift, and then there’s neglect. The public rooms are maintained, but other than that, the carpets need beating, the windows could do with a scrubbing. I suspect our hostess is somewhat short of coin.”
I well knew what enclosure cost because my father had cited that factor as part of his reason for leaving some of his own land as common ground. I had not bothered snooping about Pamela’s house, but now that Sebastian brought up the dust, the faded carpets, the dingy windows, my imagination seized on possibilities.
“If St. Sevier were hanged,” I said, “and the jury was in the mood to deny the crown a prize, Belle Terre might well be available for a chanson. Ann would want to get rid of it, the sooner the better.” I rose from the steps. “I need to get my hands on Pamela’s riding boots.”
Sebastian got to his feet as well. “Violet, have a care. You can’t storm Pamela’s dressing closet.”
“What if it was Pamela in the cheese cave? We already know St. Sevier was there when he showed the place to Fiona and Ann. What if one day, he was lounging against that far wall, waiting patiently while Fiona counted all the cheeses, and the next, Pamela was in there for reasons of her own?”
“Then Mrs. Dorrance lied when she said it was Holly Faraday trysting in that cave.”
“Why lie? Who has paid that housekeeper or threatened her, such that she all but put a noose around her employer’s neck?” I began to pace, reminded once again that Belle Terre’s housekeeper owed some allegiance to The Gauges’s owner. The two households were in league. Were they in league against St. Sevier or simply prone to the rural sport of malicious gossip?
Sebastian took me by the wrist when I would have gone hotfoot for the house.
“Violet, don’t go off half-cocked. Pamela will attend divine services tomorrow, and if you plead a headache, the house will be all but deserted for most of the morning. I will escort her and play the pretty in the churchyard while you will have a discreet look at her dressing closet.”
I did not want to wait one hour, much less one day, to compare Pamela’s boots with my own.
“Get a look at Mrs. Dorrance’s boot prints too, Sebastian. I will give you my boot tonight so you can get a sense for the dimensions of my tracks. The prints in the cave were slightly wider but of the same general contour and length.”
“And the left and right foot were the same size. I am not an idiot, Violet.”
He was humoring me, which suggested he wasn’t entirely of sound mind either. “I would not marry an idiot. As you noted, I tried that once. It did not end well.”
He cocked his head, and I was abruptly aware that I was alone, in a secluded clearing, with a man who had proposed to me. A healthy, attractive, shrewd, determined man whom I had known and esteemed for most of my life.
“You fear that marriage to me will go as badly as marriage to your late fop of a spouse did.”
Well… No. I feared marriage to Sebastian could go even worse than marriage to Freddie had. “Freddie Belmaine and I were never friends, Sebastian. I had hoped… but my hopes came to less than nothing. If I marry you, and we do not suit, I will lose…”
He waited, my hand in his.
What precisely was at stake should a marriage between me and Sebastian become unendurable? I could barely wrap my mind about the intimacies such a union entailed. I esteemed Sebastian, and in a general sense, I could appreciate that he was desirable, but the next step in the progression—allowing myself to desire him—utterly flummoxed me. He was desirable, certainly, but desirable to me, as a spouse?
And was I desirable to him?
All of that notwithstanding, if he played me false as a spouse, no matter how discreetly, I would be devastated, nor could I conceive of taking up with another man while I was married to Sebastian.
“What will you lose, Violet, if we become friends married to each other? Do you want a white marriage?”
A marriage without physical intimacy. I ought to leap upon that offer—if Sebastian was making an offer. And yet, I had thought myself absolutely through with intimate congress when my husband had died. Through with it and relieved to have my freedom from it.
Then St. Sevier had come strolling by, exuding endless patience and no little allure. When I had finally realized that we were attracted to each other, I had stipulated that I was willing only to dally with him. He had stipulated that he was pursuing me in hopes of winning my hand.
The ensuing discussions had been luscious and, for me, revelatory.
“I don’t know precisely what I want.” I wanted my freedom, and I wanted respectability for my child. I wanted independence, but I was no great fan of loneliness. “If I knew that…”
He stepped closer and framed my face in his hands. “I want to kiss you. May I?”
My heart began thumping, and not from lightheadedness. A kiss would tell me much, for better or for worse, as it were. We had kissed before. As a schoolgirl, I had recruited Sebastian for kissing practice. More recently, he’d surprised me with affectionate kisses in parting and greeting. Once last summer, when facing deadly peril, he’d given me a proper smacker on the mouth.
He was asking permission to kiss me now, and while the setting was bucolic, I still had a sense of facing peril. “You may.”
A kiss could be nothing—a peck on the cheek, a perfunctory commonplace—or it could be the prelude to cataclysms. Sebastian began by slipping an arm loosely around my waist. I stood passive and abruptly all at sea.
Sebastian was a grand specimen, taller than Freddie, more muscular than St. Sevier. He bore the scents of cedar and sandalwood overlaid with a hint of leather. His touch on my cheeks was light and warm and not like any other touch that had passed between us.
“Close your eyes, mo chridhe.”
“What does that mean?”
“My heart. Close your eyes, my heart.”
“But you’ve been calling me that for…”
“Ages.” He stroked his thumbs over my brows, a curious caress, both relaxing and intimate. “Ages and ages. I’m nervous too, you know. St. Sevier was doubtless a vast improvement over Belmaine, and now I’m to contend with your memories of both. The one you grieve for, the other who won your heart.”
Sebastian pressed his lips to my cheek, slowly. I took in that sensation while my mind tried to grasp the significance of having been my heart to Sebastian for ages and ages.
“This isn’t kissing, Dunkeld.”
He ignored me, kissing the other cheek with the same maddeningly slow deliberation. By degrees, I realized that Sebastian would not be hurried, and he would not allow me to simply endure his kiss. We were to attempt this experiment together and without restraint.
Oh, very well. I sank my fingers into the hair at his nape, got a good grip on him, and kissed him full on the mouth.
I left Sebastian a good ten minutes later. He remained by the cottage, pleading a need to think through the day’s events in solitude.
The day’s events would doubtless include our kiss. That kiss had proved that in the years he’d been away, Sebastian had learned about more than how to make war on the French. I stopped at the edge of the clearing to behold him as he resumed his seat on the cottage steps.
His kisses were languid and bold, and his caresses… Blessed Saint Andrew, when Sebastian smoothed his hand down my arm or along my shoulders, I yearned to arch and stretch like a cat. The immediacy of my physical response stunned me.
The man lounging in the summer sunshine was Sebastian MacHeath, companion of my youth and friend of longstanding, but he was also a stranger to me. A handsome, intriguing stranger who had handled me with confidence, skill, and—this flummoxed me endlessly—tenderness.
He regarded me across the clearing, his smile slight. “Nobody will know, Violet, and I’m not about to tell them.”
So self-possessed, and I realized that was part of what troubled me. Sebastian the youth had been shy, perceptive, and playful. Sebastian the man was still perceptive, but nothing of shyness or boyish playfulness remained.
There would be no managing him. Absolutely none. “If I wanted a white marriage, would you agree to it?”
His smile became wistful. “With any other woman, I might, but not with you, mo chridhe. We have a real marriage or none a’tall, for the sake of all concerned. The decision is yours. I will see you ensconced at one of our island estates, I will stand as godfather or guardian to any child you bear out of wedlock, but I’ll no’ be a pretend husband, not to you.”
And what Sebastian MacHeath said, he meant. He made a curious picture, bareheaded, at his ease, sitting before the humble dwelling, and yet, he still exuded lordliness, a formidable quality. Regardless of whether he and I married—and that question had grown only more fraught in the past quarter hour—I would long recall the sight of him in that pretty, peaceful clearing where we’d kissed.
I turned to go, intent on a bath, a tray, and a lie-down, when something caught my eye. I regarded Sebastian more intently, trying to deduce what specifically had gained my notice.
“Don’t move, my lord.” I remained yards away, letting my gaze simply take in the whole scene.
Handsome Scotsman perched on the steps.
Grass in what passed for a yard, overgrown, in want of a few hungry sheep.
Half-timbered cottage looking both cozy and deserted on a pretty summer…
“The curtains.”
Sebastian rose. “What curtains?”
“When we were last here, every curtain was closed, which makes sense if the cottage is unused. Sunlight is hard on upholstery, carpets, and wallpaper. But if you look on the second floor, directly above the rose trellis, somebody has tied the curtains back.”
“So we aren’t the only people to use this as a trysting spot. One of those handsome footmen has tempted some house maid off the path of strict propriety. Are you surprised?”
“No, and one kiss does not a tryst make.” The young ladies of the shire were without male companionship for the most part, and footmen were an accommodating and canny lot of necessity. “Do you suppose the footmen spy on the woodland sirens?”
Sebastian sent me a wry smile. “If, immediately after kissing me, you can shift your focus back to the woodland sirens and their possible admirers, then my kissing needs practice.”
“No, it does not.”
His smile became a grin. “Then I am content for the nonce. I might as well walk you back to the house. Whom do you suppose occupies the cottage?”
I considered the overgrown grass, the lack of smoke from any chimney, the absence of even a pot of violets on the porch.
“Nobody occupies it, but it’s in use.” I ought to ask Pamela about the place, but what if Pamela did her frolicking in that bedroom above the roses? Then again, whatever she got up to with her devoted staff was no business of mine and not relevant to St. Sevier’s situation.
Sebastian and I made our way to The Gauges’s formal garden, and he stopped me at the foot of the terrace steps. “Were you appalled, Violet?”
At first, I thought he meant by the inquest, or by somebody holding assignations in The Gauges’s backyard, but he studied the rear façade of the manor with particular casualness.
“Appalled by that kiss?”
One nod.
“I was impressed, if you must know.” Also agog and bewildered.
“And that’s a problem?” He left off studying the house to study me.
“I’ll see you at supper.” I swanned past him, head held high, expecting to hear smug male laughter in my wake. When I reached the house, I again turned to regard him.
