Helen Dickson (13 page)

‘Now come and eat. I would like to resume our journey as soon as possible if we are to reach London before dark.’

Feeling slightly mellow and in good spirits after partaking of a delicious meal, happy that Charles’s sombre mood had lightened somewhat with the food and wine, when they had left Highgate and were settled once more in the carriage, not wishing to impose on Charles any longer and impatient to see Henry so she could take stock and do what she thought was necessary, Maria ventured to ask, ‘Will you take me straight to wherever it is that Henry lives when we reach London?’ She smiled, and, without giving him chance to reply, went on, ‘Don’t you find it strange that I have no idea where that is?’ Charles merely gave her a wry smile. ‘Whenever I wrote to him I always sent the letters to his address in India.’ She looked at him sideways. ‘Where does he live now he’s left the company and is back in England, Charles?’

‘He has taken a modest house in the Strand,’ he answered brusquely.

‘I see, although I really have no idea where that is. I’m not at all familiar with London, never having been there. Whatever the outcome of our meeting, I’m impatient to go to Gravely, to see if it’s just as I remember it when my father was alive.’

Suddenly Charles shot her a glance of exasperation. He looked angry and agitated. ‘Maria, I would be grateful if you would speak of something else. The last thing I wish to discuss right now is Henry Winston.’

Maria stiffened and pressed herself back against the cushions, her face blank with hurt, surprised at the coldness in his eyes.

Charles met the look squarely. ‘You think that’s callous and brutal of me, don’t you?’ he said with deliberate harshness.

‘I’m sorry. I seem to have been talking a deal too much. I did not mean to bore you. But you needn’t worry. We’ll soon be in London and then you’ll be free of me. Your obligation to me will be over. That must please you.’

‘What pleases me is that I’ve managed to get you out of France unharmed. What doesn’t please me is that you might decide to honour your father’s wish and wed Henry Winston regardless,’ he snapped irately.

Maria met his gaze with anguish in her eyes. ‘You know how to wound, don’t you, Charles? Do we have to go through this again? You have made your feelings plain where Henry is concerned. Your point is well taken.’

The lines around Charles’s mouth tightened and a hard gleam shone from his eyes. ‘But is it, Maria? I
think I should tell you the truth about the man before you meet so you can prepare yourself.’

‘Prepare myself? What on earth for?’ she said, her voice quick with indignation and reproach. ‘Has he sprouted two heads or something?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Initially I decided your betrothal was none of my business—’

‘You were right,’ Maria flared. ‘It isn’t. But why didn’t you tell me if you had something to say?’

‘I didn’t tell you because I suppose I meant it for the best,’ he replied, ignoring her jibe.

‘And now it’s too late.’ With a stubborn lift of her chin she turned her head away.

His hand shot out and grasped her wrist. ‘You
will
listen to what I have to say.’

Maria pulled furiously at her imprisoned wrist. ‘Let me go.’ When he released her, she rubbed her wrist and glowered at him. ‘Very well, say what you have to say. But in the end I shall make up my own mind about him.’

Despite her determined words, Charles saw there was doubt in Maria’s face, and something else. A dawning apprehension and fear.

‘So, what is wrong with him?’ she asked to prompt him when he delayed answering.

‘What is wrong with him,’ Charles said with brutal clarity, ‘is that Henry Winston suffers from overindulgence of all the pleasures in life: drink, drugs, gambling—and women.’

Maria caught her breath in shock and turned quickly. ‘Oh—I see.’

‘You don’t know him. How can you? You have not set eyes on him in six years, don’t forget. He is not a fit
person for you to associate yourself with—or any other woman, come to that—never mind becoming his wife. He’s totally unsuitable for a decently reared young woman as yourself.’

‘Please stop it. If he is as bad as you say, then I shall soon see for myself.’

‘I do not know why, when he left India, and knowing what was happening in France, he did not go himself to bring you back. Nor do I know why he could not meet us at Dover. What I do know is that after attending wild, debauched parties he is frequently incapable of standing upright.’

Maria could not deny that she was deeply shocked by what he was telling her, and however much she wanted to disbelieve it, she knew Charles would not lie to her. ‘Why are you trying so hard to discredit him to me?’

‘Perhaps it’s because I don’t like to see pearls cast before swine.’

‘It won’t be like that,’ she whispered, averting her eyes.

Charles saw she was hurt. The truth always did that. ‘When you were a young girl you no doubt cherished a vision of a fine-looking soldier of the East India Company—a handsome knight in splendorous armour—and dreamt of him returning and carrying you off to a wondrous place. Am I right, Maria?’

‘Perhaps…when I was thirteen, but the fantasy dimmed very quickly.’

‘Strip away his rank and his uniform and you will see what is left—a blackguard,
roué,
drunkard, gamester—all in all a complete hedonist. It’s impossible to respect a man like that.’

Seeing the confusion and bewilderment that filled her
eyes, aware that she had no experience of the kind of man he spoke of, once again Charles was conscious of the pain in his heart when he looked at her.

‘Now you know, I would advise you to go directly to Gravely when you are rested.’

Maria didn’t answer him. The moment seemed to stretch interminably. At length she managed to say, ‘If he is all the terrible things you accuse him of being, why would he want to marry me?’

Charles’s smile was ironic. ‘Come now, Maria. Surely not even you could be that naïve. Your wealth speaks for itself.’

Maria was profoundly offended and humiliated by his remark, and ire sparked in her eyes. ‘And I don’t suppose you believe that Henry could possibly want to marry me for myself,’ she retorted, deeply hurt and insulted that he should think this.

‘You were thirteen years old. That should speak for itself.’

No, this was too much. She felt that he was laughing at her, and she could feel the red flames of outrage scorch her body. She drew herself up to her full height. ‘How dare you say that? Yes, I was very young, I cannot deny that and nor can I help it, but I—I trusted him,’ she finished, somewhat lamely.

‘I know you did, and I also know it must be dreadful to trust someone and then find yourself totally let down.’

Angry sparks flared in her eyes. ‘Until I have seen Henry I don’t know that. I don’t doubt there is some element of truth in what you are saying, but I shall reserve judgement until I have seen for myself.’

Charles’s gaze held hers; he knew he was being brutal, but if it was the only way he could get her to listen, then so be it. ‘Think about it, Maria? He has worked for the East India Company for years, enjoying his pleasures too much to be taken seriously by his superiors to be offered promotion. Instead, he was considered an embarrassment to the Company and asked to leave.’

‘You—mean he didn’t leave of his own volition?’

‘That is precisely what I am saying.’

‘Then there must have been some other reason.’

Charles uttered a curse beneath his breath at her stubborn refusal to consider, let alone believe, what he was saying to be true. ‘Consider this. Winston has no wealth of his own to speak of. When he called on your father at Gravely, it was just what he needed, an ill man with a fortune, with a daughter to inherit, who would drop that same fortune at the feet of the man she married. With his knowledge of India and your father’s thirst to hear all about the land he loved, a land he knew he would never set eyes on again, this was child’s play for him to win your father over.’

Maria was stricken. ‘No.’ Her voice cracked painfully. ‘I do not believe any of this—nor do I know why you should want to discredit him so.’

‘Because I know him, Maria. Everything went off as Winston had hoped, better than that since your father did not live long after your betrothal, leaving everything to you. Can you not see the cynical calculation of which you have been the object, and the cold-blooded way in which Winston set about playing on your father’s goodness and your innocence?’

‘My father was an excellent judge of character. He trusted Henry implicitly, otherwise he would never have agreed to the betrothal.’

‘He was an ill man who was desperate to settle his daughter’s future. Winston appeared at Gravely like manna from heaven. Your father was hoodwinked by Winston. If you go ahead and marry him, your precious Henry will not enjoy your fortune for long.’

‘Why, what are you saying?’

‘In no time at all he will have got rid of it. He is head over heels in debt and disgrace. Maria, listen to me. You will be in as much danger from Henry Winston as you were from the mob in France.’

‘No,’ she seethed. ‘I do not know how I shall feel when I meet Henry—I confess to feeling apprehensive—and more than a little afraid. Since my father consented to my marriage to Henry, then I feel I owe it to his memory to at least give Henry the benefit of the doubt. I do not know why you are saying these things, Charles, why you hate him so much, unless it’s because you are jealous of him for some reason and are doing your best to blacken his name to me.’

‘And why would I want to do that? What reason could I possibly have?’

‘Because—because you—you might want me for yourself.’

Elevating a dark brow, he looked at her speculatively, the hint of a smile curving his lips. ‘And have I given you reason to think that, Maria?’ he asked softly.

‘All the time—in France—and on—on the boat—something happened…but I don’t see…I don’t understand…Oh…’ Her cheeks flamed red. She was
bewildered and totally out of her depth when it came to speaking of such intimate matters.

‘No—you don’t, do you?’ His gaze was fixed intently on her. ‘You don’t know and you don’t see—that’s one of the things which makes you so extraordinary. You’re so lovely, so innocent, somehow. Something did happen between us,’ he admitted, his voice softening. ‘We both felt it, but I am surprised that you should mention it. It shows your inexperience and innocence, Maria—and there is nothing to be ashamed of in that.’

Maria felt her cheeks grow hotter and she lowered her head to hide her embarrassment. That exchange of incredulous glances—incredulous on her part—had lasted no more than a few seconds but had seemed absolutely right and so amazingly natural, she could feel it even now, a smoothness of something sweet like honey running through her veins.

But that incredulous feeling also brought with it a sense of fear, fear of Charles, but why this should be she did not know. She found him altogether too disturbing, and she didn’t know how to deal with the strange, alien feelings he had evoked in her.

Straightening her slim shoulders, she lifted her chin and glared at him with defiance, trying to still the trembling of her body with a visible effort of will. She said, ‘My inexperience is because of the sheltered life I have led at Chateau Feroc—which is the way of things in my aunt’s world; no matter how disparaging you are about Henry, ultimately the decision as to whether I marry him or not is my decision.’

Charles’s face stiffened into a scornful mask of stone. ‘Don’t be a little fool, Maria. If you go ahead with this
foolishness it will not be long before you discover the misery of living from hand to mouth with a man for whom you will no longer hold any commercial value. But, as you say, that is your affair.’

Maria was angry and confused. How could Charles do this to her? How could he deliberately hurt her like this? ‘I hate you for this.’ Her voice was low and breathless and edged with scorn.

Charles’s eyes had turned cold, cold and disdainful. One corner of his mouth lifted in a mocking smile. ‘Hate me as much as you like, Maria, but you won’t hate me nearly as much as you will hate Henry Winston when he has abused your body and disposed of your wealth—which, as your husband, he will have every right to do.’

Maria turned her head away and looked out of the window. Suddenly, despite the sun shining out of a clear blue sky she felt icy cold and more alone and isolated than she had ever felt in her life.

When the coach drew to a halt she peered out of the window. The light from the carriage lamps showed they were in a fashionable part of London, with fine-looking houses. It was too dark for her to see much, and there wasn’t a light showing from any of the windows to suggest the house was occupied. A small
frisson
of alarm passed through her.

‘Where is this? Is this where Henry lives?’

‘No,’ Charles answered curtly. ‘This is my house—my town house, that is.’

‘But—I don’t understand…’

‘You can’t go to Winston tonight. It’s far too late.’

Maria felt a perverse rush of fury at him for taking it upon himself to make a decision that concerned her without consulting her first.