Lady Allerton's Wager (17 page)

Marcus awoke as the grey dawn light started to filter in through the bedroom window. The quay below was already noisy with the business of the new day. He opened his eyes and saw that they had both moved in the night; Beth was now tucked in front of
him and they were lying very close and snug, like spoons. Her silky black hair was spread out on the pillow and in sleep her face was as clear and untroubled as a child’s. Marcus smiled to himself. He had to admit that he had treated her very badly indeed.

When he had first seen Beth on the quay he had been so angry that he had not cared a jot about her feelings. As soon as she had tricked him and run away from Ashlyn he had known immediately what she intended and at first could not believe that she could be so foolhardy. He had thought that he had made it clear that he would take her to Fairhaven, yet clearly she had either disbelieved him or simply not wanted his company. Either way he was hurt and angry, but he was also worried. Very worried. A woman alone wandering around the quay at Bridgwater would soon find herself receiving several offers, none of which would be passage to Fairhaven. Passage to the nearest whorehouse, perhaps, and the invitation would be phrased in a way to brook no refusal.

He looked down at Beth’s sleeping face. He wondered if she had even considered such a possibility or whether her obsession with reaching Fairhaven had blinded her to all good sense. She was no child to be unaware of the perils of journeying alone, though perhaps she had been so sheltered that she did not truly know what could so easily have happened to her. He had known it, and he had had men on every corner, in every inn, looking for her. He had been terrified that he would not find her in time, or that some accident had already befallen her on the way to Bridgwater.

Then he had seen her and his anger had increased tenfold because she was so obviously unharmed and
still unaware of the danger she was in. He had wanted to take her and shake her hard, to force her to recognise her own folly, to punish her for the fear and misery she had made him suffer. He had wanted to kiss her and make love to her despite the hurt of her betrayal. So he had locked her in and left her until his anger had subsided, and then he had come back and seen her and wanted her all over again…

Marcus shifted uncomfortably. Beth was pressed against him, very soft and sweet, the curve of her buttocks resting tantalisingly against his thighs. Marcus was already half-aroused and now felt himself harden further as he considered their relative positions. He reminded himself sternly that there were several layers of clothing between them but this did not help as it simply made him think of removing them all. Then there were the fleas…That was better. His tense body relaxed slightly. He had locked Lady Allerton in a flea-ridden room in a rough alehouse on the quay in Bridgwater and had spent the night with her there. He smiled a little to think of the reaction of the society gossips to such a story.

He smoothed the hair away from Beth’s face with gentle fingers and she turned her head slightly, snuggling closer to him. Marcus obligingly adapted the curve of his body to hers. He knew there could only be one ending to Beth’s adventure now, now that she was so thoroughly disgraced. It did not disturb him, since it was what he had intended almost from the first moment he had met her. How Beth would react to his proposal was a different matter, however. Marcus frowned. He was not at all sure if she would accept him. Most importantly, she was still obsessed with Fairhaven and he did not want to have to contend
with such a rival. So they had to go to the island and Beth had to find out the truth about her grandfather and then perhaps she could put the whole matter behind her and concentrate on the future. A future with him. Marcus sighed. It should have been easy but he had the deepest suspicion that it would not be. Where Beth Allerton was concerned, nothing was that simple.

B
eth sat in the shelter of the wheel-house, out of the wind, a blanket tucked about her legs. Marcus had suggested that she stay below in one of the cabins and at first she had complied, but once they were clear of the land the wind had picked up and the boat had started to pitch alarmingly. Beth had soon started to feel nauseous and had moved out into the fresh air, where one of the crew had taken pity on her and arranged the makeshift seat from a few wooden crates. Now, although the horizon still dipped and soared with sickening regularity, Beth could at least feel the refreshing spray on her face and breathe deeply of the salty air.

She had quickly noted that Marcus seemed quite unaffected by the movement of the boat. He had been in the wheel-house for quite some time talking to the helmsman and he had also taken his turn at doing whatever job was required; casting off, trimming the sails or simply giving a hand to the other members of the crew. And she saw that the men appreciated it. There had been a quick compliment for his skill from one of the hands, and at least one glance between the
crew that showed their approval. It was a side of Marcus that Beth had not seen before.

Unfortunately his attitude towards her was in stark contrast. She and Marcus had barely spoken that morning, except for one humiliating conversation over the stale bread and porridge that had constituted their breakfast in the inn. Beth had requested to be taken back to Ashlyn. Marcus had looked at her stonily and said that she could return there if she wished, but that he was travelling to Fairhaven and she might as well accompany him since she had gone to such an unconscionable amount of trouble to get there. That had been the end of the conversation and Beth did not dare question him further about the trip. His face had assumed the same forbidding expression that it had worn the previous night and she knew that she was still in deep trouble. When the meagre breakfast was over she had gone with him out on to the quay where the boat was waiting. They had cast off and now turning back was impossible.

Beth shivered a little within her fur-lined cloak. Ahead of them there was nothing to see but the grey of the ocean, and on the port side the land was slipping away, the hills of Devon growing smaller all the time. Marcus had said that it would take them the best part of the day to reach Fairhaven. To Beth that seemed as nothing after so many years of waiting.

After an hour or so she fell into an uneasy doze and woke feeling queasy and a little befuddled. The sun was peeping through thin cloud overhead and the wind was strong. A rich smell of stew filled Beth’s nostrils and her stomach lurched. She turned away as Marcus appeared before her, his bare feet braced on the wooden deck, a plate of food held in one hand.
He took one look at her face and smothered a smile. Beth glared at him.

‘Oh, dear, you look distinctly sickly, Lady Allerton…’

Beth tried to ignore the persistent smell of the stew but was forced to resort to holding her nose. She spoke with a distinct lack of dignity.

‘Lord Trevithick, I would be obliged if you would go away! Now! And take that repellent plate of food with you!’

Marcus sauntered away, grinning. ‘Pray call me if you require a bowl, ma’am!’

Within a half-hour Beth was too chilled to sit still any longer. She was tempted to go down to a cabin and try to sleep, but the thought of the enclosed stuffiness below decks made her feel even more seasick. Instead she wandered over to the rail and leant against it, staring into the flying spray below. She felt cold, sick and lonely, and it was a far cry from the way she had imagined arriving on Fairhaven Island.

Now that she thought about it, she realised that she had given very little thought to the practicalities of the journey. Her imagination had flown ahead of her, skipping over the difficult bits like a rough sea crossing, and had pictured some triumphant return to her grandfather’s castle. She felt a little foolish. It did not help that Marcus had ignored her for the best part of the day and that his crew, apart from a few sympathetic glances, had left her to her own devices.

As much to occupy her mind as to keep warm, Beth wrapped her cloak closer and strolled around the deck, watching the seabirds that whirled and screamed in the ship’s wake, scanning the horizon for
land or for any other passing ships out of Bristol. The afternoon dragged by.

‘Land ahoy!’

Beth had been staring at the sea for so long that she felt almost mesmerised by the time the call came. She swung round. Marcus was strolling towards her across the deck, a telescope in his hand. ‘Fairhaven is visible from the starboard bow, Lady Allerton. Would you care to see?’

Beth went with him across to the rail, took the spyglass a little gingerly in her hand and searched the horizon. Sure enough, the great granite cliffs of the island were visible above the tossing of the waves. Everything looked grey: sea, sky, land. The clouds were lowering and clung to the island like a veil. But it was beautiful.

‘Oh!’ Beth handed the telescope back to Marcus, her eyes shining. ‘I can scarce believe it! It looks very beautiful, my lord!’

There was a strange expression on Marcus’s face, part amused, part rueful. ‘If you think that, Lady Allerton, you must love Fairhaven very much indeed! To my mind it looks a damnably lonely place!’

He turned away to issue some instruction to the helmsman about avoiding the shoals around Rat Island and anchoring in Fairhaven Roads. Beth hardly paid attention. She was clinging to the rail as the island slowly grew bigger in front of her. Within minutes she was soaked by the spray and the drizzle that was falling from the grey sky, but she barely noticed. She was so close to achieving her dream of reaching Fairhaven that she had no thought for anything else at all.

As they grew closer the island took on a clearer
shape and Beth could even distinguish the chimneys of the castle and the roofs of the houses in the tiny village that huddled at the top of the cliff. The whole of the eastern side of the island was now spread out before them and Beth could see what Marcus meant—there were no trees, no shelter, only the plunging cliffs and the screaming seabirds.

‘There are no trees…’ she murmured, when he came back to her side. ‘Does nothing grow here?’

‘Colin tells me that the crops grow well enough,’ Marcus said, nodding in the direction of Colin McCrae, ‘and my aunt tends a small garden in the shelter of the castle walls. She always complains that the sheep take the greenest shoots!’

Beth frowned. ‘Your aunt?’

‘Why, yes.’ There was a mocking smile curling Marcus’s mouth. ‘Did you imagine Fairhaven quite uninhabited, Lady Allerton? My uncle, St John Trevithick, has been the vicar of Fairhaven for donkey’s years and his sister Salome keeps house for him at Saintonge Castle.’ He gave Beth an old-fashioned look. ‘Did you imagine that I was bringing you to a place quite beyond the pale? The truth is rather more prosaic, I fear!’

Beth looked away. She was not entirely sure what she had imagined, but her thoughts had not encompassed meeting any of Marcus’s relations. She doubted that they would be pleased to see her. Certainly she had not supposed that she would be evicting a vicar who had served the community for decades, nor supplanting his spinster sister. It looked as though her image of Fairhaven as a bleak and neglected place had been embarrassingly at fault.

By now they had reached the shelter of the island
and the sea swell abated a little as they anchored in the lee of the great cliffs. A rowing boat was lowered and Marcus and Colin McCrae assisted Beth down the ladder to a place in the stern. It seemed the work of moments for two burly seamen to row them ashore and pull the boat up on the shingle of the beach. A cart was already waiting at the bottom of the cliff and they lurched up a rough track that seemed carved into the face of the rock, Beth clinging to the sides of the cart whenever they turned a corner and the wheels seemed to skim the thin air. Suddenly the walls of the castle rose before her, Saintonge Castle, built by her forebears so many years before. A lump came into her throat and for a moment she was afraid she would cry.

There was a reception party waiting for them at the bottom of the castle steps. It seemed that every man woman and child on the island had assembled to greet the new Earl. Beth became suddenly and devastatingly aware of the figure she must cut as she crouched in the back of the cart, her hair straggling from her bonnet in rats’ tails and her soaking dress and cloak clinging to her body in a manner far too voluptuously revealing. No doubt the good villagers of Fairhaven would think the sailors had brought their concubine with them! As for what Marcus’s relatives would make of her…Uncharacteristic reticence made her hang back, but it was too late, for Marcus was climbing down from the cart and had cheerfully swept her up in his arms, to deposit her right in front of the curious crowd. Beth suspected that he had done it on purpose.

‘Marcus, by all that’s holy!’ A voice boomed from
behind them. ‘I never thought to see the day! The lord moves in mysterious ways!’

Beth and Marcus both spun round. An elderly woman was descending the steps from the castle entrance. She was not fat so much as large, and recognisably a Trevithick from her very dark brown eyes, high cheekbones and the luxuriant dark hair that was coiled in a huge chignon in the nape of her neck. She was improbably dressed in pink satin with matching embroidered slippers, and a scarlet cloak was thrown carelessly about her shoulders and was now flapping in the strong wind. Beth found that she was staring.

‘A plague upon this weather!’ the woman said cheerfully, grasping Marcus to her and kissing him enthusiastically on both cheeks. ‘Seven plagues upon it! My, my, how you’ve grown!’

‘Aunt Sal,’ Marcus said, grinning, ‘it is such a pleasure to see you again!’

‘And you, dear boy!’ Salome Trevithick looked round and her bright brown gaze fell on Beth. ‘Bless me, a stranger in the desert!’ Then, at Beth’s look of puzzlement, she added, ‘Isaiah thirty-five, verse six, my dear.’

‘Aunt Sal, this is Beth Allerton,’ Marcus said formally. ‘Lady Allerton, my aunt, Lady Salome Trevithick.’

‘Welcome, my dear!’ Salome Trevithick extended a hand sparkling with diamonds. She looked Beth over approvingly. ‘A veritable angel, Marcus, albeit a rather sodden one!’

Beth blushed.

‘Aunt Sal writes all my uncle’s sermons,’ Marcus explained in an undertone, ‘so her conversation is always peppered with Biblical allusions! Indeed, she
quotes the Bible at every available opportunity!’ He raised his voice. ‘Is Uncle St John not with you, Aunt? I was hoping—’

‘Alas, St John has taken a journey into a far country,’ Salome said, beaming. ‘He has been called to the Bishop at Exeter, my dears. Apparently the poor man had heard that St John was drunk in the pulpit last month and demanded an explanation!’

‘Nothing else to do on Fairhaven!’ a voice from the back of the crowd shouted.

Marcus turned back to the villagers, who had been waiting with good-humoured patience. ‘Thank you for such a warm welcome to the island!’ His voice carried easily to everyone. ‘It is good to be here at last, even on such an inclement day!’

‘You should see the place in really bad weather!’ the voice at the back of the crowd responded.

Everyone laughed. ‘I am sure I shall!’ Marcus said, grinning. ‘For now, I am happy to see you all and to introduce Lady Allerton, who is to be the new owner of Fairhaven.’

To Beth’s horror, Marcus pulled her to his side. ‘I know that many of you will remember Lady Allerton’s grandfather, Charles Mostyn, and be glad that the days of a Mostyn landlord are to return!’

A curious murmur ran through the crowd. Beth’s smile faded as she saw the looks on the faces of the people in front of her. From smiling good humour they had moved to uncertainty and even sullenness. Some were muttering to each other and a few were watching her with undisguised hostility. Even Salome Trevithick looked stern. Beth bit her lip, conscious of their resentment but taken aback by the suddenness with which it had sprung up.

There was an awkward pause, then a woman who had been standing a little apart from the crowd bent down to murmur in the ear of the small blonde child beside her. A moment later, the girl had trotted forward and held out a wilting posy to Beth.

‘Welcome to the island, my lady,’ she whispered.

Beth forgot about the strange hostility of the crowd and her own dishevelled state. She smiled at the child, then crouched down to take the flowers and give her small admirer a kiss. The little girl looked at her with huge, considering blue eyes for a moment, then smiled back, stuck her thumb in her mouth and ran back to her mother. Another murmur ran through the crowd, this time of guarded approval.

‘Prettily done,’ Salome Trevithick said gruffly, grasping Beth’s elbow and helping her to her feet. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me! Matthew nineteen, verse fourteen! Let me show you to your room, Lady Allerton. You look in sore need of some refreshment!’ She linked her arm through Beth’s and steered her up the castle steps. ‘Some of the islanders have long memories, I fear, Lady Allerton. But ashes to ashes, I always say, and never speak ill of the dead!’

Before Beth could ask her to explain this strange pronouncement she found herself inside the castle and forgot everything in admiration of the sheer splendour of it all. Saintonge Castle had originally been built in the thirteenth century, but within the huge, windowless walls, a more modern dwelling had been fashioned. The stone-flagged entrance hall was neither as shabby nor as bare as Beth had imagined it, but was hung with rich tapestries and decorated with polished silver. Salome ushered her upstairs, to an opulent
suite of rooms set into the southern wall of the castle. There was a huge bedroom with a wide window that looked out over the sea, a sitting room with a most comforting fire, and a modern bathroom with the biggest bath Beth had ever seen. She went back into the bedroom and walked over to the stone casement, standing by the window to look at the huge sweeping panorama of the sea. She gave a little sigh.

‘Oh, how beautiful!’