Marrying the Mistress (21 page)

If I had been in the same dreadful position, I told myself, I would have preferred privacy after what had just happened, and that poor Veronique would probably want the same. And for all my odious guilt at having overheard what I had absolutely no right to know about, my regard for her privacy and my silence on the matter gave me some comfort all through the wake that followed the burial, the usual noisy gathering for refreshments, condolences and reminiscences.

Prue's appreciation was demonstrated in a motherly hug that, had she but known it, I was in need of almost as much as she, while the shock of what I'd discovered
resounded in my head like the clamour of church bells. When Prue asked me where the curate had disappeared to, I murmured something in his defence that he had looked very unwell and had probably had to hurry home, which was better than saying that he would not wish to appear with a distinctly red hand-print on his cheek.

Prue understood when I asked to leave the wake before it had run its course, for now she was amongst friends who would talk far into the evening. Naturally, my mind dwelt on what I'd heard, on Medworth's betrayal of his position, on Veronique's misery and on my own decision to withhold offers of help for fear of being thought intrusive. It was none of my business, my conscience told me, without conviction. It was a lie, of course. If it had not concerned me, I would not have stayed to listen. Yet my guilt gave me little respite, and my punishment was a pounding headache.

Back at Blake Street I sat beside a roaring fire with my child and his nurse, a tray of tea, lemonade, and a dish of buttery muffins hot from the kitchen, listening to his back-to-front accounts of how he'd ridden without a saddle, ‘To strengthen my thighs,' he said, glowing with three-year-old pride. ‘And now they ache, Mama, but Uncaburl's man says it's good for me.'

I hugged him to me, smelling the straw and stables on him. ‘Well done, little one,' I said. ‘You shall have a warm bath to soak the aches away. Did they show you how to groom Penny and make her shine?'

‘Yes, I stood on a box to reach her back an' she stood still an' liked it, an I fed her carrots, and I ate all
my…' a mighty yawn interrupted the flow before the final ‘…greens for Nana Frances and Grandpa, Mama.'

To keep him awake until bedtime, I took him with me to the shop's deserted workrooms while I assessed all the available spaces in the property that Prue would have been able to use as living quarters if she'd not been obliged to live with her parents. There was no reason now why she could not live above the shop, rent free, if only we could clear some of the rooms and provide the basic amenities for her. It was an arrangement that might help to soften the blow of not having Pierre's bounty to sell.

* * *

After dinner that evening, as we sat by the fire in the drawing room, the sound of the door-knocker made us look up in the hope that it might be Lord Winterson, although I did not expect him. The footman tapped and entered. ‘Lady Slatterly, ma'am,' he said.

My astonishment must have lingered on my face as she came forwards, for although she had indeed been at the forefront of my mind, I never expected her to show up here. ‘What a pleasant surprise,' I said, responding to her curtsy. ‘Please forgive the informality. Will you sit with us a while?'

I had seen her in all sorts of conditions over the years, ever since her first acid comments meant to wound me and, more recently, when she had been thankful to accept my goodwill. So my reading of her manner on this occasion was well informed, and clearly she was not a picture of happiness. There were red rims to her eyes, and she wore an air of uncertainty that was very different from the usual and, although she con¬
cealed her anguish with courage, it showed through in so many small ways. Forcing a smile, her eyes darted to Mrs Goode and Jamie.

‘Mrs Goode,' I said, ‘will you take Jamie up for his bath now, please?'

Once we were alone, Veronique's shoulders sagged with relief. As if unsure whether she was doing the right thing in approaching me this way, she took sleepwalking steps to the nearest chair and sat sideways on the edge of it. This was most unlike the Veronique I knew. And no wonder.

Fidgeting with her reticule, she blinked at me as if deciding how best to explain her visit. ‘Helene,' she said at last, ‘you were once kind enough to speak out for me.'

‘At the ball. Yes, I remember. Men can be so insensitive, sometimes.'

‘Yes. So I've come to ask…er…to ask you a favour. To ask your advice, actually…er…not for me, but for a friend of mine. She has a problem, you see, and I told her you might know how to…er…advise her what's best to do. She has no one else but me to turn to. Her other friends would not wish to be involved. It's all so…so difficult.'

My heart softened and ached for her. No one else to turn to but the one who had last said something kindly in her defence. Such unhappiness. What rejection she must be feeling. ‘Of course I'll help your friend if I can,' I said. ‘Is she about our age, or older?'

‘Yes, she's our age. My age, actually. We've been close for years. She's done something foolish. Very… very…foolish.'

I saw that she struggled to hold back her tears, so
while she took a few moments to compose herself, I went to pour a glass of wine and place it beside her. ‘Take a sip,' I said, ‘then tell me how I can help your friend. I take it there may be a man involved?'

She sniffed, then nodded, but this time the fair ringlet did not bounce. The white fur collar reflected its pallor upon her mottled skin, and despite the brightly patterned pelisse-robe, she was far from the winter cheer it was meant to represent. At last, her wide-brimmed bonnet lifted. ‘Yes, there is a man involved, but he doesn't want to know.'

‘Know what, Veronique?'

‘That she's going to be a mother. You're not shocked?'

‘No, I'm not shocked. I am an unmarried mother too.'

‘That's another reason why I thought you might know what to do.'

‘If the man involved doesn't want to accept his responsibility, it makes life very difficult. Do her parents know about her problem?'

‘No. She has only one parent.'

‘I see. I had only one parent too.'

‘Did you? That makes it even harder then, doesn't it?'

‘Not really. Not if the parent is on her side, and loves her.'

Her eyebrows lifted at that. ‘Doesn't it?' she said.

‘No. There's only one opinion, one reaction, one shock. It often makes things simpler. Is there some reason why your friend may not wish to tell her parent? The point is, you see, that if she lives at home, her parent is going to discover it sooner or later, so perhaps
it would be best if she said something herself before someone else does.'

‘But it would hurt him so, wouldn't it?' she whispered.

‘My dear, it would hurt him even more if he found out by accident. If it's from her father your friend is hoping for most help, then surely it's only fair to confide in him at the beginning so that they can discuss what to do about it. Is he the kind of man to fall into a rage, your friend's father?'

‘No, he wouldn't do that. I'm sure of it.'

‘He loves her very much, does he?'

‘Indeed he does, but he'd want to know who's responsible, and she cannot tell him that.'

‘She cannot…because…?'

‘Because he's married, Helene. That's why he doesn't wish to accept the responsibility. I believe,' she added, as if she wasn't sure.

‘Then I would not wish to persuade her otherwise,' I said, thinking quite the opposite. ‘She's obviously a loyal young lady whose affection for the father runs very deep. Most of us would prefer him to be honest and admit that he has a part to play in the affair, and most parents would wish to know who'd sired their grandchild. But that decision must remain with your friend, after all.'

‘I suppose it must,' she said, looking into the fire, ‘and I'm sure she ought to take her father into her confidence. He'll be very upset, though.'

‘Veronique, I think you'll find that fathers often understand how such things can happen. He may well be upset, and angry, and concerned for your friend, but
if he loves her as you say he does, he won't wish to hurt her more than she is already. My advice would be for her to go and talk to him about it without delay, apologise for the pain she's caused and ask for his help. No hysterics. No blaming anyone. No threats or unkind words that she'll regret later. And no packing of bags, tell her.'

‘Yes. I will. Thank you.'

‘If you would like to talk about it some more, I shall be happy to listen, and to help, if I can. But go to your friend now and see what she thinks. Let me know, will you?'

‘You've been very kind,' she whispered, pulling on her soft kid gloves. ‘Men can be so unpredictable, can't they?' Placing a light hand on my arm, she brushed a kiss upon both my cheeks, which surprised me.

‘Men are governed by different forces from us, but there are some exceptions out there. Does your friend have any exceptional men friends?'

Stretching out the fingers of one hand, she stroked the back of her glove as if imagining a wedding ring there. ‘There is one… yes…who's been in love with me…
her
…for years. It's possible that he may help her out of her troubles. But it wouldn't be quite fair, would it?'

‘Only if he's given the full story and is allowed to choose, not otherwise. He would have to know the facts and, even then, only if your friend truly believed she could be a loyal and faithful wife to him. Such things are not uncommon and often turn out to be very happy. I feel hardly in a position to act as adviser here, but it may be worth thinking about, especially since the child's father is not in a position to offer any help.'

‘It would serve him right if I made his name known
to
everyone
,' she whispered, fiercely. ‘He's getting away without a blemish.'

‘Yes, probably. But he's not the only one who'd suffer, is he?'

She turned her hand over to stare at the palm, then closed her fist. ‘He didn't let that thought bother him. I shall go and tell her what you've said, Helene. Thank you. It's at times like this when she misses her mama most.'

‘When did your friend lose her mama, Veronique?'

‘When I was fourteen, she left Papa for another man, but then she died only six months later in Scotland and we never saw her again. Papa was broken-hearted. He loved her too.' The distress still showed in her voice.

‘Which is perhaps why,' I said, hearing the shift in her account from third to first person, ‘you ought to confide in him, to let him know that he's needed. It sounds as if you may need each other's comfort.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I don't know why I didn't see it before.'

I surprised myself then by taking her into my embrace and holding the motherless miserable creature as if she were my sister while my secret knowledge burned holes in my conscience.

When she had gone, I found that my legs were shaking, whether from the effort of the last half-hour or from relief that Veronique had unwittingly verified all that Winterson had said about their relationship. I could not condone his apparent heartlessness any more than I could condone his earlier coldness to me, and I was sorry, in a way, that my own peace of mind had been bought at the price of her deep unhappiness. Yet it
had
been bought, and I was both glad and flattered
that she had come to me, of all people, for honest objective advice. That was the least I could offer her, though I would like to have done more. On reflection, the only other thing I could do was to keep silent and respect her confidence, as her faithless lover had failed to do.

As for my enquiries about the possibility of a beau who might help her out, I had no qualms on that score, impersonal though it may seem. Wealthy fathers were often able to find bidders in the marriage stakes willing to take on an erring daughter, with enough inducement. The added benefit of knowing a man who had loved her for years cast a very positive light on the proceedings, and clearly Veronique was not against the idea in principle. In fact, I had never known her speak with such a lack of waspishness or self-pity.

With my head in my hands I stared into the fire, watching the flames lick around the logs and thinking how fortunate I had been compared to Veronique, whose life of wealth and luxury had not compensated one bit for the tragic loss of her mother at the age of fourteen. I was exactly that age when my father had gone from us in such frightening circumstances, yet although I'd had to venture out into the world owning next to nothing and expecting little, Fate had treated me with kindness, though until now I had failed to appreciate its methods. Is that what it had taken, I asked myself, to make me see how carefully Fate had taken me under her wing, providing me with a protector, then a child, and finally a promise of marriage to the man I loved? So, there had been deceptions, but not of the kind that Medworth used on Veronique and his loyal
wife. There had been a loss of pride when I discovered how I had been used, as mistresses
are
used. But of what good was it to perpetuate my grumbles when I had my adored Jamie to bring me such joy? The rejection Veronique had suffered from both Winterson and his devious brother was of a more heartbreaking kind than I had suffered, including the thoughtlessness from his twin.

As my thoughts turned to Linas, I saw another day passing without having found the notebooks that might tell me, if nothing else, what his accounting was like and how much he had paid out for my upkeep. So when I had tucked Jamie up in bed, told him a story and said prayers, I left him in Goody's safekeeping and went down to begin the search again, eventually finding the books in a cupboard where the spare napkins and table covers had been put away.