Marrying the Mistress (24 page)

‘You wouldn't, Burl. You're too big-hearted. You would never forget your sense of fairness. Linas seemed to forget everything.'

‘We have six years of lost ground to make up. Shall I take you back home now, so we can make a start? And will you marry me now, Miss Follet, without any ifs and buts? No bargains? No delays?'

‘I
will
marry you, Burl Winterson,' I said, feeling a strange sense of elation rush into my chest like the first stirrings of a young woman's heart. Breathless with happiness, I took hold of his head as I had done on that April night four years ago, letting my fingers roam in the semi-darkness to remind myself that this was not a dream. His skin had warmed, his lips kissed my fingertips as they passed and I knew I was not dreaming. ‘Yes, take me home. I have things to show you,' I said.

Under my fingers the lips smiled and whispered. ‘You would not prefer to stay here, in your own room?'

‘Not until it's been decorated,' I said. ‘A pretty spring yellow, I think.'

Dear Mr Treddle ushered us out with a smile at my blotchy face. ‘Goodnight, Miss Follet. Goodnight, my lord. The step is icy…take care…hold the railing, ma'am.'

* * *

That night, the short walk to my home was punctuated by several stops to remind ourselves and each other that, however many questions still awaited answers, the main one had at long last been resolved. Yes, it was true. Burl had loved me from the very beginning, and although I might have argued that for him to accept Linas's suggestion without consulting me was less than gentlemanly, I found it easier to forgive Burl than Linas. Though we had both suffered for it, we had also lived off that brief memory for four years, gaining an
adorable child as a consolation that bound us together irrevocably. I could not blame him for that any longer. It was time to let the past take care of itself.

For me, the day had been packed with incident, most of which I was not at liberty to talk about. For Burl, who had been to Foss Beck again, the day had been a tiring one and he had plenty to tell me. Yet in the dim warm intimacy of my room at Blake Street, there were more important matters to keep us occupied than our respective families, for now our loving could take on a new dimension that would stretch ahead into years of trust and understanding. I had never thought that particular freedom would be mine so soon.

Setting all modesty aside in his honour, I first acted as his valet to make him comfortably naked in the chair beside the fire with a glass of wine, and myself standing some distance away where the lamplight could catch at only the palest surfaces. Although I was tired and emotionally drained, my slow and erotic removal of each item of clothing was suitably lethargic, like that of a sleepy woman who has other things on her mind. Each garter, each stocking was peeled off and discarded with a tantalising display of my body, just enough to delight him and, although he was relaxed and silent, I knew how focused was his attention and how delicious this was for him after a long day attending to my family's welfare.

Pretending to be alone, I took my time with each button, hook and tie, letting one side slip a little, then another, loosening my hair to reveal and conceal, swinging it aside, lifting it and letting it drop for me to make all those minute examinations of this limb, that
hand, that foot, which we women make at such times as a matter of routine. Sliding my chemise down over one hip, inch by slow inch, I held it before me to conceal that part of me which I have never found particularly attractive, finally stepping out of the soft cotton fabric with the deep broderie-anglais hem while looking at him through the screen of my hair. I could go no further in my pretence.

Like a large cat, he stood up, dark against the firelight. ‘Siren,' he whispered, ‘you have captured my dream. How did you know, wicked black witch? Eh? Can you read my dreams now?' He came to me, taking the cotton shift out of my hand and tossing it on to the chair.

‘Now I can,' I replied, softly. ‘Now I can call you mine at last, after all these years. I can have you all, body and mind. And I am yours, my love.'

After bearing our child, and suckling him for nine months, my figure was no longer that of a seventeen-year-old. My hips and belly were rounded, my breasts full, still firm, but with all those years of virginal innocence gone for ever. Burl's heavy-lidded examination and the path of his hands over my body, however, was as leisured as my undressing had been, and I stood trembling like a girl with my knees turning to water at each touch, the tenderly teasing brush of his thumbs melting me, then his warm lips over my shoulders and neck.

No longer able to wait upon him, I linked my arms about his neck, knowing that he would lift me and take me those few short steps to the turned-down bed and lay me there with the blanket of his beautiful body to warm
me, each of his kisses fusing into the next, emptying my mind. And because we were both physically weary, yet aware of the change in our relationship, our loving was sweetly languorous and indulgent, teasing time itself into eons of pleasure that washed over us like waves, taking us further and further into the deep waters of our passion. Our cries were softly calling, tuned to each other, wordless and evocative, arousing, yearning. With years of discovery ahead of us and no more misunderstandings, our loving was made all the sweeter and more poignant by words of love in all its forms, words we had saved in the secrecy of our hearts and never thought to use.

‘Never leave me,' he whispered. ‘Never…never leave me, Helene.'

‘Beloved, I am yours. I have always been yours, even when you—'

‘Don't say it. Darling woman, what can I do to make you forget?'

‘That's easy, my lord. Brothers and sisters for Jamie, please.'

‘I can arrange that, Lady Winterson. Leave it to me.'

‘Now?'

‘Of course now. Immediately. A little co-operation is all I ask.'

Needless to say, I co-operated fully. So well, in fact, that the deep sleep that followed our exhaustion took us through until dawn when Jamie and Debbie appeared to draw the curtains and place our tea-tray on the table. With no sign of surprise at seeing his Uncaburl in my bed, Jamie crawled across the prone and tousled body to burrow between us like a mole, grinning as if he was personally responsible.

W
ith our love for each other firmly established and our future as a family assured, everything else seemed to matter less than before, even though there were some serious issues still to be discussed. Linas's letter to me had certainly cleared my mind of misconceptions and left it wide open to receive his brother's love, but Burl himself had some doubts about the manner of Linas's explanation.

Some days later we sat by the fire in our house on Blake Street. Shaking his head, he closed the book and turned it over once or twice to study its leather binding. ‘Tch!' he muttered. ‘How like him to write it as an essay and then leave it to chance that you'd find it one day. It might have been
years
before you found it, Helene. What if I'd thrown the notebooks out, or put them into a bookshelf? Then you'd never have heard his side of the story, would you? Why couldn't he have told you, while there was still time?'

Snuggling deeper into his arms, I took the notebook
from him and returned it to its companions. ‘Because he was unsure how I would take it,' I said. ‘Because he could never have said it the way he could write it. Because he was not even sure he wanted me to know, after all. Let's not give it any more thought. It's of no consequence now. Tell me what you discovered about Pierre. You said you had something to tell me.'

‘It was your brothers who solved the mystery, sweetheart. They were doing some clearing up ready for the renovations and they found some lists that Monsieur Follet had left behind in his hurry.'

‘Lists of what?'

‘Names. French prisoners of war kept in prison ships off the Essex coast, some of them crossed off or underlined. They showed it to me, and I recognised some of the names that have been circulated to all the Justices of the Peace in the county. They're men who've gone missing, presumed escaped. We've known for some time that there are French connections over here helping prisoners to get back home across the English Channel or the North Sea, but personally I never thought they'd come all this way up north. But it seems that some of them made their way up as far as York where your cousin has been meeting them.'

‘In the coffee houses? Once a month, when he went to collect my mother's medication and bring the goods to the shop?'

‘Very likely. The coffee houses are perfect meeting places.'

‘Then the man who was with him when we saw him might have been one he was helping. He looked very rough and tired, didn't he?'

‘Yes. He would have taken him to Bridlington to wait there for one of the smugglers' boats to ship him back to France. The men who come to collect these prisoners pay handsomely for human contraband, and Pierre has probably been doing it for several years, growing nicely wealthy from it.'

‘Which is where the extra money comes from.'

‘No more, dear heart. He pulled up the ladder and made a run for it. Things were getting too complicated for him. He'd waited for you, and then realised it was futile, and maybe he suspected I might know a thing or two about what was happening. Who knows? But Greg and Finch are not a bit sorry. They had no wish to call him brother.'

‘So my mother has not been receiving her potions lately.'

‘If I were you, I would not be too concerned about that,' he said, twisting a strand of my hair round his fingers. ‘Your mother appears to be improving daily. Due, perhaps, to the absence of pain-killing drugs.'

‘Burl…you cannot believe…
surely
not!'

‘I'm keeping an open mind, sweetheart. I think we should allow the matter to drop, since it really serves no purpose to find out, does it? I don't think your mother suspects anything sinister.'

‘So do you still think it was Pierre who told the Customs and Excise Men to look in our shop for French goods?'

‘No. It was not him.' He answered with such finality that I knew his enquiries had revealed something.

‘Do you want to tell me?' I said.

‘Difficult. Maybe I should not.'

‘Then it's someone I know. It would upset me. Is that it, my lord?'

He took a deep breath, and I thought how unlike him it was to hesitate. ‘It upsets
me
,' he said, ‘to think that I've had not one, but
two
brothers who see me so much as a rival that they are driven to prevent my happiness. On the other hand, Miss Follet, looking at you here in the crook of my arm with your hair all over the place and the neck of your bodice indecently open…'

‘Which
you
opened, my lord!'

‘…which I opened, I dare say I could forgive them both for wanting to knock me off my high horse, once in a while. However, I find it rather uncomfortable, to say the least…'

‘Oh,
do
say the least, darling Burl. What
are
you saying, exactly? That Medworth…oh, no, you can't think that he…did he?'

‘Yes, I'm afraid that's what I am saying. He dropped a rather indirect hint to two of the men who work for the Customs Controller, so I'm told, just as the floods began, a hint that they're trained to pick up with ears like bats. The truth is, my love, that although Medworth was quite content to see you as Linas's mistress, he's less than content to see you as my wife and mother of my son. Jealousy of my good fortune? Envy of my inheritance compared to his? Yes, love, he's not immune from the vices any more than the rest of us, though I'd not have believed he'd allow it to get as out of hand as he appears to have done.'

‘He wanted to see me arrested? Oh, Burl, surely not.' My arms prickled, and the hair at the nape of my neck sent shivers down my spine.

‘I really don't believe he'd thought too hard about what the exact consequences might be. I think he was more set on pulling us apart than what might happen to you. In a way, what he tried to do is potentially more serious than what Linas tried to do. Envy is a terrible thing.'

If ever the time was right for me to say what I knew about Medworth's other attempt to pull us apart, it was now. But I said nothing, for it was not my way to worsen a sibling relationship that had begun to falter. So I kept my peace, and I was glad that I did, for Burl himself told me the rest.

‘He's moving house, by the way,' he said, ‘so we shall be seeing less of him in the future. We had a meeting at Abbots Mere the other day, and my father has offered him a small living just on the other side of Harrogate, so he'll be near them. Mama is very pleased, of course.'

‘Oh! That's rather sudden, isn't it? What of the rector's position at Osbaldwick? Has it…?'

‘Fallen through. Lord Slatterly has found someone he believes will be more suitable. An older man. They'll be moving out next week.'

‘I see. Is Medworth very disappointed?'

‘He's philosophical about it. Cynthia won't want to leave, but curate's wives must move on. She'll take it in her stride. But I have some other news that will please you, Miss Follet. About Lord Slatterly's daughter.'

For one moment, I was not sure what I was meant to know and what to conceal. ‘Veronique? Is she well?'

‘Well and happy, according to her father. She's soon to be married.'

‘Heavens above! That is good news. Anyone I know?'

‘One of Viscount Wetherclough's sons. Been keen on her for years. He can't believe his luck, at last. I think I know how he feels.'

I hugged him. This was good news indeed. ‘I must go and see her. We're on good terms now, you know.'

He looked down at me and smiled. ‘Thanks to your kindness to her. You are, Miss Follet, the most wonderful woman, and I am the most fortunate of men. And if you hug me any closer, wench, your bodice will drop off altogether and I shall be shamelessly compromised. Is that the idea?'

‘Mmm,' I said, as his hand moved the matter forwards.

‘Wait, hussy,' he said, diverting the hand into his inside breast pocket. ‘I have a halter to put round your neck while I have you half-naked here. Hold still.' Opening a flat red leather-covered box, he revealed a lining of white satin upon which lay a fine gold chain with a pendant hanging from it, the largest smokey-grey pearl I had ever seen. It was tear-drop shaped, with a diamond dripping from the base. ‘Burl sounds like pearl,' he whispered. ‘Keep saying it, sweetheart.'

‘Burl,' I said. ‘Thank you, dear heart. Thank you for waiting.'

‘I would have waited for ever, my love, but I'm glad I didn't have to. Six years is more than enough to wait for a woman like you.'

* * *

It was on my birthday, April 18th, 1806, when the fifth red rose appeared on the hall table before break
fast, and it was then that I had to accept that the anonymous donor could not have been Linas, after all. Smiling, I placed it on my table between the toast and the milk-jug and waited for comments.

‘Another rose, Mama?' said Jamie.

Burl looked across at me. ‘Get them regularly, do you?'

‘Mmm.' I nodded.

‘Mama gets one every year on her birthday, Uncaburl. I think she should marry the handsome prince who gives 'em out. Shall you, Mama?'

‘Yes, love. I think it's time I did. Will some time soon be good?'

Burl was staring, but then his expression changed, his eyes softening and desirous. ‘Very soon, you mean?' he said, slowly.

‘Yes, my lord. As soon as possible,' I said, nibbling at my lip.

His hand reached across the table to cover mine, caressing, protective and thoughtful. The tender expression deepened into a smile and I knew he understood that I was saying more than that, and I thought he looked like a young lad with his first girl. ‘This time,' he whispered, ‘I shall be able to do all those things I couldn't do before, shan't I? Shall we go over to Foss Beck and tell them? We can stay overnight at Friday-thorpe so as not to tire you.'

‘To see Nana Damzell,' Jamie said. ‘And when you marry Uncaburl, Mama, will he be my new papa then?'

We looked at each other without answering him, until he insisted. ‘Will you, Uncaburl? If Mama gives the red rose to Papa, he won't mind then, will he? We'll tell him about it. Shall we?'

Tears prickled my eyes. ‘That's what we'll do, little one. We'll call and see him on the way there, and you can give him the rose. He'll like that.'

* * *

So we did, making it the start of a tradition we kept up each year on my birthday, even when our retinue extended to our two nurses, the two younger boys and one girl, and a handsome young man of twelve who looked exactly like his papa.