Tarleton's Wife (18 page)

Ebadiah Woodworthy had not become wealthy through stupidity. He was forced to admit the former Miss Litchfield from nowhere had teeth. She was some six weeks short of her majority and although the course of the war seemed stalled, it was possible that within the year the way might be clear to authenticate the major’s death. In which case Julia Tarleton would be in sole control of the estate. And his employer. Or not his employer, as she chose. It was what he had told Louis Tyler many months before. They might control the purse strings now but in the long run he and the estate agent had little more than bluff on their side.

“If you do not care for Mr. Oliver Tarleton, you must of course do as you see fit,” Ebadiah Woodworthy conceded, struggling to find a road to reconciliation without losing control. “But do not, I beg you, consider Jack Harding, for you will be sunk beneath reproach in the county if you do. Indeed, that is the other matter I came to discuss with you. Your friendship has become generally known. If you wish to retain your good name, you must cease all contact with Harding immediately.”

“I thought I had already made it quite clear I will not be dictated to, Mr. Woodworthy.”

His thin supply of patience sorely tried, Ebadiah Woodworthy burst out, “Surely you know Harding is suspected of much worse than doubtful parentage.”

“Oh?” Julia inquired, eyes wide. “I had thought his parentage in no doubt at all.”

Mr. Woodworthy took a deep breath. “I cannot understand,” he muttered almost to himself, “how you can espouse causes which are a detriment to your own interest.”

Julia puzzled over this for a moment. “Are you referring to actions contrary to the interests of my class, Mr. Woodworthy?”

The solicitor eyed her with some surprise. “In a broad sense that is true but what I meant was your support of the cottagers’ interests is undermining your own income.”

“How so, Mr. Woodworthy? Surely well-fed and contented cottagers increase the productivity of the estate?”

“I am referring to the mills, Mrs. Tarleton.”

“Mills?” asked Julia blankly.

“The hosiery mills in Nottingham,” Mr. Woodworthy responded with elaborate patience. “The mills from which your cottagers had their knitting frames. The mills which are now under siege by Captain Hood and his band of thugs.”

“I fear I do not understand the connection,” Julia admitted with a frown.

Ebadiah Woodworthy sat quite still, staring at his errant ward. “Is it possible you do not know your husband’s estate includes two of the largest hosiery mills in England?”

“How
could
I not know?” Julia demanded of Sophy a short while later. “Why did no one tell me?”

Miss Upton continued the delicate task of brushing a coating of rosewater and egg white onto a layer of rose petals laid out on a strip of parchment. “What was that, my dear? Oh, yes. Well, I’m sure we all thought you knew. Even Mr. Woodworthy. I grant him that much. I doubt he intended to deceive you. Certainly Mr. Harding did not.”

“But you encouraged me to support the frame breaking!”

“Yes, my dear,” said Sophy placidly as she began to sprinkle sugar over her creations, “but you
wished
to support the frame breaking. And, after all, they were
your
frames to break or not as you chose.”

“I
did
support it. I
do
! It’s just that I cannot understand why it was such a secret.”

Sophy dipped her hands into a ceramic bowl of water and dried them on a linen towel. “I suppose,” she said, choosing her words with care, “mills are not something we talk about. There is a stigma attached to being in trade. It is quite all right to enjoy the wealth but one does not discuss where the money comes from. I fear we have all been so circumspect we kept you from knowledge you should have had. I apologize, my dear.”

“Where did the mills come from, Sophy?” Julia persisted. “How did they come into the family?”

“Laetitia’s father married them,” Sophy replied. “It was an old story. The family fortune had been sadly depleted by his father’s gaming and wenching, so he married into trade. The only child of the merchant who founded the mills. A most fortuitous alliance as Jason Summerton had a taste for fine things. There were two children but Jason, his wife and son were all taken by the influenza.”

Sophy sighed, her face grave. “When I came to The Willows, Laetitia was more than fifty and still a fine figure of a woman. She always had great respect for her grandfather’s talent for trade. I had not thought—had not realized until now—how shockingly the rest of us have ignored his existence.” She withdrew a lacy handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped her eyes. “I am sure I never intended offense but nonetheless I am guilty,” she added with a watery smile.

“And Nicholas was quite as bad,” Julia pronounced. “He dined with us nearly every evening of the last six months I knew him and never a word about mills, not even when he came back from leave after his aunt died.” Julia reached out and popped one of the sugared rose petals into her mouth. “Mm-m-m,” she approved with a twinkling smile. “These should fetch a fine price at the local confectioners.”

“Julia, you can’t! You wouldn’t,” Sophy sputtered. Too rare and fragile to be sold, the precious candied rose petals were not among Willow Herbal’s inventory.

“I cannot see how Mr. Woodworthy had the nerve to object to Willow Herbals,” Julia announced with asperity, ignoring her companion’s sputterings, “when he knew all along we were already engaged in trade. And to think I was actually worried about what Nicholas might think of Willow Herbals.”

“But, my dear Julia, it is not at all the same,” protested Miss Upton. “Dear Laetitia and Nicholas merely lived off the income. They did not actually engage in trade.”

“I am living in a nest of hypocrites!” Julia declared. “Sophy, do forgive me. I am a beast. A nasty, short-tempered monster. The truth is, I do not like being kept in ignorance. Even inadvertently. I am indulging in a fit of the sullens at your expense. It is my turn to cry pardon.” Julia threw her arms around Miss Upton’s thin shoulders.

The ladies made up their differences so well that they plunged back into the demanding work of supervising the production of Willow Herbals without further thought of the social stigma of being in trade.

* * * * *

On a crisp afternoon in early October Julia sat at her desk in the library dictating tasks to Meg Runyon who had demonstrated a surprisingly shrewd head for business. “Daniel has brought us an order for twenty pounds of foxglove from Billingsley’s in London,” Julia said. “Do we have enough left, do you think? And Wilson’s in Nottingham needs five more sets of kitchen herbs.” Julia rustled through the stack of papers on her desk. “And see if you can get Mary Meekins and her girls to work a bit faster. We are behind in the packaging of at least fifteen sets of bathing herbs. And the beauty creams! What a pity we cannot make attar of roses. The price is outrageous, you know. Our cottagers could live for a year on an ounce of it.”

“But why can’t we, ma’am? I never seen so many roses in my life.”

Julia shook her head, smiling. “I’m told it takes miles and miles of roses, Meg. Can you picture it? Enough roses so that a man could not ride through them in one day. That’s why attar of roses is so expensive. Only the potentates of the east can afford to farm in such extravagant fashion. So I must confine myself to the practical but,” Julia’s eyes took on wistful twinkle, “one cannot help but dream a bit.”

“Well, ma’am,” said Meg, “I shall pour rose petals into your next bath and you may dream of being one of them pot-pote-whatever it was you said.”

Julia stretched her arms, wiggling her fingers to ease the stiffness of a long afternoon’s labor. “We have not done so badly, have we, Meg? You have found love…and I have found a cause, something to keep the pain at bay. At times, like today, the work is tedious but there is great satisfaction in knowing no one will go hungry at The Willows.”

“Oh, aye, ma’am!” Meg agreed with fervor. “It’s a new life you’ve given me. And I think,” she glanced down at her lap, “this time I think the babe will live.”

Harkins, the new second footman hired at Julia’s own expense, opened the door to the library and trod carefully across the room, precisely as he had been taught by Peters. “Mrs. Tarleton, ma’am” he announced, “Peters says to tell you visitors have arrived. Said I was to find you right away.”

“Visitors? Why did not Peters come to tell me himself?”

“I can’t say, ma’am but he seemed to be in something of a pucker,” Harkins confided, relaxing his formality. “Come in a big old traveling coach they did. Peters has shown them into the drawing room.”

“Oh, good God!” Julia muttered before she caught her indiscretion. The Tarletons were come to harass her once again. Oliver appeared all too frequently but she had not seen Ramsey or Pamela Tarleton since the unfortunate hostilities so many months before.

Julia allowed Meg Runyon to tuck in several stray wisps of hair and straighten the folds of her skirt. “Pinch your cheeks, ma’am,” Meg commanded. “It’s a ghost you look like, for sure.”

Julia sailed forth, adjuring herself to ignore the Tarletons’ barbs and remember that they were her husband’s closest relatives. As Harkins threw open the drawing room door, she came to an abrupt halt, her forced smile of greeting fading from her lips. Three perfect strangers were warming themselves before the fire, an elderly gentleman of middle height and fragile mien, a lady of uncertain years and a strikingly beautiful petite, black-haired young lady of no more than eighteen.

A fourth person was not a visitor at all. Dressed in a jacket and breeches of foreign cut, he towered over his companions. At the sight of Julia his fine gray eyes widened. “Good God, Julia!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

Nicholas Tarleton, belatedly remembering his manners, turned to his companions. “May I present Miss Julia Litchfield, my colonel’s daughter. Julia, this is Don Raimondo Maximillano Vila Santiago, his sister Doña Elvira and his daughter Doña Violante Modestia Vila Santiago.” Don Raimondo executed a slight bow and Doña Violante a gracious curtsey which Julia unconsciously returned, staggering as her legs nearly dissolved beneath her.

“Doña Violante,” announced Major Nicholas Tarleton, “is my betrothed.”

Chapter Nine

Julia turned the heavy key in the lock to her bedroom door and left it in place, defying anyone’s attempt to enter her bedroom from the hallway. Her thoughts whirled in endless circles. Nicholas alive. Nicholas betrothed to another. Nicholas alive. He did not want her.
Nicholas alive. He loved another.
In blind agony she tore at the drawers of the heavy chest next to the connecting door to Nicholas’ bedroom, dragging them onto the floor in a near frenzy. With the chest now lighter by six drawers and their contents, she was able to push it into place in front of the door. She slammed the drawers back into the chest with grim satisfaction as each thudded into place.

Safe at last. Julia’s furious spate of activity suddenly gave way to overwhelming despair. Collapsing onto the bed, she wrapped herself in the quilted bed cover, her body shaking with cold as intense as those terrible days in the mountains of Spain. She heard nothing, saw nothing as anguish chased joy in a mindless whirlwind. Nicholas would not, could not, betray her…even if he wished to. He was far too honorable, so why, why,
why
?

When Julia finally came to herself and looked around the room, darkness was almost complete. She stretched out her hand for the tinder box, surprised to see that everything appeared so normal. Except for the chest of drawers against the door, the room was as it always was. The cataclysm which had shattered her life was entirely personal, leaving the world around her untouched. Automatically, her hands moved to light the candle and with the flickering glow sound came back to her consciousness as well.

“Julia! Julia, my dear.” Sophy Upton’s anxious voice penetrated the locked door. “Please answer me. We are all quite concerned. Please, my dear, let me in.”

There had been other voices, Julia now recalled. Meg, Daniel, Sophy. Nicholas. Yes, even Nicholas. She had no recollection of their words but they had been there. She was not as alone as she felt. Nonsense to feel so ill-used.

Rationalization was hopeless. Nothing made sense. The hurt was a knife plunged to her heart. Unalterable. Mortal.

“Julia. Open this door at once!” Nicholas. At the connecting door to his bedroom. There was an ominous creak as he shoved hard against it, the oak chest groaning as it slid a fraction of an inch.

Energy returned in a wave of fury. Julia bounded off the bed and rushed across the room, leaning hard against the chest’s solid carved oak. “Tomorrow,” she countered in desperation. “I’ll talk to you all tomorrow.”

“Devil it, Julia!
Now!
”

She drew a deep breath, putting all her weight against the chest. “At the moment I just need to be alone.” She was proud of her strong, even tone. “I’ll talk with you in the morning.”

A prolonged silence. Julia kept her weight pressed hard against the chest.

“Very well, Julia,” Nicholas conceded in grudging tones. “It would be much better if we talked now but I shall not press you. I’ll have your maid bring up some supper and I will see you in the library directly after breakfast. Is that understood?”