Chapter Twenty-Nine
“A h, there you are, Radham!” Mr. Baxter approached Andrew as he entered the drawing room and held out his hand. “I trust your room is to your satisfaction.”
“Perfectly so, I thank you,” Andrew replied, taking his host’s hand. He cast his glance about the room, but other than his host and the rest of the gentlemen he’d spent the afternoon fishing with—a pleasant enough afternoon during which he’d bagged a trout—none of the other guests were present.
Mr. Baxter steered him toward a table where two footmen stood guard beside a row of decanters, and gestured toward them.
“Madeira?” he said. “Or we have sherry that my Bella tells me is a drink for ladies, but I’ll confess having taken a likin’ to it.”
“Are the ladies joining us soon?” Andrew asked.
“Ha!” Baxter slapped Andrew on the back, and he almost lost his balance. “Eager to meet the marriage prospect, are you, my friend? What do you think of that, Marable?”
The tall, raven-haired Scot in the corner turned to face them, a smile on his face. “A bonny lass she is,” he said, nodding, “though don’t say that in front of my Carin or she’ll chew my ballocks off.”
Andrew flinched at the man’s turn of phrase, but the rest of the party merely laughed. Longford House was unlike any London townhouse he’d visited—and any country estate, for that matter—with the easygoing manners of its inhabitants and guests. So unlike the stuffiness of Sandcombe Place, where Sir John Fulford had lorded it over his inferiors—until his latest seizure had rendered him an invalid. Now, the bitter old man resided in the gatehouse with his equally bitter wife and resentful daughters, while a merchant had purchased the main house. But it was no longer Andrew’s problem to deal with—the present incumbent at Sandcombe vicarage could tend to the moral welfare of the village.
“I wouldnae touch the sherry, though,” Marable continued. “Tastes like horse’s piss.”
He ambled over to Andrew, his burly frame towering over even their host, and slapped him on the back again. Andrew staggered forward. Since when had gentlemen taken to striking each other as a form of greeting?
“I’d recommend a good whisky,” Marable said.
“Now that does taste like horse’s piss.” The slender man whom Baxter had introduced to Andrew as Major Axley, Marable’s brother-in-law, approached, his scarred face puckering as he smiled. “I’d stick to madeira if I were you, Radham. It’ll save you from being compared to a woman without rotting your insides.”
“I thought you liked whisky,” another guest, a tall, lean, dark-haired man, said.
Axley laughed. “It has its uses, Trelawney. Our housekeeper has employed it when polishing the silverware—gives it a proper shine, it does.”
Marable rolled his eyes. “Take no notice of these weaklings, Radham,” he said. “There’s nothing to be compared to a good single malt. I’ll send you a crate on occasion of your marriage if you like.”
Heavens —were all the guests engaged in a conspiracy to have Andrew marched up the aisle? Had she engaged them to champion her cause and trick an unsuspecting titled man into matrimony?
Well, he wouldn’t be purchased—and he’d told her as much when she accosted him on the road, fluttering her eyelashes, acting the savior as she tried to help him up after his damned horse had unseated him.
For a moment, the image of her face floated in the forefront of his mind—the concern in her expression as she rushed toward him, and the flicker of compassion in her eyes as she reached out to help him up.
But the compassion had morphed into sorrow when he rebuffed her offer of help.
You’re a cad, Andrew Stiles.
Silencing his conscience, he gestured toward one of the decanters. “Maderia, if you please,” he said.
“And a very fine one it is, too,” Trelawney said, “though I say so myself.”
“Cost me a pretty packet, it did,” Baxter said, “but my wife has a fondness for it. As does Miss Howard.”
Andrew’s breath caught at the mention of her name.
Baxter had uttered it without a trace of anger or dislike. Did he know what she’d done—her crimes against her sister, her ruination?
“Have a care, Radham,” Baxter said. “Trelawney here will have you spending a fortune filling your cellar with his wares.”
“A married man needs a well-stocked cellar,” Trelawney said.
“Only if his wife is a toper,” Andrew replied.
“She has every right to be, if it’s her fortune that pays for it,” Baxter said, laughing, “though I assure you, Miss Howard is not the sort to imbibe every night. In fact, she hardly touches the stuff.”
“She sounds a veritable paragon of womanly perfection,” Andrew said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
Baxter frowned, but Marable let out a belly laugh.
“Careful there, Baxter!” he cried. “If you’re overly assertive when marketing the goods, your prospective buyer will flee. Miss Howard is a charming creature, but I doubt she’d welcome being described as ‘a paragon of womanly perfection.’”
“Why not?” Andrew asked. “Don’t all women wish to be praised?”
“In my experience, women only wish to be heard,” Marable said. “And the very worst sort of woman a man can take for a wife is one whom Society deems to be perfect.”
“So Miss Howard is not perfect,” Andrew said.
“She is not a debutante in search of a title,” Baxter said. “But she’s a charming creature, and my wife quite adores her. She’s suffered greatly yet carries not a trace of bitterness.”
“Really?” Andrew flinched as he uttered the question.
“And she has the sweetest little boy imaginable,” Axley said.
“That she does,” Baxter added. “Of course, some men may be deterred from paying court to Miss Howard, given that she has a son. It’s a rare good soul indeed who’s prepared to love another’s children as if they were their own. But Miss Howard may yet enjoy the same good fortune as me. I never believed I could find a woman to love my three little brigands—until my Bella.”
Baxter gave a soft sigh and smiled.
“Here we go again,” Marable said, rolling his eyes. “We all know how devoted you are to Lady Arabella—there’s no need to hang your tongue out like a lovesick puppy every time you think of her.”
“Leave him alone,” Axley said, giving Marable a push. “We all know you’d crawl through broken glass stripped naked if it pleased my sister.”
“Well, there is that,” Marable replied, a smile of satisfaction on his lips. “I was never one to recommend marriage until I met my Carin. You must forgive us lovesick fools, Radham. Rest assured, we shall not tease you when the ladies arrive.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Axley said. “My sister would cut off your—what was it?”
“Ballocks,” Andrew said.
“I beg your pardon?” a female voice cried, and Andrew turned to see four ladies in the doorway.
The woman who’d spoken must be their hostess, judging by the way Baxter stared at her with slavish devotion. With glossy black hair set in an elegant style, dotted with pearls, and eyes the color of sapphires, she was a striking creature.
Andrew’s cheeks warmed, and he shifted from one foot to the other. One of her companions, a brown-haired woman with a determined set to her chin and dark, intense brown eyes, let out a laugh.
“Has my wayward husband been teaching you his particular style of cursing, Lord Radham?” she asked. “I assume you are Lord Radham.” She approached Andrew and offered her hand. “Carinthia MacCallum,” she said. “Lady Marable.”
Andrew glanced toward the tall Scot, who nodded. “Aye, that’s my Carin,” he said, pride in his voice. “The love of my life and purveyor of the finest poetry in the land—even to rival Burns himself.”
Andrew glanced at Axley, the woman’s brother, then recognition slid into place. “Carinthia Axley ? The poet?”
“The very same,” she said.
Andrew took her hand and bowed over it. “A pleasure,” he said. “My late brother kept a copy of your poems in his study. I happened upon them when I took residence at Radham Hall.”
She smiled in response then glided across the floor toward her husband.
Lady Arabella gestured to her two remaining companions. “Mrs. Axley and Lady Alice Trelawney. Ladies, this is Lord Radham.”
The ladies nodded in acknowledgment. Mrs. Axley smiled then joined her husband, but Lady Alice tilted her head to one side and cast her gaze over Andrew’s form as if undertaking a critique, not only of his style of dress, but of his very nature. At length, she lifted her gaze. As her eyes met Andrew’s, his skin tightened, as if cold fingers caressed the back of his neck. Her benign expression was that of any Society beauty, save for the flicker of pain simmering in her gaze. Though she was a young woman, small creases marred the corners of her eyes.
She hid her pain well, but nevertheless it shimmered around her, shifting the air as she moved.
He offered his hand, but she made no move to take it. “So you’re Lord Radham,” she said. “Accept my sympathy for your loss.”
Her words, delivered in a flat, businesslike tone, sounded like an instruction rather than an expression of sympathy.
“Thank you,” Andrew said.
“I met your late brother in London.”
He waited for the usual bland words that everyone he’d encountered since Robert’s demise had uttered—false declarations of how great a man he was, such a loss to the world, et cetera et cetera. But none came.
He blurted out bland niceties to fill the silence. “Were you a friend of his?”
She narrowed her eyes, the creases deepening, and the flicker of pain flared into a flame. “No,” she said after a pause. “He reminded me of—”
“Alice, my love,” Trelawney said, approaching her and offering his arm. She took it, and her expression softened. “I believe Radham here is a different creature to his brother,” Trelawney continued. “He knows little of London Society—is that not right, Radham?”
Andrew nodded. “I am—no, was —a country vicar,” he said. “I saw little of my brother after we left school. I find myself sailing in unfamiliar waters among London Society, though my father is fond of it. For my part, I wish to avoid Society as much as possible.”
She smiled. “Then I am pleased to meet you, Lord Radham.”
“Alice, come and take some sherry,” her husband said, and he steered her toward the table where the footmen were unstoppering the decanters.
Lady Arabella approached Andrew and offered her hand. He took it and bowed.
“Do forgive me for not welcoming you on your arrival, Lord Radham,” she said. “The ladies and I were engaged in a game of pale-maille . Do you play?”
Andrew shook his head. “I fear not.”
“It is something of a tradition here at Longford Hall. The gentlemen attempt to relieve the occupants of our trout stream of their liberty, while the ladies play pale-maille —though some of our guests took to exploring the grounds this afternoon.”
“Yes, I met one on my way here,” Andrew said, wincing at the harshness in his tone.
She frowned. “How strange! None of them mentioned it, though Juliette seemed a little out of sorts this afternoon. That’s Miss Howard, you know. I particularly wanted you to meet her—I had sat her next to you at dinner—but I’m afraid she’s been taken ill.”
“Ill?”
“A megrim, poor creature,” Lady Arabella said. “I had warned her not to work so hard.”
“Work?”
“She insists on helping about the house, despite being my guest. I had to almost push her out of the house this afternoon. I thought a walk and some air would restore her spirits, but she returned awfully discomposed. In fact…” She fixed her gaze on him. “Perhaps it was she whom you met on your way here?”
“I believe it was,” Andrew said, his cheeks warming.
“I wonder why she neglected to mention it,” Lady Arabella said. “Are you perhaps acquainted with her?”
“I know her sister, Duchess Whitcombe.”
“Eleanor? You met Eleanor in London, perhaps?”
Andrew shook his head. “I-I knew the duchess before she married. I was vicar in the parish where she stayed for a while.”
She took in a sharp breath, then withdrew her hand and frowned. “I see.”
“You do?” he asked.
Her expression hardened. “I believe so—the vicar at Sandcombe. Tell me, Lord Radham, when a woman behaves improperly or commits what is generally believed to be a sin, do you place the blame on the woman?”
“The Almighty tells us to forgive the sinner,” he said carefully.
“That’s not what I asked. A man who forgives merely because he believes that his God has instructed him to do so is not demonstrating goodness. Rather, he is demonstrating self-righteousness, declaring himself superior to whomever he forgives.”
“Then what must the man do, Lady Arabella, if he is witness to sin?”
“He should understand,” she said. “Especially if the alleged sinner is a woman. We live in a world ruled by men. When a man sins he does so with the full knowledge that Society, the law, and the church permit him such liberties that legitimize the sin. When a woman sins, her reasons are often more complex.”
“Sin is sin, is it not, Lady Arabella?”
“You speak the words of a man with little understanding, Lord Radham.”
“Bella, love. Are you lecturing my friend?” Baxter appeared at his wife’s elbow.
“Forgive me, Lord Radham,” Lady Arabella said. “My unfortunate husband has married a harridan.”
“You are entitled to your opinion, Lady Arabella,” Andrew said.
“But perhaps I should not always express it so freely.”
“I would rather be responded to with honesty than listen to niceties that are only spoken to maintain social convention, Lady Arabella.”
She nodded, then gestured toward Lady Trelawney. “Alice in some ways is similar to Juliette. They both committed acts that they regret, and for which they have suffered. Some may call them sinners, but those who know and love them understand that they are guilty of nothing more than having committed acts of survival in a world ruled by men.”
“Survival?”
“If two doves are caged together, eventually they will turn against each other to survive,” she said. “But rather than condemn the doves, you should look to the man who caged them in the first place, and the world that enabled their incarceration. I myself was a caged dove—and until you have suffered such imprisonment, you cannot condemn the inmate for merely trying to lessen her own suffering.”
“You make me quite ashamed, Lady Arabella,” Andrew said.
“I did not intend to—” She broke off, a smile illuminating her features. “Oh, the children!” she cried. “How delightful. Gather round, my darlings, and say how do you do to our guests, then we can bid you good night.”
Andrew glanced up to see a thin woman in a neat, crisp gown, surrounded by a gaggle of children and issuing instructions to her charges in a soft voice with a country burr. Her voice seemed familiar.
Where had he seen her before?
Then their eyes met and recognition slid into place. She let out a cry and stepped back. She collided with a footman, who dropped his tray, which fell to the floor with a clatter and explosion of glass.
It was Loveday Smith.
She stared at the mess on the floor, then grew pale as she lifted her gaze to the footman.
Baxter approached her and she flinched, her eyes widening with terror. She took a step back and he raised his hand.
“Stop!” he cried.
She cringed, hunching her shoulders as if in anticipation of a blow.
“Baxter!” Andrew said, leaping forward. “Leave her be! It was an accident.”
“I know that, you numbskull,” Baxter huffed. “But there’s glass on the floor and I’m not wantin’ Mrs. Smith to tread on it and hurt her feet.” He resumed his attention on the shivering young woman. “Keep still, love, while Simon clears the mess up, You don’t mind, do you, Simon?”
The footman shook his head and crouched to the floor, plucking shards of glass from the rug.
“Children, come here,” Lady Arabella said. “Careful not to step on the glass.”
Three of the children sidestepped the shards and approached Lady Arabella, who steered them toward the other guests. The fourth clung to Loveday.
Andrew approached them, offering his hand. “Here, let me help you.”
Loveday shook her head.
“You know me, Loveday, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I do. Miss Howard said she’d seen you today.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She didn’t have to,” Loveday said. “I saw how upset she was.”
The child began to cry, and Andrew glanced toward her. “Florrie!” he said. “I didn’t recognize you there.”
“You didn’t recognize me in the woods, vicar,” the girl said.
Then he recalled them—two children standing by the edge of the road, eyes wide with fear, who had leaped back into the verge as he struggled to regain control of his mount.
Heavens —did they think he’d meant to mow them down with his horse? Did Etty think he’d intentionally tried to harm her?
“I-I’m sorry,” Andrew said.
“’Tisn’t us you should be apologizin’ to,” Loveday said, flinching again as if she expected a blow as payment for her words. “It’s Mistress Juliette.”
“But she—”
“I don’t care what you think she did,” Loveday interrupted, straightening her stance. “All I know is that Mistress Juliette is a good woman who doesn’t deserve your condemnation.”
Andrew couldn’t help but stare at her in admiration. What had happened to the timid creature he’d known at Sandcombe?
“I admire your spirit, Loveday,” he said. “It’s good to see you flourishing here.”
“I owe it all to Mistress Juliette. She saved my life.”
Andrew nodded. “I recall it—the day she pulled you out of the sea.”
“No, sir, I didn’t mean that. I meant in every way possible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I expect you don’t,” Loveday said. “Florrie, darlin’, why don’t you go with Roberta?”
The child hesitated, then, with a glance at Andrew, darted across the floor, as if she expected him to deal her a blow. Loveday resumed her attention on Andrew.
“Do you know who Florrie’s father is, vicar?”
Andrew felt his cheeks warm with shame.
She nodded. “Of course you do—like anyone else in the village who listens to talk.”
Andrew lowered his voice. “Sir John Fulford seduced you.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“You seduced him ?”
She sighed and shook her head. “Seduction implies that the woman succumbed to temptation—that perhaps her head had been turned by the prospect of her master wantin’ her.”
Andrew glanced toward Florrie, who was engaged in conversation with Mrs. Trelawney, who’d lifted the girl onto her knees.
“Then…”
“He forced me,” Loveday said flatly. “The first time I struggled while he beat me, until I could take it no more. The second time—”
She broke off as Andrew drew in a breath to dissipate the nausea swirling in his gut.
“Do you not wish to hear it, vicar?” she said. “In the end I learned that I had to survive, so I had a choice. Fight him until he took me, or go willing and spare the pain. So I went willing.”
“And your husband?”
She flinched. “Ralph was courtin’ me at the time. I didn’t want to marry him, but when I quickened with child, I had no choice. I thought he’d keep me safe from Sir John, but after Florrie was born, we needed the money, so I had to go back. Until I fell pregnant with Anna, and then…”
She shook, and Andrew took her shoulders. She stiffened, but lifted her gaze to his.
“Ralph called me a whore, saying I’d sold myself—that I’d disgraced him. I was ashamed, tried to keep things nice for him, like, but when he’d come home from the Sailor after a drink or two, he…”
Andrew took her hand. “It’s all right,” he said, grimacing at the image of Loveday with her bandaged arm and the bruises on her face, which she’d tried in vain to hide.
“No,” she said. “It’s not all right. Mistress Juliette was the only one who wanted to help me. She didn’t deliver a sermon, or tell me how to please my husband, or bring me her discarded dresses to indulge her desire to be seen as charitable. She saw what I needed and gave it to me.”
“And what was that?”
“Freedom from the men who believed that they could own another person merely because they had employed them, or married them.”
She froze at a low cry, and Andrew saw Lady Arabella staring at them, wide eyed.
“Oh, Mrs. Smith,” she whispered. “I did not know…” She glanced toward Florrie. “Your poor child. Does she know?”
“That she came from…” Loveday hesitated, unable to voice it.
Rape.
An act of violence undertaken by only the most depraved of beasts—and if it bore fruit, that fruit was deemed to be rotten, fetid, beyond salvation.
“Sweet heaven…” Andrew closed his eyes, but he was unable to deny that which he knew to be true.
Loveday Smith had not given herself to her master, nor had she been seduced. She had suffered an act of violence and violation.
Deep down, the whole of Sandcombe knew it to be true as well, and the whole of Sandcombe had turned a blind eye.
Except one. An outsider, a misfit, who, rather than preach of goodness and salvation and deliverance from evil, had been the only soul in the village to show what goodness truly was, and to effect that deliverance for those who needed it.
Etty.
Who could not help but love and admire such a woman who had defied the laws of Society—of the land—and followed a different law? That of right and wrong?
“Oh, Etty…” he whispered.
“Do you blame her for what she did—for saving us?” Loveday asked. “Is that why she was so distressed earlier?”
“No,” Andrew said. “I don’t blame her. I admire and love her.”
“Mrs. Smith,” Lady Arabella said gently, “I think perhaps you should see if Miss Juliette needs anything, then you must retire yourself.” She glanced toward Andrew, her eyes darkening. “I think I now understand what discomposed my friend today.”
“But the children, Lady Arabella…” Loveday protested.
“ I’ll see to it that the children are tended to.”
Loveday nodded and slipped out of the room.
“Have you given her a home here?” Andrew asked.
“A home and a position,” Lady Arabella replied. “But rest assured that we are not in the habit of exploiting the servants for our own gratification.”
“I didn’t think—”
“No,” she said. “You didn’t think. And neither did I. I must apologize.”
“You have no need to apologize to me,” he said. “Quite the opposite.”
“Nevertheless, I apologize for wasting your time. I see now that you are quite unsuitable as a dinner partner for my friend. I have grown to admire her since her return from exile—a woman who has striven to make an independent life for herself and for her son. But Mrs. Smith’s revelation has shown me how wrong I was. I have not admired Etty nearly as much as she deserves.”
“Neither have I,” Andrew said.
“Then perhaps you should have told her that before you broke her heart.”
“How did you know—”
“A woman knows , Lord Radham,” she said. “Do you think we do nothing but sit in silence and let our minds and bodies be ruled by our husbands? Or do we watch and listen, gaining an understanding of those we encounter? It was plain to see that Juliette had suffered greatly when she came to us. Not the ruination and disgrace that drove her into exile, for she has reconciled herself to that—nor the gift of her son, whom she loves more than her own life.”
“Then what?”
“She has lost her faith , Lord Radham. For a woman in this world, faith is often all she has—faith that she will be loved for who she is, without judgment or expectation of reward, but for herself.”
Lost her faith…
When a soul lost their faith, they often believed that the world was a better place without them.
A ripple of fear threaded through Andrew, and he glanced toward the door, willing Loveday to return, Etty by her side.
Hurried footsteps approached, and he caught his breath, buoyed by hope as Loveday appeared at the door.
But she was alone.
“Oh, your ladyship!” she cried, panting. “It’s Miss Juliette!”
The murmur of chatter among the guests ceased.
“Has she been taken ill?” Andrew asked. “Loveday—take me to her.”
“I-I can’t do that, sir.”
“She doesn’t want to see me?”
“It’s not that,” Loveday said. “She’s gone !”
“Surely she can’t have gone,” Lady Arabella said. “She’ll be with her son if she’s not in her chamber.”
Loveday shook her head, her face streaked with tears. “I checked,” she said. “Mistress Juliette has gone without her son—she’s taken her cloak. Sh-she was so distressed when she came back from her walk, but I said nothing. What if she’s had an accident? It’s all my fault!”
Andrew’s gut twisted with horror. It wasn’t Loveday’s fault.
It was his .