Chapter 23
‘How could you?’ it just fell out of her as she entered his study. This was a terrible idea, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself.
He leered at her from his couch where he lay with a glass of port. He seemed amused at her. ‘What did I do?’
‘Annie is with child.’ she said. Might as well address it head on, she thought. He was going to be furious either way.
‘Annie who?’ he asked, taking a sip from the glass.
‘Our governess,’ said Thea, trying to remain calm. ‘The person who raises your children.’
George made a grunting sound of recognition. ‘Then you better employ another one fast – ungoverned children are a pest. Why are you bothering me with it?’
‘I will make enquiries,’ said Thea, ‘but I think you may be missing the point, George. I am bothering you with it as the baby is yours.’ Fury still bubbled inside her, winning against the fear.
He sat up at that, and his eyes flicked this way and that. She saw the moment there was a spark of recognition. ‘The brown haired one who does the fires?’
Thea stared at him. ‘No. Annie is blonde and manages your children, not fires.’
‘Ah,’ he said, scratching himself. ‘That one.’
‘Yes,’ said Thea, clenching her jaw. ‘That one.’ But she also made a mental note to check on the fire girls.
‘I see,’ he said, sitting back and drumming his fingers on the seat, actually looking like he was thinking. ‘At least we have Edward. There will only be problems with inheritance if it is a boy.’
‘Inheritance?’ asked Thea, incredulous.
‘If it’s a girl it has no claim,’ said George, ‘but a boy would be a problem. Edward inherits the estate but if anything happens to him my bastard son could make a claim on the estate over the girls. Perhaps we should have another son?’
Thea felt sick at the thought. ‘I believe Doctor Cope said that would be a bad idea, after the trouble I had with Abigail.’
George glanced at her. ‘I didn’t realise you had trouble. What about the girl then, we can’t have the son of a commoner having a claim on Hawkdean.’
‘You didn’t seem to mind that when you got her pregnant.’ She knew she shouldn’t have said it, but it was out before she knew. He stared at her angrily.
‘That is different,’ he spat, ‘and I would encourage you to remember it. ‘How far on is she? Is it too late to do anything about it?’
Thea only stared at him. If she thought she could get away with it she would have strangled him there and then. In fact she might, if she stayed here. She had to get out, just for a little while.
‘I’m going away,’ she said. ‘To Milford, and I am taking the children. I will be back before the shooting party.’
‘You will not go without my permission,’ he said.
She took two steps toward him. ‘I am going,’ she said definitely.
‘How long had he been – doing it?’ asked Thea to her lady’s maid as they looked over rolling countryside.
They stood on a hill outside an inn at Petersfield where they had stopped to change the horses.
After the conversation with George she had instructed the staff and left for her family’s house at Milford.
She knew she had overstepped with George and she shouldn’t have done it, but she couldn’t see any other way.
She had no doubt she would face the consequences on her return.
She wouldn’t leave either Annie or Joan in his presence without her being there to protect them, so that meant that the children were along for the ride, too.
She tried to push him out of her mind for the time being.
‘Not long,’ said Joan, looking at the view in the other direction.
She was clearly as uncomfortable with this conversation as Thea, but neither of them wanted to add to Annie’s distress by making her recount the details.
‘It was only while Miss Bellegarde was up in town being treated for… well, being treated by the doctor.’
Thea looked at Joan who glanced at her and then away again.
Clearly her husband couldn’t even keep it in his breeches for a couple of weeks after he had obviously infected his mistress.
With something from one of the Covent Garden ladies he had enjoyed whilst in town, Thea supposed. Then another thought hit her.
‘I shall ask Doctor Speckle to speak to Annie, too. Get her a preparation of some sort.’
‘I think that would be appreciated,’ said Joan.
Blast her husband – no consideration for anyone or anything other than himself. The anger bubbled up in Thea, but she had to keep it together. Now everyone was here, she was in charge once again, whether she liked it or not.
‘Did he… did he ever try it with you?’ she asked, with a thick throat. It made her want to vomit just thinking about it.
Joan paused. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But he did make it clear that he could. It is easier for me to be out of his way as I am mostly in your apartments and around people in the downstairs.’
Thea nodded.
‘And anyway, he…’ she stopped.
‘He what?’ asked Thea, wondering what else there was.
‘He made it clear that I would be a last resort, because I am brown, and I would be lucky if he gave me his time.’
Thea gritted her teeth but couldn’t stop the word coming out.
‘Bastard.’
Joan, wisely, didn’t comment. Thea hated what she was about to say, but she had to.
‘You know, Joan, if you don’t feel safe in this household – which I would completely understand – you would be free to find other employment.
I would hate to see you go but I could get a lady’s maid who was less…
desirable to George.’ She winced at the thought of the grumpy older woman she might end up with.
‘Part of me desires to go home,’ said Joan. ‘But I am afraid of what I should find. My brothers protect me but I know that working for the East India Company as an Indian is not pleasant.’
‘Is that what they do?’ asked Thea, wanting to know.
‘My sister looks after my parents,’ said Joan. ‘One brother, Lakshan, went to Bengal to farm Indigo for the,’ she checked herself. ‘For the British.’
Thea heard the inflection. ‘And was he happy about it?’
Joan looked pointedly out of the window. ‘It earns him some money, Your Grace.’
‘I see.’ Thea sat back and scratched her cheek. ‘And what about your other brother?’
‘Ashu stayed in Delhi,’ she said, and then looked back to Thea as if pleading with her not to make her say more.
Thea nodded her understanding. ‘I would pay for you, if you ever wished to return,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Your Grace,’ said Joan. ‘But I am happy here. My country is not what it was.’
‘Money is a terrible thing.’
‘Money is a good thing,’ said Joan. ‘But it depends on the person who has it. With enough money a person can do great evil, or be a great benefactor. You are very generous.’
Thea stared out at the green of Berkshire, rolling past the window.
They were cornering around a hawthorn, and she could see the two carriages following them.
The carriages holding her children, her mistress and the plethora of staff she employed to keep and entertain them.
All because of an accident of birth she had a say in so many others’ lives.
‘Only because I was given the opportunity to be.’ she said.
‘Oh my goodness, it’s so good to be back.’
Thea landed on the gravel driveway from the carriage step and raced to embrace her family. Her father first.
‘Thea,’ he said, and gave her the biggest hug she thought she had ever received. ‘What a treat to have you back at home.’
Home – she thought. It still felt like that, even though she had been away for so many years, and it would come to her eventually – or at least to George. She let her father go with reluctance and moved to her mother.
‘Your Grace,’ said her mother, bobbing a little.
‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ said Thea, and drew her mother into a more awkward hug. They had always disagreed on what was right, and what was proper. Her mother refused to see her point of view, but at least Thea outranked her now and her mother struggled to argue with that.
‘And Ursula.’ Thea bent to give her sister a warm hug. ‘Oh my goodness how happy I am to see you,’ she said into Ursula’s ear.
‘And I you,’ said her sister from her chair.
‘I can’t wait to show you the detailed pressings from the spring flowering alpines and Scip is dying to see you.
’ It had been too long since Thea had seen her family’s gardener, and she was dying to see him too.
This was a distraction she most definitely needed.
She stood back and waited as Martha greeted the family, and then introduced Crumpacker and reintroduced Mr Fenwick as Annie, Joan, Mrs Phibbs and Mrs Jenkins reacquainted with the Milford staff on the other side of the door. How would Crumpacker respond to her father’s collection, she wondered.
She didn’t have to wait long. They refreshed themselves after the journey and drank a hasty cup of tea before being ushered out into the garden by her father and Ursula.
Her mother was horrified at the impropriety of hurrying a duchess and a countess, but Mr Morell had long-since developed a selective deafness to his wife’s social neurosis.
Oh, how different the dynamic in a relationship if the balance of power was such, thought Thea.
Even with a couple married for convenience, an overbearing wife was easier to ignore than a controlling husband.
Still, she was away from George for more than a month before they visited the Knatchbulls, and she would be happy with that.
A familiar calm washed over her as she descended the steps to the terrace and made the journey to the walled garden beyond.
The stove range – a long glasshouse leant against the hot wall – stretched from the north to the south wall.
She walked with her father and Ursula, with Martha and Crumpacker chatting along behind and Annie and Mr Fenwick chasing the children around the legume beds.