14 Stepping Stones #2
“I was a gamekeeper first,” he said, causing her to raise her eyebrows in surprise.
“That was my training. It’s why I get on so well with Ben, and why he lets me shoot with him sometimes, or catch a bit of fish for my supper.
But when the present Mr Garth inherited, he brought in another man to be gamekeeper, and turned me into a gardener. ”
She frowned and shook her head. “Such a nasty thing to do! He must dislike you very much. I wonder why?”
“He has his reasons, I dare say.”
“How very cryptic, but you must have some inkling of what they might be.”
“It is irrational, that is all I can tell you. He knows I am no threat to him or any member of his family, and I have always worked hard at whatever tasks he set me.”
“Yet, disliking you as he does, he does not turn you off.”
He said nothing, leaving the words hanging in the air.
“Perhaps it is only that his grandfather favoured you, giving you the cottage to live in.”
“Aye, the cottage and free rein in the library. I had — still have, I suppose — the right to read whatever I want from the Priory library.”
For a while they were silent as she pondered his words, but made no comment. Beyond the lake, the sky was darkening with heavy clouds, so there would be no sunset tonight.
After a while, he said, “I imagine you had an idyllic childhood. I picture you with two adoring parents and lots of brothers and sisters chasing each other around the garden.”
She chuckled. “I cannot remember the adoring parents. They were fond of us, in their way, but they never came to the nursery, as Richard and Rowena do. We saw them only for an hour a day, in the drawing room before dinner. Occasionally Mama came to the schoolroom to hear our catechism or a piece of Shakespeare we had learnt, but otherwise they were very distant figures until we were deemed old enough to be exposed to the eyes of the world.”
“But you had brothers and sisters?”
A long silence. “Two sisters, three brothers.”
“Where are they now?”
She shifted restlessly on the bench. “Mostly dead. My elder sister never married and became an embittered spinster. I write to her, but she never writes back. The younger married a clergyman and died in poverty. Of my brothers, one went to India and died, one went into the army and died, and the youngest…” She took a deep breath.
“He died of fever when he was fourteen. My parents were never quite the same afterwards.”
“Such hopes one has for one’s children,” he murmured.
“And then they grow up and disappoint one,” she said crisply, sitting up a little straighter. “Not that mine have disappointed me, precisely, but they have gone their own way. They never listen to my advice.”
“Did you listen to your parents’ advice?” he said gently.
“Certainly I did. When Roland — my husband — first came into our orbit, he was intended for Althea, my elder sister, but she refused him. She had her eye on the squire’s younger son, but he was not good enough, in Papa’s eyes.
She was sent away in disgrace and I was offered to Roland instead. Naturally, I accepted him.”
“Was he charming and devilishly handsome?”
She almost choked on a mouthful of tea. “No! He was already tending to stoutness, and his hair receding, although he wore a wig in those days, which conceals a world of imperfections.”
“Then the possibility of being a duchess was the big attraction, I suppose.”
“To my father, certainly. Not that Roland had much chance of inheriting, for at the time the duke and his brother were both young enough to have a dozen sons, and I think there was a cousin in the way as well, but such connections are always an advantage. No, I married him because I was told to.”
“You were a dutiful daughter, then.” He smiled at her, and to his surprise, she blushed a little.
“I was. I always wanted to do the right thing so my father would be pleased with me. My sisters, on the other hand, liked to push against the restrictions of their life. We were very different, yet we always got on well. We were like my four girls, doing everything together, so attuned that we finished each other’s sentences.
And then we grew up and went our separate ways and I discovered that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be as important to my father as my brothers.
Men care about sons, and that is the way of the world, sadly. ”
Delighted by so many revelations, he could not resist pushing for even more. “And your husband — did he care more about sons?”
“Naturally he did. Oh, he was pleased with the girls, of course, but four daughters one after the other… he began to fret, rather. And then Richard came along and he was thrilled. But he wanted another son to secure the succession. Richard was a delicate child, not ill, especially, but slender. He has filled out very pleasingly now, but as a child he looked as if a good puff of wind would flatten him. Roland definitely wanted another son just in case. I conceived again, it came to nothing. Then a second time, and again it came to nothing. But then, success, I lasted for almost eight months. But he was born early, poor little mite, and he was just not strong enough.”
“Ah, I’m sorry,” Cal said, reaching across to take her hand. “That must have been hard for you.”
“Yes, but I had five healthy children to console me. Roland could never see it in that light. He had never taken much notice of the previous births. He hated the business, so he would go out with his gun until it was all over. But that last time, he was so agitated, and for some reason so convinced that I was going to die that he stayed in the house, getting underfoot and driving the servants mad. As soon as the birth was over, the midwife… well, she could see how it was going to end. She swaddled the baby and took him out for Roland to hold. He died in Roland’s arms, and it almost broke him. ”
“Poor fellow. He’d have done better to go shooting again.”
“Oh yes! He was so subdued after that, as if worldly affairs no longer concerned him and he was just waiting to be called to God. He seemed to disappear slowly, if that makes sense.”
A final throw of the dice, for he was desperate to know. “Did he make you unhappy too, Cora?”
She turned surprised eyes on him. “Oh no! I was perfectly happy… at least, it felt like happiness. Contentment, maybe. There were no great highs or lows. Even the loss of three babies did not distress me greatly for such matters are in God’s hands, and who can argue with His dispositions?
Besides, I felt the nursery was satisfactorily full by that point, so I had no cause to repine.
I had my house, my children, my friends, a social round that was pleasant if not exciting.
That is a good description of Roland, too — pleasant but not exciting.
We rubbed along rather well, all things considered, without being head over heels in love but not swamped by resentments, either.
It was… satisfactory. That is a perfect summary of my life, even as a widow — satisfactory.
Until Richard uprooted us all and took us to Norwich to save money,” she added, her tone suddenly acerbic.
Cal chuckled. “He’ll never be in dun territory, that one, but that’s not a bad thing, to be careful with money.”
“There is a difference between careful and cheeseparing,” she said. “Look at this! My tongue has run on so much that my tea is cold.”
“Another cup?”
She shook her head, with a laugh he couldn’t interpret.
“It’s getting late, and those clouds look ominous,” Cal said. “We’re in for a downpour, looks like. I’ll light the lantern and see you home before the heavens open.”
“No need,” she said airily.
“But—”
That was as far as he got before she slid along the bench and then pulled him into a long, long kiss. He had no objection to that! Even when she draped her legs over his so that she was practically in his lap, he could not have resisted her if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t want to.
“Is this comfortable?” she murmured into his ear, and he could only nod idiotically. How could it not be comfortable when she was in his arms, her heart beating against his, her lips mesmerizingly warm and sweet?
And so they kissed and kissed again as the dusk closed in around them. When next he opened his eyes, even the lake was dark, just a few points of light reflecting the lamps and candles showing in the house. Then he waited to discover how the day would end. He did not have to wait long.
“And now we go to bed,” she whispered.
It was wrong, of course it was. It was wicked and sinful and it went against all Christian principles, and if he had been a different kind of man, he might, perhaps, have resisted her. If he had been a gentleman.
But he was a man of nature, who heard the cries of the creatures of the forest more clearly than the voices of the civilised world.
He understood her, and knew what she needed from him.
There would be consequences, naturally, but there would be time enough to face them later.
For now, she needed him and he had settled it with himself long since that he would follow wherever she led, even into sin.
Without a word, he scooped her into his arms and carried her into the hut, and behind the curtain to the bed.