The Memory Palace. Christie Dickason

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ been turned out into the Far. The beer would have to look after itself.

      She sniffed her sleeve, which smelled of smoke like everything else. Her hands, and most likely face, were black with soot.

      The first ox cart creaked out of the tunnel of beeches that lined the drive, followed by three more. All were ominously empty except for a half dozen small bundles, some tools, and what seemed to be long poles wrapped in canvas. Seven men, including the drivers. All strangers. Two muskets between them, but no pikes or swords that she could see. Nor armour, nor regimental badges.

      Bailiffs, come to enforce the king’s levies? They’ll not find much worth taking.

      Last out of the trees rode two horsemen, a richly dressed gentleman and his manservant. The gentleman kicked his mount forward and passed the first cart as it entered the forecourt.

      Zeal knew this man far too well.

      ‘He’s back, madam,’ Tuddenham announced glumly, as he arrived at her side. From his tone, he would have preferred soldiers.

      The horseman peered down from his saddle with a near-comical mix of defiance and unease. His blue eyes slid away from hers.

      Who else, in these circumstances, would leave his hat on and forget to dismount? ‘Harry!’ she said, sick with desolation.

      ‘Madam.’

      Sir Harry Beester, John’s cousin and the former master of Hawkridge Estate. Zeal’s former husband, or rather, husband who had never been.

      So much for throwing off the past.

      

      At fourteen, an orphaned heiress still sequestered at boarding school and with no experience of men, she had found Harry Beester’s cheerful self-satisfaction to be charming. She had even imagined that some of his self-esteem might infect her and make up her lack of it. With a free heart she gave in to his ardent wooing. She chose his puppy-like youth and sunny good looks over the rather alarming, paunchy maturity of the two suitors urged on her by her guardian. Her formidable will, as much as Harry’s inheriting and reconfirming of his uncle’s title of baronet, along with a London house and two small country estates, had induced her guardian to overlook the young man’s lack of both cash and mercantile connections. It was not Harry’s fault that, in her inexperience, she had imagined that his stupidity would make him biddable.

      

      How ignorant and wilful I was, she thought, looking up at him now, watching undisguised thought cross his handsome pink and white face. First, that she should have called him ‘Sir Harry’. Then, that it probably wasn’t worth making the point. Might, in fact, be dangerous.

      To your dignity, my dear Harry, if to nothing else.

      Tuddenham stared at his former master’s costume in open disbelief.

      To journey from London on horseback, Sir Harry had worn a deeply slashed crimson silk-velvet doublet over a fine linen shirt. In spite of the October chill, his boot hose were of silk, not wool, and topped with pale waves of Brussels lace (matching that on his soft falling-collar) which foamed around the hems of peach silk leg-of-mutton breeches. A black furlined cloak swung nonchalantly over one shoulder. More lace edged his gloves. A single pearl hung from his left ear and two long crimson foxtail plumes bounced behind his wide-brimmed felt hat. Though cape, trousers and lace were all spattered with mud, and though the plumes had begun to clump damply, Zeal read the intended message clearly. In spite of herself, she wished she had had time at least to wash.

      ‘Is this just a friendly greeting in passing?’ Zeal asked, ‘or should we send to Sir Richard to set another plate?’

      At last Sir Harry swung down from his horse and handed the reins to his new manservant. He glanced sideways at the ruined house, then averted his eyes. ‘I have food and lodgings back at Ufton Wharf. Don’t mean to stay long.’

      ‘I didn’t imagine that you were yearning for the rustic wilderness again.’

      I chose this man of my own free will, she thought with amazement.

      ‘I won’t pretend,’ he said. ‘London suits me best.’

      ‘And Lady Alice?’ She had not meant to ask.

      Sir Harry beamed. ‘Splendid. Splendid woman. Thank you.’ Then he caught himself and blushed.

      ‘I’m sure she deserves you,’ said Zeal.

      Harry cleared his throat and looked around him. ‘Tuddenham still serving you well?’

      Zeal detected the hope that Tuddenham might not be. ‘He’s a splendid fellow!’ She resisted the temptation to turn and catch the steward’s eye.

      ‘Good, good.’ Sir Harry glanced around him once more.

      ‘Harry,’ said Zeal. ‘Why have you come?’ She might consider him a fool, and he might be just the least bit frightened of her, but he had already proved that he could be dangerous.

      Mistress Margaret came from the bake house with a mug of beer, crossing the forecourt with the painfully stiffened gait that made her roll like a sailor. ‘I suppose you’ll want to rinse the dust from your mouth. Nothing fine, not like London. Take it or leave it, this is all we’ve got.’

      Harry took the beer but eyed his aunt around the glass.

      Curious faces began to fill the arch that led from the stable yard. ‘Morning, sir,’ called two or three voices.

      ‘Can we walk apart?’ he muttered to Zeal. ‘I’d have thought they all need to be hard at work somewhere.’

      ‘Anywhere in particular you’d care to go?’ she asked. ‘For old times’ sake?’

      He shook his head impatiently.

      She led him through the trampled ruins of John’s knot garden and around the chapel at the east end of the house. They walked in silence except for the sound of his boots crunching on the cinders still covering the ground until they reached the grassy slope above the fish ponds.

      ‘I’ve come for the statues,’ said Harry abruptly.

      ‘No!’

      ‘They’re movables, you should know. My movables. Neptune and all his daughters.’

      ‘You mean Nereus! And you can’t take them. Not now!’

      ‘I’m afraid I can.’

      ‘But you deeded this estate to me. As the price of my warbling to your tune so you could go stalk your precious Lady Alice. You’ve had all my money. The estate is now mine.’

      ‘You’re welcome to the land and the house – or what’s left of it. And the barns, sties and so on. The carts and ploughs…hardly need those in London. I even let you keep the animals, though I could have sold them all if my mood had been less kind.’

      Or less frantic for your freedom to chase another, richer wife, she thought.

      ‘But the movables were mine. And I count the statues as movables! In any case, you don’t need СКАЧАТЬ