The House Of Lanyon. Valerie Anand

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СКАЧАТЬ come home tired, with a dozen chores to do before a hurried supper. There would be no good opportunity in the evening.

      However, the matter was so urgent that Richard finally blurted it out when he and Peter were riding close behind the herd as it trotted, all tossing manes and indignant white-ringed eyes, through the narrow lane that led to the Clicket pound. Just then, they were out of earshot of their fellow herdsmen, who were some way behind. Richard seized his chance.

      His son’s reaction was pure outrage.

      “You’re lying!” Peter said fiercely. “Telling me that Marion’s betrothed herself to others beside me! She wouldn’t! She couldn’t! Betrothal’s serious—it’s nearly as binding as marriage, and—”

      “I’ve seen the girl and I’ve talked to her father. I don’t blame you for going head over heels for her, boy, but she’s not for marrying. What you’ve got,” said Richard brusquely, “is an attack of sex. We all get it. It’s like having the measles or the chicken pox. If you wed her, the day would come when you’d be sorry. She’s a lightskirt. I tell you—”

      “No, I’ll tell you. If when you were betrothed to my mother someone had called her a lightskirt, how would you have felt? What would you have said?”

      “No one would have said such a thing, that’s the point, you damned young fool—can’t you see it? Why, your mother’d hardly as much as kiss me until we’d both said I will. Can you say that of Marion?”

      “I’m not going to talk about this. I’m betrothed to her and that’s the end of it,” said Peter, and spurred his mount up onto the verge alongside the track, shouting at the herd to hurry them up, his face averted from his father and likely, thought Richard bitterly, to remain that way for a very long time indeed.

      It was all the more annoying because the fury emanating from Peter had almost intimidated him, and Richard was not going to tolerate being bullied by his own son. He knew he would be wise not to try physical force to make Peter obey him, but there were other methods. One way or another, Peter, that ill-behaved pup, must be brought to heel.

      And he was beginning to see how he might achieve it. Since her death, he had more than once dreamed at night of Deb Archer, but oddly enough, last night she’d turned into Marion halfway through the dream.

      Maybe that cheeky, overweight, well-bred friend of Peter’s, Ned Crowham, was right. Maybe he ought to get married again after all.

      There’d be no advantage, socially or financially, in marrying Marion Locke, but now that he’d seen her…

      Peter hadn’t got her with child, but probably that was because he hadn’t had chances enough. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t have babies once she was a wife. It would be a pleasant change for Allerbrook to have children about the place. His and Marion’s; Peter and Liza’s. Peter’s marriage would be the one to bring the material benefits. And it would show Peter who was master. Oh, yes indeed.

      It wouldn’t do to have Peter under the same roof as Marion, of course. No, that would be daft. But there was a good-sized cottage empty just now, over on the other side of Slade meadow, where Betsy’s son and his wife and children had lived before the young fellow took it into his head to go off to the other side of Somerset because he’d heard life was easier there, away from the moors that were so bleak in winter. And off he’d gone, depriving Allerbrook of two pairs of adult hands and several youthful ones. George had been alive then and he hadn’t been pleased. He’d said that all of a sudden he could see the point of villeinage.

      Still, the cottage was there, and once Peter was installed in it with Liza, he needn’t come to the farmhouse often. He wouldn’t come at all, except when his father was there; Richard would see to that. Once the boy had settled down and seen what Liza was worth and got some youngsters of his own, and Marion had a few as well, wanting her attention, getting underfoot and thickening her midriff, Peter’s infatuation would die away.

      Marion would probably breed well. She looked strong, quite unlike his poor ailing Joan. It was an idea.

      It was a most beguiling idea.

      

      “Where’s Liza?” Margaret called to Aunt Cecy as she came down the stairs from her bedchamber. “In the weaving shed? It’s time we were talking of her bride clothes, and I must say I’m surprised that Peter Lanyon hasn’t been over to see her. A girl’s entitled to a bit of courting.”

      “Farm folk are different from us,” said Aunt Cecy. She was patching one of Dick’s shirts, though because her eyesight was faulty nowadays, she had Margaret’s small daughter beside her to thread needles. “She’ll have to get used to a lot that’s different, out there on Allerbrook. She’s not in the shed. She went into the garden with a basket—said something about fetching in some mint.”

      “I’ll call her,” said Margaret, and hastened out through the rear of the house.

      Five minutes later she returned, frowning, and once more went upstairs. Great-Uncle Will, back in his familiar winter seat beside the hearth, remarked, “Looks as if Liza’s not in the garden. Funny.”

      “She’ll have slipped off somewhere,” Aunt Cecy said. “She’s always had a fancy for going walking on her own, but Margaret told her she wasn’t to go out by herself anymore.”

      “I did indeed,” said Margaret, reappearing on the staircase. “But she’s not in the garden and not upstairs, nor is she in the kitchen or at her loom. I’ve looked. And I’ve just been into her chamber and her toilet things are gone—the brush and comb and the pot of goose grease she uses for her hands. So I opened her chest and I could swear some of her linen’s missing. I don’t like it.”

      Aunt Cecy said, “I can’t see so clear as I used to, but I thought I saw her talking to a fellow in the churchyard when we came out of the service on Sunday. He were pointing out something on the church roof. Looked harmless, but…”

      “She might have gone across to see Elena for something,” said Margaret uncertainly.

      “And she’d take her linen and toilet things for that, would she? Better look for her,” said Great-Uncle Will. “And fast.”

      

      “So she’s not in any of our houses,” said Nicholas, who had been hurriedly fetched from the inn at the other end of the village, where he had been talking to a potential buyer of his cloth. “You’ve made sure, you say, Margaret. And she’s not in any of our gardens and some of her things are gone.” He turned to Will. “Great-Uncle, you said that according to the gossip that’s going about, she’s been meeting a red-haired clerk from the castle. I think I’ve seen him at church with the Luttrells.”

      “That’s him. And that’s what’s being said, yes,” said Will.

      “The fellow I saw her talking to on Sunday were outside the church and he had his cap on. But he were all in black, like a clerk,” said Aunt Cecy.

      “I wish we knew his name,” said Nicholas, “but I think we know enough. I’m going up to the castle. Now.”

      

      “Why is it,” grumbled James Luttrell, standing in his castle hall, wishing he could sit down to a peaceful supper and irritably aware that any such thing was out of the question for the time being, “why is it that trouble is СКАЧАТЬ