Marrying the Mistress. Juliet Landon

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СКАЧАТЬ is most unfair, Mr Brierley, and highly unethical. That is interfering with my right to take a husband and to keep my child.’

      ‘Surely, Miss Follet, it is better for your son to have a guardian he knows and likes than to have a stepfather he doesn’t know? I do believe Mr Monkton had this in mind when he made this wish.’

      Did he? I struggled to think what Linas had in mind when he saw fit to interfere in my life even after he’d gone. Jamie was precious to him too, I understood that, but he could not realistically expect me to see eye to eye with his brother on any matter relating to Jamie’s upbringing, when Winterson had no experience whatever of children. I felt insulted that he could not have left matters in my hands and made funds available to me for Jamie’s use. Did he think that, although I could manage a business, nurse him day and night, run my own household and care for a three-year-old, I could not be relied on to handle a trust fund? No, probably not. There had been times when I wondered whether Linas spared much thought for me at all. Now I knew the answer.

      ‘This will have to be contested,’ I muttered. ‘It won’t work.’

      ‘Miss Follet,’ said Mr Brierley, removing his spectacles and sitting back in his chair, ‘one cannot contest a will simply on the basis that one thinks it might be difficult to put it into practice. There is nothing here that is unworkable. You may have found it disappointing, but the terms are not so very unusual. Mr Monkton’s reasoning was sound at the time, and he does not state that you should not marry, only that his son shall live with his guardian if you do.’

      ‘And you see nothing sinister in that, sir? Is it remotely likely that I would allow that to happen, do you think?’

      ‘Ahem! I really cannot comment on that, Miss Follet, except to say that Mr Monkton’s prime concern was for his son’s well-being.’

      ‘Which I find difficult to understand, sir. One would have thought that his son’s well-being would be all the better for knowing that his mama was happy too. Oh, yes,’ I said as he opened his mouth to speak, ‘I know that wealth is not happiness, but how am I supposed to pay the servants’ wages, keep the place warm and in good repair, and maintain the standard of living that Jamie is used to, I wonder, on three hundred and fifty pounds a year? Not to mention my own requirements. I shall be obliged to look for a little cottage to rent. That seems to be the only solution. Thank you for coming, Mr Brierley,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘I think the best I can do now is to speak to Lord Winterson personally and see if we can come to a more sensible arrangement. Even he must realise what an impossible position this puts me in. Good day to you, sir.’

      He shook my hand and gathered his papers together. ‘Mr Monkton’s servants will be gone from Stonegate by Friday,’ he said. ‘All of them except the top four have been paid and found new positions. The house will then be locked, prior to the new administration of the estate. If there is anything in the house that belongs to you, Miss Follet, I wonder if you would mind letting me have a list of the items so that I can isolate them. Oh… er…one more thing. If I may have your key to the Stonegate property?’

      I took it from the drawer of my writing table and gave it to him. There were several things at Stonegate that belonged to me: a pair of miniature cameo portraits, my silver pill box that Linas used once, the embroidery workbox I kept there and a set of ivory combs, brushes and manicure tools. They were private, and I’d be damned if I’d make a list for him to hum and haw over.

      It occurred to me much later that night as I lay sleepless, that Mr Brierley had not brought with him the title deeds to my house, or things to sign that would establish me as the new owner. Well, I must remember to mention it next time we met.

      Chapter Three

      Had I misunderstood? Had I not listened to him with enough attention? Had he really said the house would be mine? Mr Brierley had made no response to my angry comment that I would have to sell it and find a small cottage with fewer servants. Reduced circumstances I was familiar with, the fortunes of women in my position being notoriously unstable, but was that really what Linas had wanted for me and Jamie? I found it hard to believe.

      My house on Blake Street was newer and more fashionable than our old family home had been, furnished with woods that shone like satin, hung with soft tones in velvet and silk, carpeted with Axminsters and matching Persian rugs, my bedroom patterned with birds and trees. My canopied bed was carved by George Reynoldson of York, no less. I had a family of loyal servants who gave me no trouble at all, and Linas had paid their wages without me ever having to worry about the cost. I kept a phaeton and two horses in his stable at Stonegate with no clear idea of whether they would still be mine to use. I ought to have asked Brierley at the interview, but perhaps he had given me enough bad news for one day.

      My first call on the following day was to Follet and Sanders. Leaving Jamie at home with Goody, his nurse, I trudged over new layers of frozen snow. Every rooftop and ledge was capped with rounded pillows of white, blown like lace into every crevice and beyond where the great white minster reared its spiked towers, draped like a bride, silent and virginal.

      The workroom door let in a fall of snow as I entered. Shivering in the chilled hallway, I met Prue with chattering teeth. ‘It’s as cold in here as it is outside,’ I complained. ‘We’ll never attract any customers at this rate.’

      Unmoved, she kissed me daintily on both cheeks, casting her eye over my black outfit with the grey squirrel fur up to my ears. For all her fair, petite, middle-aged looks and elfin ways, she was as tough and sensible a businesswoman as any in York, with the typically dour sense of humour that can poke fun at what is difficult to accept. ‘No, dear,’ she said, without a hint of levity, ‘but we’re selling fur muffs and knitted gloves like hot cakes, so we can’t have our customers getting overheated, can we?’

      ‘And fur-lined capes? Those fur hats, too?’

      ‘Fur-edged handkerchiefs,’ she replied, deadpan.

      ‘No!’

      ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Come and see.’

      ‘It’s not warm enough in here either,’ I said, entering the large workroom where women sat at the oak table, each with a mound of fabric before her, reels of cotton on revolving stands, pincushions and tapes, scissors, lamps and lace edgings. They looked up and smiled, all of them swaddled in woollen shawls and fingerless mittens. The windows were white, patterned with ferns.

      ‘No coal delivery this week,’ Prue said. ‘We’re having to eke it out. I can’t keep the fire going all night any more, and now the pump is frozen.’

      ‘I’ll send some coal across. Get cook to make some soup.’

      ‘That all adds to the costs, you know.’

      Faces looked up, grinning slyly. Prue never starved them.

      She followed me into the fitting room, draped with discreet pale curtains and peopled by miniature figures on shelves wearing the latest Paris modes. In here, I paraded gowns before our best customers, where they called me ‘Madame Helene’, impressed by my French pronunciation and having no qualms about our poor relationship with France. War or no war, French modes were all the thing, and our supplies of silks and lace was wondered at, bought, but never queried.

      ‘Brierley came about the will,’ I told Prue, quietly.

      I told her what had been said. She listened, unruffled.

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