Marrying the Mistress. Juliet Landon

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СКАЧАТЬ to Linas at the end. That was generous too, and…and appreciated…’ My voice wavered and caught at the back of my throat, dissolving the last word. I took some deep breaths to steady it.

      ‘It was no more than you deserve. It was your careful nursing that kept him alive longer than his doctors had predicted.’

      ‘I think it’s more likely to be Jamie who did that.’

      ‘Yes, that too. Jamie was your other gift to him. Linas was a very fortunate man. He told me so more than once.’

      ‘Did he?’ I remarked, tonelessly, wistfully.

      ‘Did he never tell you so?’

      ‘No. Not even at the end. I think the pain made him forgetful. Or perhaps he thought I was the fortunate one. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter now, does it? But I mean what I say about not hearing the will read, my lord. I would be out of place. I am not family and I have few expectations, except for Jamie, having fulfilled the role I was employed to do, to everyone’s satisfaction.’

      ‘You were not employed in any capacity, Miss Follet. You were my brother’s partner. It was his decision not to marry when he discovered he had so few years to live, and our family agreed that for him to do so would serve no useful purpose.’

      ‘Rather like good farm management, I suppose. You see, I am well able to think it out for myself, Lord Winterson. Having a mistress to support for just a few years was safer than taking on a wife. Linas preferred an illegitimate heir able to legally inherit and keep his estate intact, to a widow who would remarry and siphon it off into another man’s pockets. But don’t tell me that I was not employed, for that is certainly what I was, and I shall not sit with you round a table to be told that my golden goose has gone and left me nothing except my bastard child to care for. You may be very sure I shall guard my only treasure against any attempt to siphon him off into another man’s pocket. He may be the Monkton heir, but he is also my only legacy. Mine, my lord.’

      I should not have said it, not then when emotions were so raw, Linas barely out of earshot, and both of us so tired. But my resentments were begging for release, freeing up words that I should have kept tightly controlled, as I had always done. I could have blamed my outspokenness on my northern roots, but that was too easy an excuse. So I held my breath and waited for him to retaliate in the usual Winterson fashion, with a set-down meant to silence me for months. Which he had every right to do.

      His reply, when it emerged, was a calm reiteration of his claim. ‘And he is mine too, Helene. Linas has made me his legal guardian and you will have to get used to the idea, like it or not.’

      ‘I don’t like it.’

      ‘But I think Jamie will. He needs an active father, now he’s growing up. He needs more to do than walks with his nurse.’

      ‘He’s still only a babe. He needs only me.’

      ‘So let’s wait till we’ve heard what provisions Linas has made for you, then we shall know better what his needs are, shan’t we? You are exhausted, and so am I. It’s time you were home. Come. I have to get back to Abbots Mere before the snow gets deeper.’

      ‘What about the servants?’ I said, relieved to have been let off so lightly. ‘You came here to—’

      ‘Brierley can stay to deal with that. He lives on Petergate. You should trust him. He’s an honest man.’

      ‘I’m sure he is. He’ll have your interests at heart.’

      ‘And Jamie’s. Is that such a bad thing?’

      Still, I could not help myself. Perhaps I wanted to provoke him, to make him react, in spite of his courtesy to me. Perhaps I was a little mad that day. ‘If I was retaining him,’ I said, ‘it would not be such a bad thing. But I’m not, am I?’

      We had reached the door where his hand rested upon the large brass knob but, as my stupidly caustic remark stung him into action, he turned to me with characteristic speed, taking me by the shoulders with hands that bit through all my woollen layers. Holding me back against the deeply carved doorcase, he bent his head to look inside my hood and, whatever anger he saw on my face, it could have been nothing to the fury on his.

      ‘Stop it, woman!’ he snarled. ‘You think you’re the only loser in this damned business? You think you’ve had the thin end of the wedge, do you? Well, do you? Forget it. He was my brother. You had him for the best part of six years. I had him for thirty. We both…you and me…did what he wanted us to do, and if you had less choice in the matter than you’d have liked, well, I had just as little. I did it for him, and you believed I did it for you, didn’t you? That’s why you’re so angry. D’ye think I make a habit of creeping into my lady guests’ beds while they’re asleep?’

      Since he was being kind enough to ask my opinion on that, I’d like to have said that he must have had a fair bit of practice at it. But, no, I said nothing of the kind. Nothing at all, in fact. I simply shook my head, which made my hood fall off. I noticed two new hairline creases from his nose to his mouth. I noticed that his eyelids were puffy, as if he’d been weeping. I noticed a sprinkling of silver hairs in that luxurious dark mop, just above his ears.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I’m overwrought. We both need to rest.’

      He sighed through his nose with lips compressed, and I thought he was going to say more because his eyes held mine, letting me read the sadness written there more eloquently than words. Then he released me, and I felt the tingling where his hands had been, and I stood still while he pulled up my hood and settled it round my face. I was under no illusions; he would do the same for any of his closer woman friends, I was sure. Perhaps their minds would empty too, just for those few seconds.

      ‘Calm down,’ he said, gruffly. ‘Go home and get warm. Come on.’

      Outside on the pavement, the lamplighter clambered down his ladder into the horizontal white blizzard, having cast a halo of light dancing across the ghostly snow-covered figures below. Lord Winterson’s groom emerged from the narrow alley that led to Linas’s courtyard and stables, riding one horse and leading the mighty grey hunter that blew clouds of white into the freezing air. ‘Follow on,’ Winterson called to him, taking my arm and linking it through his.

      ‘I can manage,’ I said, ready to pull away. ‘Really I can.’

      But he clamped my hand with his elbow and, bending his head into the snowstorm, began to escort me home, not far, but far enough for us both to struggle against the conditions. His only conversation was, ‘Mind…take care…hold on…you all right?’

      Standing under the porch before the door, I thanked him.

      ‘Stay at home till it clears,’ he said. ‘I’ll contact you as soon as I can get through. See Brierley if you need anything. He’ll help.’

      I nodded and watched his effortless leap into the saddle, wheeling away as if the snow was no more than a mild shower. Across on the other side of Blake Street, the lights in the workroom, more properly known as Follet and Sanders, Mantua-maker, Milliner and Fabric Emporium, had been extinguished earlier than usual to allow the girls to get home, though I knew that Prue Sanders would still be working at the back of the shop on the new year’s orders, the alterations on ballgowns, fur trims and muffs. The cold weather had swept in from the north-east with a vengeance that year, and I had ordered that the fire in the sewing room СКАЧАТЬ