Читать книгу I’ll Bring You Buttercups - Elizabeth Elgin - Страница 13

‘Elliot, damn you, where are you?’

Clementina Sutton took the stairs two at a time, shaking with fury, cursing the stays and petticoats and folds of skirt that impeded her undignified haste. First Mrs Mounteagle, and now her sister-in-law, and all because of Elliot and his stupidity!

‘Where are you, boy!’ For two pins she would tan his hide as he deserved. She could do much worse for the shame he had heaped upon her! She would be an outcast, the laughing-stock of local society, and far, far worse, she would have to endure the ill-disguised sniggers of her servants who would glory in her humiliation. ‘Get out of that bed!’

She opened the door with a force that sent it crashing back on its hinges, then, pulling at the bed-covers, she grasped her son’s nightshirt, pulling him, startled, to face her.

‘Mama! What the hell …’

‘Dear God!’ She beheld a bloodstained pillow, a face bruised and battered, and a left eye no more than a swollen slit. ‘Oh, you fool! You – you –’ She flung herself at him, fists pummelling, rage and mortification giving strength to her blows. In that moment of blind fury she hated him, hated herself, and hated the girl who was the cause of it all. But most of all she hated Helen Sutton and her smug superiority. ‘Oh, what has happened to you?’ She collapsed, all at once exhausted, over his bed, sobbing, shaking, moaning pitifully. ‘What is happening to me?’

Arms grasped her, pulled her to her feet. Not knowing where she was, unable almost, to place one foot before the other, she allowed her husband to lead her to the door.

‘You, boy! Get out of that bed and clean yourself up! Then come to the library.’ Edward Sutton’s voice was icy with contempt. ‘At once!’

Guiding his wife to the third door along, he pushed it wide with his foot, supporting her as she slumped against him for fear she would fall in a faint. ‘Clemmy, calm yourself …’

‘Madam!’ Feet pounded the landing, the stairs, the passage. ‘Oh, madam …’

The housekeeper and two agitated housemaids came running, and, in the hall below, glimpsed over the banister rail, the butler gazed up, enjoyment evident upon his face.

‘Please take care of Mrs Sutton.’ Thankfully her husband stood aside. ‘She is not well.’

‘There, there, madam. Let me send for Monique to help you to bed?’ In an agitation of skirts, the wide-eyed housekeeper whisked out of the room. ‘And shall I have Doctor James sent for, sir?’

But Edward was gone, slamming down the stairs white-faced, jaws clenched hard on his fury.

What had his son been up to? Set upon by a debt collector’s thugs; brawling in some alehouse? He’d taken the motor last night; been absent from dinner without excuse or apology, so where had it happened? Leeds again, or had a vengeful butcher caught up with him – or any irate father of a daughter?

Opening the door of the safe, cloister-like room that was his peace and haven, he made for the table where decanters of brandy and sherry stood on a silver tray. Edward Sutton rarely drank before evening, but this morning he downed a measure of brandy with sacrilegious haste, as if it were physic to be gulped of necessity rather than with pleasure.

Damn the stupid youth! He hadn’t crashed the motor, that was certain, or he’d have made great play of his injuries and not slunk into his room. Oh, no. Retribution had caught up with him at last. His son was in trouble of his own making; trouble with a nasty stink to it.

‘Father?’ Elliot stood in the doorway, a robe over his nightshirt, his hair uncombed, defiance in his eyes and in the half-smile that tilted his lips.

‘I asked you to make yourself respectable! How dare you show yourself in that disgusting state? And do not smoke. I will not have the stink of your cigarettes in my room!’

‘Your room, father?’ He opened the gold case, selecting a cigarette with studied defiance. ‘Your anything in this house?’

‘Damn you!’ Edward Sutton covered the space between them, white-hot rage at his heels. Grabbing the silkquilted lapels, he dragged his son to the chair beside the desk, flinging him into it, sending the cigarette case flying. ‘My room, my house, and never from this moment forget it! And I want an explanation of the state you’re in or by God I’ll beat it out of you!’ Knock, pummel, punch him until years of frustration were gone; do what he had longed to do for longer than he could remember – what, as a responsible father, he should have done at the first surfacing of the rottenness in his firstborn. ‘And I want the truth. This is not your mother you are dealing with now!’

‘Then at least allow me to close the door.’ Elliot Sutton brushed an imaginary speck from his robe. ‘I do so dislike washing dirty linen in public.’

‘You’re admitting it then – dirt? Because you didn’t get that face in church on your knees! Where were you last evening and what were you about?’

‘I took the motor, father, and ran out of fuel, and two or maybe three thugs set about me. It was dark – how could I know …’

‘Liar! Don’t insult my intelligence. Those are scratch marks on your face. Which woman did it, and where? Up to your tricks again in Creesby, were you?’ Fist clenched, he thumped the desktop. ‘Well, you have upset your mother for the last time. From now on you answer to me, and when Doctor James arrives, you’ll have him disinfect your face before it goes septic.

‘Then you will shave as best you can and remain out of sight until I get to the bottom of this. For the truth I will have, Elliot, no matter how unsavoury. And restitution you will make, of that be very sure. And now get out of here, for the sight of you sickens me. Indeed, there have been times, lately, when I have looked at you and wondered how I got you.’

‘Ha! So that’s it! I’m not your saintly Nathan; I’m not Sutton-fair, like Albert! I’m dark, aren’t I, a throwback from the Pendennis woman? I could have been Mary Anne’s, couldn’t I – the son of a herring-wench?’

‘That herring-woman you so despise was honest and hard-working. It was she who laid the foundations for what you take for granted, by gutting fish and taking in washing. Would you had more of her in you!’

‘You say that easily, Father, when your own breeding is flawless; when you were born a Sutton. But none of your friends act as if I were. And I am a Sutton – every bit as much as Nathan and Albert.’

‘You’ll be a Sutton when you have earned the right to be one; earned the right to be treated with respect in society. Servants despise you, as do your equals. There are times I think you are not fit to bear the name!’

‘Well, I am yours – me and Albert both.’ The pouting lips made a sneer of contempt. ‘Didn’t do very well, did you, come to think of it? Two black sheep out of a flock of three?’

‘I see no wrong in your brother.’ The words came through tightly clenched teeth. ‘He married where he thought best.’

‘As you did, Father.’

‘Albert did what he thought right for himself,’ Edward ignored the taunt. ‘And has now settled comfortably in Kentucky.’

There had been a letter, not a week ago, from Albert’s wife; a charming letter, giving their address, now permanent, expressing the wish to meet her husband’s English family, Edward recalled. He had felt great relief, though Clemmy had shrugged it off as social climbing and declared her intention to ignore it.

Well, now she would no longer ignore it. Now she would reply, welcoming her son’s wife to the family, thanking her for the offer of hospitality; an offer, did Clementina but know it, they were soon to accept.

‘Ha! Breeding horses, aren’t they?’ Elliot laughed derisively. ‘And horses are all he’ll ever get, bedding a woman that old, the stupid …’

‘Stop it! I won’t listen to your gutter talk. Your coarseness disgusts me. Get out of my sight! Go to your room and stay there until the doctor has seen to your mother, and that’s an order! Show your face outside this house and you’ll be sorry, I guarantee it. Get out, before I lose control and finish what was started last night, because I’ll tell you this, Elliot; whoever did that to you has my heartfelt gratitude!’

‘There now – wasn’t the climb worth it? You say Rowangarth is beautiful –’ Julia’s sweeping arm took in fields and trees, cornfields still brightly green, meadows of grazing cows. From Holdenby Pike they saw woodland below them and farmland and red-tiled cottages in early summer gardens,’ – but that is a view to take with you back to London. And over there – in the clearing – that’s Pendenys Place, where the other Suttons live. Isn’t it grand?’ she laughed.

‘Grand? It’s like a Scottish castle gone wrong! What a bleak place it looks.’

‘Bleak and proud, Andrew, and just a little vulgar, I’m afraid. Pa’s brother lives there. I like Uncle Edward, but Aunt Clemmy has moods; tempers, too. I think, sometimes, that she and Elliot deserve each other. And maybe now some good will come out of what happened in Brattocks, because Elliot got a hiding from Dwerryhouse and he’ll have his father to face, too.

‘And since cousin Elliot will take quite some time to apologize for his behaviour, we won’t have to endure his visits to Rowangarth. Sit down, darling.’ She sank on to the tough, springy grass, pulling her knees to her chin, clasping them with her arms. ‘You know, Andrew, I only hope Aunt Clemmy won’t try to stop Nathan visiting when he comes home. Nathan’s the middle son – the nice one. Giles and he are good friends, so Giles wouldn’t like it either. But at least Hawthorn seems none the worse. You’re sure she’s all right?’

‘She’ll be fine. I could find nothing seriously wrong with her. She’s taken it remarkably well; I can see no reason why she shouldn’t walk in the woods as she always did, to meet her Tom. She should be quite safe with the ferocious Morgan to protect her.’

‘That spoiled old dog; who’d have thought it? But it would be awful if she couldn’t see Tom – even though it’s only for a few minutes. Still, there’ll be two keepers on the lookout, now; and one of them with a very itchy trigger finger.’ Julia laughed her delight, then all at once was serious. ‘I mustn’t make light of it, though. Just think what might have happened if he’d – well –’

To be raped by Elliot Sutton would be terrible enough; to bear a child of that rape was unthinkable.

‘But he didn’t, Julia. Don’t upset yourself by what might have been. Dear little Hawthorn will soon be over the trauma of it. Everyone has been kind to her, and understanding – and she has her young man to comfort her.’

‘Yes, I accept that.’ Julia would not be gainsaid. ‘But what would have been done about it if he’d got her pregnant?’

‘Done? Well – he could have been sent to prison.’

‘And what about Hawthorn? And not just Hawthorn; any woman attacked like that? Well, I’ll tell you. Society would tut-tut, then send the poor soul to the nearest workhouse out of sight, if she didn’t have an understanding family to support her. And the child labelled illegitimate, too, yet both of them innocent. No help for a woman, though; no moral help to save her having to suffer so. Is that fair, Andrew; is it right?’

‘Julia, my love, it is neither fair nor right, but to end a pregnancy for any reason at all is illegal. I don’t make the laws, I just obey them; no matter what I might think to the contrary.’

‘Then you agree with me? You agree there should be some form of birth control for a woman; some say in what happens to her? Would you believe, Andrew, there is a woman in the village carrying her eighth child, with heaven only knows how many miscarriages in between. The midwife fears for her safety this time, so why can’t that poor, worn-out woman call enough and be allowed to limit her pregnancies? Because it is possible; you know it is.’

‘Possible – desirable – but forbidden.’

‘I know. Everything is forbidden, isn’t it, if it even remotely benefits women! And forbidden by men who make the laws, too!’

‘My darling lassie – I agree with all you say. I’m not supposed to, but I do. I think women should have the right to a say in what affects them most. Some uncaring men have been legally killing women for as long as I can remember. And I think women should have the same voting rights as men. And it will come; it will.’ Gathering her close, he smoothed back a tendril of hair which had blown across her face. ‘But please try to take life one hurdle at a time. Don’t put down your pretty head and charge in without thinking. Take things quietly and you’ll get there quicker, in the end. And will you stop your protesting so I can tell you how much I love you – because I do. Right from the start, I loved you.’

‘At first sight, you mean? Don’t tell me the dour doctor believes in such romantic nonsense?’

‘He didn’t, but he does now. You have turned him into a poor creature,’ he smiled. ‘Do you realize that I knelt beside you that night, picked up your wrist and thought, “This is the woman I will marry.” It was a shock; uncanny. I could hardly count your pulse beat. I still can’t believe it.’ He shook his head, bemused.

‘Darling. It was the same for me, too.’ Cupping his face in her hands, Julia was instantly serious, her eyes all at once luminous with need. ‘And if I promise not to rant and rave, will you kiss me? And tell me you’ll always love me? And will you please marry me as soon as we can manage it, because I have such feelings – such wonderful, wanton feelings – tearing through me, that I don’t know how I’m to put up with the waiting till I’m twenty-one, let alone for a whole year.’

‘Sweetheart.’ His lips found hers. ‘We will wait. We must. I can’t support you properly yet. Another year will make all the difference.’

‘But, Andrew – I’ve got money of my own, or I will have, when I’m of age. Father left it to me. And there’ll be jewellery to come from Grandmother Whitecliffe – on my mother’s side. I’m not sure how much, but it could help to buy you a practice – in Harrogate, if you’d like it. Please think about it? Seriously?’

‘Your generosity makes me feel very proud – humble, too – but I will support my wife. You call me dour, Julia – well it’s the way I am; though if you have money to spare you could settle some of it on our children.’

‘Our children,’ she murmured, eyes closed. ‘How many? Four?’

‘Three, I think. First we will have a daughter for you – and she must be beautiful, like her mother – and then you shall give me two sons.’

‘Happily,’ whispered the sensuous, wanting woman she had become. ‘I love you, Doctor MacMalcolm, and it is so wonderful being loved.’

‘I know.’ He took her hand, slowly, gently kissing the tips of the fingers curled possessively around his own. ‘My dearest girl, I know it.’

‘Then is there an explanation for the way I feel at times?’ Frowning, she raised her eyes to his. ‘Sometimes I think we are too lucky; that no one has the right to be this happy.’

‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘that we get what we deserve in life.’

‘So you don’t think the Fates will be jealous?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ he laughed. ‘How can they be when it was Fate, pure and simple, that brought us together in the first place? Stop your foolish blethering, woman,’ he said fondly.

Foolish blethering? Of course – that’s all it was, she echoed, contentedly snuggling closer. And may it please those Fates, whispered a small voice inside her, to let them keep that love? For ever and ever?

The mistress of Pendenys did not look up from her desk-top when the door opened and closed; nor when footsteps crossed the room and came to a halt behind her chair. Yet she knew that whoever stood there was either her son or her husband – no one else – for no other dare enter her sanctuary except to clean it. The room was hers alone; her one private place in this rambling, echoing, too-large house. Clementina’s little room held her precious, private things, and was dear to her. The tantrum room, her servants called it, for in truth that was really what it was; the room the mistress most often retreated into after an upset; when she had flung her final accusation, slammed her last door. It was where she went to pace and fume silently, to simmer down, perhaps even to weep. And the best of British good fortune to it, said the servants, for whilst madam was closeted away, they were safe from the suspicious workings of her mind, the stabs of her tongue.

‘Yes, Edward?’ Clementina turned to face her husband.

‘Please put down your pen, my dear. I wish to talk to you and I shall require your full attention.’

‘Very well. You have it.’ She knew better than to argue. Her husband was a mild, gentle person; a man who could be expected to have fathered the considerate, contented son who was Nathan; but sometimes there was harshness in his voice and anger in his eyes, and she knew, then, it would be to her cost to challenge the Sutton steel that ran the length of his backbone. ‘What can you have to say, I wonder, except to remind me yet again how indulgently I have reared my son?’

‘Our son, Clemmy. And the word is spoiled – ruined. Elliot has gone too far this time. London, Leeds, even Creesby we can hush over, but last night, on his own doorstep –’

‘On Rowangarth’s hallowed acres, you mean; on Helen’s land?’

‘Too near to home. Too near for comfort. And not a street woman this time, but a young girl.’

‘Last night, Edward, was different. Elliot had been drinking – perhaps a little too much,’ she murmured uneasily. ‘But how did you find out?’

‘Last night, tomorrow night, drunk or sober – where’s the difference? Is no woman safe from his brutish ways? And I got the truth of it from Giles. I met him, walking over to see me, and he told me what Helen told you this morning. Why didn’t you tell me she had visited?’

‘Because I didn’t believe what she said – about Elliot, I mean. Everyone is against him – even you, his father. You call him a brute, your own son,’ she gasped, rising in agitation to her feet. ‘But he’s yours! He’s a Sutton, remember; as much a Sutton as Nathan and Albert and that precious pair over at Rowangarth. But after this you’ll say he isn’t one of your breeding, but a throwback from Mary Anne. He isn’t fair, like a Sutton should be, but dark like a Cornishman. Well, you married me, Edward. You were eager enough to trade my fortune for your seed!’

‘Clementina! That is enough!’ God! Must her talk be so direct? ‘But if that is what you want, I’ll admit it. You married my name and I went along with it. I had little choice. But I will stand by no longer and see Elliot sink to the gutter and take the Sutton name with him. Enough is enough. Either Elliot goes, or I go! Elliot goes to America for at least a month, or I shall move out into one of the almshouses!’

‘Almshouses? You can’t mean it? The talk! The scandal.’

‘I mean it. There has been a Rowangarth almshouse empty for months, and it would be heaven to move in there, God only knows. And would a little more scandal make all that much difference? Scandal is nothing new to the Place Suttons. Our son has seen to that!’

‘You mean it, don’t you, Edward? This is your way of getting back at me. Well, Elliot shall not go to Kentucky, no matter what that woman of Albert’s says!’

‘Albert’s wife wrote you a perfectly civilized and kindly letter, once they had settled into a place of their own. I believe her when she says that any of Albert’s family will be welcome in their home.’

‘She’s nothing but a social climber! And can you imagine it – Elliot returning home with an ambitious American heiress on his arm!’

‘And would that be so bad?’

‘You know it would. He doesn’t need to marry money. Nathan maybe, but not Elliot. What I want for him is a title.’

‘I know, my dear. But marriage to the daughter of a duke, even, could not give him the title he – you – so want. Your father tried to buy one for me, and couldn’t. Accept it, Clemmy. The Sutton title belongs at Rowangarth, where it will stay. John left two sons, so there is no chance it will sidestep to me. And no accolade from the King will ever make a gentleman of Elliot, so forget your dreams for him. He goes to Kentucky to cool his heels – or else!’

‘Edward, how could you?’ Tears filled her eyes, then ran down her cheeks. She could take no more. It was either tears or temper, and in her husband’s present mood she knew which would serve her better. ‘How can you say such things about our own son? Brutish. Not a gentleman. You’ll be saying next that he isn’t yours – that some passing tinker …’

‘Stop it, Clemmy! He’s mine, though, I wish he’d been born last rather than first!’

‘Aha! There we have it! It’s Nathan you favour most; Nathan who looks like a Sutton and acts like a Sutton. Are you sure I bore him?’

‘My dear – please listen? I am here to talk seriously with you, not flit in and out of the realms of fantasy. So dry your eyes. Tears will get you nowhere and will make you ill again. What Elliot did is completely unacceptable. I have never in my life been so near to giving him the thrashing he deserves. Helen’s keeper didn’t do half enough, to my way of thinking, and you can thank the good Lord the man had sense enough to hold on to his temper.

‘So will you compose yourself? I have made up my mind. Defy me in this and I leave this house. The choice is yours, Clemmy.’ He offered his handkerchief, hand on the bell-pull. ‘Now I shall ring for tea for you and, no! not another word,’ he said softly. ‘There is no more to be said. You will drink your tea, calm yourself, then tell Elliot what has been decided. After which you will write a kindly letter to Kentucky, thanking your son’s wife for her offer and availing yourself of it. You will grit your teeth and do it – do you fully understand? Ah …’ He paused as the door opened to admit a butler who had answered the summons with unusual alacrity. ‘Mrs Sutton would like tea. Serve it in here, if you please, then ask Mr Elliot to join his mother.

‘And now I shall go for a walk; a very long walk,’ he murmured when they were alone again. ‘I shall walk this terrible anger out of me, and when I return I expect Elliot to be in no doubt as to what is expected of him. A very great deal is expected of you, too, Clemmy, but I know you will do as I wish in this respect. And there is no compromise, remember. It is Elliot, or me!’

‘This is very cosy,’ Helen Sutton smiled. ‘Just the three of us. I do so enjoy luncheon in the conservatory.’

‘Where is Giles?’ Julia murmured, forking meat on to plates, handing them round. ‘Don’t tell me he’s left his precious books?’

‘He has been known to. My son,’ she addressed her reply to Andrew, ‘has been out all morning. First he went to Pendenys, and now he’ll have arrived in York, on estate business. There are repairs to be done before winter to two cottages and one of the almshouses. I so hope the agent won’t tell him we can’t afford it. But meantime, doctor, I have a great favour to ask of you.’

‘Is it Hawthorn, ma’am?’

‘No, though I am grateful to you for seeing her and setting my mind at rest. The favour, I’m afraid, is a little embarrassing because it concerns family.’

‘But Andrew is family,’ Julia protested. ‘Well, as good as …’

‘Yes, indeed. And I suppose it is reasonable to expect every family to have a skeleton somewhere about,’ Helen sighed. ‘It’s about Friday night, you see.’

‘The dinner party,’ Julia offered. ‘I think Mama is a little apprehensive, not having entertained for – for –’

‘For some time,’ her mother supplied quickly. ‘But it isn’t that. Pendenys won’t be coming now, I’m afraid, which will leave me with thirteen at table.’

‘And is that serious? Is it really a fact, ma’am, that people never sit thirteen to a meal?’ Andrew demanded, eyebrows raised.

‘Not never, exactly, but not if it can be avoided. And that is why I must ask you – and I’m sorry if you think it an afterthought, but I didn’t even know of your existence when the invitations were sent out.’ She lifted her eyes to his, looking at him, he thought, as Julia did; without flinching, even though her cheeks were pink with embarrassment.

‘Mama! You’re asking Andrew to make up numbers,’ Julia gasped. ‘But how wonderful! You’ll say yes, won’t you, darling?’

‘Accept, even though it would mean staying the night?’ Helen murmured. ‘We have no motor, you see, to return you to Harrogate, and it seems an imposition to ask William to take you to the station so late. And we shall finish very late, I’m afraid …’

‘Lady Sutton – I would have been glad to accept, but sadly I cannot. I have no evening clothes, you see.’

‘Oh, dear. You didn’t pack them?’

‘I have none to bring with me,’ he smiled. ‘Evening dress is on my list of necessities, but quite some way down. There are other things must come first, you see, though I’ll admit I’ve had to miss many medical gatherings with after-dinner speakers I’d have liked fine to have heard, because of it. I wish I could have helped your numbers. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, no.’ Julia’s face showed disappointment. She would have liked nothing better than to show Andrew off, have him introduced to her mother’s friends. It would have set the seal on her family’s approval; been as good, almost, as an announcement in The Times. ‘Are you sure you –’

‘Very sure, Julia, though I promise you I shall think more urgently, now, about the matter. And I would have been happy to accept – you know that, Lady Sutton?’

‘Then in that case would you – oh, dear, this is going to make things even worse.’ Helen’s cheeks burned bright red. ‘Would you, for my sake and Julia’s, perhaps consider borrowing?’

‘Of course I would – if you can find someone with a suit to spare – and one that fits. I’m not so foolish, ma’am,’ he said softly, ‘that I’d let pride stand in the way of such an invitation.’

‘Then I thank you, and I’m almost certain we can find something. My husband, you see, would never throw anything away, and the smallest – the slimmest,’ she corrected with a smile, ‘of his evening suits is still hanging there. It is the one he wore when first we were married, but it isn’t at all dated. You are his height and build, doctor. Will you – after we have eaten – consider trying that one on? And I’m sure that somewhere there’ll be a shirt to fit, and shirt studs, though shoes I’m not too sure about. But would you …?’

‘I would indeed,’ he replied, gravely.

‘But, Mama,’ Julia gasped. ‘You never – I mean –’ Nothing that was her father’s had been discarded. Nothing that was his had been moved, even, since the day he died. His pipe still lay on the desk in the library; the loose coins from his pocket on the dressing-table where he had placed them; his cape and driving goggles still hung behind the garage door.

‘It’s all right,’ said Helen gently. ‘I have come out of my black and accept that I must face the world again. And I am bound to confess that the doctor is so like your pa once was – even the colour of his eyes – that I shall take no hurt in seeing John’s clothes on him,’ she whispered. ‘Please indulge me, Andrew?’ she asked, using his name for the first time. ‘I think perhaps that on Friday night I might feel a little unsure and need John with me, but if you are there, and Giles …’

‘I understand, ma’am. And far from taking exception to your offer, I take it kindly. We must hope,’ he smiled, ‘that the suit fits me.’

And Julia closed her eyes and fervently hoped so, too, and thought that she had never loved her mother as she loved her now.

‘Vegetables?’ she smiled, offering a dish, her eyes bright with affection, her heart so full of happiness she felt light-headed. ‘And if they don’t quite fit, I’m sure Hawthorn could do a quick alteration on them – I’m sure of it.’

And dear, sweet Lord, thank you for my lovely family and for this great singing happiness inside me.

And please let me keep it?

Alice held Morgan’s lead tightly, reluctant to release him. She wanted with all her heart to see Tom, even if it meant walking alone in Brattocks again, but she had felt relief, almost, when Miss Clitherow had asked her to sponge and press the suit.

‘The doctor’s evening dress. He’ll be coming to the dinner party,’ was all that was offered by way of explanation, but Alice at once suggested it be hung out to air, so strong was the camphory smell of mothballs on it. The suit wasn’t really the doctor’s, Alice knew; rather something long stored away and in need of a good valeting. Yet Doctor Andrew being asked to the Friday night dinner – now that was good news, she had thought, as she pegged the hangers firmly to the drying-green line. And then she had felt so guilty about Tom that she had taken Morgan’s lead and run to the library, where the impatient creature waited, tail wagging.

And she must face Brattocks Wood again. She had promised Mr Giles, him being away seeing the agent, that she would take Morgan out; had said it would be all right, that the doctor had even suggested that she do it.

‘A bit like falling off a horse,’ he’d assured her. ‘You get straight back in the saddle …’

Yet now here she was at the woodland fence – unsure, and wanting to keep Morgan beside her, even though she was certain that Tom would be there and Elliot Sutton would not; even though her hatpin, on good advice, was secure beneath the lapel of her jacket.

‘You never know,’ Tilda said sagely, recounting one of her love-book heroines who had defended her virtue with the pin from her Sunday hat.

‘No,’ Alice whispered to the animal who had become used to being released at the fence. ‘Stay now, there’s a good dog.’ Carefully manoeuvring the lead from hand to hand, she climbed the stile, then stood, ears straining for the snapping of a twig that might betray some other presence. But Tom walked without sound as a keeper should, and the silence comforted her. ‘Tom?’ she called. ‘Tom Dwerryhouse?’

At once she heard his answering whistle. It was all right! He was waiting for her! Bending, she released the lead, relief pulsing through her. Nothing could harm her, she should have known it, and taking in a deep, calming gulp of air, tilting her chin high, she began to walk the narrow, moss-edged path.

She needed to see Tom, she urged silently; wanted him to hold her, touch her, because last night she had discovered the depths to which a man could sink and she needed to be sure that men like Elliot Sutton were few and far between. She wanted to close her eyes and lift her mouth to Tom’s so she might forget the way another man had kissed her; but most of all she wanted to know she had not changed, that what had happened only a few yards from this spot had not caused her to mistrust all men – even Tom, who loved her.

‘Alice, sweetheart …’

He was there, Morgan at his heels; the same Tom. So why did some strange voice inside her demand she must be sure that he should know the line that divided love from lust – and never step beyond it?

‘Alice?’ He walked slowly to where she stood, rooted to the ground, her feet all at once useless.

She ran her tongue round her lips, then moved them consciously into the shape of a smile, thinking for one wild moment to turn and run back to the stile and climb it again; place it like a barrier between them. But she did not, could not.

‘You came, then,’ she murmured, eyes on her boots.

‘You knew I would. I came at teatime, too, though I thought you’d not want to venture here again just yet.’

‘I did, though. Well – Morgan is with me,’ she defended.

‘Aye. He’ll not let anyone harm you.’ Carefully, as if she were some small, cornered animal, he raised his hand; gently he placed his fingertips to her face.

‘Poor little love. Does it hurt bad?’

‘Hardly at all. It looks worse than it is.’

‘I wanted to kill him, last night,’ he muttered, thickly. ‘I wish I had.’

‘No, Tom. Never wish that – he’s not worth it.’

‘He harmed you, dirtied you. I’ll not forgive him for that!’

‘It’s over,’ she urged, her voice no more than a whisper. ‘It’s behind me.’

‘But is it behind you? Can you be sure, lass? Can you be certain that what happened hasn’t set you against me, against all men?’

‘No!’ she cried, unnerved that he could look into her eyes and read the thoughts behind them. ‘Why should I think that?’

‘I don’t know, though I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But I won’t ever harm you, and you must know it, or there’s no future for you and me. So tell me why you’re holding yourself back from me – because you are …’

‘Tom!’ She glanced wildly around her, unwilling to meet his gaze. ‘How am I to know? How can I be sure that once we’re wed you won’t turn into –’

She stopped, tears choking her words, sudden fear making her want to run away from this encounter; run back to the warmth of Rowangarth kitchen; to Mrs Shaw and Mary and Tilda and Bess. And Miss Clitherow, looking down her nose.

‘That I won’t turn into an animal like the one that attacked you last night? Well, I won’t, Alice. I love you. It would be sweet and gentle between us.’

‘And you wouldn’t change, and look at me wild? And you wouldn’t hit me, tear at me? Because, Tom, if that’s the way of it, if that’s the way it happens …’

‘It isn’t the way of it. With love between us it’ll be giving, not taking. And I shall make you want me, sweetheart, not make you feared of me. Loving, real loving, isn’t like it was with him, I promise you it isn’t.’

‘Then you’ll give me time …?’

‘All the time it takes. All the time in the world.’

‘Tom!’ She took a step towards him; one small step across the divide, and it was all she needed. ‘I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to think as I did. And I’d be obliged if you would kiss me like you always do when we meet, for I’ve wanted you near me so much, even though I was afraid …’

‘Alice, my little love.’ Gathering her to him, he rocked her in his arms, whispering into her hair, hushing her, waiting until he felt her relax against him. Then he tilted her chin as he had done the first time, and placed his mouth tenderly on her own. ‘Will I kiss it better for you?’ He murmured, his lips over the bruising on her face, all the time making little comforting sounds, as if she were a frightened bird he had loosed, hurt, from a poacher’s trap. ‘I love you, Alice Hawthorn; love you – do you hear me?’

‘And I love you. And you aren’t like him – I think I always knew it. But forgive me for doubting?’

Slowly she raised her arms, clasping them around his neck, lifting her face for his kiss.

‘Will I tell you something?’ he smiled. ‘Reuben told me an’ it’s on Mr Giles’s orders. If that Sutton so much as sets foot on Rowangarth land, he’s to be treated like we’d treat a poacher. My, but I wish he’d try it. I’d like nothing better than to kick his backside off the place. Hell! I do so detest that man!’

‘Then don’t. He isn’t worth your hatred. Elliot Sutton will get what he deserves one day, so leave him, Tom; leave him to God. Promise me?’

And because he loved her, his lips formed the words she wanted to hear, whilst secretly he swore he’d have justice for her, should chance ever offer the means.

‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

Then damned himself for a liar.