Читать книгу A Lady In Need Of An Heir - Louise Allen - Страница 12

Chapter Four

‘Goodnight.’ Gaby looked at the closing door, then down at the dregs of her port, then back at the door. Neither glass nor wooden panels gave her any insight into why she had made that idiotic suggestion. What was she thinking of, giving Gray the opening to stay for five more days? And then to commit to his company for a day on the river and perhaps another day in Porto was madness.

He was a threat. Not that she believed for a moment that he would succeed in persuading her to go to England against her better judgement. But that was hardly the problem, was it? The problem was that she found herself strongly attracted to him and, it seemed, that feeling was reciprocated. He hid it well because he was a sophisticated, experienced man, but she had recognised the signs. It was merely a physical attraction, obviously, but even so...

She found she was on her feet and pacing. It was really insufferably hot indoors. No, she was insufferably hot. It was a long time since she had lain with a man and, apparently, the hard, distracting work was no longer enough to keep any yearnings at bay.

Gaby rehearsed a string of the riper Portuguese oaths that she had heard at the height of the harvest when everyone was hot, tired and at the end of their tether. They did not help. Why couldn’t she desire one of the numerous charming gentlemen who came her way both in local society and among the English and Scottish merchants and shippers in Porto?

There were enough of them, for goodness’ sake. Intelligent men, handsome men, amusing men. Men she could probably marry if she got to know them better, if marriage was not such an impossible trap. Marry and she lost control of everything, became a chattel of her husband’s, surrendered Frost’s totally to his mercies.

It was cooler out on the terrace with the breeze from the river rustling the creepers on the walls of the house. She closed the double glass doors behind her and walked up and down, smelling the night-perfumed flowers, watching the bats harrying the moths, willing her nerves to calm.

It was time to move on. She had sensed that for a few months now in the restlessness of her body, the way the sharpness of grief had mellowed somehow into sadness and regret. Betrayal was no longer the word if she found another man to...love? No, desire. She had been close to loving Laurent and perhaps, if they had had longer together, then their feelings would have become even deeper, more intense, but she thought not.

If I did find a man I could like and we had a child, but without marrying...

Gaby stopped dead in her tracks. That had never occurred to her as a solution. What was the Portuguese legal position on illegitimate children inheriting? Possibly it was the same as in England and they would have no claims by right, but she could will her property to whomever she wished if she was not married, she was sure of that.

Why hadn’t she thought of it before? It would take a great deal of working out, of course. Gaby paced more slowly. The position of a child born out of wedlock in this conservative country would be at least as difficult as in England, if not worse. She would have to seem to be married and yet without the legal burden of a husband controlling everything. A widow, in fact.

Now, how—short of marriage and murder—did one achieve that?

* * *

‘O senhor está fora,’ Baltasar informed her as he brought in her breakfast.

‘He is outside? Since when?’

‘He has been there since early. He asked for his hot water and his breakfast for six o’clock and he was already awake when Danilo took them over. I think he has been walking. Now he is sitting on the dock, watching the river.’ Baltasar rolled his eyes. ‘I do not understand these English gentlemen. He is a lord. He does not have to rise so early. He has no work to do. Why does he not sleep?’

‘I think he is a restless man, if he has nothing to occupy him,’ Gaby suggested. ‘He is a man used to action, to having a purpose.’ And that purpose, that sense of duty, however misguided, had driven him here. He had failed in his mission and now he had an enforced holiday.

How dreadful for him, to have to try to relax and enjoy himself, to be a tourist.

She finished her breakfast and went to the window. Yes, there was that dark head, just visible through the screen of bushes. She poured another cup of coffee, filled up her own and went out across the terrace, carrying them in steady hands to the steps down to the dock, just above where he was watching the Douro’s relentless flow.

Gray was sitting on the boards, left leg drawn up, supporting his weight on his right arm, the other resting casually on his knee. She felt a fleeting regret that she could not draw. All it would take would be a few economical lines to catch that long, supple, relaxed body.

‘Good morning.’ He did not turn his head and she was certain she had made no sound.

‘You have sharp ears.’

‘I can smell the coffee.’

She came down the steps, set the cups down and sat beside them, an arm’s length away from him. ‘It might have been Baltasar.’

‘Not walking so softly.’ He turned his head, then smiled faintly. The lines bracketing his mouth deepened, and his eyes narrowed as he looked at her and then he went back to studying the water. ‘Thank you.’

‘You have shaving soap on the angle of your jaw.’ She extended one finger, almost close enough to touch, then he turned his head and the tip of her finger made contact with smooth skin. Gaby jerked her hand back.

He was freshly shaven, his hair slicked down with water, but the rest of him was casual, relaxed. He put up his free hand, scrubbed along his jaw.

‘That has got it.’ Her voice was quite steady, considering that she felt as though she had been stung.

She leaned back on both hands, her legs dangling over the water as she watched him from the corner of her eye. A loose linen shirt, a sleeveless waistcoat, a spotted kerchief tied at his neck like a coachman, loose coarse cotton trousers tucked into a battered pair of boots, a broad-brimmed hat discarded on the planks by his side. He was dressed like a man who understood the heat of this valley in summer, one who had fought through the dust and the baking sun while wearing uniform. Now, in the milder warmth of October, the costume was still practical for wandering about the countryside.

‘Is it strange being back here in peacetime?’ she asked, following through her train of thought.

Gray was silent and she wondered if she had been tactless and he would not answer her. She had no idea what his experience of war in this country had been like. For some, she knew, it had been hell. For others, luckily placed, a jaunt. But he was simply marshalling his thoughts, it seemed.

‘It is a pleasure to see the country tranquil, to watch children playing, people working, young men flirting without having one hand on a weapon,’ he said. ‘But it feels like a dream. There are moments when I hear gunfire and have to remind myself that it is hunters, when I smell smoke and tell myself it is a farmer burning rubbish, when the birds stop singing for a moment and I have to stop myself looking around for the ambush. It is hard to spend nine years fighting and then shrug off the habits and the reflexes that have kept you alive all that time. I look at this river—’ He broke off with a shake of his head.

Ah. So he has seen the hell, ridden through it.

‘And watch for the bodies being carried down,’ she finished for him, repressing the shudder. There had been too many to retrieve for a decent burial. Many must have found their graves in the sea. Certainly no one had ever reported finding the body of Major Norwood that she knew of.

‘Yes. One of the things I like about England is the absence of vultures.’

Gray picked up his cup and looked directly at her over the rim. Dark grey eyes like water-washed steel.

‘I should not be speaking of such things to a lady.’

Gaby looked away from those compelling eyes. They saw too much. She shrugged. ‘I lived through it, too, I saw the bodies, the wounds, the hunger. Most times it is better not to remember, but sometimes it is hard when you need to talk and you cannot, because other people cannot bear to listen.’

Gray made a soft sound. A grunt of agreement. He understood, perhaps, although he would have fellow officers to talk to, men who had been through it and knew, men he could be silent with and yet feel their support and empathy. She had no one she could speak to about the things that had happened. But that was probably the burden that most women who had been through war carried: no one wanted to admit that shocking things had happened to them, had been witnessed by them. It was much easier to pretend nothing had sullied their sight, nothing had disturbed their ladylike lives.

Gray had been married. She recalled Aunt mentioning it in a letter in the days when she did not simply toss them aside unopened. A good marriage, apparently, by Aunt’s definition of good. But his wife had died some years ago. A tactful woman would not refer to it, but then, she wanted to understand him for some reason and that was more important than tact.

‘Did your wife ask you about it? Or did she want to pretend that it was all beautiful uniforms and parades and glory?’

‘We were married for three years. We were together for, perhaps, six months in that time. I was home wounded for three months after Talavera. She noticed it was not all parades then.’ His hand went to his left shoulder as he spoke. Gaby doubted he realised he did it. She had seen no awkwardness in the way he moved that arm; it must simply be the memory of old pain.

‘Was it serious, the wound?’ The way he spoke about his wife—or, rather, the way he did not—made her wonder what kind of marriage it had been.

‘Bad enough to send me home. Not bad enough to prevent me getting her with child while I was convalescing.’ Now he sounded positively cold.

‘You have a child?’

‘Twins. A boy and a girl. James and Joanna.’ He was looking out over the river again, his profile stark and expressionless and she suddenly understood. Twins, but his wife dead, presumably in bearing those children. What must the guilt be like for a man who had left a pregnant wife behind to bear his children and die doing so? A wife, it seemed, he hardly knew and, she suspected, had not loved at all.

‘So they are about five now. Where do they live?’

‘Winfell, my house in Yorkshire.’ He lifted the cup to his lips and drank deeply.

‘You must miss them.’

‘They have my mother. But, yes, I miss them. They have got used to me being home this past year and I have not yet become blasé about the novelty of watching small children grow.’

Charmed despite herself, Gaby felt a twinge of guilt. ‘You left them behind to perform this errand for your godmother.’

‘I thought it my duty.’ The severe lines that had softened when he spoke of his children were set again. ‘I did not—do not—like to think of an English gentlewoman alone and unprotected in a foreign country.’

‘It is not foreign to me. This is my home,’ she pointed out. ‘No one thought to bring me to England when the war was on.’

‘I did not know you were without your parents then.’

But my aunt did. I was not an heiress until Thomas was killed, though. No benefit in taking all that trouble with me before then.

‘And if you had?’

‘I would have done my best to get you to Lisbon. You and your brother.’

‘We would not have gone. We would not have abandoned the quinta and our people. You had your duty. We had ours.’ He made a noise suspiciously like a grunt. ‘If an enemy invaded England, would you expect your mother to abandon Winfell, your staff and tenants, your inheritance?’

This time the grunt was nearer a smothered laugh. ‘I would expect her to have the Civil War cannon refurbished and to settle in for a siege. Woe betide any enemy who attacks what is hers.’

Gaby did not make the mistake of pushing the point. She finished her coffee, flicked the dregs into the river and watched as fish rose hopefully to investigate. ‘How do you intend spending the day?’

‘What are your plans?’

‘To walk the terraces. Now the harvest is finished, it all needs checking over.’

‘Don’t you have people to do that?’

‘Of course. And I have their reports, but I still see for myself. I must prioritise the work, think about the more long-term planning. Do you leave your estate in Yorkshire in the hands of your steward and never check on what he tells you? No, I thought not.’

‘Might I come with you?’

‘If you wish.’ She glanced at his boots. They certainly looked sturdy, but she felt the temptation to needle him. ‘Can you walk far in those?’

‘You think a cavalryman cannot march?’ Gray got to his feet in a sudden, fluid movement and held out his left hand to pull her to her feet.

His fingers were dry and warm as they fastened over hers and he lifted her easily towards him. The shoulder wound had healed cleanly, it seemed. ‘I have no idea. Can you?’ She led the way back to the house.

‘For miles if we have to. But do you not ride?’

‘No, not to inspect the terraces. It is such a bother mounting and dismounting endlessly.’ She opened the kitchen door. ‘Maria, food for his lordship as well, please.’

Her own capacious leather satchel was already waiting, bulging with water bottle, notebooks and packets of food. Maria bustled out of the pantry with another in her hands and offered it to Gray with a twinkling smile. His compliments on dinner had obviously reached her ears and even now, despite several years of peace, she still believed in feeding everyone as though there would be famine tomorrow.

Gaby looped the strap of her own satchel over her shoulder, shook her head at Gray’s attempt to take it from her and led the way out past the winery and on to the track. ‘I will check this side of the river today and the other bank tomorrow. I looked at the more distant areas the day before you arrived.’

She strode up the slope and turned on to the first terrace. Jorge, her manager, had noted nothing at this level, but she never took anything for granted. Gray paced along behind her as she shook posts, checked the wires, peered at the terrace walls, then followed her back and up to the next level.

A miracle, a man who does not have to talk about himself the entire time.

These support posts were looking worn. Gaby dug out her notebook, made an annotation, moved on.

Gray’s silent presence was oddly companionable and she could check the vines without having to think what she was doing, which left her free to brood about yesterday’s insane scheme. But was it insane?

She needed an heir—or an heiress, she wasn’t fussed which—and the child needed to be legitimate or, rather, to appear so. She could not afford the risk of marrying because the man would take everything by law so... I need a convincing husband to kill off.

‘What did you say?’

‘Hmm?’ Oh, Lord. Had she been thinking aloud?

Gray was staring at her. ‘You said something about killing someone off.’

‘Scale insects.’ Gaby flipped over a badly mottled leaf to show him the tiny dark brown lumps. ‘They are the very devil to kill off because they have a sort of shell, a bit like limpets. But they suck the goodness out of the leaves and spread diseases, so we have to try.’

They carried on.

Supposing I find a suitable man, one I can bear to lie with, one with intelligence.

She was thinking along the same lines as breeding livestock, she realised with a little inward shudder, but brains appeared to be something that were inherited and this child was going to need their wits about them.

‘Can you hold that wire taut?’ she asked. Gray took a firm hold on the one she indicated and she went to the other end of the row and gave it a twang. As she thought, loose. ‘Thank you,’ she called and made a note.

So, find the right man, think of a way of ensuring that when I come back here as a pregnant sorrowing widow people will believe in the marriage.

A hawk screeched overhead, a lonely sound in the vastness of the sky. Gaby tipped back her head to watch it and met Gray’s gaze as he looked up to do the same thing. He grinned and pushed the broad-brimmed straw hat further back on his head.

Something was niggling at her. Could she use a man like that and then simply vanish with his child? Wouldn’t he have the right to know he was a father? Would she want anything to do with a man who did not care if he was? This scheme was full of pitfalls. So, to square her conscience she would have to discuss it with him, make certain he had no scruples. Was it even ethical to use a man as a stud in this way, even if he was perfectly willing, or was she being absurdly overscrupulous? Men married to breed heirs every day of the year. Her wretched conscience. How much easier to simply not care about how her actions affected anyone else...

‘This banking looks unstable to me,’ Gray called and Gaby went over to where he was crouched down at the foot of the terrace wall. ‘Something has been digging.’

‘A fox, I expect.’ Another note. She carried on along the foot of the terrace wall.

‘Rights?’ Gray had come up close at her shoulder without her even realising. ‘The rights of man? Rights of way?’

Hell, I must be thinking out loud again.

‘Water rights.’ Gaby improvised as he strolled off to look at a clump of late orchids. ‘We can cut up to the next level from the end here. We do not need to walk right back along the terrace.’

She had to find an intelligent man who would happily give up his rights in his child and who would not turn round and blackmail her. She clambered up the stones at the far end and walked slowly back until she found she was standing above Gray. He had leaned back against the stone wall, hat in hand, and was looking up, watching the hawk and its mate circling high above them. His hair was thick, curling slightly at the crown, thick and virile and temptingly touchable.

There was a fig tree at the back of the flat area and Gaby went and sat under it, took a long drink from her flask and checked her notes against Jorge’s. That was better than thinking about how a man’s hair would feel between her fingers, how his weight would be over her, how those broad shoulders would...

Stop it.

She made a few annotations, but the sun was in her eyes and Gray was still somewhere below. She tipped her hat down over her nose and closed her eyes against the glare, the better to think.