A Sister's Secret (13 page)

‘I am not hurt at all, thank you. But did you intend to let that man drown?’

‘Oh, the well-being of men who brutalize women don’t concern me too much,’ he said.

‘Heavens,’ breathed Caroline, ‘you would have watched him drown?’

‘Not with ladies present. Far too harrowing for them. I felt it was enough to scare him to death before fishing him out.’

For his ears alone, as she accepted her bonnet from him, Caroline murmured, ‘You feel, sir, that brutalizing ladies is less forgivable than deceiving them?’

Before he could answer, Annabelle called, ‘Do you think that is Mr Meredith himself?’

They turned. In the middle of the meadow the three men were talking to a large, heavy-looking gentleman, and gesticulating as if very angry and offended. The large gentleman suddenly exploded. Brandishing a stick, he strode towards the riverbank like a man bent on furious confrontation.

‘That, I fancy, is almost certainly Mr Meredith,’ said the captain, ‘and he don’t look too sociable. To the punt, ladies.’ He escorted them in wise haste to the landing stage. He stepped aboard the punt, and brought the sisters carefully into it. He untied the rope, took up the pole and pushed off. The punt began to drift. ‘A most enjoyable picnic, but I don’t think we should stay to see what Mr Meredith means to offer us in the way of postprandial pastimes.’

Annabelle, recovered, gurgled with laughter. Caroline smiled. The pole dipped, found purchase, and the punt
surged forward as the large gentleman, in a brown coat, buckskin breeches and beaver hat, arrived on the riverbank.

He shook his stick furiously at them. ‘Damn your eyes, sir, come back!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll have your damned head for battery, assault and trespass! Come back, y’scoundrel, d’you hear?’

‘Gently, sir,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘there are ladies present.’

‘Be damned to their petticoats, and be damned to you too for hiding behind ’em!’ roared the red-faced landowner. His stick executed a violent dance in the air. The punt surged on. ‘Come back, you fly-blown blackguard, and take a flogging.’

‘Mercy me,’ cried Annabelle indignantly, ‘our gentleman friend will do no such thing, sir. It is your men who should be flogged, not he.’

‘Hold your tongue, damned wench! Come back, you gypsy scoundrel!’

‘Must point out, sir,’ called the captain, ‘that though you’re better dressed than your servants, up to a point, you’ve no more manners than they have. Beg to give you good day, sir.’ And he sent the punt skimming out of earshot, ensuring livid curses went unheard by the ladies.

‘Oh, how cool and capable you are, Charles,’ said Annabelle, settling back on the cushions beside her sister. ‘Caroline, I vow we might have been murdered if Charles had not been so sternly brave on our behalf.’

‘Or if he had not landed us on forbidden ground in the first place,’ said Caroline.

‘True,’ said the captain, poling fluently. ‘Beg you’ll overlook it.’

‘But, Caroline,’ protested Annabelle, ‘how can you
rebuke him when he has just saved us from those dreadful bullies? You all are very unkind to an old friend.’

‘Oh, Captain Burnside and I understand each other, I think,’ said Caroline, a sun-splashed figure in graceful repose, ‘but I declare myself very happy that he was able to prove himself an officer and a gentleman.’

‘Who would ask him to prove that?’ said Annabelle. ‘Not I.’

‘Upon my soul, such faith in a man is decidedly uplifting,’ said Captain Burnside cheerfully, and the punt glided smoothly on its way back to Richmond.

Arriving back home with Annabelle and the captain, Caroline declared herself in need of some refreshing tea. Annabelle declared a similar need, and the captain declared himself willing to join them.

They partook of it in the drawing room, Captain Burnside so much at his ease that Caroline thought him far more at home with its graciousness than he had any right to be. She was beginning to despise herself for what she was doing, and could not put aside the feeling that she should pay her hireling off and have done with him. But no, she could not do that. She must at least retain his services in respect of the acquisition of the letter that was driving her dear friend, Lady Hester Russell, to despair and distraction. He must procure it from Cumberland. Concerning Annabelle, there was still a strong aversion to seeing her in Captain Burnside’s deceitful arms. She could not bear to think of further embraces, all contrived by the blackguard. It was an unlovely thing to have hired him for the purpose of being falsely sweet to her sister. If Annabelle did not deserve to become a mere plaything to Cumberland, no more did she deserve to become a victim of deception. Yet if she were left to the mercy of
Cumberland, the consequences could be disastrous. Captain Burnside still represented the better alternative, providing he kept his word to disappear from Annabelle’s life the moment she transferred her affections to him. And from the glances and the smiles she gave him, her interest did seem to have taken a positive turn.

Caroline’s secretary, William Anders, knocked and entered when the teapot was empty. Quietly, he advised her that Lady Hester Russell had called and wished to see her. Privately.

‘Oh, yes. Very well, William.’ Caroline excused herself and received Hester upstairs, in her suite.

Lady Hester Russell, in her early twenties, was a vivid brunette, richly favoured in her looks and figure. And since she was also a warm and affectionate person, she was a sweet wifely pleasure to her husband, Sir George Russell. At this moment, however, she was a woman in distress. Her yellow satin day gown itself seemed beset by quivers. Not long since it had been forced to desert her body. Cumberland had been responsible, and she had come shamefaced from her rendezvous with him to seek comfort and hope from Caroline.

She had received the usual kind of command from him two days earlier, and this afternoon had reluctantly and despairingly presented her veiled self to him. In his bedroom, spacious but austere, as befitted a man who despised decorative fripperies, she showed an unhappy face and pleading eyes as he removed the veil that had given her anonymity. She was a reluctant mistress to him, and so she had an appeal that compliant mistresses did not.

‘Cumberland, I cannot continue like this,’ she whispered. She was the victim of a brief period of madness. Ravished in a country house while her husband lay
with his senses and the pain of his broken leg dulled by laudanum, she had incredibly conceived infatuation of a shamelessly physical kind for the duke. It did not last long, but at its height she had written him a love letter insanely foolish in its passion. It was that letter he used to keep command of her favours. Whenever he called, she had to go to him. ‘Cumberland, today must be the last time, for my dearest George will surely find me out if you do not show me mercy.’

Cumberland’s eye quizzed her flushed face, her pleading look. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘nobler and prouder husbands than George have found out wives just as sweet as ye without ruining the marriage. It ain’t civilized to raise a roof when it’s only a matter of a little indiscretion.’

‘But it will ruin his love for me,’ she breathed.

‘Will it so? Ye’re overlooking the other consideration, my rosebud. When a man discovers his wife has the love of royalty, he also discovers she is thereby newly desirable.’

‘No, George will never be a complaisant cuckold, never. Cumberland, I beg you, give me the letter.’

‘It’s a sweet letter,’ said Cumberland reflectively, ‘a treasure of its kind. Am I to part with it, and with ye too? However, ye’ve been a delicious pleasure, and I’ll concede I should at least think about it.’

‘You have said that before, and nothing has come of it,’ cried Hester.

‘Well, I’m uncommonly attached to ye,’ said Cumberland. ‘Come, waste no more time, for ye have me in impatience. I don’t suffer my own impatience too gladly, ye know that.’

She did know it. He was capable, in a moment of temper, of doing that which would devastate George and the marriage. She shivered and clenched her teeth as he turned her and unbuttoned her gown. It slid
whisperingly to her feet, and her short silk shift dropped to her waist. His arms came around her from behind, and his hands gently, devilishly, caressed her. Once she had been responsive to his touch. Now it only shamed her.

In bed with him a little later, she burned and shivered, and afterwards the tears spilled. He regarded them mockingly.

‘How so, when ye were sweetly passionate?’ he said.

‘That is what shames me so,’ she gasped.

Because of this she rushed to confide in Caroline, to entreat again her help. And Caroline, coldly furious with Cumberland and his carnality, assured Hester that she had taken steps to give the necessary help, that she would accelerate progress.

‘I vow I shall, Hester, although I cannot tell you the details. There, dry your eyes, or George will discover every mark of your tears.’

‘It is so much worse than you can imagine,’ wept Hester, ‘for though I swear I hate Cumberland and his bed, he contrives to arouse in me the shamelessness of the bawdiest doxy.’

‘The weakness of our flesh is very traitorous,’ sighed Caroline, but could not imagine herself anything but fiercely resistant in the arms of any man whom she despised. Which brought her to think of Captain Burnside and the disgust she would feel if she were subjected by him even to a kiss.

‘Caroline,’ whispered Hester, ‘if the letter is not soon retrieved, I will kill either Cumberland or myself.’

‘Don’t say such things, dearest Hester. Cumberland will give it up soon enough, I promise.’

Downstairs, Annabelle was being sweet to Captain Burnside before going up to her room to take a bath.
‘Such an exciting day,’ she said, ‘and although Caroline has been quite cool about your bravery, I cannot myself be less than grateful.’ She laughed. ‘I am more human than a goddess, and must show you.’ She came up on tiptoe, lifted her face and kissed him on the mouth. There was unreserved warmth in the kiss she bestowed, and he realized then that her sister was right to be in concern for her. She was in danger as much from her own self as from Cumberland. She was brimming with health and headiness, her body perceptibly excited. He guessed she had recently discovered the pleasure of kissing a man not modestly, but with sweet ardour. ‘There,’ she murmured, ‘that is to thank you for saving us from brutality. Will you scold me for being as grateful as that?’

‘Oh, a grateful kiss is very allowable, young lady,’ he said. ‘But be careful of kisses of another kind.’

‘Another kind?’ The telltale pink coloured her cheeks. ‘Do you mean kisses from Cumberland?’

‘I mean that before she’s kissed by a would-be lover, a resolute girl should determine his intentions, whether they embrace marriage or merely pleasure.’

‘To be sure, intentions are everything,’ said Annabelle, ‘but Cumberland is an exciting man, is he not?’

‘To you, yes,’ said the captain.

‘However, because of your support and advice, I am of all things resolute,’ declared Annabelle, ‘and shall stand up to the duke very resolutely tomorrow. And how inspiring it is to know you can stand up to Caroline. Of course—’ Annabelle became demure. ‘Of course, she will never think anything of a man who can’t.’

‘Is it important she should?’

Annabelle became more demure. ‘It is to you, Charles, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You are in love with her, aren’t you? When you returned to England with your regiment and
heard she was a widow, you could not resist coming to see her, could you?’

‘Those questions are all rhetorical?’ said the captain.

‘Oh, I vow you are just the man to sweeten my grand sister,’ smiled Annabelle. ‘Caroline used not to be at all grand. At least, never as much as she is now. But she did not enjoy a very happy marriage, and put on a proud face to hide its failure. That is what her friends have whispered to me. Sometimes she’s as haughty as a duchess, don’t you think so?’

‘I try, young lady, only to think of her with respect.’

‘Oh, fiddle-de-dee, you don’t,’ laughed Annabelle. ‘How exciting you were when you were dealing with those brutes by the river. Yes, you are just the man for Caroline, and will make up for all her unhappiness.’

‘Your sister, I fancy, will declare herself roundly opposed to that,’ said the captain.

‘Captain Burnside.’ Caroline made a statement of his name as she entered the drawing room prior to supper. He had just come down himself, as well-dressed as ever, his cream cravat a model of unostentatious comfort. Some men wore cravats so high and in such complicated folds that they were compelled to keep their chins permanently elevated for fear of disturbing the careful arrangement.

Caroline, in a satin gown of deep, shimmering crimson, looked bewitchingly splendid.

‘Marm?’ said Captain Burnside, deferential to his patron.

‘I must ask you – no, I must beg you – to procure that letter from Cumberland immediately.’

‘Immediately?’

‘By the weekend,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘On Friday evening, therefore, when you will be contesting with him at the card table, please use every trick of skill and
deception to burden him so with debt that he will be only too glad to give up the letter in return for the IOUs. Otherwise, the matter in question may take a tragic turn. I may count on you to achieve what is necessary?’

‘You may, marm, if luck is with us.’

‘No, I cannot afford to rely on luck, sir.’

‘Very well, marm, I’ll ensure Cumberland is tricked into losing a fortune.’

‘I believe you, Captain Burnside,’ she said. ‘I have great faith in your talents as a trickster, which I am sure you will be able to apply as skilfully as you are at present applying yourself to the affections of my sister. One could positively admire your gifts, if they were commendable, which they aren’t. I cannot dispute Annabelle is showing more interest in you than she has in other men, except Cumberland, and if you do save her from him I shall not be ungrateful, although I must tell you, sir, it gave me no pleasure to see her in your arms today.’

‘Quite understood, marm, pray don’t distress yourself.’