A Sister's Secret (31 page)

‘Several exhaustive searches have been made,’ said Caroline, desperately wanting to believe him. ‘But not in this room,
your
room.’

‘Well, that ain’t going to unearth a single jewel, marm. I recollect you were very tired that night, but you had sent your servants to bed. Ah, did you undress yourself?’

‘Yes. I always do, although Helene puts my clothes away.’

‘And the gown you were wearing, marm, was that put away or left out for cleaning? I assume it was attended to by Helene the following morning.’

‘Captain Burnside?’ Her hand was at her throat.

‘If it was put away, marm, shall we take a look at it?’

Caroline trembled, stared at him, came to and rushed to the door. She opened it and hurried to her suite, to the wardrobe in her dressing room. The captain, following, watched as she drew out the red gown she had worn the night they had played cribbage. She removed it from its frame, and as she did so the jewelled hair clasp fell through it and dropped to the carpet. She stared in utter dismay and mortification at its glitter. Her knees trembled. ‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Quite so,’ said the captain. ‘All is well, marm. So, then, shall you and Annabelle put on your bonnets and jackets? It ain’t favourable to linger.’

Caroline had a horrifying feeling she was going to cry. Cry? She had not known the foolishness of tears for many years. She had suffered most of her humiliations bitterly but without crying. She hated crying. But she was mortifyingly close to it now.

She turned away, the gown sagging in her hands. ‘Captain Burnside, I – I – oh, I am sorry. Please forgive me.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of being so pompous, marm. Nor is there anything to forgive. Your assumption was all of natural. Except I ain’t so far made a monkey out of a patron. It wouldn’t do, d’you see. I’ll go down and advise Annabelle to make herself ready. I’ll give her five minutes. You’ve confidence in Jonathan, I hope.’

‘I …’ Caroline turned again, but he was already out of the room. Her mortification had brought a flush to her face and moisture to her eyes. Yet, above all, she felt relief almost rapturous. It exhaled from her in a long, long breath.

When she entered the drawing room several minutes later, Annabelle was facing up to the captain in pretty, pouting protest.

‘But, Charles, it’s of all things ridiculous, leaving London to hide ourselves at Great Wivenden. Why, as if those footpads would dare to show themselves again. I don’t wish to go, not when the season is so exciting—’

‘And Cumberland is even more so?’ Captain Burnside shook his head at her. ‘No, it won’t do, sweet girl, and your sister’s mind is made up. Your bonnet is on, the coach is waiting, the horses petulant with impatience. So off you go.’

‘Oh, you wretch!’ cried Annabelle.

Mr Jonathan Carter intervened breezily. ‘Say the word, Charles, and I’ll carry her out,’ he said, and Annabelle turned fretfully on him.

‘Go away, you creature!’

‘Can’t do that,’ said Jonathan cheerfully, ‘I promised to see you and Lady Caroline safely to Sussex. It’s all one to me, carrying you out or escorting you.’

Annabelle gasped in outrage. ‘Oh, you all are a varmint and scallywag!’ she cried.

‘Well, I ain’t noted for being a die-away popinjay, I’ll give you that, Miss Howard,’ said Jonathan. ‘I’m firm as a rock, quick with a punishing blow, and a defender of virtue.’

‘Charles,’ said Annabelle, ‘are we truly to go with this brutal beast?’

‘Favour me by bearing with him,’ said Captain Burnside, and took her arm. Sighing, Annabelle went with him. Caroline and Jonathan followed.

Outside the house, Caroline’s travelling coach and four stood waiting, Sammy gentling the noses of the leading pair. Jonathan mounted the box and took up the reins. Sammy climbed up beside him. Annabelle, assisted into the coach by Captain Burnside, gave him the reproachful look of a young lady who really could not see why she had to fly from the summer season of London, especially under the escort of Mr Jonathan Carter, who had already made it evident he was going to be boringly unlikeable.

Caroline, about to follow her sister into the coach, looked up at Captain Burnside a little uncertainly. ‘You have promised to join us as soon as you can,’ she said. ‘We may rely on that?’

‘Indeed you may,’ he smiled, then murmured, ‘I believe my venture for you is still unfinished.’

‘Yes. Yes.’ It was a restless affirmative. She felt she did not really care any more about the second part of the venture. She whispered, for his ears alone, ‘Please reassure me, please tell me that in misjudging you I haven’t spoiled the friendliness of our relationship.’

‘Sometimes one’s relationship with a patron moves out of the businesslike and ordinary,’ he said, and kissed her gloved hand in farewell. ‘I hope to be with you tomorrow.’

‘Please take care,’ she said.

‘The cottage, where is it?’ he asked.

‘Half a mile west of the manor. It stands by itself in Birchwood Lane, and is called Pond Cottage.’

‘Capital,’ said Captain Burnside, and Caroline entered the coach.

Caroline, standing at the gate of Pond Cottage, filled her lungs with the pure country air. Why it was called Pond Cottage no one seemed to know. The nearest pond was in Wychling village, a mile away on the other side of Great Wivenden. Its bricks were mellow with age, its slate roof adorned with a cluster of red chimney pots. It stood alone in the lane that led to Pond Farm, the lease of which was owned by herself. Two other cottages lay farther west. They housed farm labourers and their families.

This was farming country, and at this time of the year the pastures were still lush, the fields rich with summer growth. The hedgerows, to Caroline, were singularly English. They divided fields and they bordered every rutted track and dusty lane. Honeysuckle sprang from them, and wild roses, and in the fall, which the English in their peculiarity called autumn, blackberries plump and ripe glistened with morning dew.

Visible, the rising green folds of the South Downs were soft with evening light, the air caressingly warm. A single fleecy cloud, tinted by the sun to pearly pink, drifted westwards through the heavenly ocean of blue.

The landscape presented every shade of green to the
eye, and every shade had its own variability in the ever-changing light of an English day. No one could say the Carolinas did not hold their own beauty, but the greens of Sussex always made Caroline feel that nature had come to rest here in the quintessence of tranquillity.

She loved her Sussex estate, and Sussex itself. Had she been blessed with an affectionate husband and loving children, it was here she would have lived, not London. But as a childless widow, Great Wivenden, for all the pleasure she took in it, made her feel incomplete. She had neither husband nor children. She was almost twenty-five – twenty-five! – and was without children.

Great Wivenden’s manor house cried out for the laughter of children, and for their scampering feet. How could she live here by herself, with only servants to keep her company? She must marry again, she must. She must have children. Three, four, five, oh, even six. Then the quietness of the house would burst into the joyful, hurly-burly noises of children growing up. But whom could she marry? Was there a man she wished to bed with? Should she consider Mr Wingrove? He would surely make an affectionate and thoughtful husband, and looked manly enough to bring her to motherhood. She reflected on what this would entail. Simply, the act of physical union. The reflection brought no quickening to her body, no excitement. Mr Wingrove was a very good friend, and a gentleman all of upright, but she had lately come to feel he was a little wordy. As his wife, she would have no escape from his informative dissertations. One did not always want a conversation to be informative. There was a deal of pleasure in taking up a challenging dialogue, in giving tit for tat, as with …

Caroline bit her lip. How unkind, how wrong, to think of comparing Mr Wingrove’s honest conversation
unfavourably with Captain Burnside’s devious use of words. Mr Wingrove was a gentleman, a pleasant English gentleman. His integrity as a husband would be much to her liking. It was only recently she had begun to think of marrying again, although she could not imagine why. Consequent upon her wretched life with Clarence, she had found widowhood an equable state. Why had she suddenly become restless, even worse than restless? Her present state was a starved one. She really must consider encouraging Mr Wingrove to propose. Yet why, if her body felt starved, did the thought of being bedded and loved by Mr Wingrove not excite her? Should not the thought of being loved by any personable man arouse some quickening of her blood? London was full of handsome, athletic Corinthian bucks, and it was ridiculous she could think of none who might be responsible for inducing this restlessness in her.

Her deeply introspective mood brought her to the realization that she wanted a husband she was in love with. To conceive children in the arms of a cardboard husband did not excite the imagination at all. To conceive in the arms of a husband she loved would be a joy. Was that not what most women dreamed of, loving, giving and being loved? Was it not what even some widows dreamed of?

In coming to know Clarence, it had seemed to her that some men could take physical pleasure of a woman without being remotely in love. Clarence had never been capable of loving anyone. She supposed Captain Burnside … No, she could not think so ill of him as to place him in the same degenerate mould as Clarence, but she supposed he had bedded infatuated young ladies without any consideration of love. If not degenerate, it was wretchedly immoral to seduce a young woman of her honour and her trinkets. Captain Burnside was …

She found herself trembling then, a strange wildness afflicting her at the thought of her unprincipled hireling even now in the company of some woman he intended to seduce. She thrust the thought from her. But she still trembled, her agitation a physical thing.

Inside the cottage, Jonathan was removing dust sheets from the furniture. Annabelle, coming down from one of the bedrooms, was greeted with a brisk smile and an unwelcome suggestion. ‘Perhaps you’ll lend a delicate hand, Miss Howard? Sammy’s dusting the kitchen, and you might care to do this room.’ This was the living room, with an inglenook fireplace, comfortable furniture, and a dining table and chairs in the bay window. The cottage had a pretty character, a cosiness, and a polished wood flooring. ‘Sammy will find you a duster.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Annabelle.

‘Why, there’s dust, don’t you see. But it won’t do, working in your pretty gown.’ Jonathan, his coat off and his shirtsleeves rolled up, was in a practical mood, albeit cheerful. ‘I presume there are kitchen smocks somewhere.’

‘Are you addressing me, sir?’ Annabelle was as haughty as a young lady of Charleston could be.

‘Well, Sammy ain’t present, and I fancy your sister is still outside …’

‘Sir, you all are a bare-faced impertinence,’ breathed Annabelle. ‘One more word and I shall box your ears.’

‘Wouldn’t recommend it,’ said Jonathan, ‘I’m quick to counter. However, I ain’t known to be heavy-handed with young ladies, and it won’t come to more than a light slap on your derriere.’

Annabelle gasped. How could dear and delightful Captain Burnside have delivered her and Caroline into
the hands of an oaf? ‘Oh, if I were a man, sir, I should call you out and knock you down,’ she said.

‘Well, you ain’t a man,’ said Jonathan, ‘you’re a pretty young thing with her nose in the air.’ He picked up the pile of folded dust sheets and offered them to her. ‘Could you find a place for these while I see what Sammy and I can do about lighting the kitchen stove?’

‘Mr Carter,’ said Annabelle with delicate aloofness, ‘I am not your paid servant, and I don’t wish to be smothered with dust.’

‘Servants, yes, that’s a point,’ said Jonathan. ‘There’s only Sammy. I put it to you, Miss Howard, he ain’t expected to do all the work, is he?’

‘How should I know? I did not ask to come here. Nor did I ask to be escorted by a creature utterly beastly and boring.’ Annabelle pushed past him and swept out of the cottage to join Caroline at the gate. ‘Caroline, I do declare we are in the hands of a ruffian and a boor, and I vow myself capable of striking him.’

‘Mr Carter?’ Caroline shook herself free of brooding introspection. She smiled. Annabelle had been at odds with their escort from the start, perhaps because he had been far too casual for her liking. ‘Well, perhaps he doesn’t have the same whimsical ways as Captain Burnside, but I think he may prove resolute in our behalf, and one can’t deny he’s a cheerful young man.’

‘He is too vainglorious by half,’ said Annabelle. ‘He expected me to clean and dust, would you believe, and was offensive enough to threaten me with a slap.’

‘He could not have been serious.’ Caroline frowned, wondering if Mr Carter, a crony of Captain Burnside’s, had no more scruples than the captain. ‘Annabelle, isn’t the evening beautiful? Leaving London is not really too bad, though I disliked the reason for coming here.’

‘It’s a ridiculous reason, all to get me away from the Duke of Cumberland,’ said Annabelle. ‘I thought Charles was on my side.’

‘I should hope he wasn’t,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘Come, you know very well by now that Cumberland has no intention of marrying you.’

Annabelle fidgeted. ‘But there’s nothing to do here except sit and look at vegetables. I shall turn into a turnip, and I know I shan’t ever be able to put up with the incivilities of the odious Mr Carter. Why don’t you bring a servant over from Great Wivenden?’

‘Because, sister dear, it is better so.’

‘But who is to cook and clean and dust?’ asked Annabelle in horror.

‘
We
are, all of us,’ said Caroline, and in truth she did not mind busying herself domestically. It would be an antidote for her restlessness.

Annabelle gave a despairing sigh. ‘We cannot go out, we cannot drive to Great Wivenden or even to the village?’ she said. ‘And I am to cook and clean and dust? I shall die of boredom and peevishness. It would not be so bad if Charles were here. He is such amusing and affectionate company, and would surely never make a kitchen maid of me. Already I am missing him.’