Jane Feather (7 page)

Chapter 7

The evening seemed eternal. Imogen enjoyed the company of her brother’s friends in small doses, but both she and Esther, after a while, found them callow, their youthful exuberance lacking in any conversational stimulus, with the exception of Harry Graham, who had a sophisticated range of interests far ahead of Duncan’s other friends. It was with relief that they rose from the dinner table to seek refuge in the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to their port.

“I will never understand how a university education can leave such a nonexistent mark on the minds of its graduates,” Esther declared. “If we were to have such an opportunity, can you imagine how the world would change?”

Imogen chuckled. Usually it was she making such comments. “Well, we could attend Oxford or Cambridge, just not graduate,” she pointed out.

“And have no public recognition at all of what we’d achieved,” Esther stated, pouring coffee. “At least Charles acknowledges that injustice.”

Imogen was silent for a moment. “Yes,” she agreed eventually. “Yes, he does.” She took up her coffee cup. “Different subject . . . but don’t you think Duncan is behaving a little oddly? He seems very nervous, and I don’t think it’s anything to do with me and Charles. I’ve tried to make as little as possible of that hunting business, and Duncan’s conscience never bothers him for very long anyway.”

“No, I agree. He does seem oddly anxious. And yet he’s surrounded by his friends.” Esther stirred sugar into her coffee. “To tell you the truth, Gen, I’ve never really understood our little brother.”

“Me neither,” her sister concurred. “But I don’t feel like waiting around for them to break up the dinner table. I’d like a quiet night upstairs. They’re bound to want to play billiards, and I’m sure they’ll be relieved if we’re not here when they come in.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Esther set down her coffee cup. “Let’s make our escape before they remember our existence and their manners and come hotfoot.”

They abandoned the coffee tray and headed up the stairs. At the head of the horseshoe staircase Esther took Imogen’s hands. “Are you really all right with Charles living next door?”

Imogen held her sister’s hands for a moment and then shrugged with a tiny grimace. “I have to be, Essie. It’s what’s happened, and I can only deal with it with as much grace as I can muster. I just wonder why he decided to come down here. There have to be other country houses for sale.” She shrugged. “Anyway, he’s not going to be here that often—he’s far too busy with his law practice—and once we return to town, we’re bound to run into each other. I don’t intend to cause any embarrassing scenes, I promise you.”

“As if you ever would,” Esther stated. “You have never embarrassed anyone in public. What you do in private, of course, is neither here nor there.” She hugged her sister tightly. “Good night, love. Sleep well.”

“You too, Essie.” The two parted ways and Imogen closed the door of her bedroom with a small sigh of pleasure. The peace and quiet of her own room, with the gas lamps flaring and the fire crackling, the coverlet turned down on the deep feather bed, hot water steaming on the dresser, were all anyone could wish for on a freezing February night.

Daisy tapped on the door and came in on Imogen’s invitation. “Should I help you to bed, Miss Imogen?”

“Just unlace me, please. I can manage the rest.”

Daisy unbuttoned, unhooked, and unlaced the evening gown of sky-blue silk and Imogen heaved a sigh of relief as the constriction of the whalebone corset was loosened. “Instruments of torture,” she declared. “Why do we allow ourselves to be bullied into the things?” She held up the undergarment with an expression of disgust. “Men decree we should have a certain kind of shape, and we allow ourselves to be pushed and prodded into that form. It’s quite ridiculous and I’ve a good mind to stop wearing corsets altogether.”

“Oh, Miss Imogen, you couldn’t,” Daisy exclaimed with a horrified gasp. “Why, nothing would fit into the dress in the right place.” She gestured to Imogen’s small bosom, which the corset had ensured was both separated and uplifted, revealing a cleavage that was far from natural. “And you’d have no hips to speak of neither.”

Imogen poked at the padding at the hipline of the long corset. “Well, why should I pretend to have something that I haven’t?” she asked reasonably, and then went into a peal of laughter at Daisy’s shocked expression. “Trust me, Daisy, the day is coming when women will rebel against these man-made ideals of perfect form. We shall stride the earth in divided skirts, with natural waists and breasts and hips, and not give a tinker’s dam.”

Daisy looked as if she thought her mistress was run mad. She gathered up the despised undergarment and folded it into the armoire. Imogen sat down on the dresser stool to unroll her stockings. In truth, she knew that she and her sister were lucky in that neither of their parents had permitted them to wear the steel-boned corsets that were considered fashionable but were frowned upon by the medical profession. Whalebone was bad enough, but the steel rods must be agonizing, she reflected, reaching up to unpin her hair.

Daisy picked up the brush and began to draw it through the shiny mass that fell almost to Imogen’s waist. After a few minutes, however, Imogen said, “Oh, that will do for tonight, Daisy. I don’t think I have the patience for the full hundred strokes. We’ll do double tomorrow. You go to bed.”

“Well, if you’re sure, Miss Imogen.” Daisy proffered a white lace nightgown but Imogen shook her head.

“I’ll sit up by the fire for awhile. I’ve some reading I’d like to do.” She stood up in her chemise and drawers and reached for a damask and brocade dressing gown with a velvet collar and cuffs. “Go to bed now, Daisy, and sleep well.”

The maid curtsied with a murmured good-night and slipped from the bedroom. Imogen tied the girdle of her dressing gown as she went to the fire and stood for a moment looking down into the flames. She was wakeful; her limbs seemed to be twitching, although she knew it was an illusion. But there was a restless sensation in her belly, and the sense that her blood was sending energy coursing through her body. It was a most uncomfortable feeling and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, or even lie still enough to invite relaxation.

A strange sound came from behind her. She turned, puzzled. It was an odd rattling against the window. At first she thought it was the wind getting up as the night wore on, rattling the windowpanes. But then it came again. A scattering pitter-patter against the glass.

Someone was throwing stones at her window.

Imogen hurried across and drew back the thick curtain. She could see nothing at first, just the black square of night, and then, as her eyes grew accustomed, she could make out the milky light of stars and a full moon glowing silver through the trees. The rattle came again, and this time she saw the shower of little pebbles strike the window.

Intrigued she threw open the casement, leaning out. “Who’s there?”

“Get dressed, Gen, and bring your skates,” a familiar voice called up softly. “It’s a full moon on the lake.”

For a moment she was dumbfounded. Had she conjured him out of some deeply disturbed dream? He couldn’t possibly be standing down there, asking her to go on a midnight skating party . . . oh, once upon a time, yes. When they were lovers she would have adored the idea of such a romantic excursion, but this was ridiculous. He must have taken leave of his senses.

She found her voice at last. “Don’t be absurd, Charles,” she called down in a fierce whisper. “How could you possibly imagine . . . oh, you defy belief.” She drew back and pulled the window closed hard behind her.

Pebbles rattled again as she stood unmoving with her back to the window, still holding the curtain aside, her mind whirling with images of the past . . . of the times they had skated together on the lake in the deepest midwinter. It was rare that the lake froze hard enough in the soft and temperate south of England, but when it did, the whole village would gather on the ice. But Imogen had never skated at night, alone with Charles under a full moon. . . .

The shower became more urgent and she spun back, throwing open the window again. “What are you playing at, Charles?”

“I want to skate on the lake at midnight, and I have no one to skate with me,” he called back, a note of laughter in his voice. “Come on down, Imogen. You know how much you want to. It’s a beautiful night. Just bring a muff and a fur hat.”

And she did want to. That restless sensation seethed in her belly and her fingers drummed against the deep windowsill as she looked down into the dark garden below. Despite the starry sky and the full moon, the trees overshadowed the lawn and the gravel path that ran around the house, but she could just make out the figure of Charles looking up at her, his skates dangling from one hand.

“Come.” The one word was spoken in a voice that never failed to send prickles across her skin. It was a command, but it was also a promise, and once again she felt as if time had slipped and she had fallen back into a past where anything was possible.

She drew the window closed and slowly let the curtain drop. She waited for a second but there were no more pebbles. But she knew he was still there, waiting for her. As sure of her as he had ever been. Because he knew her so well, knew every inch of her.

She moved as if in a trance to the armoire. She was not aware of making any decision, but her body seemed to make up its own mind. As if in a dream she dressed in her riding habit—the divided skirt and jacket were the most practical garments for skating—woolen stockings, and the sturdy leather shoes she wore when tramping the woods. She plaited her hair into an untidy braid and pinned it on her crown and then crammed a sable fur hat over it, pulling it down to cover her ears. She slung a three-tiered fur-lined cape around her shoulders, buttoning it to the neck. Fur-lined gloves and a fur muff completed her preparations. Her skates were at the back of the wardrobe and she retrieved them, running a gloved finger along the blades. The edges were not as keen as they should have been.

She let herself out of her chamber and flew down the stairs. The great hall was deserted, but she could hear laughter from the billiard room. Duncan and his guests were obviously still up and, judging by the unruly edge to the laughter, were deep into carousal. Sharpton had not yet locked up, and she pulled open the heavy front door, stepping outside onto the gravel driveway.

Charles stood a few feet away, still beneath her bedroom window, holding his skates. “Come,” he said again in the same tone as before, holding out his hand, and her feet moved of their own volition, taking her towards him.

“How are your blades?” He took them from her as she reached him and ran his own finger over the edge. “Hmm. I’ll sharpen them when we get to the lake.” He held them with his own in one hand and slipped his free hand beneath her elbow, steering her across the frost-crisp lawn towards the line of shrubs at the far side.

Imogen said nothing because she could think of nothing remotely apposite to say. She was here on a freezing midnight, heading for a frozen lake with a man she had repudiated with every ounce of her being just a few months earlier. It made no sense. But there seemed no place for sense and reason on this moon-washed night.

They broke through the shrubs, and the lake lay spread out before them, an ice-covered expanse ringed with trees, the little summer pavilion in the middle, icebound and glittering in the moonlight. The boat house was padlocked, the various small watercraft that the family used in summer safely shut away. Imogen looked around her, as if seeing the lake for the first time. In the summer it would be a smooth, sunlit expanse, and she and Esther as children would spend long afternoons on the narrow dock jutting from the shore while Duncan tried, usually ineffectually, to fish from the edge. They would take a boat and row into the middle of the lake, where they would drop anchor and bob around peacefully, sunning themselves.

But that was then and this was now. And the lake seemed to exist in another world altogether.

Charles released Imogen’s arm and sat down on a fallen log, taking a small steel from his pocket. He ran the blades along it several times and then nodded, handing them back to her. “That’s better.” He stood up and gestured to the log. “Sit down and I’ll strap them on for you.”

In the same trance, Imogen took his place on the log and extended her feet one at a time as he squatted and strapped the blades to her shoes. He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. “My turn.”

Imogen realized as she watched him strap on his own blades that she hadn’t spoken since she’d left the house. Charles was conducting this entire mad enterprise entirely on his own, and without any apparent need for a contribution from her. Except, of course, for her presence.

She walked carefully across the crisp grass to the side of the lake and stepped gingerly onto the icy surface. The newly sharpened blades bit instantly, and she stood for a moment, getting her bearings and the feel of the ice beneath her feet, before she pushed off into a smooth glide that took her well into the center of the lake.

Charles stood for a moment watching her, wondering if perhaps he was more than a little crazy. In truth he hadn’t dared to expect her to come with him, and yet he had not been able to prevent himself from trying. And there she was, circling the lake in long smooth glides, her head lifted to the moon as she executed a perfect figure of eight on the previously unmarked surface.

He stepped onto the lake and pushed off, gliding towards her, crossing her tracks in a pattern of his own making. She had stopped to watch him approach, and when he came up to her holding out his hands, she took her own from the muff and let them lie in his. He drew her against him and moved gracefully into a waltz. They had no music, but they made their own as they had always done.

And when the unheard strains of the waltz died down, they came to a smooth halt in the center of the lake and stood still, looking at each other.

“Why did you buy Beringer Manor?” Imogen spoke at last, her voice sounding rather loud against the night’s deep quiet.