Jayne Fresina (7 page)

Chapter 5

What a curious color the sky was this evening, almost blood red. In an unusual, day-dreamy state, Lucy stared out of her bedchamber window, watching a slow, hot blush spread above the rooftops and chimneys. Finally she focused her drifting gaze on her stepmother’s face, crookedly reflected there beside her own in the leaded glass, and then she came back to earth with a thud.

“Truly, it matters not to me,” Lucy exclaimed. “You need not fuss.” She brushed away her stepmother’s plump hands, where they hovered around her shoulders like two nervous, over-fed sparrows. “I don’t need the necklace in any case.” This woman had never been motherly, and her last-minute attempt to be so now made Lucy’s skin crawl.

“But I wanted to give you something for the wedding, Lucasta.”

“I’m sure Anne will get more use out of it and besides, she has the bearing and the beauty for fine jewels. I would only lose it, no doubt, or break it.”

In the window, she watched her stepmother turn away, wringing her hands, making an extravagant show, when, to be sure, there was never the slightest intention of giving Lucy her necklace.

“I really don’t mind,” she repeated firmly. “Anne should have it when she marries. I would never do it credit.”

But when her stepmother suffered guilt, she talked herself from one lie to the next and there was no stopping her. “I always meant for you to wear the necklace when you married.”

Lucy smiled wryly, turning away from the window. “I thought you expected me to die an old maid.”

Her stepmother feigned affront, as if the idea of Lucy remaining a spinster, financially reliant on her father, never once occurred to her. “I knew you would marry eventually, Lucasta, of course, despite that willful temper.”

“As soon as father found someone desperate enough to take me on.”

Although she should be accustomed to Lucy’s sharp tongue by now, her stepmother made a show of being shocked and appalled by it. “You should not speak so, Lucasta. If only you might have learned a little softness, for I fear that cold tone will not please Lord Winton. It makes you sound ungrateful and churlish.”

God forbid. “Keep the necklace until Anne marries. Is there anything else you wanted?” After the exertions of the previous evening, she looked forward to her bed, her last night of freedom. Her stepmother being all “concerned” for her only multiplied the dread of what tomorrow would bring.

“Well, I’ll bid you goodnight then, Lucasta.” The woman finally retreated.

No sooner had the door closed behind her then there was another loud knock. She thought it was Anne, come to make certain that necklace was still hers, but it was not her half-sister, it was her elder brother, Lancelot, in a cheerful mood, eager to pinch her cheeks and tease.

“I don’t know why you ever agreed to it, Luce,” he exclaimed, pushing his way in. “I thought you’d die an old maid.”

She knew this was exactly what they all thought, although only Lance would have the impertinent guts to say it. Her brother might wonder why she now agreed to go like a lamb to the slaughter, but Lucy understood the way the world worked, even if she didn’t agree with it. Unless she married, there was no use for her. It was so for all women and the older she became, the narrower the pool of potential husbands. As her father had kindly pointed out, Lord Winton’s might well be her last offer.

She’d had her share of suitors over the years, most attracted to her bridal purse, none pleasing enough to encourage. With one cool, imperious glance, one sniff of contempt, she erected a set of forbidding, barbed walls before which even the bravest of knights would fail. She had exhibited no desire to please her suitors, showed none of the meek subservience expected of a wife, and was often reprimanded for a “smug and superior” facial expression. Few men would tolerate her disagreeable manner, when there were other women, younger, more pliant, biddable and willing, not to mention grateful. In the eyes of many she was an old maid now, a liability and a burden on her father, whose patience she’d worn beyond its limits. Not that he’d ever had much for her in any case. Finally, since she’d continued to hold suitors at bay with her icy demeanor, he’d chosen a husband for her.

Lucy’s dowry would compensate Lord Winton for the inconvenience of marrying her and he was willing to overlook her many failings, as long as she was a virgin. Ironically, this man in his sixties considered her, at twenty-six, too old for him. She’d heard he kept a mistress, so it was unlikely he would share a marital bed with her very often, if at all. Thank the Lord!

All things considered, she didn’t expect this marriage to trouble her unduly. She would survive in a loveless union, she supposed, as other women in her shoes managed. If they did it, so could she. Her choices, she believed, were practical, made with a cool head, no fanciful expectations of the slightest happiness. Once married, her life wouldn’t change much from what it was now, except she would have her own home to manage and no longer be obliged to witness her father’s disapproving face each day, or hear her stepmother making loud, awkward excuses to all and sundry for why she remained unwed.

Neither would she need to put up with her brother’s teasing.

Striding across the room, Lance asked if there was any advice she might need for the wedding night. Seven years her senior, he often took it upon himself to counsel her, whether she welcomed his “wisdom” or not. Tonight she was tempted to reply that there was nothing he could tell her. After her romp at Mistress Comfort’s, she was certainly no longer a blushing innocent. The memory of it brought a slight smile to her lips, which, fortunately, Lance, who could be extremely straitlaced and disapproving, didn’t see. Throughout the day, she’d caught herself reliving the previous evening’s adventure and smiling stupidly. But then something would intrude to bring her feet back to earth and her lips would straighten at once into the somber expression she usually saw staring back at her in any reflective surface.

Why had her mystery man come to Lord Winton’s house that day? Fearful of rousing suspicion, she daren’t ask anyone about him, and her maid had been unable to find anything out.

She sat by her mirror, one trembling hand reaching for the hair brush, anxious for something to quell her restless fidgeting. “I don’t suppose old Winton will trouble me often,” she murmured, while Lance critically surveyed his own reflection over her head. “He has a mistress, a fat ale-wife in Cambridge, I understand.”

“Ah, but he needs an heir to inherit his title and estate, sister.” He winked at her in the mirror. “Best get to it at once. We wouldn’t want him bringing you back again, if you fail to fulfill your duty. No returns!”

She smiled stiffly. “Thank you for your counsel, Lance. I shall, as always, pay it the reverence it deserves.”

“Now, now, sister. I warn you only for your own good.” He ran a hand over his closely cropped hair. “And make sure it’s a son. Girls are next to useless, as you know.”

Frowning, she slammed her brush down on the dresser. “And when will you consider marriage, Lance? When will you fulfill
your
duty?”

He threw back his head, laughing loudly. “At the last possible moment before they put me in the ground.” Although their father had not so subtly pushed Lancelot in the direction of marriage for the last few years, her brother still dug in his heels. Being a man, he might take his time choosing a wife and his standards were impossibly high. Lucy knew why. With such ridiculous requirements and expectations to be met, Lance always had an excuse not to fall in love. Like her, he saved himself from heartache. In the Collyer family, emotions were anathema, a weakness they couldn’t tolerate in themselves or anyone else. For Lance, of course, it was more acceptable he behave that way. Men were supposed to hold their emotions in check and, as he often said, “A man is only as strong as his stiff upper lip.”

But Lucy, previously as impassive and impenetrable as her brother, currently suffered some strange, unwanted feelings. They careened in circles within her, like playful, rambunctious kittens escaping a basket. No matter how many times she caught them and put them back, the little rebels found a way out again, eager to go exploring. Her notorious Collyer indifference was apparently thawing.

Leaving her brother worriedly inspecting his faultless appearance in the mirror, she wandered back to the window and contemplated the bloody sunset dripping over a cluster of Norwich rooftops.

Where was her farm-hand now? Would he go back to the bawdy house? She didn’t like to think of him with another woman and that annoyed her. Until now she never knew herself to be the fussy, possessive sort and certainly had no right to be in his case. Oh, but the mere thought of him smiling at another woman sent her belly into a rapid churn.

While her brother chatted away behind her, she ran a fingertip along the lead strips in the window. All her life she’d stared out of windows like this one, wondering what happened on the other side. Now she knew.

As her father would say,
knowledge can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.
In her case, Lucy was inclined to agree.

After her nighttime exploit at the bawdy house, she’d expected to feel less stifled anger toward the hypocrisy and double-standard, yet the experience only made her view life with even greater dissatisfaction. Rather than diminish the hidden flame of rebellion, her one night with a stranger breathed more air into the fire, like a hearty pump of the bellows. She was afraid she might let something out if she didn’t soon manage to control it again, smother it along with all her other needs, wants and emotions.

“I suppose I’ll miss you, Luce,” Lance said, struggling to express a feeling he barely allowed himself. “If you need anything, you must write to me.”

He’d always been protective of Lucy, but in recent years she’d felt him drifting away, his sex giving him many freedoms to come and go, while hers kept her confined. Still, she realized helplessly how much she adored her brother, despite the inequity. If only he relaxed once in a while. What he needed, she thought with a sudden devious smile at her own reflection in the window, was a night like the one she just enjoyed. A night of anonymous pleasure, of letting go at last.

“I’m sure you’ll soon forget me, Lance. When you return to London you will have many distracting entertainments.” Swinging around to face him, she teasingly named the many and varied young ladies who chased after him, much to his mortification. “You won’t be able to avoid our father’s ambitions much longer, you know,” she added. “He grows more and more keen on the idea of you marrying Lady Catherine Mallory and you won’t wriggle out of it forever. You and Lady Catherine, the Earl of Swafford’s eldest daughter…”

His face reddened, his shoulders squared, and then he was off on a familiar tirade against that particular young lady, whom he swore he would not marry if she was the last woman left standing. She was, he declared, a vengeful harpy, a savage, with a very bad temper and possibly a tendency to insanity. He had not, in actual fact, seen the girl in some time and, as far as Lucy knew, all this fuss was simply because, years ago, Catherine Mallory bit him on the buttocks, right through his breeches. There was hardly a soul left in England who hadn’t heard the tale, or been shown the non-existent teeth marks. An elderly maiden aunt once fainted into her supper when Lance dropped his breeches abruptly to illustrate the story. He would never let anyone forget, nor would he ever forgive the miscreant, and although their father was eager for a match binding the upstart Collyer name to an ancient, noble family like the Mallorys of Dorset, whose pedigree reached back to the Norman Conquest, it would be an uphill struggle indeed to change Lancelot’s stubborn mind.

In the meantime, their father appeased his need for control by marrying his eldest daughter off.

Lance took her hand, bowed his handsome head and planted a kiss on her knuckles. “Now don’t forget. Write to me, Lucy, if you’re ever in need… of…anything.”

“And what shall you do?”

He straightened up, face flushed. “Help you, of course! You’re my damned little sister, after all. No matter how irritating.”

“Thank you, brother. I’ll remember that.”

“Yes…well.” He nodded, frowning. “Good night then and…good luck.”

Once her brother departed, she turned thankfully to her bed again, only to be stopped by yet another late-night visitor.

Sir Oliver Collyer was a tall, spare man with graying hair receding a good few inches from his brow, giving his head the appearance of a goose egg. To make up for the lack of coverage on top, he wore a bodkin beard and let his hair grow longer down the back, so it sat upon his shoulders and his wide, lace-trimmed ruff in a thin straggle. His second wife, for whom appearances were so important, constantly fought to make him cut his hair, but he stubbornly prevailed in the battle. He would not be told what to do, or how to cut his hair, by any woman.

His fortune was acquired through overseas trade and further increased by a successful money-lending service to various needy gentlemen, even the occasional peer of the realm. Twenty years ago he reached a pinnacle when he earned his Knighthood. Now he forgot how his own father was a mere shopkeeper, his mother an illiterate worsted weaver. Nothing was ever quite good enough for him. Other people disappointed more often than they pleased, and his eldest daughter knew she was the worst offender.

Rather than enter her chamber, he stood at the threshold, hands behind his back, head stooped so as not to bang his forehead on the lintel.

“I trust you’re well prepared for tomorrow,” he intoned gravely, his gaze skimming the room suspiciously, expecting, no doubt, to find several pots bubbling over with witches’ potions. All women were a mystery to her father, but none more than she. He never looked at her, she knew, without remembering she was the reason her mother died. Lucy had heard the servants say his first marriage was a love match, a most unusual thing, and her father had never fully recovered from the loss. In his eyes, it had been all Lucy’s fault. But surely, she thought sadly, since her mother almost died after Lancelot’s birth and had been advised by the physicians never to attempt another child, their father was at least partly to blame for the pregnancy occurring seven years later, bringing his daughter into the world and taking his wife out of it in the same breath.