Marigold Chain (13 page)

She said,
‘What’s wrong? I can’t believe that you’re lost for words.’

Unmoved, he
continued tightening the saddle-girths at Caesar’s side.

‘
There’s
no hurry. I’ve a number of things to say to you. Later.’

Chloë
swallowed. ‘Monologue, then. It’s a pity everybody tiptoes round
your feelings. It gives you the idea you can do what you like.’

‘
It’s a
pity,’ returned Mr Deveril, ‘that no one taught
you
to heed a warning the first time it’s
given.’ In the brief glance which was all he gave her, the silvery
eyes sliced into her like a knife. ‘The last thing I need is
another bloody nursemaid.’

‘
That’s
true!’ Chloë’s smooth, wet face flushed with annoyance.
‘What
you
need is a
straightjacket! My goodness - if you’d only use your brain instead
of letting your stomach take over, we wouldn’t be out here getting
wet. And if you can’t keep away from a woman who obviously doesn’t
want you, then it’s because – despite all the melodramatics – you
haven’t got the backbone!’

Rain dripped
steadily from the brim of Alex’s hat. His face was white with
temper and a pulse throbbed in his jaw. ‘You’d be wise not to
continue taking advantage. If a man spoke to me like that, he
wouldn’t still be standing.’

‘
Don’t
hold back on my account.’

‘
I don’t
hit women. Not even silly schoolgirls with ideas beyond their
capabilities.’

‘
I got
you here, didn’t I?’ Chloë met his hard stare with one equally
challenging. ‘Do you really think I did this for my own
amusement?’

‘
Well is
certainly isn’t for mine!’ snapped Mr Deveril scathingly. And with
barely contained savagery, he threw her up into the saddle, hurled
himself astride Caesar and set off homeward, leaving her with no
choice but to trail in his wake.

The return ride
was extremely unpleasant. Rain continued to fall heavily and mud
flew against Chloë from the hooves of her borrowed mare and from
those of Caesar, whose pace, though fast, was never enough to leave
her completely behind. She rode on, grimly bedraggled and chilled
to the bone – and preferring both to the tongue-lashing she
suspected lay ahead of her.

When she drew
rein in the stable-yard, Mr Deveril had already dismounted and
stood waiting for her. He lifted her down with hands that bit like
a steel trap and, holding her elbow in the same manner, marched her
silently into the house.

As they gained
the top of the first flight, Matthew emerged from his doorway. The
lined, brown face was inscrutable as ever and only his prompt
appearance betrayed his anxiety. Chloë met his gaze with one
equally expressionless. Mr Deveril walked past him without a
glance.

‘
See to
the horses – and make sure Caesar is properly rubbed down.’ He
flung the command over his shoulder in a tone Mr Lewis had only
ever heard on the battle-field and knew better than reply
to.

Upstairs, Alex
closed the door, leaned against it and hurled his sodden hat across
the room. Then, folding his arms, he stared at his dripping wife
with rigidly controlled temper.

‘
Next
time you have an insane desire to risk your neck by interfering in
what is none of your business – do it without placing my horse in
like danger. You may consider it a justifiable hazard but I
don’t.’

Chloë looked
back, too cold and wet to think up anything clever. It seemed the
last straw that, while she got soaked and looked awful, Mr Deveril
got soaked and looked no less attractive than usual. She unclenched
her teeth, felt her nose begin to prickle and sniffed
despairingly.

‘
I’m
sorry. I thought it would be all right.’

The ice-blue
eyes flared dangerously.

‘
Don’t
lie. I’m not a fool and neither are you. You knew exactly what you
were doing. You wanted to stop me making an appearance at Sarah’s
wedding, so you did. On present showing, you’ll be doing my
breathing for me in a month. On the other hand, though today the
method was probably your own, the idea originated from Matt.
Didn’t it?
’

She jumped and
the drips that were forming pools around her accelerated their
passage. One droplet made its way down the side of her nose, now
decidedly pink, and she smeared it aside with the back of her
hand.

‘
If you
want to blame anyone,’ she said between chattering teeth, ‘blame
me.’ And unable to hold his gaze any longer, she peered down at the
strings of her cloak which her frozen fingers had manipulated into
a knot.

For a second,
Alex remained quite still, watching her. Then, ‘Oh hell!’ he said.
And, moving with suppressed violence, pulled off his coat, tossed
it away and closed in on her. ‘Hell,’ he said again, ‘and
damnation.’

Brushing aside
her stiff, unskilful hands, he busied himself with the tangled
strings. And suddenly, without looking, Chloë knew that the crisis
had passed.

Mr Deveril
demonstrated his superiority by quickly undoing her cloak and
casting it after his coat. Quite without warning and as much from
released tension as from cold, Chloë began to shiver. The blue eyes
travelled impersonally over her from dripping rose-gold hair to
soggily clinging hem.

‘
Turn
round,’ he said.

Chloë blinked.
‘W-what?’

He sighed.
‘You’re soaked to the skin and likely to take inflammation of the
lungs if you stay that way. Turn round.’

Her cheeks
flamed and her voice, when she spoke, was an unlovely squeak.

‘
My lungs
are quite healthy – and I can manage, thank you.’

Patience
snapped and became sarcasm.

‘
If you
think that, at a time like this, I’m likely to be mad with lust I
can only think that you rate your attractions rather too highly or
have forgotten the vital implications. Now – turn
round!’

And helped by
his hands on her shoulders, she did.

With head bent
and senses totally disordered, she felt him unlace her gown and
slide it from her arms to lie in a heap around her ankles. The
shivering intensified.

Alex untied the
tapes of the petticoats and they joined her gown on the floor.
Then, leaving her clad only in her shift, he threw open the closet,
pulled out a heavy chamber-robe and thrust it in her hand.

‘
Take off
your chemise and put that on.’ His mouth twitched almost
imperceptibly. ‘I won’t look.’

Feeling that
this wasn’t the time to argue, Chloë watched him turn his back and
did as she’d been told. When she signified her readiness, he came
back to her holding a towel.

‘
Now sit
down.’ He indicated a chair beside the fire and, with ruthless
efficiency, proceeded to dry her hair.

Under his
hands, the blood began to circulate again in Chloë’s limbs and
warmth returned slowly. When he had finished, she took the towel
and wound it round her head like a turban.

‘
Thank
you.’ She viewed him consideringly. ‘Should I offer to return the
favour?’

‘
Only if
you’re prepared to have your bluff called.’

‘
And if I
am?’

‘
You’d be
disappointed. I don’t,’ he said, ‘have any petticoats.’ And went
out.

Left alone by
the fire, Chloë stared thoughtfully down at her hands. There seemed
to be at least three Mr Deverils and when you never knew which one
you’d meet next, it was not a help.

Rather
desperately, she picked up a brush and started to disentangle her
hair.

~ * * * ~

London, the
Channel, Holland & Tunbridge Wells

February to
August, 1666

‘
Now the times are turned about

And the Rebels
race is run.

That many
headed Beast, the Rout

Who did turn
the Father out

When they saw
they were undone,

Were for
bringing in the Son.

That fanatical
crew which made us all rue

Have got so
much wealth

By their
plunder and stealth

That they creep
into profit and power;

And so, come
what will,

They’ll be
uppermost still:

And we that are
low

Shall still be
kept so,

While those
domineer and devour.’

The Court,
having been detained at Oxford throughout January by the birth,
three days after Christmas, of Lady Castlemaine’s fifth [and
allegedly royal] bastard, finally returned to London at the end of
the month and settled, bickeringly, into its habitual domicile of
the palace of Whitehall.

On February the
tenth, his Britannic and Protestant Majesty, King Charles the
Second, made reluctant response to the French proclamation of the
previous month and declared war on his Gallic and Catholic
Magnificence, King Louis the Fourteenth. The announcements of both
sovereigns, being little more than token gestures, passed largely
unnoticed by the English populace – who feared the Dutch more than
they feared the French and a further out-break of the pestilence
more than either of them.

On the twelfth,
Alexander Deveril and his half-French titular wife, together with
Messrs Beckwith, Fawsley and Lewis, left Oxford unregretted and
unregretting behind them and followed in the wake of the Court.
Giles returned to his lodgings in King Street, Danny to his uncle’s
home in the Strand and Mr Deveril and party to his house hard by St
Mary Overie in Southwark.

The house at
first sight was daunting. Built in the previous century of
patterned brick laid between bands of silvering wood, it stood in a
small wilderness that had once, long ago, been a garden and behind
high, crumbling walls through which one passed by means of an
exceedingly rusty gate. It was a large, projectoried building,
gabled and irregular with high, twisting chimneys and dark leaded
windows. Finial capped dormers peered down from above
corbel-mounted oriels and below these, the ground floor boasted
wide, square-ended bays between two of which stood an imposing
portal topped by a badly weathered cartouche. Chloë stood amidst
the weeds of many seasons and viewed it with a sinking heart.

Inside it was
worse. Layers of dust mantled a vision of sparsely-furnished and
decaying grandeur and the light, dimly filtering through smeared
and grimy windows, touched fraying brocade curtains, balding
Kurdistan rugs and festoons of cobwebs on the panelled walls. It
was gloomy, forbidding and cold.

Alex stared at
it as though he were seeing it for the first time and then turned
to Chloë, who was.

‘
Oh
Christ!’ he said with an unheard-of ring of feeling. ‘I’d forgotten
what a mausoleum it is. Do you want to go and stay with
Julia?’

‘
While
you and Matt stick pins in the curtains and sweep the dust under
the carpet? No, thank you.’ She peered at a particularly large
cobweb strung between the carved beams of the ceiling. ‘I think you
must have spiders the size of bats.’

‘
Probably. If you move the webs, the house falls
down.’

‘
Let’s
hope not,’ grinned Chloë. And then, ‘I’ll need help. Can we afford
a strong, healthy girl?’

‘
Just
about. The question is, will we find one who can cope with you and
Matthew?’ He held up a warning hand. ‘No – don’t say it. I can
guess.’

At which even
Matt cracked a smile.

*

On the
following day Mr Lewis produced a sturdy, smiling damsel named
Naomi and possessed of a head of hair that would, as Mr Deveril
pointed out, make her an asset to anybody’s cornfield. All that
mattered to Chloë was that her new handmaiden was industrious,
capable and willing. Within four gruelling days, assisted by Matt,
they had removed every vestige of a cobweb, swept the house from
top to bottom and washed all of the windows. And in the
uncompromising light of day, Chloë made an unexpected
discovery.

The house
was beautiful. Shabby and neglected, bereft of many of the pieces
of furniture and paintings that had once graced it, the structure
itself, when clean, revealed a variety of exquisite features in
nearly every room. Initials twined with lovers knots in her
bedchamber; the wide hall and broad, oak staircase; the dining
parlour with its carved beams and double linen-fold panelling; and
the graceful parlour, its ceiling painted in muted reds and blues
and where, pulling down a moth-eaten tapestry from above the fire,
Chloë found a stucco over-mantel depicting Persephone at the birth
of Spring. Around it in silver tracery were the words,
‘
Thou
art fairer
than the evening air, clad in the beauty of a thousand
stars
.’

When shown
this, Mr Deveril whistled appreciatively and ran one finger
delicately over a semi-naked dryad. ‘Why did I never see this
before?’

‘
Because
someone with terrible taste hung a poor representation of the
Battle of Jericho in front of it.’

Alex looked
closely into the face of Persephone.

‘
Be
grateful. If it’s valuable – and I think it may be - it would
probably have gone to provide cannon for the King. Like everything
else.’

Chloë said,
‘The words round the edge. Is that poetry?’

‘
Marlowe,’ said Mr Deveril absently. ‘
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter when
he appeared to hapless Semele, more lovely than
the monarch of the sky
… and so on and so
on.’