Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (43 page)

‘Not my trouble,’ I said. ‘It’s Perry. You were right about his drinking, he does take too much. But the fool must needs think he can gamble, too. He stole some bank bills of mine, and as if that weren’t bad enough he won handsomely with them. He was in my bedroom last night scattering gold on my bed as if I were a princess. It’s all right now, he’s brought my money back, and he’s won enough to keep himself for months. But I’ll never be able to teach him not to gamble if he’s a lucky one!’

Will pulled his horse up so sharply that it gave a little half-rear. ‘He did what?’ he demanded, his face white with shock, his brown eyes blazing.

I lost my smile. ‘Took some money of mine, and then won with it,’ I said lightly.

We said nothing for a moment and then Will loosened his reins and let his horse go forward.

‘Don’t you mind?’ he asked me. I could hear the anger behind his voice but he was keeping his tone steady until I told him more.

I chuckled. ‘Oh for God’s sake, Will, remember where I came from!’ I said. ‘I’ve lived among gamblers and thieves all my life. I’m angry that he should steal from me, but I had the money back within the day…and I can’t help but find it funny that he should win so well! Thousands and thousands, Will! He was shovelling money out of his pocket all over my counterpane.’

‘You were in bed?’ Will asked sharply.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘This all happened last night when he came home from gambling.’

‘And he just walked into your room?’ he demanded.

I pulled Sea up and faced him. ‘We are to be married,’ I said reasonably. ‘He didn’t come in to see me, he came to put the money back. I happened to be awake.’ I remembered Perry crashing into the chair and warning himself to be quiet and I smiled.

Will saw the smile and it fired his anger. ‘Goddammit, Sarah, you must be mad!’ he said loudly. ‘You are still talking about this damned marriage as if you meant it! If you go on down this road you will find yourself married in very truth and unable to get out of it.

‘For God’s sake, Sarah, tell me that you see now the crew you’re among. Lord Peregrine is a drunkard and a gamester and a thief into the bargain. His ma can do nothing more with him and so she lets him drink himself to death and damnation as quick as he can, and neither of those sluts his sisters are worthy to tie your laces. He’s cheated you, and he’s used your money to pay for his gambling, and you’re not even wed yet!’

Will’s voice had risen to a shout, and he shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts and then he said tightly, ‘You’d be a damn fool to go further with this, Sarah, and you know it. Promise me now that you’ll go back and tell Lady Clara that he’s stolen from you and that you are withdrawing from the betrothal. Write to Mr Fortescue and tell him what’s to do, and then order out the carriage and come home. I’ll wait to escort you. Stay any longer in London and you’ll be robbed blind.’

I shook my head. ‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘You’ve never understood me.’

‘Don’t understand!’ Will was thunderingly angry now. ‘Do you think I’m blind or as stupid as your pretty lordling? I’ve seen the quarterly accounts, I’ve seen the allowance you have! I’ve seen the bills come in! And while we’re mending and making do on Wideacre with broken ploughshares spliced and used again, season after season, and while we have old carthorses pulling heavy loads and no new stock at all this year, you’re preening before a glass to go out dancing with a gamester!’

‘Nonsense!’ I said heatedly. ‘I’ve spent very little!’

But Will would not listen. ‘You’re a damned parasite!’ he said roundly. ‘And he’s a worse one. He’s not even bedded you and the pizzle has hold of your money while you sit up there, on your horse, and tell me you’re not coming home! By God if I could pull you off the horse and make you walk home I would!’

‘Don’t you threaten me, Will Tyacke!’ I said as angry as he. ‘I’m not one of your alehouse drabs. I didn’t come to you for help, I can manage my own affairs. I don’t overspend and I don’t listen to a bawling from any man, least of all you.’

‘You don’t listen to anything!’ Will said. ‘You don’t listen to Mr Fortescue when he warned you off them, you don’t listen to me. You don’t even listen to your own common sense when the man has robbed you before marriage and you know his whole family will rob you later. Any woman with anything in her head but vanity and wind would call off the wedding and run for her life away from such a band.’

‘The wedding’s to be brought forward!’ I said, as angry as he and picking on the one piece of news which would make him angrier. ‘We’re to wed and be home on Wideacre by Christmas! So there, Will Tyacke, and don’t you dare try to tell me what to do!’

‘Brought the wedding forward?’ Will looked at me open-mouthed. Then he leaned forward and put his hand on Sea’s reins and drew the horse closer to his own.

‘Sarah, by God, I don’t know what game you’re playing,’ he said low-voiced. ‘I thought you’d taken up with them so they would take you into society, then I thought you were tied to him because you’d given up on yourself and you didn’t care what happened to you. Now you tell me he’s creeping into your bedroom and you’ve brought the wedding forward…’ he broke off. Then he suddenly dropped Sea’s reins as if they had burned him. ‘You whore!’ he suddenly yelled. ‘You stupid little whore! He’s bedded you, and you’re handing over your money and your land to the first man who’s ever looked twice at you!’

I gasped. ‘How dare you!’ I started but Will interrupted me.

‘Thank God I’ll not be there to see it,’ he said. ‘I promised myself I’d stay and see you safe in your home even if you went
through with this whore’s deal. I thought you’d need a manager, I thought you’d need advice. I thought you might need help against him, if he raised a hand to you or started robbing you.’ Will scowled. ‘The more fool me!’ he said bitterly. ‘I’ve met your sort before. They like a fool in the bedchamber, and they don’t care what he does to them. They’ve no pride and no sense. I’ll leave you to your flirting and your ruin. I’ll be gone, and I’ll never see Wideacre again.

‘There’ve been Tyackes on Wideacre since it had that name. A damn sight longer than the cursed Laceys, but you’ve won now. I give you joy of it. Little Lord Perry will have it mortgaged and lost within a year, mark my words. And then you’ll be Lady Sarah of No-Acre, and see how he looks to you then!’

‘Where would you go?’ I demanded. ‘Who’d have you manage them into bankruptcy, to teach their workers your sort of manners? Don’t come to me for a character for I’ll give you none!’

Will snorted with rage. ‘You know so little!’ he said witheringly. ‘And you think yourself so clever! I’ll go where I’m wanted, to Mr Norris’s estate in the north. And I’ll take a woman with me. I’ll take Becky, Becky and the children with me, I’ll wed her, and we’ll settle there. And if I don’t see you till you rot in hell it’ll be too soon for me.’

‘Becky?’

Will turned and his smile was mean. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Becky. The woman your mama in-law flung out of her cottage half-starved with three bairns. She’s my lover, didn’t you know? She lives with me with her bairns. I’ll marry her and take her with me. I was a fool not to do so at the first. She’s a lovely girl, warm and full of love to give.’ His cold eyes raked over me, over my rich green riding habit, my white face under the hat. ‘She’s a proud girl,’ he said. ‘She deserves the best and she knows it. She loves me, she adores my touch. She wants to give me a son. I’ll be happy with her in a way I would never be with anyone else. And she is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever had in my bed, or ever seen.’

I raised my riding crop and brought it down with one wicked
slash across his face. He snatched it off me and he broke it across his knee and threw the two pieces towards me. Sea shied and reared high, frightened by the noise and the anger, and I had to cling to his mane to stay on.

‘I hate you,’ I shouted. I was choked with abuse which would not come.

‘I hate you,’ Will replied instantly. ‘I’ve been a fool for months over you, but every time I have been with you I went home to Becky and she took me into her arms and loved me, and I knew that was where I belonged.’

‘You go back to her then,’ I said. My voice was choked with anger, and my cheeks were wet though I was not crying. ‘You go back to her and tell her that she is welcome to have you. I don’t want you, I never have wanted you. You’re a dirty common working man and I’ve seen thousands like you everywhere I have ever lived. You’re all the same. You’re all boastful and braggart, randy as dogs and weepy as chavvies. I’d rather have Perry than you any day. So go back to your slut, Will Tyacke, and her dirty little bastards. Go to your stupid farm in the north and rob and ruin another landowner. I don’t want to see you ever again!’

I wheeled Sea around and thundered away, forgetting all about the rule of not galloping in the park. I raged against Will, shouting abuse and swearing out loud, all the way back to the gate, and then as we trotted through the streets I swore under my breath, the rich filthy language of my childhood. I stormed up the steps to the front door and hammered on it loud as a bailiff. The footman gaped at me and I ordered him to take Sea around to the stables for me in a voice which made him leap to do my bidding. Then I raced up the stairs, two at a time, to my room and slammed the door behind me. I was so angry I could not think what to do or what to say.

I leaned back against the door, my hat squashed against the wooden panels and I shut my eyes. They felt hot in my hot face. Then I remembered what he had said about Becky, and I found I had clenched my hands into fists and I was cramming them both against my lips to stop me screaming in rage. He had told
me that he loved her, that he loved her body, that he loved to hold her in his arms, that he was going to marry her.

That last took the rage from me as if I had had the breath knocked out of me with a fall. I thought of him smiling and kissing my wrist and then going back to his cottage where she waited for him. I thought of her three little children around his table, pleased to see him home. I thought of her sitting on his lap in the firelight after the chavvies had gone to bed, then I thought of him holding her in his arms all night long. He had said that she adored his touch.

I stood with my back against my bedroom door staring into the room, silently, for a long time.

I went over to the writing table and I drew a sheet of the expensive notepaper towards me. It was embossed with the Havering crest in gold, and on the right-hand side I spelled out the London address. At Havering Hall they had notepaper with the Sussex address. One day soon I would be the new Lady Havering and all this, two sorts of notepaper and everything, would be mine.

It took me a white, for I could not write swiftly. I had to print the words and many of them were spelled wrong for all I knew. So it did not look as proud and angry as I wished. I wanted to hurt him, to cut him to the heart.

To Will Tyacke,

Your behaviour and language in the park today were not what I expect of one of my farm workers. I would be grateful if you would terminate your work on Wideacre forthwith and leave my land.

Yours faithfully,

Sarah Lacey.

Then I wrote another:

Dear Mr Tyacke,

You have no right to speak to me as you did today, and you know it. I pledged my word months ago to marry Peregrine
Havering and of course I intend to hold to that promise. Your own affairs are your own concern. I have no interest in them. If you wish to leave Wideacre I am sure I am very sorry to see you go. If you wish to stay I will accept your apology for speaking in an improper fashion.

Yours faithfully,

Sarah Lacey.

I slid that version to one side and went to look out of the window. Then I turned and went back to the little writing table. I was in an anger hotter than anything I had felt in years, perhaps ever. I could not let it go with formal words.

Dear Will,

How dare you talk to me like you did today!

You must be mad to even dream of speaking to me as you did!

Let me tell you two things. One is that I am your employer, the squire of Wideacre and shortly to be Lady Havering. One word from me, one word and you don’t work in Sussex any more. And don’t think that you could get work elsewhere. There isn’t an employer in the country who would take you on after I tell them that you abused me to my face, and in the coarsest of terms.

I have no interest whatsoever in your messy little intrigues with your woman, nor in your opinions. I want you gone from Wideacre at once, but before you leave I insist that you come to London and see me at once. At once, Will.

Sarah Lacey.

I sat with that version before me for a long time. Then I sighed and pulled forward another sheet of paper. The anger was seeping away from me.

Dear Will,

I am angry with you, and I am sad. You are right and I am a fool. I have lived my life here in London, and also with them
at the Hall as if I were blind, as if I had forgotten where I was raised and what mattered most to me.

You don’t understand how it is with me and Peregrine, and I let you misunderstand me. He comes to my room because he is like my brother, like a little brother to me. I can’t withdraw from the marriage – he needs me, and I like how I am when I am with him. I like to give him the care and courage he needs. I have never given anyone anything, except one person once. And I failed her at the last. Now there is someone who needs the things I can do, who looks to me for help. I want to be good to him Will. That cannot be wrong. Forgive me, it is truly what I want. I am afraid it is all I am fit for.

Your friend,

Sarah.

The clocks chimed softly; it was eleven already. I should be changing for breakfast at noon, and then I should change again to go out to the princess’s luncheon. I swallowed experimentally. My throat was sore. It was not sore enough to let Lady Clara excuse me from lunching with the princess. I put my hand to my forehead. It was hot, but not hot enough. I would have to go. I would write a letter and put it in the post for Will before I went.