Obsession (12 page)

B
rook had endured a difficult six months trying to settle the smooth running of his family’s estates in Jamaica. The freedom of the slaves was supposed to bring peace on the island, but instead it seemed to ferment discontent. The unrest amongst the native Jamaican population throughout the island had culminated in a riot in Morant Bay last October. Thankfully Brook’s workers were not involved in the rebellion, as the Edgerton family were considered fair employers.

However, the political repercussions were unforeseen. The Jamaican Assembly voted away its independence and constitution and the island was declared a Crown Colony. Brook was called as a witness to the Royal Commission when Eyre, the Jamaican governor, was recalled to England for incompetence, and Brook and Hastings returned to England in the same ship.

Although thankful to be home at last and free of the cramped life on board ship, he was bitterly disappointed not to find his beloved wife there to welcome him home. Following Hastings upstairs to his dressing room, he was now regretting that he had not sent advice ahead of him from Kingston that he would be home within two weeks. Not only had he discovered that Harriet was in Ireland with her sister, but the house was unprepared for his return, the furniture still covered in dust sheets and the fires in the bedrooms and living rooms unlit.

It now became a hive of activity, but although Hastings was doing his best to encourage the fire one of the maids had lit in Brook’s dressing room it was bitterly cold, particularly, Brook remarked, after Jamaica where the temperature was seldom below seventy degrees.

He did not, however, wish himself back on that troubled island. He appreciated the fact that it had proved very necessary for him to go there, but not for so long a time. As his valet went to his wardrobe to find fresh clothes for him to wear, he said, ‘You know, Hastings, I had dreamt of this reunion with my wife every night of the voyage home. Of course I cannot blame her for not being here, but I do very much hope it will not be long now before she is back. I expect you are waiting to see young Bessie, too.’

He knew that Hastings and Bessie had an understanding – that when Hastings returned from abroad they would become officially engaged. Before he’d accompanied Brook to Jamaica they had spent all their time together whenever their half days off coincided.

He took his watch out of his waistcoat pocket. Had it not already been dark on this cold February day, in Harriet’s absence he might have ridden over to see his father who he knew would be agog to hear all the news of the plantations and their new manager; or Paul Denning and his sister, who would have been delighted to see him whatever the hour, they being less conventional than their neighbouring families who would have expected him to announce his intention of calling beforehand.

Paul Denning was a generous host with a cellar of excellent wines, and a French chef who produced exceptionally good food. When Paul was not in London, where he spent a great deal of his time, Brook found him jolly company – refreshingly outspoken and forthright, with a fund of slightly risqué jokes which he kept strictly from the ladies’ ears.

Perhaps he would visit Paul and his sister tomorrow, he told himself as Hastings helped him out of the large tin bath in which he had been soaking himself in the deliciously hot water – something that had been denied him throughout the two-week journey home. Denning’s sister, the widowed Mrs Felicity Goodall, was as good company as her brother. She was quick with her laughter and repartee, and openly flirtatious with men of whatever age. That particular trait was criticised by the wives, who amongst themselves considered her fast. He and Harriet, however, liked both her and her brother, finding their friendliness and lack of formality enjoyable after the strict adherence to convention of their other neighbours.

That Felicity Goodall was openly flirtatious with Brook had never annoyed or disturbed Harriet, who delighted in the older woman’s comments about her good fortune in having such a devastatingly handsome husband; nor had it worried her when they joked that if Harriet hadn’t ‘snapped him up’, the young widow, Mrs Goodall, would not have hesitated to do so. Instead, Felicity had become one of Harriet’s few close friends, frequently riding out with her in the environs of their homes, or calling on a rainy afternoon to play whist or backgammon whilst he, Brook, worked on his estate papers or visited his father to discuss the troubles with the plantations.

Brook also had reason to be grateful to Felicity for being particularly sympathetic each time his darling Harriet had miscarried, jollying her out of her inevitable depression with amusing descriptions – not always kindly – about her straight-laced neighbours’ activities. Widowed and childless as Felicity was, she always had time on her hands and, an excellent horsewoman, she never missed a day’s hunting. She was taller than the average woman and full figured, and when mounted, Brook had once laughingly told Harriet, she tended to look like the carved figurehead on a Viking ship as she sailed ahead of him over even the highest hedges despite her more precarious side-saddle.

On one such occasion, one of Brook’s male friends had remarked confidentially that were he not married, he would have been tempted to see if the iconic widow would respond to a discreet ‘little flutter’, as he put it.

Now, however, Brook gave Paul Denning and his sister no more than a passing thought. First thing next morning, he told Hastings, he would ride over to see his father, hoping that perhaps Harriet had written to him to say when she planned to return home.

The following morning, after a hearty breakfast such as he had never been able to enjoy abroad, he rode over to Firlbury to see Sir Walter. The old man was sitting in his favourite armchair in front of a blazing fire, his leg propped up on a footstool. The doctor had told him that in future he should drink less wine, whisky and brandy if he wanted to stay clear of these painful attacks of gout, but despite the warning, he had a decanter of sherry on the table beside him.

Disappointingly for Brook, neither had his father any word from Harriet, so having brought Sir Walter up to date with the situation in Jamaica, and eaten a delicious game pie for luncheon, Brook returned to Hunters Hall. It was growing dark as he rode up the drive. The trees on either side, their branches bare of leaves, looked ghostly in the darkening twilight as he hastened towards the house. Lights were shining from nearly all the windows, including those in the top-floor nursery wing, and the lovely old house looked wonderfully welcoming. As he drew nearer, Brook’s heart jolted, the thought striking him suddenly that, just possibly, so many lights were lit because Harriet had arrived home.

Spurring his horse up to the front steps, he dismounted, and Fletcher, his usual formal countenance wreathed in smiles, opened the big oak door.

Brook handed his horse’s reins to the groom who had appeared from the stables, and his heart pounded with excitement as Fletcher informed him: ‘The mistress is home, sir! I told madam you’d said you would be back before nightfall, and she is waiting in the drawing room for you.’

Harriet was home!
In a few minutes, he would see her, hold her in his arms, feel her soft body melting against his! His hunger for her was such that his legs were trembling as he bounded up the stone steps, threw his hat, gloves and whip on to the hall chest and divested himself of his coat, which he thrust at Fletcher. Pushing past the footman who was opening the drawing room door, he hurried into the room.

Harriet had arrived home early that afternoon. It had been quite late when the ferry from Dublin had docked and she had spent the previous night with Maire and the baby in the Adelphi Hotel
in Liverpool, and had boarded the first train to Leicester knowing that it would be so much quicker by rail than by coach. On reaching home soon after luncheon, she was told by Fletcher that Brook had already returned from Jamaica and had ridden over to see his father. This had given her time to see Maire settled in the nursery quarters with one of the maids to assist her before Brook’s return. She had then enjoyed a welcome bath and change of clothes. Mrs Fraser, the housekeeper, on learning of Bessie’s disappearance after the attack upon them, was to act as her personal maid until a suitable replacement could be found.

Harriet was hardly able to contain her excitement as she was helped into the beautiful coral and green glacé silk gown she had last worn on her honeymoon. Round her neck she wore the gold and coral heart-shaped locket which Brook had given her on her nineteenth birthday, and Mrs Fraser fastened a coral brooch on to the velvet ribbon tying back her hair.

Finally, satisfied that she looked her best, Harriet went up to the nursery to ascertain that Maire and Charlie were happily settled before going down to the drawing room to await Brook’s return. She welcomed the fact that, during the ensuing hour before he came home, she had time to consider how best she could break the news to him that they now had a baby son. She would inform him that he was upstairs with his nurse, probably asleep by now, and that Brook could see him in the morning.

Her excitement at the thought of being reunited with him after so long was tempered by fear of his reaction. Just for this evening, she told herself, nothing must cast a shadow on their reunion. Although Brook might rejoice that he was now a father, she dreaded the many questions he would be sure to ask; and which would necessitate her telling him a whole sequence of lies.

Her resolve to tell those lies gave way momentarily to a desire to tell him the truth in the hope that he would agree to raise Charlie as his son, or even as a foundling like Hastings, but she knew in her heart that he would not do so. He had spoken so often of ‘heritage’ and his ancestry, family traits when they had discussed the children they would have. He’d even confessed he longed for a daughter as well as a son, who would remind him of the little sisters who had died in his youth.

She had been wrong, she told herself, ever to have pretended Mrs Lawson’s baby was her own. Now it was too late – she had come to love him as if he was indeed hers and she could not contemplate parting with him.

To tell Brook the truth was to risk never seeing or holding Charlie in her arms again. If Brook insisted she part with him, to lose the two-month-old baby boy would break her heart. Her thoughts went to the little boy in the muslin-draped bassinet she had prepared for her own babies, his eyelashes lying like two tiny fans over his cheeks, which were rosy with health after Nanny’s weeks-long care, and knew that she now loved the infant every bit as if he was indeed her own. It was then that she knew without a doubt that she dared not risk Brook’s refusal to keep him. Nothing – but nothing – must mar their reunion. She would this very minute give all the staff strict instructions that there was to be no mention under any circumstances of Maire and Charlie, that she wished to be the one to surprise the master, who knew nothing of the baby’s birth. This evening, she told herself, she wanted Brook and his attention all to herself. If he had missed her even half as much as she had missed him, their reunion was going to be more wonderful than any moment as yet in their married life.

Thinking now of the night of love which was to come, Harriet wondered if it would result in her conceiving another baby such as the one she had miscarried in Liverpool. The thought reminded her of what she must later tell Brook, another lie: that Charlie must have been conceived just before he had gone to Jamaica, and that had she and Bessie not been beset by the fire and then attacked by robbers, she might not have given birth so soon. If questioned further she could tell him that, thankfully, the premature baby had progressed under her old Nanny’s expert care, and was now a healthy, happy infant of whom they could both be proud.

All such thoughts and anxieties vanished instantly as Brook came into the room. Disregarding the presence of the footman and Fletcher who was hovering to see whether his master required refreshment, Harriet abandoned decorum and ran into his open arms. For once, Fletcher, too, abandoned decorum and allowed himself to exchange smiles with the footman as they backed quietly into the hall and quietly closed the door.

Brook paused only briefly between his hungry kisses to murmur: ‘You cannot know, my darling, how terribly I have missed you!’ He did not even allow her a chance to tell him how unhappy she had been lying night after night alone in her bed missing him. It was almost as if they were back on their honeymoon and so much in love that they were unwilling to be beyond touching distance of each other.

Brook’s arms moving to her waist, he led her to one of the big sofas where, still kissing, they lay entwined. Smiling happily, Brook confessed that were it not for the imminent arrival of one of the servants to announce the readiness of their evening meal, he would undress her and make love to her then and there.

Looking at his flushed, handsome face, his dark eyes seeming to caress her, Harriet knew that nothing and no one in the whole world mattered to her more than her husband. They were home together at last, and even now he was vowing huskily that he would never go anywhere without her again.

Fletcher knocked discreetly on the door and came in to announce that Cook had planned to prepare a cheese soufflé – Brook’s favourite dish – to precede the roast pheasant for dinner that evening, and wanted to know what time he and the mistress wished to dine. Brook rose to his feet, his eyes dancing as he told Harriet he would make haste changing out of his riding clothes and hopefully manage to match her elegance at the dinner table in half an hour’s time.

When he returned looking immaculate in his black dress coat and trousers, white waistcoat and bow tie, he took her arm in his and led Harriet into the dining room, where Cook’s perfect soufflé followed by roast pheasant was served to them. As they ate, Brook wanted an account of Harriet’s activities whilst he had been away. Sadly, he said, he had had no news since her letter, which he had received soon after his arrival in which she mentioned her intention to visit her sister.