On a Making Tide (29 page)

She said, ‘Bugger his mother’s pleasure,’ to see how they would react. Two loud sniffs of disdain were pleasant indeed.

Harry arrived after dark, seen across the lawn and Deer Park by lantern light. As well as the young baronet, there came a posse of servants, all new faces, one to serve the dinner that the others carried. Food appeared from wicker baskets; a tureen of soup, a covered salver, which opened to reveal half a dozen cooked beefsteaks in an Italian sauce. There was a long
bain-marie
containing a whole cooked turbot, with just enough hot water in the base to keep the fish hot, and all the sauces and spices needed to make a memorable meal. Crockery and cutlery, fine bone china and heavy silver, knives, forks, spoons, all sparkling in the light shed by high six-branched twin candelabra. In the pool of light around the linen covered table it was hard to recall that they were in a two-roomed cottage.

‘I swear my mother fags me out more than any trollop,’ Harry said, tucking into a thick slice of game pie, while the other dishes were prepared for serving.

He had offered neither explanation nor apology for his abandonment or the daylong absence, which Emma was determined to be cross about. She had even planned what to say to this wayward aristocrat, to the effect that
good manners clearly had nothing to do with birth. But it died on her lips when he appeared, wearing that engaging grin.

And this was a different Uppark Harry, less raucous and boisterous, a quieter fellow, who seemed to lack the confidence that had marked him out at Arlington Street. There was something almost shy about the way he hogged the conversation, telling wild tales of schooldays and grand tours to impress her with past exploits rather than present behaviour. But the voice was still warm and deep, and his sensibility, when he chose to cease boasting, was almost feminine in its gentility.

Claret clearly affected him, and his conversation grew more bold with consumption, peppered with crude expressions that owed more to bravado than necessity, but Emma didn’t flinch from rude words, since he failed to use one she had never heard before. As he talked Harry revealed his love of horses, food, wine, women and singing. But it soon became clear that most of all he loved Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh, Baronet.

Like most men he was the centre of his universe. Indulged since birth with every advantage, Harry saw himself in a flattering light, and never stopped to consider that his behaviour might be suspect. How could it be when he had so many friends prepared to share his company and to rock with laughter at his witticisms? He saw himself as loyal, brave and truthful, with no sense of his selfishness.

The meal finished, and another bottle uncorked, the servants were sent back to the main house with instructions to rouse their master, with breakfast, at seven of the clock. They had hardly got through the door before Harry was on her again, half carrying her through to a bed more cramped than the one they had occupied the night before. Their
lovemaking
was just that, far removed from the previous frenzied coupling, and Emma had no cause to be disappointed, pleased to discover that the magic sensation she had experienced in the back of that coach was no one-off pleasure.

‘My mother would see me wed if she could, but that’s a fate I’m determined to avoid as long as possible.’ A dollop of coddled egg slipped off the spoon on to Harry’s hairless chest. The ‘Damn!’ turned to a grin as Emma leant across him and licked it off.

‘Mind you, Green Eyes, it would be worth it just to get her to cease her carping.’

‘Is she aware with what you stuff your tied cottages?’

Emma only realised the
double
entendre
when Harry raised a comic eyebrow, before his chest heaved with laughter. Emma joined in, which pleased him mightily, and it was a couple of minutes before he returned to the subject. ‘Finch will tell her about you. The swine tells her everything, regardless of the silver with which I cross his palm. I daresay he duns my mother for the information he passes on.’

‘Why pay him if he’s not silent?’

Harry was slightly startled by that, until he recalled that Emma was
unused to servants, therefore had no idea of what a duplicitous bunch they were. ‘To prevent him from making things up. He’s her man, and he’ll go the minute she does. But now I have to suffer him. Damn all servants to hell, I say.’

‘I must return to Mrs Kelly’s.’

There was the faintest pause while he considered this. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I struck a bargain with the Abbess.’

‘Am I permitted to know how?’

For the first time Emma saw real anger in his face, a clouding over of his features that quite altered Harry’s appearance. And the furious gesture that accompanied his ire sent the rest of his breakfast flying. ‘You are permitted to know only what I tell you, and if you don’t like it, you can damn well clear out now.’

Then he bellowed to his valet, who was waiting in the small parlour. ‘Where, in the name of Christ risen, are my breeches?’

What followed was an exercise in calculated fury, as the valet, John, was treated to a stream of abuse for being cack-handed and for the state of his master’s clothes. It was important to Harry that this girl knew her station, that he decided what happened and what did not. Emma, wrapped tightly in a sheet, had the good sense to stay silent, warned by a look from Harry’s man, who was coolness itself under the onslaught. It was the only look John threw her way, but when his irate master had slammed out of the cottage door, he said, ‘Best to let such gales pass, I say.’

‘He is often in a temper?’

The valet glanced at her, with a look that told Emma he was wondering if he could trust her. Then he smiled. ‘Sir Harry cannot abide things going against his wishes, and since his wishes are of the moment he is given to flying off the handle.’

‘Am I the first to occupy this cottage?’

Another long pause. ‘I doubt I’ll break a confidence when I say no.’

‘Should I stay or run?’

Emma delivered the question in the same flat tone, though she felt anything but calm. She had no idea what she was being offered and no idea what she might be sacrificing. But aristocrats were not always above marrying beneath their station, and whatever reputation she had acquired it was not enough to damn her if Uppark Harry wanted her. Mrs Kelly’s nuns had mentioned predecessors who had gone on from Arlington Street to a life of grace and comfort.

Reality should have intruded to convince her that such a thing was impossible; the mother alone, close and concerned, would be an obstacle too great to surmount. The big house through the window, with its imposing façade and dozens of windows looking out over several thousand rolling acres, was unlikely to be the place for a girl raised in an earth-floored cottage. But she was barely fifteen, and tender enough in years to allow
fancies to override indisputable barricades to dreams that might one day come true.

‘You will have pleasure here, miss, that I can say without fear. What else you will have I cannot essay, or how long it’s duration. Who knows? It may last quite a while.’

John had turned away as he said that, busy with his master’s discarded clothes. He didn’t want to look into those green eyes when he suspected that he might be required to tell a lie.

‘You must command a horse,’ said Harry. ‘If you do not, it will command you.’

‘Much like a woman, what?’

Charles Greville shook slightly as he laughed at his sally, although it had earned a ghost of a smile from his host and a nod of acknowledgement from Emma. She was just glad to be in the stable block out of the fierce heat of the summer sun. Harry had forbidden her a parasol on the grounds that it might scare the horses. ‘They have all the instincts of an animal that, in its natural state, is prey to everything that lives off meat.’

One of the biggest animals, a gleaming black with wild eyes, snorted, as if to give the lie to that remark. Harry moved towards it, patted it carefully to avoid being bitten by the sudden display of large white teeth. ‘Come Emma, say hello to Montenegro.’ He clapped hold of the beast’s ear, which stilled the constantly moving head. Emma walked towards it, eyes wary for the sudden thrust that presaged danger. She had been bitten by a horse before and harboured no desire to repeat the experience. But caution was not fear, so she proffered a flat hand, so that he could smell it and search for a morsel.

‘Greville?’ Harry asked.

‘Never fear, Harry. I am all for a calm cuddy and a canter on a nice dry day, but you can keep your fiery thoroughbreds to yourself.’

‘You don’t know what you’re missing. There can be no pleasure greater than flying across the Downs on the back of a stallion like this. It feels like the very edge of extinction.’

At that point Montenegro tried to bite Emma, but she moved back sharply.

‘Do you ride, Green Eyes?’

‘I have sat astride a horse many times, but never with a saddle.’

He grinned. ‘Would you ride Montenegro here?’

‘Not first off I wouldn’t. Happen I would if I got to know him.’

‘She’s game, Greville.’

‘Would that I was a hunter, then.’

If Harry noticed this foray, aimed at someone he claimed as his property,
he didn’t let on, leaving Emma at the mercy of a stare that was nothing short of hungry. Those soft grey eyes could look ravenous, Emma knew, since she had seen that look on Charles Greville’s face before. It was a moot point as to whether it was fitting coming from such a close friend to the man who had, at present, exclusive rights to her bed.

Slim, with narrow shoulders and a pale complexion, Greville seemed fastidious in the face of Uppark Harry’s healthy outdoor manner. He smiled a lot, but in a way that seemed to question the intelligence of his companions. And his constant sly barbs were evidently designed to establish that he was Harry’s intellectual superior, and that he was not in the least cowed by his friend’s wealth.

‘I’ll wager ten guineas, Green Eyes, that you’ll never manage this beast,’ said Harry.

He had no idea that one of the games she had played as a Cheshire child had been catching and mounting the horses of the local gentry. With nothing but a makeshift halter and bare legs she and her friends had dared each other to get astride and control some very unwilling beasts. They hadn’t been thoroughbreds, of course, but to Emma one big strong horse seemed much like another.

Montenegro snorted again, this time seeming to agree with his owner that she was not fit to ride him. ‘What can I possibly lay against your ten guineas?’

‘That,’ Greville said emphatically, ‘is an unnecessary question.’

Harry’s eyes were twinkling. ‘Ten guineas to a kiss, Emma.’

‘You can have a kiss any time.’

‘You decline such a generous wager?’

‘You must teach me to ride with a saddle and reins first.’

‘Are we not too late for that, Harry? A bit of sporting carnality, what!’

Harry was finally riled enough to glare, receiving in response from Greville a shrug that almost implied that it was someone else who’d spoken.

‘Groom!’ Harry shouted. ‘Get out Register and bring a saddle.’

Register was a mild mannered twelve-year-old gelding, not large. ‘Now that,’ Greville declared, as Harry pulled himself on to its back, ‘is my kind of mount.’

‘First, Emma, I will show you some very simple things, then you must try to ride Register yourself.’

‘Not in that saddle, I presume, Harry. I know from just walking down Rotten Row that ladies do not sit astride a horse.’

‘Do you think I would teach you to ride like that? Do you think you can mount Montenegro with a side-saddle? No Green Eyes, you are going to have to learn to ride like a man.’

‘In a dress?’ she asked.

‘No. I fancy you in a pair of breeches.’

Emma heard Greville draw in a deep breath.

‘And not today. Now, you watch me in the paddock while I show you what you must do.’

Most of what he said she already knew: that you turned a horse with your knees as well as the reins; that if you sat back they walked and if you sat forward they would canter. It was the difference the saddle made that intrigued her, the way it altered the manner in which the rider sat, the support afforded by the stirrups and the gentle use of the reins.

‘Tomorrow, Green Eyes,’ he said finally, sliding off Register, ‘I will bring you some breeches, so that I may try them on you.’

That made Greville grunt.

It was a strange life at Uppark, divorced in her little cottage from what happened at the great house. Harry’s mother was a generous chatelaine, host to everyone in the neighbourhood with any kind of social pretensions, but also keen to receive her equals from the other great Sussex estates. Emma saw carriages arrive and depart; almost knew by the quality of each which visitors would detain Harry and which would not. She suppressed the desire that filled her to be part of the entertainments at the great house. This was the stuff of her dreams, gilded folk in gilded surroundings, yet here, though they were within sight, they were so far from touch that they might have been on the moon.

On many days she was left alone, save for those who delivered her meals or the maids who came to attend to her personal requirements. The latter, taking on the task in rotation, were like some silent order of nuns, carrying out their tasks without either a look or a word, clearly of the opinion that they were in the presence of sin and likely to be damned by association. They carried away the soiled bed sheets as if they were stained with the plague.

The footmen were the opposite, chatty, indiscreet, happy to while away time in the company of a pretty young girl, so she always knew what was going on up at the house: who had visited, how they stood in relation to the master and mistress, what their manifest faults were. Rank had no bearing on this; they castigated dukes and duchesses as much as the latest visiting curate. No one was fit to hold a candle to the owners of Uppark. And Emma could see in their eyes that they too dreamed of a life of ease, of having her in the same way as their master – which sometimes rendered her cruelly coquettish.

Her lover was with her as often as his social duties permitted, hours, day or night, when the drapes were pulled, all servants barred from entry and the two occupants naked and entwined on every available surface. Emma had no idea that Harry was insatiable, believing, partly due to the teasing of her old Arlington Street companions, that all men under a certain age were like this. And she was no victim. Having discovered the pleasure to be had from sex, she was as willing as he to experience it.

‘God, if Montenegro was a man the beast would not disdain to have you on his back.’

Emma was dressed not only in a pair of Harry’s breeches, but his shirt, coat and boots as well. She even had his riding crop and was standing, legs akimbo, before her baronet, a bottle of claret in her other hand. He was clad in one of her silk dresses, a compliant victim in the game they were playing, in which Emma, with an occasional sharp flick of the crop, was about to ravish Harry’s fair maiden. They had played this before, swapping roles with much laughter, especially on the first trial when Emma ripped her dress trying to get him out of it.

‘I will ride him soon,’ she said, taking a deep swig from a bottle already three-quarters empty. Then she dropped her voice to a rough
approximation
of a man’s. ‘But tonight I shall ride you like the beast you are.’

It was impossible not to laugh at Harry’s simpering response, as he cowered on the floor, arms raised pleading for mercy. Then Emma, struggling to contain herself, swung the crop too hard, missed her lover’s hands and caught his cheek. Instantly she saw the expression in his eyes change from false fear to genuine anger. She tried to step back, to say she was sorry, only to be caught by the foot and tipped on to her back.

The curses flew from his mouth in an incoherent stream. There was spittle on his lips and he had bunched both his fists. She was stunned momentarily as one caught her on the side of the head. Only her thick hair protected her from real harm. Then he was astride her, fists flying until he grabbed the crop from her hand. The blows from that began before he was on his feet.

‘Whore, bitch, strumpet, cunt, whore!’

He grabbed her hair, dragging her head up so that he could slap her hard, hauling at the collar of his coat, demanding she get the damned thing off. Her pleas for release and forgiveness were ignored. In his passion, his breath rasping, Harry lacked true focus, flaying her instead of administering the beating he intended. Emma curled into a ball to protect herself so he kicked her with his bare feet. Then suddenly he was gone, still in her dress, striding towards the Deer Park, nursing his badly wounded cheek.

It was Greville who came the following day, with the object of making the peace. He took hold of Emma’s chin and turned her this way and that to examine the bruises on her forehead, as well as the black eye, which was already turning a horrible shade of yellow around the edge.

‘You will be gratified to know that Harry bears a scar of his own, a thick red weal across his cheek.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I am a friend.’

‘He should be here.’

‘No, Emma,’ Greville replied emphatically, with rare certainty. ‘Never expect that of Harry Featherstonehaugh.’

‘So you came all the way from London to do his crawling for him.’

‘I had arranged to come today anyway. And disabuse yourself of the notion that he will ever crawl. He is too secure in his station ever to do that.’

His voice wasn’t envious exactly, or angry. Resentful, perhaps?

‘If you are not here to say sorry, Greville, why have you come?’

‘As a friend, Emma.’

‘What kind of friend?’

Greville smiled, thinly. ‘As much of one as you would let me be. But I am Harry’s friend too, so I seek to repair a breach between two passionate creatures who are fond of each other.’

‘Can it be repaired?’ Emma asked, imbuing the words with as much drama as she could muster.

‘It can, if you wish it to be. Do you wish it to be?’ Emma nodded. ‘Harry means a great deal to you?’

‘Yes!’

Emma spoke with a passion she didn’t feel. Harry’s beating had knocked the gloss off infatuation. She was a kept woman, indulged with a degree of luxury, free from the commotion of Arlington Street, not sure if she was entirely happy, not sure what to do about it if she was not.

Greville sighed and dropped his eyes, then looked up again. ‘Then let time heal things. Say nothing about the fact that you struck him.’

‘Accidentally.’

‘Say nothing,’ he insisted, ‘and seek nothing from him. Act as though naught has happened.’

‘You have seen my face, Greville.’

‘Call me Charles. The bruises will fade. Harry’s mark will go too. And so that you are not reminded of it he has undertaken to go hunting in Kent.’

‘I’m to be abandoned, then.’

‘Never in life!’ Greville exclaimed. ‘I have undertaken to be your caretaker while he is away.’

Charles Greville was all attention to Emma for two weeks, in which her bruises faded. As soon as they could be covered with powder, her riding lessons recommenced under the tutelage of the Uppark grooms. Emma’s caretaker watched with amusement as she wooed the men and boys of the stables with disingenuous ease. Ogling her in her breeches interfered with their duties, anyway, but all she had to do was smile at them and they dropped whatever they were engaged in to come and proffer advice. Since several of them had ridden Montenegro on his daily exercise, that help proved invaluable. Within ten days they were taking her along on her gelding, so she could see the thoroughbred outside his stall.

‘I believe I’m ready now,’ Emma said, as she dismounted, breathing heavily from a long gallop. Greville gave her a shawl to wrap round her legs, lest she be observed from the house, walking towards the cottage, attired like a man.

‘Without Harry to witness it?’

‘Let it be a surprise.’

‘I would not want it to be a shock, Emma.’

The head groom was just as reluctant, knowing how much his master esteemed the animal. There was an Uppark race meeting due in a fortnight and if Montenegro wasn’t fit to ride it would be his back that would feel the lash. But head groom or not, he was just as subject to flattery and female wiles as his younger assistants. And he had no real notion of how this young filly stood with his master. Happen he would cause himself as much trouble by saying no as yes. So he consented to Emma being led on the morning exercise, though he would not countenance any notion that she should be on the animal when it turned for home.

‘For ’e’ll have you off, sure as ever it was, what with his reckoning on a stall and a bag of oats. Folks often enquire if ’orses be stupid, an’ I tell ’em, no error, that a horse is wise enough to know what it wants.’

There was mist on the Downs the day they set out. One of the grooms, named Caleb, had held Montenegro’s head while she mounted, had seen her pale slightly as she observed how far she had to fall. She had a mounted groom on either side, Caleb with a lead rope that would hold the monster back should he be tempted to take off. But on this morning the normally fiery animal was as benign as a lamb.

‘Reckon he’s taken to you, miss,’ said the head groom. ‘Horses often like girls more’n men, I’ve found.’