Parthena's Promise (8 page)

Bertram took his position before the fire even though it was not lit. He held his hands behind his back as if it was still giving out warmth. His girth, she noticed, seemed to be growing as the weeks passed by.

“You have been on a pointless, yet perilous journey of folly. Are you certain you escaped it… unharmed?” he asked, and watched her reaction closely.

She smiled back at him, innocence personified. “I do not know what you mean, Cousin Bertram. Why would the nuns hurt me in any way? In fact, it was a joy to see the place again. I loved the Abbey School and it had not changed much at all.” She straightened her skirts as she spoke. She hated lying, but as she had decided she hated the man even more, she did it with great ease on this occasion. “It gave me time to think about things here, and how we may have got off on the wrong footing. But as you are no doubt aware, I was grieving deeply for my poor father. I really do not know what possessed me to think of taking such a position. Of course, I should stay here and help you. After all, some of the tenants have been with the farms for generations and I should introduce you to them.” She saw him pale.

“You took it, Parthena, because there are few options for you to consider, and staying here is not one of them. I assure you that…”

Loud knocking at the door interrupted his words.

“Damnation! Who the hell can that be? If it’s a tradesman I’ll have his skin for coming to the front door. Your father was too soft with these people. They show no respect!” He stormed out of the room muttering under his breath.

Foul words under bad breath, she mused.

Before Hubbart could answer it, he was at the door. He had dispensed with the services of her father’s butler, Mr Kendal, as soon as he had been summoned to the estate. He was a man who trusted no one and who was almost paranoid about people getting close to him or his business affairs.

Bertram flung the door open wide and was ready to blast the unsuspecting figure who he found at the other side of it with his outrage, when standing innocently on his doorstep was a well-dressed gentleman. However, he was surprised at the tall figure. His athletic frame accentuated by his high hat and fashionably cut coat struck of money and position. This was not a vision he obviously had expected to see.

“Yes? Good day, sir?” Bertram tried to regain his composure.

Jerome looked at the portly figure in front of him. “Is the master of the house in, I would like to call upon him?” he asked. Bertram was at the point of bursting; could he be undermined any further, he wondered, by women or circumstance?

Jerome almost smiled as the man’s chest filled with air at the indignation that he had been taken for the butler. “I am he! Not a butler, but the owner of this grand estate!” he snapped out his words, and in that moment Jerome knew the man was completely wrong-footed. This was a meeting he was going to enjoy.

Chapter 10

“My greatest apologies, sir,” Jerome said, lifting his hat allowing his dark hair to rest freely upon the collar of his coat. He removed his hand from his pocket and offered Bertram his card.

Bertram took it as he regained his composure and stared at the man’s address in The Inns of Court, London. “My dear sir, to what do I owe this pleasure? Please, come in.” Bertram stepped back and shouted, “Hubbart!”

The woman appeared from the servants’ corridor. “Yes, Mr Munro…” She stopped and looked at Jerome. “Oh, another visitor! I mean, let me take your coat, sir,” she said and busied herself around Jerome.

“Arrange for a tray to be sent to my study,” Bertram ordered. “Now, do tell me to what I owe this visit, sir?”

“I bumped into an old friend of mine, Mr Charles Tripp. I believe you and he are well acquainted and he suggested that I called. Is this a good time?” Jerome let his voice drift off as Bertram walked ahead towards a door that he presumed was the study. However, he stopped and stepped back as he had seen Thena appear in the doorway opposite. He looked at her and winked. She was even more beautiful when dressed in her normal finery; those beautiful eyes looked pleased to see him. Her manner was so relaxed in her natural surroundings.

She quickly walked over to him as she had that first night. It was only a few days ago, yet in such a short period of time she had woven her magic upon him. How much he knew of her, her body, her secrets and her plight and how much more he would love to know. If his mother had introduced him to a daughter of her society friends, the dating ritual would have played itself out and they would be wed after months of polite visitations yet they still might be as strangers on their wedding night. Before the wars he would have been happy with that, but not now. He valued life, passion and hope. He cared not for trinkets and trivia. With Thena he would know the real woman, the true self that normally hid behind a veneer. A woman strong enough in mind and body to do what was needed to survive. She had ventured across the open moor trods on her own! There was a woman who stood at one with nature and he was even surer now that she was the woman he sought. His life’s partner, his soul mate, but first to sort out this mess; if only she would welcome the man to her that he was. His faerie of the night had found him. He had only a second; Bertram was saying something to him as he walked on, lost in his thoughts, presuming Jerome would follow him, but Jerome quickly mouthed to her, “Be here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning; you will have a visitor.”

Bertram turned and saw Jerome looking back. He realised who must have caught his attention and moved to stand between them and cleared his throat. “Please let me introduce you to my ward, Miss Parthena Munro, my cousin, sir.” He looked at her as if she were a naughty, intrusive child.

“I am pleased to meet you, miss.” He saw her eyes glint with humour.

“This gentleman has come to talk to me from his offices in London, on business. We will finish our discussion later, Parthena. Now do run along, my dear,” Bertram instructed and Jerome saw a distinct flash of anger cross her eyes, but he raised an eyebrow and she took the hint.

“Of course, cousin, until later, Bertram and Mr ...?” She looked to Jerome and smiled – at least with her lips.

“Mr Jerome Fender at your service, miss,” he said, and bowed slightly. He saw the faintest hint of a smile play on those lovely sensuous lips and decided that the two of them had played this scene out long enough. He looked at Bertram and gestured toward the man’s study. “Should we?”

“Of course,” Bertram said, and led him into the room, closing the door tightly. The brief discussion of the weather and the state of the older roads ended once a tray was in place and Mrs Hubbart had, like Thena, disappeared from their presence.

“So, please tell me why Charles has requested you visit me. Is this in connection with Stanton and our business dealings?” Bertram was oblivious to any subtle gestures, that was obvious.

Jerome crossed his legs and leaned back casually in the fireside chair. Bertram had rested against his desk. Jerome did not want to sit opposite him and give the man any chance of feeling he was superior, or in control of the situation. For his plan to work, Jerome needed two things to happen: firstly to convince this worm of a man that he was as incorrigible as Bertram, and secondly, that Thena was as willing to solve this problem and save her village as much as he desired to have her as his wife. For it never occurred to him that she would want him after the way they had met. He had seen her brought low and Jerome knew she was a woman who had pride, as well as beauty.

“I am of the understanding that you and Charles are soon to exchange papers on this Hall, that by the end of the month all must be arranged and the deeds handed over,” Jerome began.

“Yes, we are, but, sir, if you wish to bid for it I must inform you that the land attached to this estate includes many farms, shops, forestry and also the river rights. There is a tin mine and unmined seams of copper. So, in all, you would need a large sum to outbid Charles for it, if that is your intention. However, I am a fair man and Charles would understand, as he often reminds me, that he is a man of business and not sentiment.” Bertram shrugged his shoulders, as if dismissing any notion that his words were disloyal or underhand, but his eyes were fixed on Jerome as he studied his visitor for his reaction.

“Indeed, which is precisely why I am not making a bid for the estate,” Jerome replied and wished that he had enough reserves separate to his own family estate to actually buy everything, for here he had seen a peaceful, functioning community that had so much more potential if the people were allowed to look after their land themselves. In order to gain access to Thena and explain his rather outlandish plan, he had to have Bertram on side before he made arrangements that endangered her. For Jerome had heard the man’s words spoken to Charles after Geoffrey had left, and there was no mistaking how callous this man would be to get what he desired. However, if Bertram Munro suspected he had Thena’s interests at heart, or God forbid, the desire to wed her, which would give him the inheritance, he would never agree, and as Jerome knew for certain he had legal rights over her estate as things stood. Therefore, Jerome must persuade this pitiful excuse of a man that he was in the pay of Charles in some way and would remove Thena from their path, temporarily or permanently.

“No, it is not the land I want, sir, as my Kent estate takes up so much of my time when I am not in Pall Mall.” He saw Bertram’s eyes light up. “It is the young lady who interests me, especially after setting eyes upon her again just now in all her beauty. I understood from Charles that she had vanished from your care, and yet I realised, when I met him at The Turn Pike Inn to discuss our other business, that the lady I had seen alight from the coach asking for transport to Leaham Hall was in fact your missing cousin.”

“I do not follow.” Bertram was becoming agitated. “What would Charles be discussing Miss Munro with you for, sir? I assure you if you are considering a rushed engagement, or some sort of land grab, then I have to tell you that, as her legal guardian…” His words were interrupted when Jerome burst forth with laughter.

He calmed himself and coughed. “My very good man! How low you think of me and my reputation. How amusing you are. Despite the fact that I would be breaking the law of bigamy as my own dear wife would hardly agree to move over to make room for the girl, the idea that I would risk my career on hitching myself to a wayward creature is very amusing.” He shook his head. “Indeed, I do not doubt she has some good breeding, but you are talking about a wench that will up and run away at the first sign of things not going her way. No, that is not what I meant at all.” Jerome shook his head to stress his disbelief.

“Oh, forgive me. I misunderstood.” Bertram looked greatly relieved, but was quite flustered or excited by the turn of events.

“No, sir, I have the ability to remove her and lose her for you, quite legitimately, without question, if that would help,” Jerome said, and leaned forward, interlacing the fingers of his hands in front of him as he did so. “Are you interested, for although I would gain entertainment from this distraction, I will not stay and repeat my offer? I have a reputation to uphold.”

“But how would you do this, and why?” Bertram was now sitting on the edge of the chair he had pulled up opposite him, leaning and listening with intensity to Jerome’s words.

Jerome deliberately leered at him. He had him in the palm of his hand. He was blinded by greed and not blessed with the greatest intelligence, or common sense, or conscience even it seemed. “Very simply for a debt owed to a dear friend who, when your deal is secured, will see me right anyway.”

“Very well, how will you do this?” Bertram whispered.

“I mean to invite her to London to be a companion to my dear young sister, Eleanor, for the Season and offer her the delights and fashions that the Season requires. If all goes well, we will tell her that she will have a permanent position. And when my sister must attend finishing school in Paris, she may find herself a husband, and we will help with introductions. How easy it will be to dazzle and bemuse her young woman’s mind.” He smiled, hating the rogue he was portraying, yet after years at war, a mere deception to a greedy fool was really neither here nor there on the scale of his “sins”. What was it compared to taking a life? Besides, this was in a very good cause.

“And will you do all this for her?” Bertram looked incredulously at him.

“No, of course not!” Jerome laughed. “Why on earth would I? But she will believe all. Therefore, when she willingly steps into my carriage, believing this to be so, she will be filled with enthusiasm for an adventure in a very different and exciting world. You do not need to know any more details about what befalls her. I will send word that she has run off with some young dandy who turned her head or such, if you wish to know anything, but a woman with such looks is always in demand in London, believe me.” He winked at Bertram who was so eager to believe his problems had so easily been solved that he would agree to any subterfuge Jerome explained. If he could arrest him then and there for his part in this make-believe scenario he would. Somehow, he would like to save Parthena, but in the process see Bertram fall. He wondered if Stanton had made enquiries into his estate or affairs. He supposed his reach would not stretch so far, but Jerome’s did.

Bertram smiled. “I do not need to know any more. I shall leave it all to your judgement.”

“Good! May I suggest I dine with you tonight and we can persuade Miss Parthena that her future would be best served by taking me up on my offer?”

“Yes, yes of course. Do you wish to stay the night?” he asked, apparently quite taken by his cunning new friend.

“I am afraid I cannot, for I have a room in the town, but perhaps you could meet me in the coffee shop tomorrow, say at a half past the hour of ten and we can run through the details of when I should leave. That is if she is willing. She must leave here happily, even if her happiness will not endure once in the city. I have my reputation to consider,” Jerome said and smiled.

“Excellent idea. I will arrange for dinner then. Do you wish to meet her now? Soften her up a little.” Bertram winked at him.

“Excellent notion, Bertram! Perhaps she could show me the garden and the path by the river. I understand from Charles the fishing is also excellent.” Jerome could not believe how easily Bertram had fallen into his plan. It was said that love was blind, but greed was a much stronger blindfold to one’s senses.

“Yes, give me a moment and I will ask her to make herself ready for a stroll.” He scuttled from his study, which gave Jerome a chance to look around. He saw the large folder upon the desk and had a quick glimpse inside. He had seen enough laid out plans and drawings to quickly ascertain that Charles was not interested in fishing, but the fast flow of the river and the position of the estate gave it a favourable aspect for the building of a mill. More than one building was planned though, there was a manufactory also. Stanton was correct. These plans would destroy the village. To save her home, Parthena had to marry, and sharpish. But would she? Persuading Bertram to trick her was easy, but persuading Thena to wed him for the good of the village or to please his heart’s desire was a mountainous task. He could be seen as a prospector who had learned the truth and wished to also steal her birthright, or an opportunist, but would she see that he genuinely adored her? He closed the file and sat back down in the chair awaiting Bertram’s return.

The man blustered in, shaking his head. “Women! I shall never understand them and am pleased to have escaped their grasp. I have no wish to have one pester me day and night. However, I will need an heir for my new estate soon enough.” He shrugged.

“Are you staying here then?” Jerome asked, genuinely confused for a moment.

“No, no, not this one! With the proceeds I have plans to buy a property in Kent. Mama has always been desirous of land near Hythe, perhaps we will be neighbours. So, once the funds of this one are through I can make the dear lady’s dream come true and then will be the time to marry and think of an heir to carry on the Munro name.” He did not look happy at the prospect.

“You are planning quite an adventure yourself, it seems.”

“Yes, quite.”

Thena knocked on the door of the study. “Ah, there you are. Could you show Mr Munro around the grounds, my dear? I shall watch you from the window, but I fear my gout plays up again and I must save myself for dinner.”