Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (20 page)

‘I
found a guidebook in the library. And as we are in the City I suggest we start here. There is the Tower of London, the Guildhall, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England—where shall we begin?’

‘The Tower, if you please, my lord,’ Meg said, aware of the footman up behind the open barouche. ‘It sounds most romantical. I feel a complete country bumpkin—wide-eyed and dependent on the guidebook.’

‘Which is all of fifteen years out of date,’ Ross admitted with a grin. ‘The Tower, Jenkins,’ he told the driver then settled back in the seat beside Meg.

She caught her breath at the sight of the White Tower when it came into view and stared with awe at the moat and the towering bastions. ‘It is so old. Think of all the historical events that have taken place within those walls.’

‘What would you like to see, Mrs Halgate?’ Ross handed her down at the West Gate.

‘The Menagerie and the Jewel House,’ Meg decided. ‘And you, my lord?’

‘The Menagerie by all means and the Armoury. Jenkins, you may have a while to wait. Walk the horses, if you please.’

Ross waited until they were through the gates and he had paid their shillings, before tucking Meg’s hand through his arm. ‘There, you may now stop calling me my lord, at every sentence.’

‘We must be discreet.’ She tried not to think about the warmth of his body through her glove and against her arm. It seemed so long since they had last kissed, since she had lain in his arms. ‘Look,’ she said with a bright smile, ‘Here is the Menagerie.’

The Keeper, on payment of another shilling each, walked them along the row of cages. Meg had been prepared to see cramped conditions and to regret her desire to visit, but they were spacious and clean so she was able to enjoy admiring Young Hector, Miss Jenny and Miss Fanny Howe, the lions, and the sinister elegance of Miss Peggy, a black leopardess. The laughing hyena made her recoil, but they both admired the antics of the racoons.

The armour and weapons took rather longer. Meg found a bench to perch on in the end and smiled while she watched Ross inspect every item with close professional attention, hands clasped behind his back, face severe. The keeper hovered at his side, apparently expecting a reprimand for a speck of rust or an improperly polished barrel at any moment.

‘I do beg your pardon for keeping you waiting, this must be intolerably boring for you.’ Ross came back to her side with an expression of contrition. Meg knew perfectly well he had entirely forgotten her.

‘Not at all. She put her hand on his arm as they
went to find the Jewel House. ‘I was just thinking how much William would enjoy this.’

‘He would, indeed. Meg, you do not mind about William?’

‘That you acknowledge him and are sponsoring his career? No, of course not. I think it admirable and he is a charming and deserving young man.’

‘I mean that there will always be people who think he may be my son, not my brother.’

‘I know they are wrong, and so does anyone who knows you. There will always be unpleasant gossip from some people.’

‘I am Brandon,’ Ross said, his voice suddenly hard, ‘And I will not have my honour smirched or my future wife distressed by rumour and scandal.’

‘You do all you can.’ Meg’s stomach sank in a most unpleasant manner.
I will not have my honour smirched.
‘Your very openness will kill rumour.’ But the scandal around
her
name was real and could not be denied. She must confess it all to him. But not yet, not until today was over.

More shillings were needed for the Jewel House and the glitter of crowns and orb, sceptre and Sword of State took Meg’s mind off her problems for a while.

‘Shockingly vulgar, was it not?’ Ross remarked as they strolled along the gun platform looking at the crush of river traffic.

‘So close up, it is a trifle overwhelming,’ Meg agreed. ‘But at a distance, as part of the pomp of royalty, it would look spectacular.’

‘When will you give me the right to buy you jewels, Meg?’ Ross stopped, catching both her hands in his. ‘I want to buy you pearls and diamonds and sapphires.’
He lifted her knuckles to his lips and held her eyes with his own as she blushed and stammered.

‘Oh, no.’ Meg snatched back her hands. ‘I do not want you to buy me anything.’

‘You will not give me that pleasure?’

‘No.’ She shook her head, not looking at him, imagining the warmth of his fingers on the nape of her neck as he fastened a necklace, the cool slide of metal and gems over her breast. Ross placing a ring on her finger. ‘Please, can we go on? The breeze from the river is chilly.’

‘As you wish.’

His face was shuttered and the smile gone from his lips and his eyes as they walked back to the carriage. She might think she had hurt him if she believed that his feelings were very deeply engaged. If he loved her. But he did not, so it was his pride that was hurt. He was Brandon, and he wanted to mark her as his with gemstones when all she wanted was to be branded by his kisses.

When they found the barouche again Ross gave Jenkins a list of locations to form a route. He did not intend to walk around any of them, so they must maintain their formal distance in front of the footman. It would be safer, she told herself. Then their fingertips brushed as they lay on the leather upholstery. Ross shifted slightly and the edge of his coat fell over their hands so she left hers just touching his, while they made polite and distant conversation about the sights that unfolded on either side of the barouche.

They drove past the Bank of England and the Guildhall, exclaimed over the herds of cattle and sheep being driven through the crowded streets on their way to market at Smithfield. They stared up at St Paul’s, passed the Inns of Court so they could tell William that they
had seen his future place of study and the British Museum because Meg thought they ought to at least see it.

And then they drove through St James’s Park, saw the Queen’s House and the lake, passed into the informality of Green Park with its herd of cows and milkmaids selling glasses of fresh milk and into Piccadilly. Meg knew they were almost back.

Ross’s fingers slid under hers, curling until their hands were clasped. Meg returned the pressure, and his thumb found the bare skin below the button of her glove, stroking against the pulse point. ‘I have made a decision, my lord. About the matter we discussed in Cornwall.’

He went very still, just as a man might who had been waiting with desperate patience for the answer of a woman he loved. But he did not love her, only desired her and, it seemed, he enjoyed her company. Was that enough to sustain her need to love and be loved? Perhaps it would be enough to overcome the revulsion he must surely feel when she told him her story as she was determined to do, now, before she lost her nerve.

They maintained a flow of innocuous conversation up to the house in Clarges Street, in through the front door while Ross handed his hat, gloves and cane to the butler and Meg untied her bonnet strings.

‘Could you join me in the study, Mrs Halgate?’

‘Of course, my lord.’ She followed him, her heart thudding, telling herself over and over again that this was right and she would release him first from the offer he had made. Then, when he understood just who and what she was, he could make up his own mind.

‘Excuse me, your lordship.’ Woodward clear his
throat. ‘A lady and gentleman are waiting for your return. I explained you were not at home, but they intimated that it was a matter of some urgency.’

‘I will come to the study later, shall I, my lord?’ Meg was already at the foot of the stairs, shaky with relief at the postponement of the fateful interview. She should not speak on the spur of the moment; she would collect herself, compose what she was going to say.

‘Thank you, Mrs Halgate.’ Frowning, Ross reached for the card on the salver Woodward held, but she was already up the stairs and away.

Ross picked up the card, smiling at his own disappointment.
Like a child deprived of a sweetmeat.
Meg was going to say
yes,
he knew it. Her fingers curling into his for those last few minutes, the touches of colour on her cheek-bones, the flustered way she had fled up the stairs.
Yes,
he told himself.
Yes.

And then he looked at the rectangle of pasteboard in his hand.
Mr James Walton Halgate, The Grove, Martinsdene Parva.
‘Halgate?’ he demanded.

‘Yes, my lord. But as they did not enquire for our Mrs Halgate I assumed it was a coincidence.’ The butler looked a trifle uncertain. ‘I took in refreshments.’

‘Very well.’ With something unpleasantly like apprehension knotting his stomach Ross opened the drawing room door and went in.

A tall man, his once-blond hair now pepper and salt, stood up. Slightly faded blue eyes fixed on Ross as the woman by his side came to her feet.
A good-looking couple,
he thought, with the sensation of time slowing that happened just before an encounter with the enemy.

‘Lord Brandon?’

‘I am Brandon. Mr and Mrs Halgate, please, sit down. How may I help you?’

He was managing to sound calm, if not particularly cordial, some remote part of his mind observed.

‘We feel it our duty to inform you of a certain most delicate matter,’ Mrs Halgate said, her lips tightening into an expression of righteous indignation. ‘We understand from Sir Edmund Keay, an old family friend who has recently moved to Falmouth, that you have employed a new housekeeper.’

‘Sir Edmund, whose acquaintance I have not had the pleasure of making, is correct, although, forgive me, I am not clear how it is any concern of his.’ So, it
was
about Meg and the names were no coincidence.

Mr Halgate flushed at the ice in Ross’s voice. ‘He felt it his duty to tell us that Margaret Shelley is fraudulently continuing to call herself Mrs Halgate and is representing herself as our late son’s wife.’

‘Fraudulently?’ Ross realised he was staring blankly. He had expected—feared—they were going to say that James Halgate had not been killed but had gone missing and had now managed to get back to English assistance. He had feared discovering that Meg was still married, even as he hated himself for wishing a fellow officer dead. ‘Fraudulently?’ he repeated.

‘She prevailed upon our poor James to run off with her,’ Mrs Halgate burst out. ‘He was already married, the foolish boy. Most imprudently, I fear. But then that little trollop—’

‘Madam,’ Ross interjected, ‘I am aware that your feelings are agitated but Mrs…Meg is in my employ, I will not have her so described under my roof.’

‘She was always wild,’ Mrs Halgate said. ‘Wild and
wicked and out of control. She seduced poor James into a bigamous marriage and now she has the effrontery to continue to use our name. His name.’ She buried her face in a handkerchief and gave way to her feelings.

‘And your son’s true widow?’ Ross felt rather as he had the first time he had been wounded. Strangely breathless, but numb, although he knew something should be hurting very badly indeed. The pain had come later. Then he had wanted to scream, although he had not.

‘Dead.’ Mr Halgate said grimly. ‘And the child too. An imprudent match, I fear. Not at all the wife we would have chosen for him—a tavern owner’s daughter. They became lovers, he married her when they learned a child was on its way, but then he received his orders so he left, telling her he was coming home to make his peace with us. Of course, we would have done what we could to buy the unfortunate creature off and take the child to rear properly ourselves once we had known.

‘But then that hussy got her hands on him, persuaded him to abandon a marriage he was already regretting and the child with it. Of course we knew nothing of the real wife until the letter from his commanding officer enclosing his will, by which time it was too late, some fever had carried them both off. But the fact remains, Margaret Shelley seduced our son away. And we heard what happened after his death. He was scarce cold when she had taken up with another man, living with him brazenly, acting as a common nurse.’

‘She was not his mistress.’

‘She would say that, no doubt.’ Mrs Halgate sniffed. ‘I do not suppose she told you the truth about her marriage, did she?’ When he did not reply she nodded sharply. ‘Then why do you believe her about the other man?’

Because she is Meg. Because I would trust her with my life. But why did she not tell me all this when I asked her to marry me?

‘You are saying that Meg Shelley knew of your son’s prior marriage but persuaded him to elope with her regardless of that?’ he demanded, ignoring the question.

‘Of course. His letters made reference to Meg
knowing all about him, understanding his problems,
wanting him
anyway.
James could never keep a secret,’ his mother said bitterly.

‘What, precisely, do you expect me to do with this information?’ Ross asked. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to find Meg and shake her. He wanted to lose his temper and shout at her. He wanted to drag her to his bed, use her until he was sated with her. He wanted her to feel as bad as he did. Instead he sat back, steepled his fingers and regarded the Halgates over the top.

‘Why, cast her out! Surely no decent gentleman would employ her.’

‘So you wish not only that she stop using your name, but you desire to punish her also?’ Ross found it was not only Meg he wanted to shout at.

‘Of course.’ Mrs Halgate looked taken aback that he should need to ask. ‘Her own father has disowned her, naturally.’

‘I imagine he did that when she eloped,’ Ross said, thinking of what Meg had told him of her father. ‘And what of her sisters?’

‘Vanished. Gone to the bad, all three of them. We have no idea where Celina or Arabella are.’

‘I see.’ Ross stood up and waited, silent, until the Halgates realised this was the end of their interview.

‘So what are you going to do about her?’ Mr Halgate demanded as Ross rang for Woodward.

‘I do not discuss my domestic arrangements with anyone, sir. But I will suggest to Meg that she uses another surname. I do not imagine that she would wish to retain yours once she hears of your attitude.’