The American Heiress (54 page)

After a moment he said, ‘So talk then,’ but his hands were fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. Bertha tried to summon the words but she found that she could not say anything. She did not want to think of anything but Jim’s hands on her body, and the feel of his skin next to hers. In answer she undid the last button and began to unlace the strings of her corset.

When she had shed all her clothes, Jim whispered in her ear, ‘Are you sure, my dearest?’

And she put her arms round him in reply.

But later she would not allow herself the warm comfort of Jim’s arms. She started to hunt around in the dark for her clothes. When she was dressed, she shook Jim awake.

‘Jim, there is something I must tell you.’

Jim rolled away from her sleepily. ‘Not now, Bertha.’

‘No, you must listen to me. I came to tell you that the Duchess is going to London today and taking me with her.’ She tried to keep her voice a whisper but it was hard not to let the emotion break through. ‘She isn’t coming back, Jim. She’s leaving him. I think she means to run away with Mr Van Der Leyden.’

Jim roused himself at this and grabbed her hand. ‘You can’t go with her, Bertha. What if she decides to go back to America? Let your Miss Cora ruin her life if she wants to. Your place is with me.’ He was whispering, but the anger in his voice was unmistakable.

Bertha twisted away from him. ‘I can’t just leave her. You see, I made it worse. I showed her the black pearl you gave me from Lady Beauchamp’s necklace. I felt sorry for her – everyone was lying to her. I wanted to give her the truth.’

Jim let his hand drop. ‘She’s got a family, Bertha. You are just her maid.’

‘But she needs me. I know she does. She really doesn’t have anyone else.’

‘So what was this?’ He pointed to the bed. ‘Some kind of consolation prize?’

She looked away. ‘I…I wanted you, Jim.’ She put out a hand to caress him, but he threw it off.

‘And I want you, all the time. But now you are leaving. If you want to go with her I can’t stop you, but I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.’ He turned away from her and buried his face in the pillow.

Bertha put her hand on his shoulder and said, ‘I love you, Jim.’

He hit the pillow with his fist. ‘Then don’t leave.’ He sat up and grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Marry me, Bertha. We can go to London. I can get work as a valet in one of those hotels. We can have a new life. Don’t leave me because that spoilt mistress of yours can’t live without her maid.’

Bertha stood up. ‘Miss Cora ain’t always easy or pleasant but I can’t give up on her now.’ She thought of the quilt lying on her bed. Miss Cora was the closest thing she had to family now – they were stitched together by time and circumstance. Miss Cora was part of the fabric of her life. Bertha knew everything about her mistress, from the mole on her right shoulder blade to the way she would blow the hair away from her eyes when she was angry. She could tell Cora’s mood from the set of her shoulders, she knew what she was going to say by the curve of her lips. It did not much matter to her that Cora did not observe her in return. Cora was her territory; her home was where Cora was.

She knew she could not explain this to Jim. He would laugh at her; tell her again that they were just there to clean up the mess. She had thought that perhaps she would feel differently after lying down with Jim, but she knew now that desire was not enough. Even his offer of marriage didn’t change the way she felt.

There were so many things she wanted to say, but she heard a noise in the passage outside and she could do no more than press her lips against his sullen flesh before scuttling away.

In the corridor she saw the hall boy stooping over Bugler’s shoes. She put her fingers to her lips and he nodded. She felt in her pocket and found a sixpence. Silently she put it into the little boy’s hands and crept away down the corridor as fast as she could.

Chapter 30

‘A Nine-Hundred-Year-Old Name’

T
HE BABY WAS SLEEPING, CORA COULD HEAR
his tiny whinnying snores as she pushed the perambulator down the gravel path as gently as she could. She did not want him to start crying now. Nanny Snowden had bristled with disapproval when Cora announced she was taking the baby for a walk. ‘But Your Grace, the Marquis is sleeping. He always sleeps in the morning at this time.’ But Cora had simply lifted Guy out of his cradle and told the nurse to get the baby carriage ready.

She had passed the summer house now and was about to turn on to the drive itself. She looked up and saw the chapel on its mound. The sight of it made her realise how much she would be leaving behind, this cool grey stone building had housed so much of her joy and her disappointment. She wanted to have one last look but then she heard Guy give a little snuffling roar and she knew that she must press on before he woke up in earnest.

Carefully she pushed the perambulator on to the drive and proceeded as casually as she could. This was the most exposed part of her journey; anyone looking down from the house would be astonished to see the Duchess venturing so far from the house with the baby carriage. The servants might put it down to another example of her American eccentricity but if Ivo saw her he would know something was up. She reassured herself that Ivo always went riding at this time, but she speeded up as she pushed the carriage up the hill; once she got over the crest she would be out of sight of the house. From the top she could see the clover-leaf-shaped lodges of the North Gate on the next ridge; in the dip between lay Conger Wood where Bertha would be waiting for her.

Cora knew that Bertha was not altogether happy about this clandestine escape but there was no other way. She could not bear to see Ivo; she knew that if she did, all her certainty would be clouded by his presence. She would never be able to reconcile what she knew about him now with the overwhelming attraction she still felt for him, and she did not want to soften. She had been used, deceived, humiliated. Every time she thought of the necklaces and Charlotte’s dimples, she wanted to smash something. How could she have forgotten that it was always about the money? He had married her because she was rich and he had used her to punish the woman he really loved.

She pushed the baby carriage so hard that Guy woke up and started to whimper. She put her hand to his cheek and tried to soothe him. Reassured by the sound of her voice, he closed his eyes again. She gripped the handle as the road went downhill. She was almost at the track that led through the woods where Bertha would be waiting. She could feel beads of perspiration running down her back; her hair was beginning to stick to her face. And then at last she stepped under the canopy of the trees and smelt the mossy coolness of the ancient forest. She pushed on down the grassy track until she heard the donkey snorting…

‘Bertha?’ she called.

Bertha came down the track towards her on foot. Her steps were slow and her face was swollen and heavy. Cora felt a flicker of annoyance. Why should Bertha take on so? She wasn’t leaving her marriage behind.

‘I will hold Guy and you can drive, Bertha. Did you get some clothes for him?’

‘I had to take them from the laundry. I couldn’t get into the nursery.’ Bertha’s voice was flat. ‘They aren’t all clean.’

‘Never mind, we can get fresh ones in London.’ Cora tried to sound bright. She took the still sleeping baby out of the perambulator and climbed on to the back seat of the donkey cart. Bertha got up in front of her and took the reins. The donkey began to amble along the path, but then it stopped. Cora heard Bertha gasp. She turned round and saw Ivo standing in the path, his hand absently patting the donkey’s muzzle.

‘Going somewhere, Cora? I don’t think this fellow here has the stamina to get you very far. But you have a bag, I see. Perhaps you are going to the station.’ He stood aside, to let them pass. Cora wondered how he had known where to find them. She looked at Bertha, but her maid’s face was set hard.

‘Well, I won’t stop you if you have a train to catch. But Cora, I am not Bluebeard. If you want to leave Lulworth you are perfectly at liberty to do so. Surely you know that.’ He walked round to where Cora was sitting and looked at her, his brown eyes unreadable in the forest gloom.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure of anything about you, Ivo.’

Guy gave a little cry and she started to rock him in her arms.

Ivo reached over and put his hand on the baby’s head. The noise stopped.

‘I am not here to stop you. But I would like to talk to you.’ He swallowed. ‘Come for a drive with me. I have something to tell you.’

Cora had never heard Ivo ask for anything so nakedly. She tried to think about Charlotte’s dimples, about the black pearl stud on the white sheet, about Teddy and the letter she had never read. But all she could see was her husband’s large brown hand stroking her son’s head.

She could feel Bertha’s gaze burning into the back of her head and she could hear the donkey snorting and stomping.

‘Please, Cora?’ Ivo was almost whispering.

‘It’s too late, Ivo. Whatever it is you have to tell me, it’s too late.’ She looked down at the baby as she said this, trying to control her face.

Ivo spoke louder now. ‘Right from the very first moment we met, I thought you had courage, Cora, but here you are running away from me. Aren’t you brave enough to hear what I have to say?’

Cora stood up.

‘Bertha, take the baby back to the house in the perambulator for now. I will let you know when I want to leave.’

Bertha got out of the cart and Cora put Guy in her arms. Then she turned to her husband.

Ivo hesitated for moment and then climbed up into the cart and took the reins.

They drove along in silence, sitting side by side, following the road that led to the sea. When they reached the cliffs, Ivo turned the cart to the left.

Cora wondered if Ivo was ever going to speak. The donkey laboured up a steep hill and only when they reached the top did Ivo turn to her.

‘I wanted to bring you here, Cora, to explain.’

Cora looked down at the coast spread before her. There was a cove just below them where a spur of rock curved out defiantly into the sea. The waves had responded by tearing into the grey stone, eating away two holes, so that the cliff looked like a coiled sea serpent. The water squeezed in and out of the openings, creating concentric rings which rippled out over the leathery sea.

‘That’s Durdle Door. Guy and I used to swim here when we were boys. There’s a trick to swimming through the holes. You have to go with the wave or you can get smashed on the rocks. We could manage the bigger hole all right but one day when I was eleven or so I dared Guy to go through the smaller one. It’s much harder because there are only a few inches for error either way. I could see that Guy didn’t really want to do it but I kept on at him, teasing him until he had to go. I remember he went right down under the water so that he would not get smashed by the waves, but the gap was so narrow that I couldn’t see him come up on the other side. I waited for a minute, and then another, and I began to worry. Maybe the undertow had pulled Guy against a rock and knocked him unconscious. I shouted for him and got no answer. I remember even now how terrified I was.’ He pushed back his sleeve and Cora could see that the black hairs on his arm were standing on end. ‘I shouted a bit more but I realised that I would have to go and look for him. I didn’t want to, one bit, but I remember feeling that as I had sent Guy in there, I had to go in after him. And if we both died, that was only fair.’ He paused and they both looked down at the sea churning through the rocky channels.

‘I dived in as deep as I could, my eyes wide open so that I could see Guy if he was trapped, but the water was murky and I could hardly see a thing. But I stayed down there looking for a fraction too long and I got caught by the undertow which started dragging me along the rocks. My leg got wedged and I couldn’t move, my lungs were bursting and I thought I was going to drown. But then I felt an arm under my shoulders pulling me free. Guy had swum back through the bigger hole and when he saw that I wasn’t there waiting for him, he guessed what had happened and came to rescue me. If he’d hesitated I wouldn’t be here.’ Ivo turned to look at Cora. ‘He saved my life, but I killed him.’

Cora looked at him in astonishment. ‘But I thought he died in a riding accident.’

‘Yes, he did, but Guy was a wonderful rider. He wanted to break his neck.’

‘You can’t know that, Ivo.’ Cora was alarmed by the darkness in his voice. Ivo was standing on the cliff now and she thought how close he was to the edge.

‘But I do know. It was because of Charlotte.’ Cora stiffened. ‘You see she was the first, the only thing, to come between us. When she came to Lulworth, she was just sixteen and so lovely.’ He caught the expression on Cora’s face. ‘She was different then. I suppose she still had…hope.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘I was enchanted by her, and she liked me. But then Guy, who took no interest in women, noticed her and he was quite smitten. He didn’t flirt with her or even talk to her; he just worshipped her as if she was one of his saints. She didn’t realise at first how he felt, but I could see it. I did everything I could that summer to make her mine. I wanted to marry her before Guy ruined it all. I knew, you see, that Charlotte wouldn’t hesitate. She loved me, I think, but not enough to give up a chance of being a duchess.’

‘My mother noticed what was going on and she took Charlotte to London for the season. She didn’t want Charlotte to be the next Duchess any more than she wanted you, Cora.’ He almost smiled, and took a step closer to the edge.

Cora said, ‘I would much rather hear this story sitting over there.’ She pointed to a small chalk outcrop a good ten yards back.

Ivo looked startled. ‘Do you really think I would…Oh no, Cora, you have that quite wrong.’

But Cora took the reins of the donkey cart and pulled the animal over to the rock. When she looked round she saw that Ivo was following.

‘Then my father died and we came back to Lulworth for the funeral. We were all in mourning, there was nothing to do, no one to see. All we could do was look at each other.’