The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) (27 page)

‘Who is it?’

‘Brent it is I. May I come in?’

‘I am naked as nature made me, but enter.’

Brent wrapped a towel round his body as his cousin gently turned the door knob and came in. On the big four-poster bed clean clothes were laid with fresh stockings and on the floor newly polished shoes with shining buckles.

‘I think we are to have a party,’ Brent said smiling. ‘If this finery is aught to go by.’ He reached for the fine white linen shirt and pulled it over his head. John sat on the chair before the fire and crossed his legs, looking at the fine upright figure of his cousin.

Brent had improved. It was true, hard work and abstinence were good for a man. His body was thicker but with muscle not fat. His face was tanned and lean, and had not that dissolute sensuous look about the mouth that came with too great an acquaintance with the fleshpots. He wore an expression of almost puritanical severity and his eyes were hard and clear. John liked what he saw and was glad that Brent was going to marry his sister.

‘Well, Brent, it is almost a year,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ Brent said, getting into his breeches, knowing full well what John meant.

‘And you have kept your word.’

‘I have that – no women, not one, and hard work.’

‘And you still want her?’

Brent stood up straight and gazed at his cousin. ‘Want her?
Want
Mary? Do you doubt it?’

‘You haven’t seen her for a year.’

‘Has she changed so much then?’

‘No, lovelier than ever, a little fuller maybe. Ready to be married, Brent.’

Brent’s heart beat a little quicker. Suddenly those months of chastity seemed an intolerable strain. The thought of Mary, already beautiful, now grown maybe a little plump and more comely; her hips perhaps had filled out a little, and her breasts ... those small virginal breasts he had gazed upon with the tiny rosebud nipples. He looked at John. It would not do to let her brother know that he had more acquaintance of Mary’s body than a chaste kiss. His expression grew sober.

‘Well, I am ready if you will it, and she. Let it be done quickly, John. I am still of a mind to serve the Prince, and he is here. He has come.’

‘I know,’ John said. ‘That is in my mind. Stewart is to join him for sure when he comes to England whether it be Newcastle or Carlisle. We have been in touch with your brother Tom. Oh, ‘tis all arranged.’

‘Then I will go with him.’

‘You know, Brent ... you could make Mary a widow.’

‘Aye,’ Brent went to the mirror and began the delicate process of tying his cravat. The more he served as a seaman the less delicate his fingers became. ‘That is why we wanted to wed a year since. We could have had a child by now.’

‘Well we didn’t know what was to happen. Besides, I think your mother and I were right. We had to be sure. You have done well Brent. We are proud of you. You have kept your principles, kept the faith ...’

Brent looked at John, his expression not altogether as warm or friendly as John would have wished.

‘I hope for your sake you were right, John. It appeared you thought not of Mary or myself when you sent me out of the house ...’

‘I sent you? You left of your own will, aye, and in high dudgeon if I recall.’

‘No,
you
sent me as much as if you had pushed me. You taunted me, that I was a womanizer, a coward. Well ‘tis done. I have served my apprenticeship John, but I don’t know if either Mary or I are in your debt for it. A year has passed when we have not seen each other; have been denied each other’s company, wanted each other. Now she could be a widow by Christmas, that is even if we marry at once. I suppose that is what you have come about.’

He shrugged on his coat and looked at the set of his shoulders in the mirror. Then he attended to his hair. He did not wear a wig or powder it. He was glad to hear that Prince Charles did not either. He tied a ribbon at the back and then combed away from his forehead the damp locks that straggled over his brow.

‘Mary wants to marry at once,’ John said tersely, ‘if it be your pleasure.’

‘Then let it be her choice. That is decided. My pleasure it certainly is – or will be.’

John hadn’t expected this harsh attitude from Brent and he looked into the fire.

‘
Must
you join the Prince? Is not your work at sea just as important?’

‘I have done my work. The arms are there. Now we must use them. No, I am going to fight. Never let it be said that a Delamain refused to take up arms.’

‘You may be fighting against your brother.’

‘Aye, likely. I hear he is wed, too.’

‘Yes, this summer. In London. We were not asked.Only your mother and sister went to the wedding. I hear George brought his bride to Delamain Castle in August. Henrietta she is called, an heiress I understand. The only child.’

‘An heiress? George will like that. Is she pretty?’

‘They say very plain.’

‘Ah, then George has made another business deal.’ Brent dusted his sleeve and
_.
settled the lace at his wrists. ‘Shall we go and dine, cousin?’

Everyone knew what John had come about and the table downstairs was set for a feast. Ambrose was already at his place carving the beef as Brent and John came through the door; but when he saw them he put down his carvers and took up his goblet already brimming with good red claret.

‘Well, Brent. Are you to be a bridegroom?’

Brent smiled. ‘Aye, it appears so. At last.’

‘Then let it be soon, lad. Let it be soon.’

Suddenly Sarah clasped her head in her hands and burst into tears. Ambrose looked at her with consternation and left his seat to go over to her.

‘There my love. Is the emotion too much for you? The thought of having this scoundrel for a brother-in-law?’

‘Nay, it is not that,’ Sarah sobbed. ‘It is only that I fear they may have left it too late.’

Brent stared at her and a feeling of foreboding suddenly overcame him. It was not the war he was afraid of, but, in his mind, he saw moonlight falling in a forest glade, a dark female body twisting beneath his. He closed his eyes to shut the vision out of his mind. Instead he saw the hazy outline of a face, but all that was clear to him was the long dark hair that framed it. He was puzzled and his frown was seen by Ambrose who took his shoulder in that familiar bear-like grasp.

‘Now then, lad. ‘Tis her woman’s time, you know. They get funny when they are wi’ child. Of
course
it’s not too late ... Even if there is a war – and I’ll wager they’ll contain those unruly Highlanders in Scotland – it doesn’t mean to say you will be in it. My ships ...’

Brent, his lips pressed together, stared at Ambrose.

‘You know, Ambrose, I must go. You know it and have always known it. I know you care nothing for politics, but I do. I’ve always said I must support the rightful King and now it is the time. I have my duty to my father and uncle before me.’

Ambrose nodded and went solemnly back to his seat.

‘Well so be it. I will keep your place for you, and God knows you might need it. Aye, for you and your wife. For you never know Brent when you might be glad of work and somewhere to go with your bride, to hide maybe. There’ll always be a home for you. Eh, Sarah?’

Sarah had dried her eyes and was serving the vegetables. The servants had been sent out of the room as soon as she had burst into tears, except for the nurse who had the baby Elia on her lap. The nurse was a young girl related to Ambrose and regarded as one of the family.

Like her husband Sarah had eschewed politics. They had brought neither unity nor happiness to her family and her aunt’s family. Whereas thrift, hard work, independence and nonconformity had made Ambrose very rich.

These things mattered to Sarah as much as they mattered to her husband. His values and hers were the same. The last thing she wanted was a war, with her family divided, fugitives maybe. Both sides couldn’t win. The thought of Brent throwing himself away was what had made her burst into tears. Sarah was fond of her little sister, not close but fond, and she had grown to like Brent. Admired him for his hard work and dedication. The folly of the possible war was too awful to contemplate.

Sarah Rigg thought it more advisable at this stage not to answer her husband. Instead she gave Brent a watery smile and made a pretence at gaiety.

‘Let’s not be solemn,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk about the wedding. When is it to be?’

‘The very moment we can arrange it,’ Brent said robustly, spearing a piece of prime English beef and raising it to his mouth, ‘if not before.’

12

In the large stone-floored kitchen at the back of Furness Grange Mary Allonby was rolling dough on the baking board. As she bent energetically over her task her face grew flushed and tendrils of blonde hair escaped from the tidy coil at the back of her, neck. She kept a firm hold on the rolling pin and she stretched the pastry as far as it would go, for the crust on the pie should be light and thin.

‘Now, miss, the oven is ready for thee,’ Betty Hardcastle, who had been with the family since before Mary was born and had served in every capacity from scullery maid to nursery maid when the children were small, was now primarily in charge of the kitchen. She was one of the few servants left in the house, and most of these were employed in other capacities on what remained of the estate.

Her son Nathaniel was bailiff to Mr John and her other son Francis combined duties as a boatman on the lake with doing tasks around the house. Her daughters had married and moved away and her husband Sam had died of consumption many years before.

Betty was past middle age now, but her lean gaunt figure was almost as precious to the Allonby family as the house itself.

Mary nodded and, cutting the pastry with a knife, put it carefully over the pie dish, draping it round the pie funnel in the middle. The ends she tucked under the dish and then she moistened her fingers and pressed down very firmly. A smaller piece of pastry she kneaded and began to roll again, this time for the apple – the first pie was made of succulent pieces of pork and beef from home-killed cattle, stored in the larder until they were well hung.

Mary sang as she went about her duties in the kitchen and the sound gladdened Betty’s heart. For too long there had been sadness and gloom in the Allonby family, which meant that young Mary had grown up in a harsh and bitter atmosphere unsuited to the formation of a pretty young maid.

John Allonby had always had the brunt of the hardship, which had made him naturally quiet and taciturn. His grief he kept to himself, but it showed only too clearly in his mien and the stoop of his shoulders.

As Stewart, naturally robust and cheerful, had grown to manhood he too took on something of the taciturnity of his brother. But Betty always remembered Stewart as a young boy and how full of mischief he had been – always in trouble, always laughing and tumbling about.

Mary’s birth had been the cause of unhappiness to the household. Her Mother had taken puerperal sepsis after it and died. Almost at the same time her uncle, Guy Delamain, had died abroad and the sadness that had attended her birth had seemed to leave its mark on Mary who grew into a gentle girl but always with a slightly wistful air – except when in the presence of her cousin, Brent. Betty, if no one else, had noticed how the burgeoning of young love had changed Mary, how a light had come into her eyes and a spring into her step and how she sang as she went about her work.

When Mary was small Betty had been busy with her own family, and it was not until now that she had grown close to the girl, become her confidante and companion.

It was to Betty she had turned when, nearly a year before, her brother and aunt had put paid to her hopes of marrying Brent Delamain. Betty would never erase from her memory how Mary had wept - why, she had thought the tears would never stop. The girl had shut herself in her room and refused to come down for days despite the pleas of her brothers and her aunt. The only person she would admit was Betty, and then it was to hurl herself on that comforting bosom and weep all over again.

In vain had Betty tried to comfort her. That it was for the best, that if he loved her he would wait, he would come back. But Mary seemed convinced that the possibility of attaining happiness had left her; that her chance to have Brent had gone forever.

‘Don’t they understand, Betty,’ she had sobbed, ‘I would have had him on
any
terms whether he loved me or no, whether he would be faithful or not.’

And Betty, wise though she was in the way of the world, had been surprised to hear such passion, such uncontrolled yearning from so young, so inexperienced a maid.

In time Mary’s tears stopped and she went quietly about her household tasks again. But it seemed to old Betty that she had never forgiven her brother John for what he had done, nor her aunt Susan who used to be like a mother to her – never had nor never would forgive either of them.

All Mary waited for that year was for news of Brent and the short stilted letters she had from him in which he protested his undying love but not much else. She was dutiful and obedient as always, went diligently about her household tasks, cooked and baked and made jam; but her relationship with her brother John subtly changed and became cold and distant, while that towards Stewart grew closer.

Mary put both pies, the apple and the meat, into the oven, the heat from the huge fire in the grate causing her already hot face to flame. The sweat poured down her cheeks as she backed away and closed the big iron door.

‘There!’ she wiped her hand on her apron and smoothed her hand across her brow. ‘That is our dinner! Now Betty, what else is there for me to do?’

She smiled at Betty whose heart filled with happiness at the sight of the smile, the genuine good humour that had pervaded her young mistress since her brother John had told her of his intention to combine business at Cockermouth with a visit to their sister, to try and see Brent. And now John had left, that very morning – and why, he might even bring Brent back with him!