Bought for Revenge (10 page)

‘That is less than six months, Mr…Blackstone,’ said Annabelle.

He noted how she stumbled over his name. ‘I am aware of that.’

‘You must know that to settle with you we will have to borrow money from elsewhere,’ explained Samuel. ‘It is very difficult at present.’

‘Impossible for you, I should imagine, when all of Stanton knows your situation.’

His callous tone brought Annabelle’s eyes upon him. He dared not look at her, but could imagine the reproach in them only too well.

‘Did you spread the rumours, then, about our financial troubles?’ she asked quietly.

‘Let us say I have made no effort to deny them.’

He set his jaw. That made him sound like a scoundrel, but this was what he had worked for.
It was a war and there was no room for sentiment. He must concentrate. Samuel was speaking again.

‘Mr Blackstone, I do not think you quite understand. It is unlikely that I shall have the funds to pay you back by the end of September. If we could come to some arrangement, say a partpayment?’

‘No. I must be paid in full, sir. I will not take a penny less than I am owed.’

Annabelle spread her hands. ‘But if we cannot pay…’

Now he turned his head, forced himself to meet her eyes and kept his own countenance impassive. ‘Then you must leave Oakenroyd.’

Annabelle put her hands to her cheeks. Surely this could not be happening? The passionate lover, the gently teasing dance partner was gone, replaced by a harsh, implacable stranger.

‘But why?’ she whispered. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Morwood will not be habitable until the spring. I need somewhere else to live.’

‘And for that you would take our home?’

‘A mortgage is a business arrangement, Miss Havenham, nothing more, nothing less.’

‘No.’ She jumped up. It did not make sense. ‘There
must
be more to it than that. If it were
merely business, it would not matter to you where we found the money to repay you, but you have deliberately made it impossible for us to find any help in Stanton. Why should that be, Mr Blackwood?’

His lips thinned. She saw the muscle working in his jaw, as if he was struggling to control his temper.

‘Miss Havenham, I suggest you retire and allow me to discuss this with your father.’

‘Do you think I would leave Papa to face this alone?’ She crossed to the sofa and sat down beside her father, slipping her hand through his arm. ‘If you are so determined to take Oakenroyd, I think we have a right to know the reason for it.’

His eyes were hard and black as jet beneath the lowering brows.

‘Very well, Miss Havenham,’ he said at last, his voice as harsh as his countenance. ‘You shall have the reason. When I was ten years old I learned what it was to lose not only my home, but my parents, too.’

‘Yes, I am aware of that, but—’

‘Are you also aware that it was your father’s doing?’ he broke in roughly. ‘He killed them.’

A
nnabelle thought she might faint. There was a rushing sound in her ears and a pain in her head, behind her eyes. She was looking at Lucas, but it was as if he was at the end of a long, black tunnel. She leaned against her father’s arm and when she spoke her voice seemed to come from a great distance.

‘That cannot be true.’

‘Oh, it is true,’ growled Lucas. ‘Your father came to Morwood for dinner that evening. He had a row with
my
father, who threw him out, but he came back at midnight and set fire to Morwood. I escaped unharmed, but my mother perished, and my father died soon after, horribly burned from his attempts to save her. Well, Havenham, do you deny it?’

Belle looked at her father. His eyes were full of tears.

‘I have blamed myself often for your mother’s death, my boy, but you must believe I had nothing to do with the fire.’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ snarled Lucas. ‘I
saw
you! My bedroom window was open and when I heard a noise I looked out. The fire had taken hold by then and I saw you running away from the house.’

‘No, no, it was not I,’ said Samuel. ‘A poacher or an intruder, perhaps.’

‘In white stockings and knee breeches?’ His lip curled. ‘No one believed me. The magistrate ruled it was an accident, but I have lived with the memory of that night for five-and-twenty years. I know what I saw.’ He walked to the door. ‘I always planned to make you pay for your crimes, Havenham, and now you shall do so.’ He stopped, his fingers curled around the door handle. ‘And by the way, I have acquired certain vowels of yours, Mr Havenham, from a gentleman in Harrogate. Your IOUs for three thousand pounds. Those too must be paid by Michaelmas.’

He went out, leaving only a horrified silence behind him.

Annabelle listened to his footsteps retreating across the hall, heard the soft thud of the main door as he left the building.

‘Papa?’ She gently squeezed her father’s arm. ‘Papa, tell me what this is all about.’

He shook his head, his eyes still bright with unshed tears.

‘Please, Papa.’

He took a long, shuddering breath. ‘I will, my love, but you must remember this all happened so long ago. Years before I met your mother.’

She nodded and waited patiently until he began to speak.

‘Jonas Blackstone and I had been neighbours, if not close friends, for many years. When he brought Maria to England she was already his wife and he had forced her to give up all connection with her past. All we knew was that she was from Spain—that is why I never recognised the Monserrat name.

‘My father had just died and I returned from the Grand Tour to take up residence at Oakenroyd. Maria and I met occasionally and found ourselves falling in love. Perhaps it was inevitable. She was a sensitive, intelligent woman and I was much more of a scholar than Jonas, who was impatient of learning and preferred to be active. Maria bore Jonas one child, a son.’

‘Lucas?’

‘Yes.’ He turned and gripped Belle’s hand. ‘Let me tell you now, my love, Maria was never unfaithful to her husband. Never. I loved her—
worshipped her—and she, I believe, loved me. It was implied in a look, a gesture, but we never spoke of it. She gave me the picture, you see. The watercolour of Morwood. I treasured it, knowing she had painted it herself. But I never did more than kiss her fingers. We existed thus for years, until Lucas was ten years old. By then life for Maria was becoming intolerable. Jonas had always been a hard man, but as he grew older he became a cruel one, prone to jealousy and fits of drunken rage, when he would become violent. I urged Maria to bring Lucas and run away with me. We could fly to the Continent and live as man and wife. Maria loved me, I am sure of it, but she was very loyal to Jonas and reluctant to break her marriage vows, so all I could do was watch and wait and assure her I was there if she needed me.

‘On the night of the fire I called at Morwood. Lucas and his cousin had been out hunting and one of their dogs had got lost and ended up at Oakenroyd. I could have sent him back with a servant, but to tell you the truth I wanted an excuse to call and see Maria, so I put the dog in my gig and drove over. I had been about to sit down to my dinner, so I was already dressed for it and Maria invited me to stay and dine with them. Blackstone was in one of his black moods. She told me he had been drinking all day and she
was nervous of him. When the meal did not meet with his approval he flew into a rage.’ Samuel rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘There were others there—Jonas’s widowed sister and her son, who is a few years older than Lucas, I think. Maria sent the boys to bed, and her sister, too, but I remained, because I was anxious for her safety. When Jonas threatened to take a horsewhip to her I stopped him, knocked him down. It was a fluke, he was so much stronger than I, but he was drunk, I suppose…

‘That was the last straw for Maria. She agreed to leave him. I wanted her to collect Lucas and fly with me immediately, but she would not. She said there were matters that must be attended to first. I think she was afraid that once she had gone Jonas would take out his anger upon his sister and her boy. She promised to come to Oakenroyd in the morning. I protested, but she insisted I go. She told me she would lock her door so Jonas couldn’t reach her.’ He dropped his head in his hands. ‘God forgive me, I thought she would be safe enough. Blackstone was almost paralysed with drink, he could barely stand. I thought he would eventually collapse into a drunken stupor and sleep for hours. I drew him out of the house, to give Maria time to get to her room. He had realised by then that I was in love with Maria
and he began to rage, calling her all manner of names and swearing he would never let her go.

‘As soon as I was sure Maria was safely upstairs I went back home to put my house in order and prepare to leave the country. The last time I saw Jonas his servants were helping him back into the house. There was a great deal to do at Oakenroyd, for I did not know when I would be in England again. I was still in my study in the early hours when a servant came to tell me that Morwood was ablaze.’

‘Lucas says he saw you,’ Annabelle reminded him.

Samuel shook his head. ‘He is wrong. What reason would I have for burning Morwood? It saddens me to say it, but I think it much more likely that it was Jonas he saw that night. He was ranting when he followed me outside. He said, “No one shall have her if I cannot!” I took no notice of him, thought it was merely his drunken posturing. If I had known—’

He broke off, his hands covering his face, and Annabelle sat beside him, not knowing how to comfort him. At last he raised his head.

‘Lucas is wrong, also, to think no one believed him. Sir Angus, who was magistrate at the time, came to see me a few days after the fire to tell me of his allegations. Of course my servants vouched for me and Sir Angus admitted
that he, too, suspected Jonas of starting the fire. He was well aware of Blackstone’s temper and knew he was capable of terrible violence when roused, but Jonas was dead by then and the boy gone away, so we decided to say nothing. We thought it kinder to let everyone think it had been an accident.’

‘Why did you not tell him that today, Papa, why let him think you are to blame?’

He looked at her sadly. ‘Nay, my love, he would not have believed me. And besides, how could I suggest to him that his own father had started that fire?’

‘And for this he would ruin us.’ Annabelle drew back, clasping her hands together. ‘You must write to him, Father. You must tell him your side of the story.’

‘What good will it do? Sir Angus died several years ago and the young man is unlikely to believe the word of my servants over what he thinks he saw with his own eyes.’

‘Please, Papa. I cannot bear that anyone should think you guilty of such a crime.’

‘Very well.’ Samuel stood up. ‘I will write to him, in a day or two, when he has had an opportunity to think things over.’

She looked up. ‘And do you think then he might change his mind about calling in the loans?’

For a long moment her father stared at her. ‘No, my dear,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t for a moment think that he will change his mind about that.’

It was the hottest day of the year so far. The June sun shone down from a cloudless blue sky and there was only the slightest breeze to cool the air. Usually Annabelle loved the summer, but as she rode Apollo at breakneck speed across the park she barely noticed the weather. It was three days since Lucas had called upon them, three days when she had spent hours with her father, discussing what was to be done, going over the indentures with Mr Telford and coming back to the same conclusion. If they could not raise the money to pay off Lucas Blackstone, then they would have to leave Oakenroyd at Michaelmas. They engaged Mr Telford to make enquiries on their behalf, but Samuel seemed resigned to his fate. Belle had never felt so at odds with her father. She felt a mixture of dismay and anger at his calm acceptance of their situation and when she had walked into his study after breakfast that morning and learned he had not yet written to Lucas she gave vent to her exasperation.

‘My dear sir, I sometimes think you are glad that this is happening to us!’ As soon as the words were uttered she was sorry for them, appalled
at her outburst. Thankfully there were no servants present to hear her and she immediately dropped to her knees beside her father’s chair and begged his pardon. Samuel merely shook his head.

‘No, no, you are right to feel aggrieved, my love. I am not
glad
this has happened, but neither am I surprised. The guilt of poor Maria’s death has weighed heavily upon my soul all these years and I have always thought I should be called to account for not doing more to help her.’

‘My dear sir, what could you have done? Your faith has always been very strong and you know that to intervene between a man and his wife would go against everything you hold dear.’

His hands trembled in a futile gesture.

‘But I knew that Jonas was becoming more tyrannical. If I had spoken to Maria more openly, pressed her more urgently to fly with me…she might well be alive now.’

A tiny blade, small but painful, twisted in Annabelle’s heart. She gave a rueful smile. ‘But then,
I
might not.’

Her father turned to her, saying quickly, ‘You must not think I was not truly attached to your mother, Belle. I loved her very much indeed, but when she died, and then Edwin, I felt, somehow, that I was paying the price for not saving Maria, and possibly for loving her, too. I bought Morwood,
you see, as a memorial to Maria and because I could not bear to see anyone else living there. But the memories were too painful for me. I went there rarely, and after Edwin died, not at all.’ He sighed. ‘I have so much to regret.’

‘No, no, that is not true,’ said Belle vehemently. ‘You are a good man, Papa, you have done nothing wrong, save spend a little too freely and that is a very common fault.’ She took his hands. ‘Please, Papa, write to Mr Blackstone. It may not do any good, but we have to try!’

He regarded her for a long moment, sadness in his gentle eyes, but at last he squeezed her hands.

‘I have been very selfish, wallowing in my self-pity, have I not, my love? Very well, I shall write the letter now, for your sake.’

Annabelle had offered to sit beside him and help him with the letter, but he had sent her away, saying he was better left alone, so she had ridden Apollo up on to the moors to work off some of her frustration in exercise. Keeping the big horse under control took all her concentration for the first part of her ride, but once Apollo had settled down her mind returned again to her most pressing problem: the treacherous behaviour of Lucas Blackstone. She could not come to terms with his betrayal. She had trusted him, and in her heart she still could not believe he would really
carry out his threat to ruin her father. The doubt niggled away at her. If she could just see him, talk to him…The woods that marked the edge of the Morwood estate were ahead of her, their leaves forming a solid wall in varying shades of green, contrasting strongly with the rocky brown moorland around her.

Apollo slowed as they galloped towards the edge of the moor. He had learned that they turned back once they reached the road, but today Belle kicked him on and guided him on to the carriageway that led to Morwood Manor. The house was still encased in a web of scaffolding and the activity was greater than ever, despite the burning sun. Elias Greenwood was standing before the house and he turned as she trotted up, one hand raised to shield his eyes.

‘Miss Belle, we haven’t seen you here for some time.’

His smiling greeting surprised her, until she realised that he did not know of Lucas’s visit to Oakenroyd. If Lucas had told anyone in Stanton about his plans to ruin her father, then word would have spread rapidly. Perhaps he thought he was doing them a kindness. Again the contradiction. It did not make sense.

‘Good day to you, Elias. Is Mr Blackstone here today?’

‘Nay, ma’am, he’s gone.’ He moved closer,
saying confidentially, ‘And I’m glad of it, too, for he’s been worrying me, Miss Havenham, and that’s a fact. For the past couple of days he’s been here, behaving like a man possessed. He’d arrive early in the morning, strip off his coat and involve himself in all the most physical tasks, felling trees, carrying stone, never seen anything like it.’

‘But he has left now?’

‘Aye, miss. Rode off a while since.’

‘Back to Stanton?’ she asked. ‘I did not see him on the road.’

Elias shrugged. ‘I weren’t taking that much notice, but I think he went into Home Wood.’

With a nod and a smile she turned Apollo and cantered off across the park. The shade of the trees would be a welcome relief from the hot sun, but as she rode along the new carriageway Belle realised she had no idea where in the wood Lucas might be. She halted and remained very still, straining her ears listening for any sounds of woodcutting, but everything was silent. Sitting very straight in the saddle, she squared her shoulders. She had come this far, she would find Lucas now, and she would talk to him. She made first for the lake and felt a little spurt of satisfaction when she spotted Sultan quietly cropping grass by the old bridge. There was no sign of Lucas. Her gaze shifted to the lake, where
something was disturbing the mirrored surface. Someone was in the water and moving steadily towards the boathouse.