Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (6 page)

He flinched, working hard not to move.

“Cecilia.”

“Take that you villain!” she shouted, ignoring him. “We smugglers will overcome your Frenchie ways.
Alors
!” Cecilia's accent was execrable.

James shook his head. “Not now, Ceci.”

Cecilia poked him again with her finger.

He sighed and poked her back gently. “Ah, but Madame,” he replied quietly. “We Frenchies never give up—
jamais
.”

Cecilia put her hands up in mock terror and leaned away. “
Non Monsieur, pas les mains de terreur
!”

James sat quietly. His shoulder burned. The field doctor said he needed to rest it. The doctors in London had been more forceful; they had counselled going to bed for two months but he had ignored them.

He looked at the sky as silence fell between them. Cecilia rolled onto her side to face him, and plucked a dandelion thoughtfully.

“It's been too long, James,” she said mournfully. “And now this. I've been left with a patch of soil, and mother is incensed that her allowance is not big enough. Not big enough than to support at least five village families for a year.”

James picked a dandelion and bit into the bitter stem. He said nothing and let Cecilia continue.

“Nobody has thought of the estate workers who won't be receiving any wages, the villagers who depend upon us for custom, and the charities that we give to. Let alone the mine workers.”

She was right of course. He had not even given a thought to the people that the estate supported. They would be worried for their futures.

“I'll go to the solicitor tomorrow. I've got Mr. Granger's card. I'll make sure that they are looked after,” he said.

Cecilia didn't look mollified.

“And what if they say there is no provision for them, James, what then?”

“That can't be true, Cecilia, there has to be. The estate doesn’t function without them.”

Cecilia's eyes softened. “Promise me, James, you will help us, help them if something goes wrong? I believe The Friendly Society of Ottery St Mary is merely an investing house, a group of supercilious townsfolk who wish to make a profit. Father belonged to it. They'll want to sell the estate as soon as possible after getting hold of it. Break it up into tiny pieces and sell to the highest bidder. And then the new owners will say they are not bound to the tenancies that were signed long ago and attempt to renegotiate.”

“Are you saying that you want me to go after the girl, Marie Mompesson?” If she was still a girl.

“No.” Cecilia looked away from him. “Well, yes, I supposed I was,” she continued sheepishly. “I can't think of being away from Brambridge, and you have to marry sometime. I never thought of either of us marrying for love. Goodness knows we've had so little of it.” She turned a suspicious look back to James and held his gaze for a few seconds before looking away, surprise evident on her face. “You don’t really care what I think, do you? You are going after her anyway, aren’t you? You’ve already decided.”

James brushed at his breeches. “We all need something to live on,” he said quietly. Although for the last two years he had lived on nothing but what he had stolen from the occasional farmstead.

“It’s alright for you. You’ve got those estates the King gave you.”

James shifted uncomfortably. Cecilia was correct. He did own other land but it was tied up. And anyway, even if he owned a prince’s ransom he still would have come after Brambridge. His father
owed
him.

“And from what I’ve read in the circulars, I don’t suppose you’ve had time to find anyone else suitable you’re interested in,” Cecilia muttered.

James blinked. The thought of a small woman with red hair tugged at him. Slowly he shook his head.

“Oh dear,” his sister said, falling back into the long grass. “Father’s got a lot to answer for.”

CHAPTER 5

Mrs. Madely took a quick step back from the counter, her rotund body threatening to spill from her tightly laced dress. Bile rose in Harriet’s throat and she hesitated, but her feet were already on the rush mat. With an inward shudder, she pasted a courteous smile on her face, and tapped the shop door closed behind her with her heel. Mrs. Madely was a harridan, a gossip, and the vicar’s wife, her aunt’s employer.

But it was Edgar whose words accosted her first from behind her.

“Miss Beauregard.” He pushed passed her, slamming closed the door that he had silently opened, and hurried to the counter. “Mrs. Madely, how
lovely
.”

Slamming his cane onto the countertop, he tipped his head to one side and stared at Harriet, the perpetual sneer on his face wider than usual. “You think to come here and sell me lace?” Harriet frowned, but he gave her no pause. “I know what you were trying to do, make your cut and take what money was rightfully mine. I know
all
about people who do that.”

“I’m not taking any money.” Harriet put her hands on her hips. “I’m just trying to achieve a fair price for their work.”

Edgar turned and slammed the cane down on the counter again. Both Harriet and Mrs. Madely jumped. “A fair price? The price is what I dictate.” He raised his chin. “Isn’t that so, Mrs. Madely?”

“Of course, dear Mr. Stanton. After all you have done for them, that they treat you like this. I wonder what your clients would think of them. I know for a fact that Lady Guthrie your pre-eminent customer is very exacting in the provenance of all her clothing.” Mrs. Madely lifted wide eyes to Harriet.

Harriet clenched her fist in her skirts. Mrs. Madely would have made a very good Lady Macbeth.

“I know that you went to Ottery St Mary on behalf of those stupid women.” Edgar switched his glare to Mrs. Madely and thumped the counter again, this time with his hand, and cursed as the cane rolled off the top and fell on the floor. Harriet took a step sideways as he slid into the main shop, advancing towards her. Harriet looked to Mrs. Madely for some help, but it was evident that the woman was more interested in what was about to befall Harriet.

Edgar crowded Harriet, pushing her back into where the shelving started. Despite his slight figure, his eyes held a menacing glint. He licked his lips, causing them to gleam as brightly as his oiled auburn hair. Harriet took a further step backwards. Only a week after James had left, Edgar had insinuated himself into Harriet’s company, appearing wherever she went. And then he had propositioned her. At first delicately, asking her to marry him, but then, when she had refused politely, he waited for her every day on the path to the schoolhouse when Harriet was alone. It was then that she had started taking Isabelle and the cart for the short distance. However, over the past six months, to her relief, he had not been so familiar.

She held her breath as Edgar brought his hand up. He looked at it as if it should hold something, and then dropped his arm back to his side, the fist tightly clenched. “I overlooked your relationship with
that
lowdown blacksmith, telling myself that in time you would come to see things my way.”

“I beg your pardon—”

“But with this act you have finally betrayed me. I won’t pay for your lace. And you had better remember who pays your wages.” Edgar thrust out his arm again. Harriet flinched, but his hand stretched over her shoulder to the shelf beyond, and plucked a purple ribbon from a basket. He turned and, without a backwards look, approached the counter again.

“Mrs. Madely, I saw this ribbon and I thought of you. I always think of you when I see this ribbon.”

Harriet blinked. The look in Mrs. Madely’s eye was quite sickening. Her lips were set in a triumphant smile. Harriet shuddered; the vicar’s wife was welcome to his affections.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Stanton,” Mrs. Madely simpered. “This will go so well with my dress.”

Harriet gulped. The woman’s taste was truly awful. A purple ribbon and a green dress? Mrs. Madely’s expression hardened and she cast a sharp look in Harriet’s direction.
Oh heavens.
Harriet had gained nothing by coming to Edgar’s. She still had the lace, Edgar had threatened her wages and now Mrs. Madely, her aunt’s employer, was angry with her.

Fiddlesticks.

**

Despite taking a long walk after leading Isabelle and the cart back to the cottage, Harriet was unable to shake the feeling of disquiet that dogged her. Still, she sat back in the uncomfortable school chair and listened attentively to the performance in front of her. Her finger rested lightly on the small creased book as she traced the dialogue across the page. She didn’t need to read it—she knew the dialogue by heart.

“Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by the ears…” she whispered silently, as Bill spoke the words out loud and drew a sword from the scabbard round his waist. It had been a masterstroke to cast him as Mercutio, even if he was a
little
older than the rest of the cast and a little wooden in his acting.

“My dad told me that the new Lord Stanton has been away fighting on the Peninsular.”

Harriet frowned. She had assembled her cast for the scene in the schoolroom, but inevitably, given Bill’s presence in the play, some of the younger more impressionable boys of the village had sneaked in to watch.

Normally she would give them a drubbing down and usher them out of the door, but what they were saying was far too interesting to stop listening to. Harriet let out a short sigh. She really should have been thinking about ways in which to sell the dratted lace.

“Well my da said that he had been commended for bravery by Wellington, no less.”

She had read about that in the out-of-date London weekly Agatha had brought back from the vicarage. It had been quite a surprise. Two years of silence and then suddenly he had appeared on the front pages. That wasn’t the only article on him that followed. More editions of the journal excitedly covered the news that Lord Stanton was back in London and attending the ton balls. That should have meant that he was coming back to Brambridge, that she would see him again. Not for another six months did he return.

Damn the man.

“Did I do it right?”

“Pardon?” Harriet looked up from her book. Bill gazed bemusedly at the wooden sword that pointed towards the ground. Benjamin, the sixteen-year-old playing Tybalt, gripped his sword with two hands and held it in front of him as if hanging on to it for dear life.

“Did I hit him right with the sword?” asked Benjamin again.

Harriet wondered where the last five minutes had gone. But she hadn’t really needed to have watched to have seen how the scene had played out. They had practiced it ten times before and each time it seemed like the sword had dominated Benjamin rather than the other way round. Although he was good at the disclaiming and emotion, the physical act of swinging the sword seemed to terrify him.

She stood and held out her hand. Perhaps it was time to try a different method of persuading Benjamin that he could use the sword convincingly.

Reluctantly Benjamin handed over his wooden sword.

“’Ere Samuel. Look what Miss Harriet is doing.” Harriet shut out the voices from the back of the room and took the sword loosely in her right hand. She closed her eyes briefly, and channeled the many romantic novels that she had read.

“Stand side on,” she said, pushing the sword out in front of her, tip up. “You don’t want to give much of your body as a target to your opponent.” She brushed the hair impatiently from her eyes with her left hand. Bill frowned at her. She dropped her hand and knocked lightly at his sword with her own, pushing it upwards. “Look determined, after all, you are about to attempt to kill a man.”

Bill’s eyebrows flew upwards, and he took a step back. The boys at the back laughed. Harriet advanced a step. “Keep the weight on the back foot so that you can advance and retreat as well as swivel.” She took another step forward. Bill dropped his sword.

“I am for you,” Harriet cried and with a yell, swung her sword at Bill. In surprise Bill jumped back, just missing the schoolroom wall and Harriet’s sword. Harriet crabbed backwards and then forwards again with her arm swinging.

“Come on, Bill,” she said under her breath. “Your words.” Bill parried her swing with the middle of his sword.

“What do you mean, words?”       Bill muttered, trying to move behind a bank of desks away from the onslaught of Harriet’s sword. “Mercy?”

“No,” she panted. “Mercutio’s words.” She thrust the sword forwards as Bill bent his massive form at the middle to avoid the skewering thrust.

“Err, come sir, your passado,” he said, panting.

“Louder,” Harriet yelled.

“I’m not saying it any louder,” Bill protested. “There are people watching.”

“That’s the point.” Harriet skipped round the desks, but halted suddenly as her skirts became trapped.

“Come, sir, your passado,” a voice hissed menacingly behind her. Harriet tugged at her skirts, whirling with her sword as she did so. James’ muscular chest confronted her, as he lightly balanced a wooden sword in his hand and one of his gleaming boots firmly planted itself on the hem of her skirt. Even in the light of the day, his figure held a dark allure. He had obviously picked up one of the spare props. James glanced over her shoulder and made a beckoning motion with his free arm. Harriet looked behind. Bill grinned at her, and lanced his sword over her shoulder to where James caught it.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, Harriet?” James said softly.

“My own size?” Harriet exclaimed with disbelief. “Get off my skirt.” She narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry, get off my skirt,
Lord
Stanton.” She frowned and hesitated as pain passed fleetingly across James’ face. 

He lifted both of the swords and pointed their tips at Harriet. He took a step back and released the hem of her dress. “In a swordfight it is always best to go in armed with two knives. It means you have twice as much cutting power.” He swung the swords in an arc inwards.

In the same motion that Bill had made earlier, Harriet jumped backwards with a squawk. She hadn’t come across this in the romantic novels. Normally the hero vanquished the villain in fifteen sentences of one-armed combat.