Season of Light (24 page)

Later in the evening Asa found herself dancing with Warren. It was a wonder that he could stay upright, but there he was in a dove-grey velvet coat and a grubby lace cravat, his grip too tight and his steps ponderous. The tilt of his head when he bowed was sardonic, his eyes bleary. ‘Look,’ he said, as they hop-skipped towards their reflection, ‘what a handsome pair. Are you enjoying the ball, Miss Ardleigh?’

‘I would rather be elsewhere.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you would. Or at least with a different partner. I’m well aware what you think of me, Miss Ardleigh.’ Then he leaned very close and whispered as if it were a compliment, ‘Bitch.’

The dance dictated that Asa, in any case too shocked to respond immediately, should place her hand in his and withdraw it then allow him to pass his arm about her waist and stand hip to hip, but as soon as the dance ended Asa escaped. She flitted from room to room then out into the garden, where she hurried down flights of marble steps to the lake, intending to meditate upon something clean and good and far away from Warren and Compton Wyatt.

Except that there were revellers everywhere. One couple had retreated to the little temple, others disappeared into the bathhouse and emerged in the mouth of the cave, and by the lake a group was admiring the swans, which glided obligingly through the reflected flare of sunset. Asa walked farther, taking a path that wound into the trees. She could smell the lake and even the swans, she imagined, a feather-soft perfume of reeds and water and earth.

‘Thomasina Ardleigh.’ Warren had got ahead so that he blocked the narrow path like the wolf in
Red Riding Hood
.

‘Mr Warren. Forgive me, I’m just on my way back to the house.’

He did not step aside. ‘Stay with me a while. It’s cooler out here and the evening is very beautiful. It’s not often I have the leisure to stroll in such a setting with my sister-in-law. She doesn’t usually give me the chance. She doesn’t believe I’m worth the time of day.’

‘Mr Warren, you are my sister’s husband. Of course I …’

‘And what a wife your sister’s proved to be. No money. No child. And now I’m doomed to be exiled with her in some godforsaken place and go into trade, which means we shall die of starvation, no doubt. We are supposed to be grateful to Mr Shackleford for saving us from a debtors’ prison, but if he chose he could set us up in a smart little establishment with a regular income, which I’d much prefer. Well, thought I, before I go, I’ll take a little something from Mr Shackleford. He shan’t have it all his own way.’

‘Please step aside. We shall be missed.’

‘I’ve seen Shackleford watching you and I rather think he’d kill to be me at this moment,’ and he slid his finger down Asa’s throat. Too late she tried to spring away as he seized her upper arm. ‘How come you and Georgie are sisters, is what I want to know? You appear to be so exquisitely easy to break, I would think, whereas she’s a tough old bitch. But I’ve noticed something else in you that leads me to suggest that if I were to touch you here,’ he pinched her breast, ‘or here,’ he placed his other hand on the small of her back, dragging her so close that his chin rubbed hers, ‘you would become very hot and yielding, Miss Ardleigh. Because I do believe you are not quite so pure as we all think. Ah, yes, let us see what happens.’

He ground his mouth against hers so that their teeth clashed and she tasted the alcohol on his breath. For a moment her wits deserted her – this was her brother-in-law, after all, the ineffectual Warren (whom Philippa had once, in a moment of exasperation, described as
pointless
). Surely, in addition to everything else, he wasn’t an adulterer. But as she clamped her mouth shut and clawed at his hands part of her said: You deserve this. You have never paid him any attention except to sneer at him.

He was proving surprisingly strong, shuffling her backwards so that her heels caught on her petticoats and she was crushed against a tree. ‘How dare you,’ she said through his hand, ‘how dare you treat my sister like this?’ and she kicked and thrashed as he pinioned her neck.

‘You want this. I see the way you move. I’ve watched you since we first met, and do you know what I think? That these soft breasts of yours are not at all virginal. Now don’t you struggle, Thomasina Ardleigh, because I’m determined to find out exactly where others have been with you. After all, you’re the father’s daughter, aren’t you? Georgie was telling me about the old man and what he’d been up to …’

When she bit his hand he pushed his fists into her throat and pressed up her chin with his thumbs so she couldn’t breathe. ‘You give me what I want, Miss Ardleigh, or I shall haul your sister and your father and the Ardleigh name through such a mire you won’t be able to hold your heads up.’

She tried to twist out of his grasp, thinking her neck would break and the hardness of his body split her from thigh to throat, but she was abruptly released when he was struck from behind, wrenched away and flung backwards. The ensuing skirmish was accompanied by much scuffling and swearing as Warren attempted to beat off his assailant, then made a lurching effort to escape into the woods. But his legs were seized and he was brought crashing down again, struck heavily in the face then thrust on his way, stumbling and tearing bits of undergrowth from his hair. Meanwhile Asa hovered, panting, torn between the conflicting desire to stay and thank her rescuer or bolt towards the house.

‘Thomasina.’ Shackleford spoke softly, though he was still breathless and dishevelled, most unlike himself. The ends of his cravat were streaming and his hair tumbled over his face. ‘Take a little time. Compose yourself.’

‘I shouldn’t have been caught out like that. I had no idea that he hated me.’

‘You are not to blame for the vile behaviour of other people.’

‘My poor sister. Oh dear God, I must get her away from him. She can’t know what he’s really like.’

‘Your sister is a woman of the world. From my conversations with her I would say she knows full well what Warren is.’

‘She must be separated from him.’

‘Perhaps she should do as she chooses.’

‘You would say that, wouldn’t you? Let things be, that’s your motto. So much simpler.’ But then she cursed herself for her ingratitude and the weakness of tears as she scooped up her hair and wound it in a knot, pulled the edges of her bodice together and smoothed her skirts. It hurt to breathe and her throat ached. ‘I should like to go inside now, Mr Shackleford.’

When he offered his arm, she accepted, for the sake of appearance, and they walked slowly back to the house. The waters of the lake were dark but the sky was luminous, with just three stars where the sun had set, arranged in an equilateral triangle. Music was still playing in the ballroom.

Asa was too distraught to ask any questions: How had he found her? Shouldn’t he be with his guests? What exactly had happened to Warren? Instead she reflected that it would gladden poor Georgina’s heart if she could see the pair of them now, arm in arm, walking in the seclusion of the woods.

They had fallen into step and Asa’s ill-treated gown made a shushing amid the previous year’s leaves. She was sorry when the house came into view, where other guests strolled about on the terraces, because walking beside Shackleford was remarkably straightforward compared to what she must now face; the end of the ball, Georgina, the return to Ardleigh, her father’s drunkenness, Caroline’s destitution. Not to mention Mrs Dacre.

And one final complication stood at the edge of the terrace, leaning on the white parapet, her figure very slight in its unaccustomed pale dress, her hair lifted from her shoulders by the night breeze. Though Madame de Rusigneux had surely seen them she neither smiled nor waved, only stared at them and then turned away.

To avoid passing through the ballroom, Shackleford led Asa round the side of the house to a little door set into the side of a flight of steps. He lit a taper, took her hand and guided her along a series of narrow passages to an entrance, concealed on the inside by shelves, to his book room. ‘My father showed Tom and me this special way into the house when we were boys. He had it built, he said, so that the men could come and go without being constantly under the eye of the women. I fear my old pa was not quite as saintly as Mother depicts him.

‘When I was a very small boy we used to live in a high townhouse in Bristol, and we’d drive out here on a Sunday to watch the work in progress. First the ramshackle old house was ripped down – I can remember fragments of glass winking at me from the rubble of a fallen chimney – then the foundations for the new mansion were laid and earthworks begun in the gardens. I used to lose myself among the ancient walls and hedges, and then get lost all over again when the landscape changed and artificial hillocks were created and the lake dug so that I couldn’t get my bearings. I was always anxious here. There were so many rooms with nobody in them, just the smell of damp plaster.’

By now he had drawn up a deep leather chair and steered her into it. He knelt at her side, like a suitor. ‘You are very pale, still. What can I do for you?’

Her neck throbbed. She leaned her head back and half closed her eyes. ‘In a moment I’ll go upstairs and wash.’ What a peculiarly changeable face he had. In the vestiges of twilight his eyes were darker and shadows had broken the smooth curve of his cheek. ‘Thank you for rescuing me, Mr Shackleford, it was very kind, given how much I’ve argued with you. But what were you doing in the garden?’

‘I saw you leave the ballroom and when you didn’t come back, I followed, partly because I didn’t like the look in Warren’s eye when he was dancing with you, partly because I wanted to have one more conversation before you left.’

‘What kind of conversation?’

‘A foolish one, you might think. An attempt to begin again from first principles.’

‘First principles?’

‘Some other time, perhaps, when you’re rested.’

‘What’s wrong with now? I like it here. I feel as if I’d like to stay a while.’

He hesitated, laughed, and drew a long breath. ‘All right, then, I’ll take my chance and say that I believe we began on entirely the wrong footing. From the moment I met you in that Parisian salon, even then, the timing was bad; you were distracted and wanted to absorb yourself in the French, not the English. You look startled, but I remember, Miss Ardleigh. You were bound to think ill of me from the very first and I was wrong to impose myself on you or think you would ever marry me. You, of all people, would not be persuaded by expedience. But I meant what I said on Brandon Hill about friendship and I didn’t want us to part without telling you that.’

‘Thank you, Mr Shackleford. Given the way my relatives and I have behaved recently, even I can see that’s very generous of you.’

‘I had a long speech of self-justification prepared but now is hardly the moment.’

‘In any case you have somewhat complicated matters by placing me doubly in your debt. You rescued me from Warren and my sister Georgina from penury. That puts me in the uncomfortable position of having to be grateful to you, Mr Shackleford.’

‘I don’t want you to be grateful. As you have reminded me often and in no uncertain terms, my wealth is ill gotten. It might as well be spent on Warren if it spares your sister pain, even though you’re right and she’d be better off without him. I am resigned to the fact you won’t marry me, Miss Ardleigh, but your welfare will always be my first concern.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Shackleford.’ She smiled at him, thinking muzzily that she could not fathom how much his face pleased her. ‘Talk to me some more, then,’ she murmured, ‘say anything and I’ll listen.’

‘I don’t think I have anything more to say. Words fail me. I thought I could hold a conversation with you quite coolly but … Perhaps in the morning, Miss Ardleigh, we’ll speak again.’

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. If only they could really begin again, she thought. If only she had not given herself to Didier and could think clearly about what she felt for Shackleford. Even as her other hand slid into his she closed her eyes, lest she be too distracted by the shape of his head and the lustre of candlelight on his hair. ‘Mr Shackleford, you must have heard what Warren was saying to me in the garden. He’s right. I’m not in a position to marry anyone, even if I wanted to. He mentioned that my father … there’s a woman in our village who has been very wronged … And aside from my father there’s something else which makes marriage to you impossible. I am not as you think. You should know that in Paris, in the past …’

‘I don’t care about the past. Do you think anything your father or your sister or especially you have done would stop me loving you?’

His touch was that of a man who for years had longed for the unreachable. She felt so precious to him as he stroked back her hair that she could have wept. She whispered: ‘You don’t know. If you knew. No man would want me after what I’ve done.’

‘Hush. I love you. That’s all, Thomasina.’

Her free hand seemed unable to resist mirroring the movement of his. Under her palm his cheek was a different shape to Didier’s, rounded where his was hollow. Warren had been quite right; she was familiar with the feel of a man’s skin and craved the firmness of male embrace. Or was it that she had been brutally treated by Warren and felt roughened and ugly and in need of repair? Or perhaps it was simply that the colour of Shackleford’s eyes reminded her of good things; her mother’s oak nursing chair, a freshly fallen conker and the essence of vanilla. Whatever the cause, she kissed her fingertips and pressed them to his lips. His mouth, which smiled so readily, was not smiling now.

To be kissed felt like surrender; it felt like allowing the weight of resistance to roll from her. As she was drawn against him, Compton Wyatt streamed away because this was all it was; this dark, lovely kiss. Afterwards they gazed at each other, and he stroked her hair and neck and kissed her brow.

The music changed in the ballroom, Mozart. There was a brushing of knuckles on the door, a murmured: ‘Mr Shackleford, sir, the Macaulays have called for their coach.’ Shackleford kissed her forehead and put his fingers to her bruised throat. ‘I must show myself to my guests or they’ll come looking for me. And I’ll fetch some wine because you are so pale you might faint away. I’ll be just five minutes.’ He picked up her hand to kiss it one last time and replaced it in her lap as if it were made of porcelain. Perhaps he had some premonition because at the door he turned. His smile was to linger in her memory and be resurrected sometimes.