Fortune's Soldier Page 12

  Her mare reared in fright so that Marguerite fell forward across its neck and was in danger of being thrown as it bolted. But she was an excellent horsewoman, strong and courageous, and one gloved hand shot out to grasp the neck-rein with which she always had her mounts harnessed. The other took the reins tight and firmly and she crouched low so that her head was beneath the lethal knock of the flying branches.

  She shot through the forest like a jockey at Ascot Races, her heart pounding, her breath coming in gasps, her one thought to save herself till the animal ran itself out. Behind her there was a thudding sound which she thought at first was blood in her ears but which she realized, after her mount began to run even faster, was the sound of other hooves. There was another rider out that bleak day.

  She could not glance over her shoulder, all her attention being needed to save herself from decapitation, and it wasn’t until the horseman drew alongside that she glimpsed the black steed of John Joseph. He raced along beside her, shouting something which she could not catch. But, whatever he said, there was nothing he could do to help her until they had escaped the forest — and she was glad to see the parkland thinning out as they left the hunting land of the old Kings behind them.

  They were in the Home Park proper now and the outbuildings of one of the farms were visible in the distance. John Joseph’s left hand shot out and he grabbed the mare’s bridle, circling his own horse so that the runaway was led out to the right.

  ‘Hang on, Mrs Trevelyan,’ he shouted.

  She nodded her head, not having enough breath left in her body to speak.

  ‘She’ll slow soon.’

  Once again she nodded and, sure enough, felt the pace of her mount begin to decrease and, a minute or so later, stop altogether. The mare stood, frothing and foam flecked and gasping for breath, rolling its eyes wildly.

  ‘Here, get off. She looks fit to drop.’

  He held his arms up and Marguerite Trevelyan kicked loose her stirrup and slid into his grasp. Beneath the velvet habit her nakedness must have been tangible as his fingers gripped her waist to lift her down. He was too embarrassed to know what to do and a fierce colour blazed in his cheeks. He would have let her go abruptly but she laid both her elegant hands on his.

  ‘Thank you for saving me.’

  ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘Why don’t you look at me?’

  He did, falteringly; his eyes as clouded as a winter sea. She saw at once that he was wretched.

  ‘What is the matter, John Joseph?’

  His hands stirred to drop by his sides but she imprisoned them, tightening her hold.

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘Mrs Trevelyan, I ...’

  She laughed under her breath. He was like an open book, torn in two with desire and the simultaneous insecurity of youth.

  ‘Come, come — don’t be shy with me. I always wear few clothes when riding. It makes for freedom of movement.’

  It was a provocative remark from a widow to a man fifteen years her junior and she saw a certain look come into his eye. She wondered, briefly, how many times she had seen that expression before — and from how many different men.

  ‘I see.’

  He did not really, and was beginning to wonder if she was giving him a hidden message. And yet he idolized her so, would never dare lay so much as a finger upon her. Beneath hers, his hands began to shake.

  Once again Marguerite Trevelyan smiled to herself. It was so obvious — the way this catch must be reeled in. He must take her by storm, apologize, be forgiven — and then go on ravishing and relenting until she tired of the game. With a little sigh she pretended to lose consciousness in his arms.

  He was consternation personified.

  ‘Marguerite, my darling. Oh my God!’

  He began to pat at her hands and then her cheeks. Giving a little moan, but not opening her eyes, she started to tear at her collar as if struggling for air. Immediately his trembling fingers were at the buttons, wrenching at them awkwardly. One, two undone — and the plunge between her breasts was exposed. As if he could not help himself John Joseph lowered his head and ran his tongue down the delicious valley, tasting her sweat and all the lovely essence of her.

  Gasping as if she were about to choke, Marguerite undid the third button herself. Her naked breasts came into full view, the nipples hard and tight in the icy air. With a groan John Joseph stood stock still, holding her firmly against him. Then he fell to caressing her, kissing and taking her nipples gently into his mouth.

  ‘Oh, I must have swooned,’ said Marguerite faintly.

  John Joseph jerked away from her, guiltily trying to close up her bodice.

  ‘Yes, yes — you did.’

  ‘How foolish. But I feel so weak. I think I must lie down before I can proceed any further.’

  ‘Should we not go to Pomona House? It is no distance and Caroline can look after you. I believe she is at home, though Mother and the others are out on a visit.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Marguerite quickly. ‘I must rest now. Isn’t that Blanchard’s barn over there? Just help me that far and leave me to lie down. You can go home then, poor dear boy. I apologize for being such a nuisance.’

  ‘You could never be that, Mrs Trevelyan.’

  ‘I think after this adventure you might call me Marguerite.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He was going red with guilt. ‘Are you able to walk?’

  Marguerite cautiously put one foot before the other but her knees buckled beneath her and John Joseph found her in his arms once more.

  ‘Do you think you might carry me? I believe that I am no great weight. If you tether the mare near the barn I shall try to ride back when my strength is returned.’

  All the time she had been having this conversation Marguerite had been leaning against John Joseph’s shoulder, one arm about his neck. Now he picked her up and carried her towards the long low building — put up at the same time as Sutton Place — where Blanchard kept his hay and animal feeds. The lovely golden smell of straw greeted them as John Joseph stooped his way through the low door and put his father’s tenant down to sit upon a bale.

  He was in torment. If she had been Cloverella — or any other of the farm girls — he would have asked for her favour, and put an end to his barely controllable lust. But she was not. She was a lady, high born and delicate into the bargain. How he could have taken such advantage when she fainted, he would never know. But her buttons were still undone and now, as she lay back, he had another tantalizing glimpse of those beautiful breasts.

  ‘Mrs Trevelyan ... Marguerite ...’ he said, turning to stare out of the barn door through which could be glimpsed the dying winter sun, ‘I think I will have to go now. I will fetch help, of course.’

  She struggled to sit up slightly.

  ‘Oh must you? I see that the night is drawing in. I think I might be the smallest bit afraid — alone here and in the dark.’

  He turned back to look at her, then dropped on to one knee so that his eyes were level with hers.

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of that — and yet I am afraid to stay.’

  She pretended to misunderstand and gave a little laugh. ‘You are afraid of the dark, John Joseph?’

  ‘No ... oh, damn it ... I am afraid of you.’

  ‘Of me?’

  Her eyes widened like two blue circles. He swallowed miserably.

  ‘Mrs Trevelyan, I can’t help myself. I have fallen in love with you.’

  Her tinkling laugh rang out and she gave a gentle smile. ‘What nonsense is this? Here, foolish boy, come sit beside me.’

  She patted the bale of straw and John Joseph obeyed. Then she leant back very slightly, supporting herself on straight arms. Once again her breasts were visible through her open neckline. She shook her head at him in mock reproof.

  ‘You naughty boy ...’

  But she never finished. She had teased long enough and John Joseph’s mouth — hard as a rock in his anxiety — sought hers in a frenzied kiss.
He was astonished to feel her lips part to return him the most sensual embrace he had ever received.

  His hands, clumsy as a schoolboy’s, felt for her nipples and he heard the fabric of her riding habit tear beneath his touch. She lay naked to the waist before him; to contain himself now was an impossibility. He took her body to his and pushed his shaft into her remorselessly, not caring a damn for her feeble cries of protest.

  But afterwards, in the dark shadows of Blanchard’s frost-lit barn, he wept that he could have handled her so roughly, begged her pardon for what he considered was tantamount to rape. And her sweet smile of understanding moved him beyond words. He knew that he could never, ever, again love anyone with the blatant adoration that he felt for the entrancing Marguerite Trevelyan.

  *

  Three other people, in whose lives Sutton Place was destined to play a great part, lay sleeping as the stars came up over Blanchard’s barn that night. And all three of them — though far removed from one another geographically — were dreaming.

  Jackdaw, sent to Spain to translate from her native tongue the words of Queen Regent Christina, slept in his dress uniform of the 9th Lancers. He had sat next to Lord Palmerston’s envoy at the formal state banquet and repeated the Queen’s conversation word for word in English. And afterwards he had fallen asleep, his mind buzzing with the proposed alliance between Britain, France, Spain and Portugal against the Pretenders Don Carlos and Don Miguel, and wondering why a diplomatic translator would not have sufficed in his stead.

  ‘Because you look so charming in your uniform,’ Helen had told him before he had sailed — and even the General had muttered agreement into his whiskers.

  And Jackdaw thought they were probably right. Mature the Queen Regent might be, heavily involved with state affairs she was, but still she had a crinkle in the corner of her eye for him. And he had remembered then the favour his great-great-grandfather Joseph Gage had found at the hands of an earlier Spanish Queen — Elizabeth Farnese — and had allowed himself the liberty of executing one of his jerky bows. He had been rewarded with a rare but flashing smile from Queen Mother Christina.

  And now he slept in a chair, still clutching a brandy bottle. He dreamt that he stood on the beach at Hastings looking out towards the White Rock. Two people had climbed to the top of it and they beckoned him to come and join them. But the ascent looked terrible to him and as he waded out to get there, for the tide was running at full swell, he felt that he would never achieve the summit.

  One of the people leaned over the edge — high, high above him — and said, ‘Come on Jackdaw — you’re late,’ and he realized it was she. Even though he was dreaming he felt his heart lurch. It had been years since he had first seen her vision as a new-born baby — and now here she was, grown-up. She stood up to speak to him, balancing on the rock’s very cliff, and he noticed that her hair had grown even more abundant, falling round her shoulders in unbounded tresses. She wore a light green shift, and her feet were bare.

  ‘Who are you?’ he called out.

  ‘You know who I am.’

  ‘Say your name.’

  A man appeared beside her, slipping his arm casually about her shoulders. Jackdaw gazed in amazement — it was John Joseph!

  The sea grew cavernous as he reached the rock’s foot and pools of amethyst and jade appeared. Everywhere was the crashing of water and the smell of the ocean’s magic breath.

  ‘You know her name,’ John Joseph called out.

  With a cry Jackdaw threw his arms over his head and allowed the sea to close over him. He did not care if he never saw daylight again.

  Yet after a few moments he surfaced once more and found that he was not at Hastings but swimming in the River Wey in the grounds of Sutton Place.

  It was still high summer in his dream and a man leant over the river bank, almost on top of Jackdaw, to cool a bottle of champagne in the water. He was laughing over-loudly and seemed a little drunk. Looking beyond him Jackdaw could see a host of people — women in short dresses with bandeaux about their heads, men in extraordinary striped jackets and light trousers, thronging the banks in droves.

  Some of them had sat down to picnic — tablecloths covered with food and wine were everywhere — and some danced to music provided by a strange dark box with a horn attached to it.

  ‘Too ripping, Lord Northcliffe,’ said a girl with long legs, red lips and an ivory holder for what appeared to be small white cigars. ‘Simply splendid.’

  She looked out over the river, then shouted, ‘I say, look there! I think somebody’s fallen in.’

  They both stared to where Jackdaw stood in the shallows. The man said, ‘I can’t see anybody.’

  ‘No, neither can I now. Must be the bubbly.’

  She shrieked with laughter and Lord Northcliffe loudly unpopped the champagne cork and poured her out another glass.

  ‘What do you think of my home, eh?’ he said, and with a nifty hand pinched her buttocks.

  ‘Simply divine — all that lovely history. I say, Alfred — may I call you Alfred, I would be so thrilled? — is it haunted?’

  A funny look came over Lord Northcliffe’s face. ‘Don’t ask me that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I am the only one who can see anything. Mollie my wife thinks I’m mad, I believe.’

  ‘Well, I don’t. I should simply adore to spend a night in a haunted house. May I?’

  ‘By all means,’ he said rather abruptly. ‘But I’m afraid you won’t find me about. I have insomnia.’

  She frowned, rather puzzled. ‘I don’t follow, I’m afraid. Too silly of me, but ...’

  He gulped some champagne and said, ‘I know it sounds ridiculous but I have a theory that it is the house that causes my sleeplessness. So every night I go to a bungalow on the Clandon estate. It’s the only way I can get any shut-eye.’

  ‘Good Heavens! What ghosts do you see? Surely not Anne Boleyn with her head tucked underneath her arm?’

  ‘No, only a White Lady.’

  ‘Ooh, how deliciously spooky.’

  ‘She haunts the garden too — in Lady Weston’s walk. You can smell her perfume when she walks past, feel the vacuum that she has created ...’

  His eyes were distant and staring and the girl said, ‘Is that who she is then? Lady Weston?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, damn her.’

  He looked suddenly depressed and as if he was about to get into a morbid mood when a diversion was caused. One of the picnickers rose from her place and running to the river bank in quite the most extraordinary garb Jackdaw had ever laid eyes on — a thigh-length all in one black outfit which clung to her body and showed the lines of it quite distinctly — dived in head first.

  She came to the surface exactly beside Jackdaw and looked straight at him as she rose from the depths. Then she put out her hand and touched him, quite casually, on the shoulder. Something about the feel of him — he did not know what — must have frightened her because she started to scream.

  ‘My God,’ shouted Northcliffe. ‘Somebody’s drowning.’

  And he jumped, fully clothed, into the water. After a moment’s contemplation his companion, giggling madly, did the same.

  Jackdaw, for no apparent reason, could not bear to have them near him and started to swim away from where they threshed about like elephants at a water hole. But as he went he turned his head and saw Northcliffe look up and directly at him. It was such a melancholy stare, with terrible madness in its depths.

  ‘White Lady, Grey Lady, long-dead Lancer,’ Jackdaw heard him shout. ‘Why do you all come to torture me? Why do you claim Sutton Place as yours ... yours?’

  His voice died away and Jackdaw rolled out of his chair and fell on to the floor, the brandy bottle still clutched tightly in his hand.

  *

  In the kitchens of Sutton Place, on that very same night, Cloverella sat dozing before the fire. It was midnight and the search parties were all out, for the Missus hadn’t come home. She had gone rid
ing before tea time and there had been no sign of her since.

  At five o’clock the principal groom had organized a group but so far — though they were combing the forest inch by inch — there had been no trace. Cloverella had been called upon, along with the other kitchen servants, to provide nourishing soup and vittals for the rescue party. But though they had been feeding them for what seemed like all night, they had nothing to report. The whereabouts of Mrs Trevelyan remained a mystery.

  Now she slumbered in a high wooden chair, warmed by the glow of the embers which reflected pinkly in her cheeks.

  She dreamed that she stood in the courtyard of Sutton Place but that, once more, it was a quadrangle, closed in by a soaring and lofty Gate House. She looked towards the Middle Enter and saw, standing there, a red-headed man in Tudor dress; beside him a woman with dark hair and a closed secretive face.

  She knew at once that they were Sir Henry Weston — son of Francis and Rose — and his wife Lady Dorothy Arundell. She knew also that she had entered the body of her ancestress, Cloverella the Witch.

  She looked down at herself and saw that she was clad in a crimson shift and that black hair hung to her waist. She knew that she was powerful but that the knowledge of nature’s secrets had not corrupted her soul.

  ‘Cloverella,’ said Sir Henry, ‘you must make the rain come. You must end the drought. My lands will perish if you do not.’

  ‘What do you say, Lady Dorothy?’ she had answered. ‘Shall I proceed?’

  The dark brown eyes — almost the shade of mahogany — had turned towards her and Cloverella had read pain in their depths; pain at the misery her patron’s family had suffered at the hands of Kings and Princes.

  What a thread of blood ran between Lady Dorothy and Sir Henry! One’s father dead upon the block accused of adultery with Queen Anne Boleyn; the other’s — a friend of Francis Weston and created a Knight of the Bath with him at Anne’s coronation — beheaded for joining the mighty Seymour faction: those who had pushed their sister Jane into Anne Boleyn’s place and had been the uncles of the boy-King, Edward VI.