He bent his head to kiss her shoulder, sliding his lips along the curve and up to her throat and in her sleep she smiled and murmured something. Encouraged, he slipped his hand inside the nightdress and cupped her breast, gently rolling her nipple which rose at once into a peak.
‘Darling . . . darling,’ he whispered, turning her towards him and when she opened her eyes he bent and kissed her lips.
‘Brooke . . . there you are,’ she murmured, not at all surprised to find him beside her.
‘Yes, here I am. Who did you expect to find in your bed?’
‘My husband . . . darling . . . where have you been?’
‘Here, always here, my love . . . my love . . .’ He did not know what he was saying, nor care in the sweet tenderness of the moment. He ran his hand down her body, his lips still busy with her lips, her throat, her breast, then lifted her nightdress and in one practised movement, lowered himself on to her and slowly entered her. She was moist and ready for him. Her arms wound round his neck and she arched her body to meet his and together for only the second time in their marriage they moved to a peak of ecstasy which made them both cry out.
‘Charlotte . . . Charlie . . . my love . . . my sweet . . .’
‘Brooke . . . Brooke . . . that was . . . wonderful . . .’ she sighed then at once fell asleep, curving her body close to his. He smiled in the firelight then, with her entwined in his arms, he too fell asleep.
When he awoke she was gone!
And so was Ruth when Charlotte burst into the kitchen of the Dower House. Meggie was on her knees scrubbing the floor, Kizzie was at the range stirring something in a pan that smelled delicious and Ruth’s baby was grizzling piteously in the drawer that Kizzie had filled with soft little blankets and made into a makeshift cradle. There was no sign of Jenny or her child.
‘She’s gone,’ Kizzie said.
‘Who?’ though of course she knew.
‘Can tha’ not guess?’
‘Dear God!’
‘Aye, dear God indeed, fer that lass’ll kill herself the way she’s goin’. ‘Course she left bairn which’ll not last the day.’
‘Jenny . . .?’
‘Oh, she’s all right. Loves ’er bairn and is feedin’ it right now but she ’asn’t enough milk fer two. Or . . . or . . . she don’t want ter feed the child an’ tha’ can’t blame ’er. ’Er own comes first. When that there doctor comes ’appen ’e’ll know ’ow ter get ’old o’ summat ter feed poor kid. Our Meggie might ’ave ter run ter’t chemist fer some o’ that baby feed.’
Charlotte sat down wearily, watching as Meggie’s arm swept back and forth on the already clean floor, moving her bucket with her. The girl was going to be an asset, there was no doubt about it. She had been here last night to allow herself and Kizzie to get some much needed rest but, sleeping beside her sister in the big bed Kizzie occupied, she had not heard Ruth creep out.
She sighed deeply and stood up. She was just about to go up the stairs to have a word with Jenny when the door burst open and her husband, whom she had left peacefully sleeping, burst into the house and then into the kitchen.
‘I thought I might find you here and it won’t bloody well do, Charlotte. I wish you to come home at once and sit down, as my wife, to breakfast with me. Mrs Groves is cooking right now and I’m hungry. She informs me that you have not eaten so you must be, too. Come along. Your place is with me not . . . not with . . .’ He swept an arm in an arc to indicate Kizzie and Meggie who were both pressing themselves up against the side of the range.
He was incensed, maddened, not only by his sense of betrayal after the wonder of last night but also by a desperate anguish, for he had thought that at last they had come to an understanding. She was his wife, his beloved wife who last night had seemed to love him, or at least to be on the edge of it, and now, here she was again turning from him and he couldn’t stand it. There was a terrible blankness in his eyes. A dangerous, almost murderous expression clamped on his face born of his frustrated disappointment. Charlotte backed away from him but he had not yet done with her.
‘Are you to come then?’ he asked almost pleasantly.
‘Presently . . .’ she faltered.
‘Oh no! You will come now or I will close this place down. Dismiss Kizzie and this other woman, turn out these women you have brought to my home, and their brats, and . . . and . . .’
He had run out of words.
‘Brooke, please, you can’t mean it.’ Her face was deathly white and her expression haunted. She too remembered last night and the loveliness of it. She did not want it to end like this, which it would if she did not do as he asked. In fact, if she did as he asked it would end, for she would never forgive him.
‘And by the way,’ he continued, having got himself under control. ‘We have a card in the post this morning from Patsy Ackroyd confirming her invitation to her party and about which I knew nothing. When were you going to tell me, Charlotte? Well, never mind, get your cloak and let us go home. Good morning, Kizzie and . . .’
‘Meggie, sir, my sister.’
‘I see, then good morning to you both. I trust you can manage without my wife, for you will not see her over here again. If you do it will be in direct opposition to my will and this place will immediately be shut down. Charlotte?’
She moved like an automaton towards him, allowing him to take her arm and lead her from the room and from the house. And from the vision she had had of a life for herself. She was not a socialite like Patsy Ackroyd and others of her sort. She was not cut out to live the life of the wife of a gentleman who expected her to receive callers, make calls in return, entertain his guests, be smart and amusing as Patsy was. To ride to hounds, to attend shooting parties, house parties, balls and dances which he enjoyed, to travel here, there and everywhere to what were called ‘Fridays to Mondays’. So what was she to do with herself if she was denied a natural outlet for her ambition to be herself, to use her brain? She was not prepared to be treated like a child or some woman Brooke employed to run his home.
She didn’t know. Not yet. But by God, she’d fight. When she had recovered somewhat from the shock of his declaration she’d fight like a tigress to be what she wanted to be, whatever that was, to do what she wanted to do, whatever that might be. She would . . . she would compromise, give in on things that didn’t matter like this damn party on Saturday but she’d have her way, choose how, as Kizzie often said.
So, each day, when he left the house on his estate business she slipped out of the side door and visited the Dower House. She would see the doctor’s gig by the side gate, well away from the servants’ gaze, meet him in the kitchen of the Dower House where he was desperately trying to save the scrap of humanity that was Ruth’s baby, confer with him on the best course to take – he had suggested trying baby food – and generally help Kizzie and Meggie for the short time she allowed herself. She was pretty certain the servants knew and she felt slightly guilty because she knew Brooke trusted her. But she could not just sit in her drawing room and twiddle her thumbs waiting for God knows what. She couldn’t even embroider for heaven’s sake!
‘’E told tha’ not ter come, lass,’ Kizzie had said to her. ‘Tha’ knows ’e’s a man of ’is word an’ if ’e closes this place down an’ dismisses me an’ Meggie what’ll Jenny an’ ’er baby do? Where’ll they go? Doctor ses another few days then she can get up but she’s not strong enough ter . . . well, I dunno.’
‘Kizzie, dearest, I will let nothing happen to you, Meggie or Jenny. Let me worry about the master. I shall have to do as he wishes but I’m bloody well not going to give up this place. I discovered another little gate to the side of this house leading on to a lane and up to the back door, quite hidden from the big house. It means the doctor can come without being seen. Trust me, I’ll find an answer. I shall fight and scream in front of the servants and anyone else before I’ll let anyone turn you three out nor the babies. He’ll . . .’ She gulped, remembering that perfect moment a few nights ago, saddened that it had not returned. Would it ever?
‘Eh, lovey . . .’ Kizzie shook her head sadly.
She caused a minor sensation when she entered Jack and Patsy Ackroyd’s ballroom on her husband’s arm and those already dancing made her smile for they were so busy staring at her and Brooke they kept bumping into one another, the women tripping over the small trains of their evening gowns before they regained their equilibrium.
Brooke had made love to her every night since the day he had laid down the law about the Dower House but it had not been the same. She had submitted, as she had done in the past, but she had viciously damped down the small flare of desire that had done its best to burst into life when he caressed her. They were back to the first days of their marriage when they had both been scrupulously polite with one another.
Now she was doing what he had asked by socialising with these people who were the elite of the district. Jack Ackroyd, though he was in wool as were many of the company, did not actually
work
in his mills and factories but had inherited what he had from men, millmasters, who had started the woollen industry a century or more ago. The Ackroyds lived in an impressive house just south of Wakefield, Calder Field, which had vast gardens, woodland, tennis courts and stables containing Jack’s dozen or so horses, since both he and Patsy were keen members of the Danby Hunt.
‘Well, I can see you’re going to give me a lot of pleasure, Charlotte. I may call you Charlotte, mayn’t I?’ Patsy chortled as she hurried to take them from the butler who was announcing them. Her husband, who was a good deal older than her, was not quite sure how to deal with this radiant creature nor his young wife’s reaction to her arrival.
‘There are a lot of stuffy people here,’ she had said in an aside to him, ‘so I invited them to make up a few younger ones,’ then turned brightly back to Brooke and Charlotte. ‘And what a gorgeous gown; it must be Worth or Doucet, not bought in Wakefield, I’m sure. Now tell the truth, Brooke, where did you take your wife to acquire such a garment? You put us all to shame, indeed you do.’ Charlotte wore a silver sheath, shimmering in the soft wall lights Patsy preferred, a slim line that showed off her perfect figure, flaring at the knees like a mermaid’s tail, the bodice slipping carelessly off one shoulder to reveal the whiteness of her skin. In her hair she wore a silver ribbon which was meant to hold it in place but in fact allowed it to escape in an enchanting tumble of curls.
‘Paris,’ Brooke admitted coolly, for he had disapproved of the defiant way Charlotte wore it, ‘on our honeymoon,’ glancing down at Charlotte who so far had said not one word.
It was the same all evening and the guests, men and women, all whispered to one another that though Brooke Armstrong’s wife was quite startling in her loveliness, she was very dull! She was seen to chat with several of the ladies when she was not dancing, as she was never short of a partner, the men clustering round her to take her on the floor, but she merely smiled and allowed them to hold her in their eager arms to dip and sway about the room.
‘She asked me if I had ever visited the West Riding Industrial Home for Females,’ Milly Pickford told Maddy Hill, shocked to the core, for what lady would do such a thing.
‘Well, she’s decidedly odd, I must say: she asked me if I knew of any young women taken into the Wakefield Union Workhouse. What would I know of such a thing, I ask you?’
‘She questioned me on Charles’s shoddy mill, for heaven’s sake, as if I would know the slightest thing about it,’ Rosemary Denton cried. ‘Really, I don’t think she will fit in at all!’
She danced several times with her husband but it was noticed by several of the ladies who sat out, some of them with marriageable daughters who must, of course, be chaperoned, that though he spoke to her she barely answered him, her face averted.
She got through it. She had done as he asked and in the carriage ride home, though he said not a word, she knew he was only barely holding in the temper she had not known he had until a few days ago. She reached the safety of their bedroom without a word being spoken, for there were servants still about, but with the door closed behind them he grabbed her from behind as she walked towards her dressing table and whirled her to face him.
‘So is this how it is to be?’ he hissed, his breath hot on her face, breath that reeked of brandy.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you do, madam. If I will not allow this mad idea you have of taking prostitutes off the streets and housing them and their offspring you will treat me and my friends to the contempt you think we deserve. You behaved abominably tonight.’
‘I was as good as gold.’
‘Really. Well, tell me this. For what purpose did you ask Milly Pickford if she had ever visited—’
‘So, she told you, did she?’
‘Her husband did and—’
‘I know. You won’t have it—’
He hit her then, twice across the face, viciously and accurately so that her neck muscles wrenched in agony and her head, reeling backwards, struck hard against the wall. Then he tore her lovely silver gown from her, stripped her naked and threw her on the bed.
He made her pregnant that night and though she fought him, bit him, snapping at his face with her teeth, she gloried in it, and so did he!
14
She drove the gig herself with Kizzie beside her and nobody tried to stop them, for the yard men had had no instructions from the master. It was March and the month had come in like the proverbial lamb with a warm breeze which was welcome after the bitter cold of February. The sun shone from a pale blue sky and though Charlotte felt the sighing sadness of the last few days weigh heavily upon her the sunshine lifted her spirits a little. The country lanes along which Misty stepped out smartly were just coming into the glory that would be spring: primroses in the midst of their crown of green leaves, celandine buds, coltsfoot and field speedwell scattered in the waist-high banks and the buds of daffodils standing up above the grass, straight, like little lance-heads among their spears of green.
Jenny and the babies were well enough to be left in Meggie’s capable hands and surprisingly, since she was not what Kizzie would call a
taking
baby, Meggie was quite smitten with Ruth’s little thing, giving most of her time to her since Jenny doted on Rose and now that she was out of bed would let no one else go near her! Meggie had asked tentatively if Kizzie would mind if Ruth’s infant could be called Pearl.