From Ruin to Riches

‘But I wanted to ride.’ I need to escape before you realise that you only have to touch me and I turn into melted butter. If you don’t know that already.

Will flipped back the sheet and lay back. ‘Come here and I’ll teach you to ride astride.’

There was absolutely no mistaking his meaning. Julia could feel the blush spreading from her toe-tips to her cheeks. She wanted to flee, she wanted to run to him. She tried to look as though it was actually a rational decision, as though she was in charge of her emotions. Julia held Will’s gaze and walked back to the bed, tossing her hair back over her shoulder as she did so. His eyes narrowed and she saw a perceptible reaction in his already aroused body.

I please him. And despite everything, the fears and the dreams and the knowledge that Will still did not trust her, the realisation that this aspect of their marriage might be happy was like a benison. If it lasts.

Chapter Twelve

By the time she and Will sat down to luncheon Julia had managed to stop colouring up every time he looked at her. After a prolonged, very instructive and shatteringly pleasurable interlude in bed Julia had managed to take her horseback ride after all.

Nancy had fetched her conventional riding habit without being asked and Julia was glad to be saved the temptation to put on her divided skirt. She didn’t want an argument with her husband to spoil the remarkable closeness their lovemaking had created. Will had accompanied her and even listened, without apparent irritation, to her comments on how the fields were being used and what the situation was with the tenants. He had admired the rebuilt cottages that replaced the row he had shown her that first morning and complimented her on the design of the well cover and the pigsties.

Perhaps, after all, things were going to settle down. He would accept her as a partner, her position would be safe and, with shared interests, they could begin to build a marriage.

And yet… She watched him from beneath her lashes. Will had been attentive, had listened and yet somehow she had felt that he was flirting with her, humouring her. He knew, because quite plainly he was a man of very considerable experience in these matters, that she was attracted to him, that she had enjoyed herself in his arms. The balance of power, she mused. My lord and master. In bed and out of it—is that how he sees it?

‘I expect we will be besieged by visitors,’ Will remarked now as he cut into a cheese. ‘Aunt Delia will have spread the gossip all about the neighbourhood. We were spared all the bride-visits three years ago, but we are in for them now.’

‘I suppose we will be.’ People would soon sate their curiosity, surely? Then they would leave them in the peace she was used to, with only morning calls from close neighbours and her particular friends.

‘We must hold a dinner party as soon as possible.’

‘We must?’ Will did not mean the informal dinners she enjoyed, with good plain food on the table and casual card or table games, music and gossip afterwards.

‘Certainly. A series of small ones, I thought, rather than try to deal with everyone at once. In fact, I have a list of guests drawn up we can use to sort out the invitation list for the first one.’

A series of dinner parties would mean hours of planning. They would be an event in the neighbourhood and people would compare notes, which meant a different menu for each, and different table decorations. ‘I will have to buy some new gowns.’

‘Is that such a hardship? I never thought to hear a woman say that sentence in such a depressed tone of voice.’

Julia smiled and shrugged. ‘It is simply the time, but I can go into Aylesbury tomorrow and order several.’ She made no mention of the discomfort she felt walking around the crowded streets full of strangers.

Will had said nothing about pin money or housekeeping and she had no intention of bringing the subject up until she had to. It was not that she had been extravagant while she had sole control of the money, but she did not relish the thought of having to account for every penny spent on toothpowder or silk stockings. She had been earning the money that she spent so prudently. Now she would be beholden to her husband for everything.

‘We will go up to town in the autumn,’ Will said. ‘Presumably you go fairly frequently.’

‘No. I have never been.’ Ridiculously it seemed more dangerous than any other place, as though Bow Street Runners would be waiting around every corner for her. Fingers would point, constables would pounce and drag her before magistrates…

‘Why not? Is this another foolish scruple, like not wearing the jewellery?’ Julia shook her head, unable to think of a convincing explanation, and Will frowned. ‘Well, we will go up in a week or so. It will be short of company, but we can both shop, I can make myself known at my clubs again and so forth.’

‘Of course. I shall look forward to it.’ The irrational panic was building inside, beating at her, and Julia made herself sip her lemonade and nibble at a cheesecake. She needed peace and time to reflect.

*

The next day after luncheon Will rode off to interview the village bla

cksmith about the ironwork for the new stables. Julia waited until his long-tailed grey gelding had vanished from sight, then went into the garden to gather a handful of white rosebuds. Ellis the gardener controlled his usual grumbles about anyone picking ‘his’ flowers and gave her a smile as she passed him. He knew what the little bouquet was for.

The path wound through the shrubbery, past the vicarage and into the churchyard. The ancient village had been moved by some autocratic baron early in the last century when it got in the way of his new parkland. As a result the villagers found themselves with new homes, but a longer walk to the now-isolated church which also served as the chapel for the castle.

Julia made her way round to the south side and pushed open the ancient oak door. Inside the light was dimmed by the stained glass windows and the silence was profound and peaceful. She made her way to the Hadfield family chapel with its view through an ornate stone screen to the chancel.

The table tomb of Will’s fourteenth-century ancestor, Sir Ralph Hadfield, stood in the centre. The knight, his nose long since chipped off, lay with a lion under his feet and his hand on his sword hilt. Beside him his lady, resplendent in the fashions of the day, had a lapdog as her footrest.

Between the east end of the tomb and the chapel-altar steps was a slab with a ring in to give access to the Hadfield vault beneath. Delia always said the thought of the vault gave her the horrors, but Julia found the chapel peaceful. The ancestors beneath her feet, lying together in companionable eternity, held no terrors for her. It was quiet, cool, strangely comforting in the chapel as she gathered up the drooping roses from the vase standing on the slab and added the new flowers, then sat and let her tumbling thoughts still and calm.

That morning she and Nancy had folded and packed away all the tiny garments, the shawls, the rattle, the furnishings for the nursery. Now they were in silver paper and lavender, the cot stripped of its hangings, everything put away in the attic.