The Master of Winterbourne

Chapter One

Hertfordshire. May 1651

‘It's as well black becomes you, Mistress.’ Alice coaxed the last wayward tendril of brown hair into a knot at the nape of Henrietta's neck. ‘I forget the last time I saw you in colours.’

Henrietta Wynter stretched out her hand to pick up the oval miniature portrait which lay on her dressing table beside the crystal lotion bottles and the jewellery she had chosen from the worn blue velvet case that had been her mother's.

‘There is no one left to mourn, Alice.’ When she looked up from her brother’s painted likeness she met the compassionate blue gaze of her maidservant. ‘By the year's end I will be quit of my weeds and perhaps by then I will also be quit of some of this sorrow. It seems never-ending.’

‘He was only a child,’ Alice offered in clumsy consolation. ‘And you had not seen him these past five years.’

‘Francis was all of my family left to me. He was the future of Winterbourne.’ The image she held blurred and she blinked until the unformed baby face of the five-year old, the tumble of light brown curls on the big lace collar, the rosebud mouth and the wide brown eyes so like her own, came back into focus. ‘This is how I remember him, just an infant. And he was only ten years old when he died, so far from home.’

Alice put down the comb and lifted a single string of pearls from the lace cloth. Henrietta shivered as the heavy smoothness settled against her bare throat. ‘Your lady mother's good-sister would have loved him well, it was only ill chance that he caught the fever. And he wasn't alone. He may have been far from Winterbourne, Mistress, but the Low Countries give harbour to many loyal subjects of His Majesty. He would have been happy with English friends his own age to play and study with.’

‘Study to what end?’ Henrietta asked as she swept aside the heavy black silk of her skirts and rose from the low stool. ‘If he had lived, when would he ever have been free to take up his inheritance? The King is in exile, his father murdered, and his assassins rule in London. Francis would have had to pledge his allegiance to the Council of State, and no Wynter could ever do such a thing.’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t give way to hopelessness, I know, but when will Winterbourne ever have a master again?’

Alice clicked her tongue impatiently as she followed Henrietta across the room, smoothing the broad, lace-edged collar encircling her shoulders. ‘It has a mistress,’ she said firmly. ‘You have guarded it well and one day soon you will find a man worthy to be master here.’

‘Worthy? Where are all these worthy men?’ Henrietta demanded. It was an old complaint. ‘They are dead on the battlefield lying alongside my father and my brother James, or so compromised with Parliament they must skulk abroad. All that are left are mere children, old men or equivocators who have compounded to keep their lands.’ She shrugged. ‘Who am I to criticise? If it were not for the influence of my godfather with those in authority I would have had to swear allegiance to Parliament or pay dearly to keep what has been in my family for years. From now on I must be Winterbourne. I am accountable for the estate and its people. You are all my family now.’

She moved to the window, sat on the cushioned seat and with an impatient movement unlatched the casement, sending it swinging wide, scattering the fragile pink petals of the dog roses bunched in a pewter pot on the oak ledge.

Alice came and knelt beside her on the broad seat, leant her elbows on the ledge and together they looked out over the expanse of lawns and orchards to the Tudor gatehouse beyond. With the inrush of soft spring air, the green scent of growing things, her sombre mood lifted and she leaned her shoulder against Alice’s, no longer mistress and servant but two eighteen-year-old friends enjoying the sight of a perfect May morning.

After the wet of early spring the grass was so lush and green that it seemed to scintillate under fruit trees bowed down with blossom. The air was clear and still, so still that she could hear the sheep folded on the slopes below the beech woods that sheltered the house and Home Farm to the north and east.

‘On a morning such as this,’ Henrietta murmured, picking up a slim vellum-bound volume from amongst the cushions, ‘we should be dressed in muslin and ribbons, waiting for our suitors to ride up and woo us with pretty phrases. But instead,' she finished with a laugh, ‘we must put on our aprons, go down to the laundry-room and see how severity will serve with that flighty new girl.’

But despite her brisk words she didn't move, except to put down the book of poetry again. ‘And, although I would like nothing better than to spend the morning reading this new volume Lady Willoughby so kindly sent, it will not get the laundry seen to.’

‘It is not severity that girl needs,’ Alice replied crisply, although her look was regretful as Henrietta laid down the book. Both had a passion for love poetry not shared by Henrietta’s Aunt Susan. ‘What she needs is wedding and bedding, or we will find ourselves with a love-child to provide for.’

‘Is it any lad in particular?’

‘If only it were.’ Alice was dour. ‘She rolls her silly sheep's eyes at anything in tight breeches. A hasty marriage is one thing, but a child with no name is quite another and a burden on the Parish.’

Henrietta glanced slyly at Alice's heightened colour and indignant eyes

. ‘Why so hot for morality all of a sudden? Is the foolish wench casting her lures at your Robert?’

Alice tossed her head, loosing a quantity of blonde hair from the confines of her starched linen coif. ‘He is not mine, and I am not his until I choose to accept his suit,’ she stated with dignity, promptly spoiled by adding, ‘And he has more sense than to take notice of a chit who is any lad's for the asking.’

‘Why keep him dangling so? He is a good man. He’s steady, loyal and hardworking and now he's my steward he can keep a wife and family. You would have a fine house at the Home Farm, and a position. It cannot be because he lost an arm fighting at my father's side?’

‘He is no less a man for the loss of an arm.’ Alice glanced at Henrietta as if assessing her mistress's mood. ‘I can vouch for that.’ Her lips quirked, hinting at secret memories.

‘Indeed, Miss!’ Henrietta struggled to be severe as she knew she ought. ‘And just how, might I ask, have you been testing his manhood?’

Alice shook her head with sudden discretion, her eyes sparkling with the reflected morning light, or perhaps her secret.

‘Alice.’ Henrietta was suddenly exasperated. ‘Why are you and Robert not betrothed yet? I know he intended to ask you, he told me so when I gave him the position of steward here at Winterbourne. If you are sharing his bed without a promise before God, you are being sinful, and if you are teasing him you are being unkind, and I believed you neither.’

Alice reached out a hand and touched Henrietta's fingers as they lay on the silvery oak. ‘In truth I do not tease him, and he knows why we cannot be betrothed.’

‘Why not?’ Henrietta looked at the girl's flushed face. ‘He is a good man, you could not hope for a better, nor a more courageous. He stood over my father's body at Newbury, despite his own terrible wounds, and he has run the estate for me faithfully. I owe him a greater debt than I can ever pay. And you must know,’ she added softly, ‘the very special place you have in my heart.’

Alice’s colour was up, but she said firmly, ‘When you are betrothed, Robert and I shall be wed. Your mother would not have wanted me to leave you before you were betrothed. After all, my mother was your mother's maidservant, we were playmates together. I cannot leave you now. And Robert understands.’

Henrietta doubted it, knowing how lovelorn her steward was, how his cold grey eyes turned soft when they watched Alice as she bustled across the yard to the drying lawns or the stillroom. Touched by her maid's devotion, she found herself without words and sat tracing the striations in the greenish panes of window glass, watching the shadow of her hand as it fell across the plaited rush matting.

‘I thank you, Alice,’ she said at last. ‘You are right – I need you now so much that I am too selfish to let you go. Perhaps in a few months, when I am used to being mistress of Winterbourne in law, instead of just its guardian as I have these past three years, since James was killed…’

There was another silence as they shared the memory of James Wynter, the plumes in his hat blowing gallantly in the wind as he rode out for the last time through the mellow red-brick arch of the old gatehouse to hazard his life for the King, and to avenge his father.

As if to echo their rememberings there was the faint sound of hoof beats on the hard-packed Chiltern chalk of the lane leading to the village. The horseman must be coming to the house, for there was nothing beyond but the downland and the woods.

‘Who can that be?’ Henrietta cocked her head to one side to catch the sound on the clear air. ‘No one from the house has ridden out this morning and Robert is overseeing the roofing of the long barn.’

‘One of your suitors, without doubt,’ Alice suggested slyly. ‘Perhaps you should have worn your pearl-drop earrings. They are very becoming. Let me get them for you.’

‘Surely not a suitor calling at this hour? It seems I am never to be granted a moment's peace from callow youths. They pretend they come to offer me sympathy on my brother’s death, but I know better. All their mothers and aunts have been plotting and scheming since the moment they heard Winterbourne is mine. No doubt their cousins and widowed uncles from London will follow shortly, once the news gets abroad.’

‘You must wed, Mistress,’ Alice pointed out practically. ‘You need a husband to govern Winterbourne. And Winterbourne,’ she added, ‘needs heirs. You are almost nineteen…’

‘And almost an old maid,’ Henrietta finished wryly. ‘There is no need to remind me. Well, I shall find neither a strong governor for the estate nor a man to father fine sons from this succession of inexperienced puppies. I need a man who knows the world, a man older than myself. And the like of Marcus Willoughby – ’ she nodded dismissively in the direction of their nearest neighbour's lands ‘– is neither.’

‘And he has pimples,’ added Alice to seal the argument. ‘But listen, I hear coach wheels. Surely Mistress Clifford would have told us if visitors were expected today?’

‘She has said nothing to me.’ Henrietta craned over the sill until she could see the church tower, halfway between the house and the village.

Beside her Alice leaned out of the window too, her blonde hair tangling with Henrietta’s fashionable brunette ringlets, her grey stuff gown catching against the dull sheen of black silk. A cloud of dust appeared above the untrimmed hawthorn hedge, then a glimpse of a large black carriage creaking up the track to the gatehouse.

‘It's Lawyer Stone.’ Henrietta sat back on her heels. ‘No one else would drive such a dreadful old coach. I am certain it must have been built in the late King’s father's day. A very careful man with his money, is Lawyer Stone; he takes as much care of his sixpences as of his gold crowns. Which is why,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘my father trusted him with his affairs.’

‘Well, this time he's expended some crowns on an escort. That must have been the horse we heard,’ Alice remarked as the coach with a rider behind clattered through the gatehouse arch, frightening a flock of white doves into wheeling panic.

‘Perhaps he's carrying a money chest, although I can't imagine why. I knew he must come soon. There will be papers for me to sign and we have known of Francis's death these six weeks past.’ Henrietta got to her feet, smoothing down the heavy silk with care, on her dignity again. ‘Alice, do come in.’

Alice, leaning dangerously over the sill, was exposing an indecorous amount of freckled cleavage and still more golden hair tumbled free from her cap in her eagerness to inspect the new arrivals. ‘That is no hired outrider, not astride such a fine mount,’ she commented, running a shrewd country eye over the strapping grey gelding pacing behind the carriage.

‘More a war horse,’ Henrietta agreed, looking over her maid’s shoulder from the discreet shadows of the room.

But even as her eyes took in the powerful hocks and roman nose of the mount she became aware of the rider astride it. The tall, erect figure on the grey rode easily, one hand on the reins, the other resting lightly on his thigh. He was all in black, relieved only by the white linen bands fluttering at his neck. His cloak was strapped behind his saddle and his high boots were powdered with the fine chalky dust that, in dry weather, covered every road in this part of Hertfordshire. The face under the broad brim of the hat was shadowed.