Dangerous Lord, Seductive Mistress

Chapter Five

Once in her chamber Julia went directly to the small anteroom where her writing desk was positioned close to a window. When seated in that spot she had a splendid view of the rosebeds and lawns that flowed in an undulating emerald swathe to a stream edging an area of deciduous woodland. The trees were a beautiful sight to behold, garmented in shades of gold and red. At present the charming view did not lure Julia’s interest, rather her desk did. She sat down before it and got from a pocket in her grey gown a key. She used it to open the bureau, then, having found the little spring with a finger, she put pressure on it until a secret compartment came open. Gravely she gazed at the contents within. An unsteady hand trembled forwards to withdraw a few letters tied with ribbon.

‘Oh…Gregory, he has come,’ she whispered. ‘He seems angry with her, too, despite his courtesy. But I think he still wants her. We should not have done it,’ she murmured to her beloved first husband. ‘Our Debbie did not make the excellent match she deserved. Nice Edmund Green is lost to her, too. She is a spinster…soon to be twenty-five. A beauty still, indeed she is, but past her prime.’ She pressed pale fingers to her watering eyes. ‘Now you are not here and I alone must decide what to do. What shall I say if she asks if letters arrived for her? Must I deny it all? Shall I burn them or hand them over with excuses?’ She dropped the unopened letters back whence they came. ‘Will they think the letters were innocently lost and accept it as fate’s way rather than our way of telling them their love was not to be?’

* * *

An hour or so later Julia woke from her fitful slumber with a start. A thought had been pricking at her semi-consciousness. Now it surfaced and made her gasp. She had forgotten to visit the kitchens and tell Cook they had a guest to dine. She used her elbows to get upright on the coverlet where she had been napping.

A woman’s musical chuckle was heard coming from outside and it drew Julia from the bed to the window. The sun was setting in the west, filtering through autumn-hued trees and turning the eastern boundary to a fiery panorama. A movement on the southern path caught her eye and she watched as the handsome couple strolled. With a woman’s eye she noticed straight away that her daughter had not taken Mr Chadwicke’s arm whilst promenading. They were side by side, and smiling, but a good space was between them. Despite their time alone, and their amiable appearance, no intimate conversation had taken place. Julia knew, to her shame, that she was glad their pride held them apart. She hoped he would leave and go about his business without making any mention of his letters.

Deborah had been a touch formal with him. Julia had sensed that immediately, in spite of her daughter’s attempt to conceal her emotions behind good manners. But Julia was sure that Mr Chadwicke still had a hankering for Deborah. She was not so shrivelled that she could not recognise when a man had a certain twinkle in his eye. She craned her neck as the couple began to disappear from sight in the direction of the walled garden. She imagined Deborah was intending to show him the parterre and the fishpond situated beyond the iron gate.

Drawing back with a sigh, Julia was about to turn away when a movement to the north of the plot caught her attention. Instinctively she shrank back in fear as though to conceal herself behind the heavy curtain. A fellow was lurking and appeared keen to secrete himself behind a huge yew whilst peeping in the direction that her daughter and Mr Chadwicke had taken. Julia knew the burly individual was one of the Luckhursts. He and his brother were alleged to be notorious criminals, although it seemed they always managed to escape arrest. When she’d been shopping with Deborah in Hastings Julia had seen them brazenly swaggering about with their cronies. She had never liked the way the younger one smirked at her daughter with a mixture of lechery and belligerence on his coarse face.

On moving to Sussex with her second husband Julia had initially felt an indifference to the fact that they lived amongst smugglers. But since her daughter’s fiancé had been killed, she had been thrust into awareness of the true price of contraband. Deborah loathed the smugglers and let everybody know it. On many occasions Julia had cautioned her daughter to guard her tongue. One never knew who might be listening.

Blood began to pump deafeningly in Julia’s ears. Why was Seth Luckhurst in the garden spying on Deborah? Had her daughter recently challenged him again over his wickedness? Again she peeked out. For a moment she was mesmerised by the brawny fellow who was glancing this way and that. He seemed to be checking if the coast were clear before making his move. Julia skittered backwards away from the window as she saw him look up. She was frightened he might have spotted her. She collapsed on the edge of the bed, her fingers threaded tightly together. A calming thought occurred to her: their guest might be the person drawing his interest. Randolph Chadwicke looked a well-to-do fellow with his handsome appearance and stylish apparel. Perhaps the miscreant had been following him. Was he watching for him to leave so he might ambush him and rob him of his valuables? A moment later Julia was again fretting for her own safety. Anybody could see that Mr Chadwicke had a lofty height and a fine pair of shoulders on him and would put up a good fight. It was more likely that Luckhurst was watching for their guest’s departure so he might burgle Woodville Place. A coil of fear tightened in Julia’s stomach and she sprang up and rushed to the door.

* * *

‘There is no one out there now, Mrs Woodville, you have my assurances on it.’

‘But are you sure, sir? They are a wily lot and know how to hide themselves away. He was loitering behind the yew hedge on the north perimeter.’

‘We have checked thoroughly,’ Randolph again reassured her. He took a look over his shoulder at Basham who, it seemed, had the position of general factotum in the household. ‘Your manservant will confirm that we have made a good search of the grounds.’

‘But the felon might return when it is dark,’ Julia insisted in a squeak. ‘It is almost dusk now.’

‘We intend to check again later,’ Randolph reiterated soothingly, ‘And take flares to light the way.’

‘I’ll get the flares prepared, m’m,’ Basham immediately offered. ‘Anybody out there up to no good, we’ll find them sure enough.’ He made a fist and shook it in a meaningful manner.

Julia looked unimpressed by her manservant’s brave statement. Basham was a trusted employee who had been in residence long before she had arrived at Woodville Place. Unfortunately his youth was now far behind him. At almost fifty-six years old, and with his stockiness due more to middle-aged spread than to muscle, Julia knew he was no match for the young thug who had been spying on them. Fred Cook, the coachman, was more of an age to be useful in a scuffle. ‘Is Fred in his quarters? Why was he not helping you in the search?’ Julia demanded peevishly.

A significant look passed between Randolph and Basham. Both knew that Fred Cook was indeed in his quarters…with a cold compress on his head. By the morning he was sure to be sporting two very black eyes.

When a bloodied Fred had crept in through the side door earlier, Basham had soon been apprised by the youth how he’d come such a cropper. He’d discovered, too, that Miss Woodville didn’t want her mother worried over it all. The few servants left at the house accepted that the daughter rather than the mother held sway at Woodville Place, and they were grateful for it. Since the master had passed on, his widow had grown increasingly unpredictable and nervous. Nevertheless, the worrying news that one of the Luckhursts was on the prowl had sent Basham directly to find out if his only male colleague was yet in a fit state to be of assistance. He’d found Fred still groaning in pain from his beating earlier that day, and more likely to be a hindrance than a help in a brawl.

In the event he’d not needed him. A gentleman had miraculously turned up who Basham reckoned could take on the Luckhursts single-handed if he chose to. Elegant and refined Mr Chadwicke might appear to be, but Basham sensed he was also an intensely dangerous fellow and the sort of cool character who was always needed in a crisis, but was rarely to be found.

When Mrs Woodville had flown down the stairs earlier in a high old state Basham had been on the point of exiting the drawing room, having just replenished the hearth with apple-scented logs. Miss Woodville and Mr Chadwicke had been entering the house, having returned from their walk. The ensuing clamour of crisscrossing demands and answers had been cut through by Mr Chad-wicke’s authoritative tone. Within a very short time the guest had got the gist of what ailed the hysterical woman. A moment later Basham had been sprinting after his tall figure as Mr Chadwicke went on the hunt for Luckhurst leaving Miss Woodville with the task of calming down her mother.

‘You must take another sip of your brandy, Mama. It will fortify you.’ Deborah had just returned to the parlour with a bottle of smelling salts that she’d fetched from upstairs. She hurried to where Julia was reclining on the day bed, held out the glass of cognac and urged her mother to take some. The other hand held the dark bottle in readiness to be thrust under her mother’s nose.

Having sipped her drink, and snorted strongly at the salts being waved below her nostrils, Julia coughed, then again collapsed back against the velvet upholstery. ‘That villain is going to try to break in and steal everything we own,’ she cried faintly. ‘He’ll overpower Basham and Fred and ravish the maids…and you.’

‘Hush, Mama,’ Deborah chided, her cheeks heating. ‘You are overwrought.’ She took one of her mother’s hands between her palms and chafed it. ‘Mr Chadwicke has checked everywhere with Basham. If it was Seth Luckhurst, he was probably just…curious about Mr Chadwicke.’ Deborah’s cornflower-blue eyes were angled upwards to tangle with Randolph’s narrowed, watchful gaze. An unspoken message passed between them. ‘We saw Seth Luckhurst earlier when I met Mr Chadwicke in town. You know how the locals are—they are suspicious of strangers. That oaf probably came to get a better look at him in case he’s a Revenue Officer in disguise,’ she gently teased her mother.

‘I did draw his attention, Mrs Woodville.’ Deborah’s innocent quip had caused Randolph’s sensual lips to slant sardonically. ‘Luckhurst seemed a suspicious sort. I expect it was inquisitiveness that brought him here.’

Julia seemed a little reassured by Randolph’s endorsement of her daughter’s theory. She put away her bottle of hartshorn and scrubbed her moist eyes with her handkerchief. A moment later she again looked agitated. ‘Oh…and I have forgotten to tell Mrs Field that you are to dine with us! How bad of me!’

‘It’s of no matter, ma’am,’ Randolph gently stressed. ‘I am staying at the Woolpack in Rye and they do a good roast—’

‘No…no!’ Julia interrupted, flapping a hand. ‘You must stay! You were invited to dine and you will. It is the least we can offer you for all the help you have given.’

‘Shall I…?’ Basham jerked his head in the direction of the exit, miming his willingness to run an errand.

‘Thank you, Basham,’ Julia said. ‘Please tell Mrs Field she must quickly stoke up the range. We shall have game and roasted vegetables and some fruit tartlets and cheeses. Are there pickles? Oh, I suppose I should go and see for myself what we have.’ Julia appeared to have recovered her composure and was soon determinedly heading, with Basham in tow, for the door.

Before she quit the room she turned and looked at the young couple. Her thankfulness for Randolph’s help had momentarily made her forget his intercepted letters. She’d forgotten, too, she’d wanted him soon to leave. His presence now seemed more of a benefit than a threat. ‘There is some brandy and whisky on the sideboard in the dining room, Mr Chadwicke,’ she announced magnanimously. ‘If you prefer, there is sherry or port in the cellar. Deborah will make sure you get whatever you fancy, you have only to ask her for it.’

There followed an excruciating silence during which Deborah’s complexion grew hotter and brighter because a pitilessly amused pair of eyes refused to budge from it. She rather thought she could guess at what it was he fancied and she had no intention of allowing him enough time to bring it to her notice.

‘I’m so sorry you have been embroiled in all this, sir,’ she fluidly said. ‘I’m sure you must dearly wish you’d never stopped to have your horse shod in Hastings today. You have had nothing but trouble ever since.’

‘I’m glad I stopped when I did,’ Randolph quietly contradicted her, a sultry humour still lurking far back in his eyes.

‘I can only imagine your horse was very lame for you to say so,’ Deborah weakly joked. ‘No sane gentleman would welcome being thrust unexpectedly in to the role of protector.’

As her words faded and her blush re-ignited, Randolph gave her a ruthless smile. ‘I’ll willingly offer you my protection, Deborah. As for my sanity…I’ll admit that once I was mad about you,’ he finished with savage self-mockery.