Louise Allen - A Candlelit Regency Christmas

‘There’s your chamber over there.’ He gestured towards the door out of the private parlour as they found themselves alone. ‘They’ll bring some hot water in a moment.’

Tess ignored the gesture and suggestion. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She stood in front of him, her face a picture of concern.

‘Why? What for?’

‘I’m sorry that you are estranged from your family and that I raised the subject. It must be so difficult.’

‘Don’t be sorry.’ He shrugged. ‘Certainly it isn’t difficult. I just ignore them, they ignore me. They say you choose your friends but not your family, but you can choose how much you see of any of them.’ Had home ever really felt like a good place to be? It must have done once, before his father had decided that he was so utterly unsuitable to be his heir, such a disappointment to him.

‘But what if something happens to them?’

‘It won’t.’ He took her by the shoulders, turned her around and walked her to her chamber door. ‘My father’s like an ox.’ Certainly has the sensitivity of one. ‘Now freshen up, then we’ll eat and be on our way.’

Chapter Six

‘Goodbye and thank you so much for your assistance, my lord. For looking after me and for Noel.’ Tess stood outside the gates of the convent, her bag and the cat’s basket at her feet. Would a curtsy be appropriate? He was an earl... On the other hand she would probably fall flat on her face, and what she wanted to do was certainly not to make a formal gesture. Not at all. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him on that wicked, mobile, mocking mouth.

She managed her best smile instead. Chin up, back straight. Fairy-tale adventure over.

‘You’ll be all right now?’ Alex frowned at the metal-studded black oak of the door. ‘This doesn’t look like the most hospitable of places.’

‘Convents don’t, from the outside.’ Or the inside, in my experience. ‘And I will be perfectly fine. Thank you again.’ She put out her hand, brisk and impersonal, and when he took it and gave it a quick squeeze she tried not to think about how his arms had felt around her.

Alex pulled the iron chain beside the door. Somewhere far away a bell clanged. ‘I’ll wait in the carriage until you are safe inside. Goodbye, little nun.’ He stooped, dropped a quick kiss on her cheek and strode back to the chaise.

‘Yes?’ enquired a disembodied voice from behind the darkened grille while Tess was still fighting with a blush.

If she had only moved her head a fraction that brief kiss would have fallen on her lips. It would have been her first kiss. ‘Teresa Ellery. Mother Superior is expecting me.’

The door swung open and she stepped inside. It banged closed behind her and she heard the sound of hooves on the cobbles as the chaise moved off. The prison gates slammed behind the doomed woman... Stop it! The effect on the imagination of reading Minerva Press novels, smuggled in by the boarders, was exceedingly unwelcome just at the moment.

She limped after the silent nun down a dark, tiled passageway to a door. The sister knocked and opened it, urged Tess in with a gesture, then closed it behind her.

Offices in convents must be all created from the same pattern book. Dark walls, small fireplace, solid, plain desk placed uncompromisingly in the centre of the room with the chair turned with its back to the window and any possibility of a distracting view. It was all safely, depressingly, familiar.

‘Miss Ellery. I confess I am most surprised to see you.’ From behind the desk Mother Superior studied her, unsmiling. She was thin and pale and Tess thought she looked unwell.

‘Good evening, Mother.’ She bobbed an awkward curtsy, hampered by her sore ankle. ‘I was delayed on my journey—’

‘So I understand.’ The nun glanced to one side and Tess realised they were not alone. Seated against the wall was a middle-aged woman who looked vaguely familiar. ‘ Delayed hardly seems adequate to cover your...activities. Mrs Wolsey was on the same boat as you from Ostend.’

Of course, this is the disapproving matron who glared at me .

‘Mrs Wolsey has a niece boarding at the convent. She recognised the clothing of the Ghent house orphans and then she recalled seeing you there.’

It began to dawn on Tess that all was far from well. ‘I missed the canal boat. I had a fall and hurt my ankle and—’

‘And took up with some rake. Yes, that much is obvious. Your disgraceful behaviour was observed. Embracing in public, sleeping in his arms, going into an inn with him. I am both deeply shocked and exceedingly disappointed, as will be my Sister in Ghent when I write to inform her of this.’

‘I can explain, Mother—’ Tess began, only to be cut off by a slicing hand gesture from the nun.

‘Enough. I have no wish to hear you make things worse by lying to me. I most certainly cannot have a woman of your character in this house. Your antecedents are bad enough, but this behaviour is the limit. You will leave at once.’

‘My character? But I have not done anything wrong. I can explain everything that occurred. It was all perfectly innocent. And what about my employment?’ The room swam with shifting shadows, flickering candlelight, waves of disapproval. It was unreal; she was bone-weary. Tess wondered vaguely if she was going to faint. Perhaps they would put her to bed if she did and she would wake up in the morning and this would all be a dream.

‘You think that I could recommend you to any decent household? There is only one kind of employment for fallen women, my girl, and I suggest you go and seek it forthwith.’

Not a dream. Fight back. ‘I did not do anything. I am not Lord Weybourn’s lover.’ Tess tried to stand up straight, find some authority in her voice. ‘I had an accident, hurt my ankle. He helped me, just as I said.’ And I do not want to be here, with you, you judgemental old witch , she thought as a spark of anger burned through the confused fog of misery. My antecedents, you horrible woman? Two parents who loved each other, who loved me? I am illegitimate—how is that my fault?

‘Lord Weybourn? Hah!’ Mrs Wolsey said. ‘One knows all about the likes of him. A society rakehell, I have no doubt.’

‘How does one know this?’ Tess enquired. How dare this woman judge Alex? ‘I hardly think you would move in the same circles as he does, ma’am.’ The tail end of her temper was almost out of her grasp now.

‘You insolent girl,’ Mother Superior snapped. ‘You will leave at once.’

‘To cast a sinner out into the night is hardly a very Christian act.’ Tess abandoned the effort to be civil, hobbled to the door and, with her hands full of the portmanteau and cat basket, somehow got it open. ‘But I would not stay here now if you begged me. Good evening to you both.’

Behind her she heard a small bell ringing violently and the sound of Mrs Wolsey’s voice. She seemed to be gibbering with anger. Tess reached the front door before Sister Porteress caught up with her, flung back the bolts, stepped over the threshold and left the door swinging on its hinges. Moments later it slammed behind her with emphatic finality.

‘And I hope your righteous indignation keeps you warm at night,’ Tess muttered. In front of her was Golden Square, a white-stone statue at its centre glimmering faintly in the light from the lamps set outside the houses. Men muffled up against the dank mist hurried past, a cab rattled over the cobbles on the far side. A clock, quite close, struck nine.

Tess put down her luggage to pull her cuffs over her knuckles. Her mittens felt as though they had been knitted out of thin cotton, not wool, and her toes were already numb.