Juliet Landon - Dishonour and Desire

Well lit by tall windows, the stable’s oak stalls were topped by black-painted grilles, each black post topped by a golden ball. Layers of straw muffled the stamps from a forest of legs, and glossy rumps shone like satin, swished by silken tails. The aroma of hay and leather warmed Caterina’s nostrils, and the occasional whicker of greeting combined with the scrunch of hay held in racks on the walls.

The two dapple-greys belonging to Lady Elyot were draped with pale grey rugs monogrammed in one corner, spotlessly clean, their charcoal manes rippling, hooves shining with oil. No effort had been spared to remedy the effects of their bruising drive last evening, yet Caterina withheld the thanks that were overdue.

Without comment, she went alongside the nearest horse, ducking under the cord that roped it off, peeping under the rug and stooping beneath its neck to return along the other side, patting the smooth back as she passed. ‘Good,’ she said, fanning the long tail.

‘It was the least I could do,’ he replied.

‘No, Sir Chase. The least you could do would be to spare my father the distress of having to find the money to pay my brother’s debt. Twenty thousand may be a trifling sum to you, but I can assure you that my father’s circumstances do not accord with the way it looks. He will not have told you how difficult his finances are at the moment. He’s too proud for that. But I’m not, sir. Believe me, he cannot afford it.’

‘By no means is it a trifling sum, Miss Chester. If it had been, I would not be taking the trouble to claim it. Apart from that, your feckless brother should be made to learn that a man does not walk away from a debt of honour without serious consequences. I would have preferred it if he had been hurt a little more. As it is, only his pride will suffer.’

‘As it is, sir, my father is the one to suffer. And me, too, I expect.’ Immediately, she wished she had not allowed him to push her into a snappy retort, for now she would be asked to explain what she meant by that.

‘You, Miss Chester? How does the debt affect you?’

‘Oh, indirectly,’ she waffled. ‘Nothing that need be spoken of. Indeed, I should not have said as much. Please, forget it.’ She began to move away, but Sir Chase’s long stride took him ahead of her and she was stopped by his arm resting on the next golden ball. Frowning, she scowled at the perfect white folds of his neckcloth, aware that this time she had backed herself into a corner.

‘I am intrigued,’ he said, looking down at her with those half-closed eyes that held more challenge than persuasion. ‘What is it about this business, exactly, that affects you personally? Are we talking of dowries?’

Her eyes blazed darkly in the shadowy recess, a small movement of her body telling him how she chafed at being held to account, unable to avoid a confrontation as she had before. ‘That is something I cannot discuss with you, sir. Indeed, it is a subject that will never be discussed with you, thank heaven.’

‘Ah, so we are talking of dowries, and of yours being lessened quite considerably if your father decides to use it to pay me what he owes. Well, that’s too bad, Miss Chester. How he chooses to pay—’

‘He doesn’t have a choice! ’ she snarled. ‘Now let me pass, if you please. This conversation is most indelicate.’

‘Come on, woman!’ he scoffed. ‘Don’t tell me your delicate sensibilities are more important than your father’s so-called distress. I’ll not believe you can be so missish, after what I’ve seen. Talk about the problem, for pity’s sake.’

‘I cannot, Sir Chase. You are a stranger to me.’

‘I am the one to whom the money is owed, ’ he said, leaning his head towards her, ‘so if you can’t discuss it with me, who can you discuss it with? Do you have need of your dowry in the near future?’

‘No. Not in the near or the distant future,’ she whispered. ‘There, now, you have your answer. Let me pass.’

He did not pretend to misunderstand her, nor did he immediately respond, but stood looking at her while the soft sounds of munching and the jingle of chains passed them by without recognition. Then he broke the silence. ‘Why not?’ he said, quietly.

With a noticeable effort to keep her voice level, she replied. ‘If my father and stepmother find it difficult to understand my reasons, Sir Chase, I can hardly expect you to do any better.’

‘Do you understand them?’ he whispered.

The staggering intake of her breath told him that he had found the weakness in her defence, and that she had no ready answer except a sob that wavered behind one hand. ‘Oh!’ she gasped.

The barrier of his arm dropped as she bounded away, half-walking, half-running out of the stable yard and up the steps leading to the garden door. It closed with a bang behind her. In the stable, Sir Chase leaned against one of the posts, his hand smoothing the dapple-grey coat beside him. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that makes an interesting change from the usual run of things, my beauty. How long have we got? Five months, is it?’

Caterina stood with her back pressed against the door in the high wall until the beating of her heart slowed to a more comfortable pace and her breathing eased. Cursing herself for allowing the dreadful man to catch her off guard so soon, she listened to the sounds from the stable yard, a deep voice, the clatter of hooves and Joseph’s whistle as he went on with his polishing. Angrily, she had to admit that Sir Chase was more perceptive than a stranger had any business to be, for he had been right to ask if she understood her own reasons when they were so contradictory, so fatalistic and uncompromising.

She was not by nature as pessimistic as her father had become, nor was she anything like her two siblings, who cantered through life certain that the future would smooth itself out reasonably enough if they didn’t think too deeply about it. But Caterina did think deeply and with passion about what life was offering and whether she had the right to satisfy her own needs or put them aside in order to please her parents. In recent years, the two viewpoints had become more incompatible, the conflict over her future creating more of a barrier than any of them could have foreseen when her father married Hannah Elwick.

Caterina and Hannah had been on friendly terms well before her father first came down to Richmond from Derbyshire. With an age difference of only six years between the two women and only a few miles across the Great Park to separate them, Caterina had been pleased when the gentle Hannah had accepted Stephen Chester’s offer of marriage, seeing years of friendship ahead for herself and Sara. None of them, not even Hannah herself, had expected such an explosion of productiveness and the ensuing need to rearrange the town house on Paradise Road into nurseries and dayrooms, extra bedrooms and a study for the head of the family. No longer was there a music room or a work-room-cum-library or anywhere for a guest to sleep. No longer did she have a room of her own.

Caterina did not dislike the children. Far from it; she was happy that Hannah’s parenting skills had been employed so promptly and that Mr Chester had the companionship he had craved for years. What she had found increasingly hard to bear was the way that Hannah’s mothering had engulfed the smooth workings of the whole household from morning till night and beyond, for Hannah was not one to hand over her duties completely, as some did. Nurses dealt with the peripheral chores, but Hannah’s constant rota of breast-feeding seemed to take over their lives and, although she invited the interest of Caterina and Sara on the basis that it was excellent grounding for them, neither was ready for maternalism on that scale.