Lucy Ashford - Unbuttoning Miss Matilda

Only it seemed she preferred using her lips for verbal sparring than for any kind of amorous encounter.

He paced the hall as he waited for Perkins to return. The girl had a sharp tongue—and she used it. She’d been damnably rude, yet somehow he’d felt more thoroughly alive trading insults with her than he had for a long time. But then, there was another puzzle.

She knew about antiques. She knew about history. She couldn’t be more than what, eighteen or so?—but in her scornful assessment of Jack’s premises, she’d betrayed the education of a scholar. And there was yet another surprising facet to her character. Jack could have been in real trouble when those villains burst in on him, were it not for the way she neatly came to his rescue. She had courage and ingenuity, as well as learning.

A puzzle indeed.

It was at this precise point that Perkins returned. ‘I am pleased to say, Mr Rutherford, that Lady Fitzroy will see you in the morning room.’

Jack declined Perkins’s offer of escort and made his own way along the hall, briefly glancing at the grandiose objets d’art positioned everywhere—paintings, sculptures and onyx-topped tables.

His first thought: I could sell all this for a tidy sum.

His second: I’d prefer to sling the lot in the Thames.

Darkly relishing the notion, Jack climbed the wide staircase to the first floor, where his mother was in the morning room, reclining on a sofa. She looked extremely pretty in her gown of flowered muslin—fragile, too. Then again, thought Jack grimly, anyone would be fragile if they were married to Sir Henry Fitzroy.

‘Jack,’ she said as he crossed the room to bow over her hand. ‘Oh, Jack, how good to see you!’

He drew a chair up close. ‘How are you, Mama?’

She sighed. ‘I feel that I could be well again, if only I could return to Charlwood. If only I could live there again, in the countryside. London doesn’t suit me, I fear.’

It was all too clear London didn’t suit her, thought Jack. And it ought to be clear to her brute of a husband also! Suddenly he felt all kinds of emotions well up inside—regret and more—but for now he forced his feelings down and drew a slim little jewellery case from his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘A present for you, Mama.’

He handed her the leather case and watched her open it. Inside was a bracelet he’d discovered in a cluttered drawer at the back of Mr Percival’s place—a pretty little thing made of gilt and paste, hardly worth any more than the case he’d put it in. But he guessed his mother wouldn’t care in the slightest.

He was right. ‘Oh, Jack, darling,’ she declared. ‘I love it! It’s so pretty!’ And she fastened it round her wrist straight away.

His mother was like a child in her enjoyment of simple things. She was also like a child in her underestimation of how cunning some people could be—take his recently acquired stepfather, for instance, Sir Henry Fitzroy. Jack watched her as she stroked and admired the bracelet, thinking that, although in her late forties, his mother was still like a china doll with her blue eyes and fair hair and delicate skin. And like a china doll, she was so easily broken.

‘Is he here?’ Jack asked shortly. He didn’t need to spell out who he meant.

His mother hesitated. ‘No. Henry had an appointment with his bank and then he was going on to his club.’

‘Good timing,’ Jack said. His mother knew very well what he thought of her second husband. ‘That means you and I can talk without being interrupted.’

His mother raised sorrowful blue eyes to his. ‘What is there to talk about, Jack? Charlwood Manor is Henry’s now. There’s nothing to be done, so perhaps we should all try to get on together.’

Me? Get on with that arrogant bastard? Never. Fitz hated Jack and Jack hated Fitz—it was as simple as that. He drew in a deep breath. ‘Anyone else,’ he said in a low voice. ‘If only you’d married anyone else...’

Immediately he regretted it, because his mother suddenly looked very tired again. ‘You warned me about him,’ she whispered. ‘When you were home on leave, before you went off again to fight in Spain. But, Jack, after you’d gone, I was so lonely! And then, when you were taken by the French, Henry told me all the awful things they do to their prisoners of war—floggings, chains, starvation. Darling, I really couldn’t bear it. So when Fitz showed me the letter, about having to pay a ransom for your freedom, well, I just had to do what he advised. And of course he helped me with everything!’

I bet he did , thought Jack grimly. I just bet he did.

‘Your ransom was such a great deal of money,’ his mother went on. ‘I didn’t have anything like such a sum, nor could I afford the repayments if I were to borrow it. Fitz explained he would gladly have paid it himself, but he hadn’t got the money to spare. He said the only solution was for me to marry him, so the Charlwood estate would be his—then he could raise a loan on it to pay those wicked men for your freedom. So in the end I got you back safely, for which I’m so grateful. But how I miss Charlwood!’ She put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. ‘Gracious me, I feel a little faint...’

Swiftly Jack went to ring the bell and within moments a maid hurried in and took one look at Lady Fitzroy. ‘Oh, m’lady. Are you feeling unwell again? Let me fetch some of the tisane the doctor ordered for you!’

On her way out she paused to whisper to Jack. ‘Sir, your mother—it’s so sad. We do our best for her.’

‘I can see you do,’ he said gently.

She curtsied and left. Thank God, he thought as he closed the door behind her, that his mother still had some of her loyal staff from the old days, though goodness knew how they put up with Fitz and his overbearing ways. Soon the maid was back to offer his mother the tisane and some soothing lavender water to dab on her brow while Jack moved away to gaze out of the window. But he wasn’t seeing the street full of carriages or the grand London houses. No, he was seeing the green countryside of Buckinghamshire and an old, pretty manor house just two miles from the market town of Aylesbury. He was picturing the house’s gabled roofs and mullioned windows, and the yellow-pink clusters of honeysuckle that climbed the walls.

Charlwood Manor. His childhood home.

He was remembering how his mother used to wander happily through the garden picking scented blooms for her parlour. How he, as a boy, used to climb trees or go shooting in the woods with the gamekeeper, or maybe roam for miles on his pony pretending to be a soldier, as his father had been.

Two years ago, while Jack was a prisoner of war in France, his mother had remarried. And Charlwood—the house, the gardens and the three tenanted farms—belonged by law to her new husband, Sir Henry Fitzroy, who was an old enemy from Jack’s army days.

When Jack had returned from France he was still physically weak from his long captivity, but straight away he’d gone to tackle Fitz. ‘Why did you lie to my mother, you bastard? There was no ransom demand!’

‘You can protest all you like, dear boy,’ Fitz had drawled. ‘Your mother agreed to marry me because I told her I could get you home. And—one way or another—you’re here.’

‘No thanks to you. You’re a liar and a cheat.’

Some of the colour had retreated from Fitz’s cheeks at that, but he’d merely shrugged. ‘You try proving your wild accusations. If I were you, though, I really wouldn’t bother. During your long absence she needed someone to look after her and she chose me. Charlwood is mine now, Jack. Stop fantasising over the place—it’s time to face up to a new reality, just as your mother has.’