Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

‘I’m so sorry, but I haven’t time to stop and talk today.’

She tried to step round Mrs Podmore, but the path was narrow, and her visitor determined.

‘Wherever you are going, it cannot be so urgent that you have forgotten your umbrella.’

‘It is that urgent,’ she countered. ‘And I hadn’t even noticed it was snowing.’ Only tiny specks of it, but the first real snow of the winter, nevertheless.

As she looked up in wonder, she had a brilliant idea. She stopped trying to sidestep Mrs Podmore’s substantial bulk and looked her straight in the face with what she hoped was a confiding air.

‘You see, everything you have ever warned me about has come to pass.’

‘Oh?’ For once Mrs Podmore didn’t seen to know what to say.

‘You have been right to warn me, so many times, just how dangerous it is to be without adequate chaperonage.’

‘Was I? I mean, of course I was. But—’

‘Yes. You see, while Fenella was preoccupied with her own courtship, and there was nobody to make me behave...’ she lowered her voice ‘...I did something quite scandalous.’

Mrs Podmore instinctively leaned closer to hear the whispered confidence, her eyes wide with curiosity.

‘I went to Mr Brown’s studio, the one he had in Paris, quite alone, to have my portrait painted.’

‘No!’ Her eyebrows shot up and disappeared into the ruffles under her bonnet.

‘Oh, yes. We were alone in his studio for hours at a time. And worse, he persuaded me to pose for him...naked.’

‘Naked?’ Mrs Podmore screeched the word, her shock temporarily robbing her of discretion. The baker’s boy, who’d been walking past, jumped and dropped his tray of rolls, which went tumbling all over the street.

‘And, of course, you must know what inevitably followed.’

Mrs Podmore’s eyes grew rounder still. Amethyst could see her mind racing.

‘I cannot bring myself to say what I fear you are alluding to.’

‘Well, I can,’ said Amethyst cheerfully. ‘We embarked upon a wildly passionate affair.’

‘A what?’

The baker’s boy’s head popped up over the hedge, his eyes wide with glee.

‘And now he’s pursued me all the way to England. Don’t you think that’s romantic?’ She pressed one hand to her chest. ‘I do.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘And so I’ve decided to run off with him.’

‘Run off with Mr Brown?’

If he’d have her. And if not, she already had plans to move to Southampton, so nobody would know any different when she disappeared.

‘Yes. I enjoyed travelling so much that I can’t wait to set off again. We might return to Paris, where we were so happy. Or we might go and see what Italy is like. He’s always wanted to go to Italy. And,’ she put in before Mrs Podmore could accuse Nathan of latching on to her because of her money, ‘I can afford to take him there.’

‘No! You must not. Only think what people will say...’

That was exactly what she was doing. Between her and the baker’s boy, the news would be all over town within minutes.

‘I don’t care what anyone says,’ she declared. ‘I cannot live without him.’

She beamed at Mrs Podmore, who was opening and closing her mouth like a landed trout.

‘Good day,’ said Amethyst and managed to nip past Mrs Podmore while she was trying to untangle her umbrella from the overhanging branches of her cherry trees. Past the gaping baker’s boy, who’d abandoned any pretence at retrieving the spoiled rolls. Up the hill and through the market square she sincerely hoped she’d never have to set eyes on again, before much longer, and along the lane that led to the Murdoch place.

* * *

It wasn’t long before she caught sight of Nathan in the lane ahead of her, because he was walking really slowly, his head bowed. Impervious to the snow, which was settling on his shoulders and the crown of his hat.

Hope surged. He couldn’t look so sad if he didn’t still love her. Didn’t regret having left her the way he had.

‘I have just one thing to say,’ she said as he reached his front door.

He spun round. For a moment she caught a glimpse of the carefree young man who’d argued with her about the Rights of Man over a bottle of beer in a Parisian dance hall. But then his face changed. And the cynical, embittered, disgraced politician stood in his place.

‘I have nothing further to say to you, madam,’ he said coldly.

‘Well, you can just listen then,’ she said, pushing past him into the house as an unsuspecting butler opened the door.

‘I have had longer to think about...us. Knowing all about the discrepancy in our wealth. And do you know what I have realised?’

‘You clearly mean to tell me,’ he said wearily. ‘You had better come in here.’ He pushed open the door to a sparsely furnished parlour and ushered her in.

‘Well, let’s start with why I’ve been afraid, for so many years, that no man could ever love me.’

He flinched and walked away from her to stare out of the window.

‘Exactly. You hurt me so badly that I lost my ability to trust men. Well, actually, it wasn’t all your fault. My father’s attitude played a large part in it, too. And then my aunt fostered that suspicion. Because she really, really hated men. She said I’d had a lucky escape anyway, because marriage was nothing but a trap for women. A cage in which some despotic male would lock her. I could understand why she thought like that, but I never wanted to end up like her. She was so...so miserable! She had so much money, but it never did her any good. It didn’t make her happy. It didn’t compensate for whatever it was that had set her off on her quest for revenge on the entire male sex.

‘When she died, I almost slid into the trap of becoming like her. Partly because I had to fight the men around me to hang on to what she’d left me. And I enjoyed winning. I won’t deny that I liked it a lot. I liked seeing bullies having to back down, rendering them powerless and sending them away with a flea in their ear.

‘But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to sit here like—well, you said it—like a spider in my web, holding all the threads together. I didn’t want to shrivel up inside, like she had, just because things hadn’t turned out the way I wanted.

‘Which was why I went to Paris in the first place. I needed to...break out. Find out what I wanted to do with my life. And then I met you.’

She walked across the room to stand behind him. Tentatively she placed one hand on his shoulder.

‘I thought you were a penniless artist. And believing that of you was what gave me the courage to take you as a lover. If I’d known you were still comfortably off and only taking a sort of...holiday, I would never have been able to open up to you the way I did. Your privileged background had come between us before. It would have felt like an unbreachable barrier if you’d been swanning about Paris, trading on your right to be treated with the deference due to the son of an English earl. When you started making advances I would have been afraid you were only toying with me, the way I believed you’d toyed with me in the past.’

He made a sort of growling noise and, though he didn’t turn round, she could see his cheeks flush. He might accuse her of lying, but he hadn’t been completely honest with her either.

‘And you wouldn’t have pursued me at all, had you known the extent of my wealth, would you?’

‘I thought I’d just made that perfectly clear.’

‘It wasn’t just my wealth that would have kept you away, Nathan. You didn’t know I was a virgin, either. You jumped to the conclusion that because I was with a man, I must be his mistress. You most definitely wouldn’t have got so jealous of poor Monsieur Le Brun if you’d known I was innocent of everything they told you about me. I suppose you might have still wanted to paint my portrait, perhaps as a memento of the girl you once loved, before I broke your heart and shattered your dreams, but not the rest.’