Royalist On The Run

Alice nodded, sitting across from her. ‘And you, Arabella? Seeing Edward after all this time must have come as a shock.’

‘Yes. I thought I would never see him again.’

‘What will you do about the child?’

‘What can I do? I am left with little choice.’ She looked across at her sister. ‘If I refuse to look after him, you will, won’t you, Alice?’

‘If necessary, yes.’

‘Then it seems he is here to stay for the time being.’

‘The child has lost his mother. So many lives have been ruined by this war. We must do what we can to help.’

‘Yes,’ Arabella uttered quietly. ‘I suppose you are right.’

The two sisters sat silent for a long moment, each with her own thoughts. At length Alice sighed softly and stood up.

‘They’ll be hungry. I asked Bertha to prepare food before I took the children to bed. I’ll go and help her.’

* * *

They dined in the large dining parlour off the hall. A branch of candles stood on in the middle of the great oak table and cast a reasonable light in the high-ceilinged room.

It was a subdued meal charged with emotion. Stephen sat at the head of the table with Alice and Edward seated next to each other across from Arabella. The two gentlemen who accompanied them were introduced as Sir Charles Barlow and Laurence Morrison. Both had seen much action in the King’s service. It was decided that they would sleep in the rooms above the gatehouse, where they could keep watch on the road should unwelcome guests approach the house.

Having already eaten, Arabella and Alice sat and watched the gentlemen hungrily devour the mutton stew, jugged hare and vegetables. Having refilled the drinking bowls, Arabella studied her siblings, wishing that they could be together like this for always. Margaret joined them, slipping quietly into a chair at the table, her eyes wide with awe and more than a little admiration, Arabella duly noted, as they remained fixed on Stephen throughout the meal. It was a long time since visitors had graced their table and, if the rapt expression on Margaret’s face and the vivid bloom on her cheeks were to be believed, never one so handsome.

It was inevitable that with four military men about to ride off and join Charles Stuart marching south in what appeared to be a last attempt to regain his throne, the conversation turned to military matters. Edward, his dark brows drawn together in a frown, contributed little to the conversation as he stared moodily across the table at Arabella. Sitting back in his chair, he studied her with unnerving intensity, the blue of his eyes having turned indigo in the dimly lit room, heavy black locks spilling to his shoulders.

Despite her efforts Arabella felt weakness within as she gazed at that handsome face, the taut cheekbones and that full lower lip with its hard curl. Meeting his eyes, she saw something slumberous and inviting in their depths. He seemed to be reading her mind. Heat suffused her. Immediately she looked away, trying hard to ignore his brooding gaze.

* * *

Later, back in her bedchamber, Arabella eyed her bed without enthusiasm. Tired as she was, she felt no urge to sleep. Her thoughts kept straying anxiously to Edward and what it was he expected of her. Her thoughts and emotions were a jumbled mass of confusion. How dare he put her in this position! How presumptuous he’d been, to assume she would take his child as her own! And seeing him now, after all this time, only served to bring back the anger and confusion she had felt by his rejection.

His appearance had also resurrected unpleasant memories of her marriage to John. Fair haired, reasonably handsome and with pale wide-set eyes, on first sight she had been dazzled by him and hung back shyly. When her father had ushered her forward, John had laughed and said, ‘Modest, I see.’

‘Aye—and dutiful,’ her father had replied, happy with the impending match. When Edward Grey had thrown her over he had worried that he would have trouble finding a marriage for her, so he’d been unable to believe his good fortune when Stephen had brought John Fairburn to their home and John had shown an interest in her.

Arabella remembered how she had smiled and curtsied, prepared to be ruled by her father’s counsel, but when John raised her up and she felt how cold and flaccid his hand, she had shrunk back. Immediately she had misgivings about the match. John had felt her recoil and, apart from a narrowing of his eyes, he had let it pass. When she had voiced her unease to her father, he had told her John Fairburn was a good match and all would be well, but it was up to her to make sure that it was. If John Fairburn did not take her, then there was little chance of anyone else. There was no dowry. After three years of war and support of the Royalist cause, her father had nothing left.

‘He is handsome enough,’ he had told her, ‘an only son with a fine house where you will be mistress. What more do you want?’

Deep-blue eyes, warm firm hands, deep laughter. Someone to swell her heart at the sight of him, to make her senses sing. Edward Grey, she had thought bleakly.

And so she had married John Fairburn. Every time he touched her she shrank away. He boasted of her beauty and everyone said how lucky she was, but no one knew how she suffered in the great bed she shared with her husband, how he would control her every thought.

When she found she was with child it had altered everything. A child, she thought, a child of her own she could love. Desperate for a son, John had left her alone, taking his perverted pleasures elsewhere. When Arabella had produced a daughter, uttering his disgust he left to join the Royalist army.

For the first time since her marriage Arabella had been happy as she held her daughter in her arms and she did not shed a tear when news was brought to her of John’s death. Tragically her happiness was destroyed when her daughter died shortly after she came to live at Bircot Hall.

The pain had almost ripped her in two. She had loved her daughter so much and she missed her. Her arms were empty, her life was empty. In her wretchedness she had told herself there was nothing more to live for. She had prayed that the feeling would pass, that she would learn to live and to love. But Edward’s cruel betrayal, followed by the cruelties of her marriage to John and the loss of her beautiful Elizabeth had left their mark. It would be a long time, if ever, before she would allow herself to be so hurt again and to put her trust in a man enough to marry him.

Restless, her arms aching for her child, knowing there would be no sleep for her this night, she turned her back on the bed and went out. The door to the room where Margaret had put Joan and the child was ajar. Arabella paused and stared at it, her heart beating a tattoo in her chest. On hearing a faint whimpering coming from inside the room, unable to help herself she tentatively reached out and pushed the door open just enough for her to peer inside. A candle had been left burning on the dresser and a fire burned low in the grate.

Joan was fast asleep. She was breathing deeply, little snores coming from between her parted lips. The child beside her was clearly distressed. On seeing Arabella he slid off the bed, wobbling towards her and holding out his arms. Not without human feelings and unable to resist an unhappy child, she knelt and looked into his tear-soaked eyes.

There was so much emotion in that face and the sobs coming from the little mouth wrenched her heart. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, she picked up the weeping child and cradled him in her arms. Taking up a spare blanket and murmuring words of comfort, she wrapped it about him, the ache in her breast as acute now as when her own child had died.

Holding him close, she crossed to the fire and sat down with him in her arms.

‘Shush,’ she murmured, placing her lips against his curly head. ‘You are safe now, so go to sleep.’

The silky head nestled of its own accord against the warm breast in a gesture so instinctively caressing that it took Arabella’s breath away. The child’s brooding dark-eyed gaze was working its way into her heart, and when a quiet, rare smile crept across his face it was a thing of such beauty that it wrung her heart. As though a window had been flung open, something inside her took flight and she was flooded with so much joy that it brought tears to her eyes. She remembered how it had felt to hold her own daughter so close and, remembering her loss, she experienced an emotion that was almost painful in its intensity.

Shoving his thumb in his mouth, after a short while Dickon quietened and his eyelids fluttered closed, his thick lashes making enchanting semicircles on his pink cheeks. The warmth of the fire and the security of her arms soon sent him to sleep. He was going to be handsome, she thought, just like his father. Instantly there was a resurgence in her of the magnetism that drew her whenever she saw Edward. It burned into her ruthlessly, making her heart turn over. Her eyes continued to caress the child—Edward’s flesh and blood—and she acknowledge him for what he was.

Reluctant to carry him back to bed, she relaxed with him in her arms. The curtains hadn’t been fully drawn and the moon shone through a break in the clouds into the room. She began to think of the strangeness of her life, of her marriage to John and how Edward Grey had come back into her life, a stranger to her in many ways. There had never been a physical closeness between them, but there had been a closeness in other ways. He had always sought her company, but because he was eight years her senior, she had sometimes felt shut out from his thoughts. Clearly she had disappointed him otherwise he would not have cast her aside for Anne Lister.

The tugging of her heart twisted into an ache that flared every time she remembered. She wanted to be more understanding about what he had done, that he had gone on to have a child while her own had died, but she couldn’t no matter how hard she tried.

Suddenly an image of John came to mind and a chill slithered over her flesh. Marriage to John had not been what she had dreamed of. There was no wild searing passion, which, as young as she had been, she had known she could feel for Edward.

* * *

Arabella did not hear the loose wooden floorboard on the landing creak, so absorbed was her attention on the child.

Edward stood in the doorway, transfixed at the sight of Arabella with his son cradled in her arms. There was something so intimate, so ethereal about the scene that he found it difficult to look at the expression of wonder on Arabella’s face. He hesitated a moment, watching as the flickering light from the fire shone on her hair, which hung loose and fell over her face as she bent over his son. He admired the colour and the texture. Her body had the requisite warm softness and she still had the firm-fleshed litheness of youth, the languid grace which awoke his all-too-easily-awakened carnality.

She was unaware of his presence until he walked quietly into the room and stood looking down at her. She started, clearly surprised to see him there.

‘Edward!’ she gasped, her eyes flitting from him to his son, hot colour springing to her cheeks, as though she had been caught out in some misdeed. ‘I—I heard him crying. His nurse is asleep and I did not wish to wake her. See, he is asleep now.’

A ghost of a smile lit his face—his expression softened slightly. ‘How could he not be, cradled in such soft arms? Here, let me take him.’

‘Don’t wake him.’

With infinite care Edward took his son from her and carried him to the bed, placing him beneath the covers. His face was creased with concentration as he performed his task. He stood looking down at him for a moment before moving back to Arabella.

‘Dickon is a lovely boy,’ Arabella said. ‘He favours you.’

‘Yes, I know. I thought I would look in on him before I go to bed. Arabella, I wish to apologise.’

Standing up, she studied him, her eyes, big and luminous in her pale face, inquisitive but cautious. Her head was raised proudly as she looked at him, keeping her hands folded tightly before her. ‘Apologise? For what? That you renounced your promise to me for another woman, or that you have disturbed me here at Bircot Hall?’

‘Both, I suppose,’ he said, combing his hair back from his brow with his fingers. ‘I wronged you, Arabella. I acknowledge it freely. I swear to you—’

‘Oh, no! Do not swear! When you came here you no doubt thought I was ready to forget and forgive what you did to me. In all that has happened in the intervening years, I believe I had forgotten—but you reminded me the moment you walked in the door.’ She gave him a level stare and, not knowing that her words were like knives being thrown at him, she said, ‘There was a time when I trusted you. I was so young and filled with girlish fantasies that I believed we could build a happy life together—something quite wonderful. But you, ruled by an overweening arrogance and pride, betrayed me. I can only say how glad I am that you strayed before we spoke our vows. It spared me a lot of heartache. I weathered the pity of my friends and family because I had lost my intended husband. The humiliation would have been intolerable indeed had you begun an affair when I became your wife.’