’Sound measures time as well, brother, and when you stop feeling guilty for my poor eyesight then both of us may sleep all the easier.’
Closing his eyes, Taris liked the ease of not having to try to decipher shapes, though a vision rose in his memory of chestnut curls, leaf-green eyes and smiling dimpled cheeks. And bravery despite heavily chattering teeth!
Beatrice saw Taris Wellingham the following week in Regent Street where she had gone to do some shopping. He was in the passenger seat of an impressive-looking phaeton, a young woman beside him tooling the horses with a confidence that was daunting.
Drawing back against the shop window, she hoped that the overhanging roof might shelter her from his glance should he happen to look her way and her heartbeat was so violent she saw the material in the bodice of her gown rise up and down.
Goodness, would she faint? Already dizziness made her world spin and the maid at her side carrying an assortment of other parcels she had procured looked at her in alarm.
‘Are you quite well, ma’am?’
‘Certainly, Sarah.’ The quiver in her voice was unsettling.
‘There is a teahouse just a few shops on if you should care to sit down.’
Across the girl’s shoulder Taris Wellingham came closer, his face now easily visible and a top hat that was the height of fashion perched upon his head. The woman beside him was laughing as she urged her horses on and the ordinary folk on the street stopped what they did and watched.
Watched beauty and wealth and privilege. Watched people who had never needed to struggle or count their pennies or wonder where their next meal might come from. Watched a vibrant and beautiful woman handling a set of highly strung greys, which were probably worth their weight in gold, and a man who might let her do so, a smile of pride on his face as she deftly guided them through a busy city through way.
Bea felt an anger she rarely gave way to as Taris Wellingham’s eyes passed right across her own with no acknowledgement or recognition in them.
Just an ill-dressed stranger on a crowded London street watching for a second the passing of the very, very rich. And then dismissed.
Nothing left of breath and touch and the whispered delights shared in a barn outside Maldon. Nothing left of holding the centre of him within her, deep and safe, the snow outside erasing everything that could lead others to them, time skewered only by feelings and trust and the hard burn of an endless want.
Gone! Finished!
She turned her head away and marched into the first shop with an open door, the stocked shelves of a milliner’s wares blurring before her eyes as she pretended an exaggerated and determined interest in procuring a hat.
There was no sense in any of this, of course. Had Taris Wellingham not already told her that she should ignore him should she see him in London, that the tryst they had shared was nothing more to him than an interlude in one moment of need? The wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand glinted in the refracted light of a lamp set beside the counter.
Frankwell laughing from the place his soul had been consigned to. Not heaven, she hoped, the religious icon on the wall above the milliner making her start. Would her own actions outside Maldon banish her soul from any hope of an everlasting happiness? Given that she had in all of her twenty-eight years seldom experienced the emotion, the thought made her maudlin, the enticing promise of a better place after such sacrifice the one constant hope in her unending subservience in Ipswich.
Perhaps she was being punished for that very acquiescence, a woman who had been given a brain to think with and who had rarely used it. Was still not using it, was not taking the chances that were suddenly hers to seize, but was hiding away in the shadow of a fear that made everything seem dangerous.
‘Is there anything in particular you wish to look at, madam?’ the shopkeeper asked, as Bea still did not speak. The silence in the street registered in the back of her mind, any possibility of a further re-encounter diminishing with each passing second.
She made herself look at a hat she had admired on the nearest shelf, touching the soft fabric carefully. The bright green felt was a colour that she had seldom worn, Frankwell’s distaste of anything ’showy’ in the early years of her marriage mirrored across all of the last.
The very thought of her unquestioned obedience made her try it on, and for the first time ever in her life she actually liked the face of the woman reflected in the mirror. The colour matched her eyes and the tone of her skin, the sallowness of her often-favoured beige or brown lightened by the tint of green.
‘I think this colour suits you very well, madam, as would this one.’
A dark red hat replaced the green and the transformation was just as unbelievable.
‘I have always worn the shades of colour that are in this gown,’ she explained and the woman shook her head forcibly.
‘Those tones would not highlight the colour of your eyes, or enhance the cream in your skin.’
She hurried to lift down a creation in beige from a top shelf and brought it back.
‘See, madam. This is the colour you have preferred and you can see how little it favours you.’
Beatrice’s mouth fell open. Lord. Was it that easy to look more presentable? She could not believe it.
‘I have a sister who is just beginning as a modiste in London, madam. If you should wish to consult her for your gowns I am sure she would be very obliging. She is both reasonable and skilled.’
Sarah’s head nodded up and down beside her, a wide smile on her face.
Perhaps it was time for a change. A time to look at the things she had always enjoyed in her life and to try to incorporate them in the next part of it.
Books. Ideas. Discussions.
These were the things she had longed for most in the silent big house in Ipswich. When she had tried to speak to Frankwell about her own desires, his set opinions had always overridden her own and his anger had made her wary about disagreeing.
But now? Now that she had the money, time and inclination to follow her own dreams, the colour of a hat that actually suited her took on an importance that even yesterday would have been ridiculous. But here in the aftermath of a galling indifference the worm of something else turned inside her.
Freedom might be possible.
Freedom to do exactly as she pleased and to live her life in a way that would suit her, with no regard to others’ opinions.
The thought was heady and thrilling, a mandate to be only as she determined was right for her.
‘I will take both hats, please,’ she said, pulling out a purse that was filled with money, ‘and I should very much like to meet your sister.’
Taris placed his hand across the reins, feeling the pressure.
‘Ease up a little on the right, Lucy, for there is a slight pull.’
He knew in the breeze on his face the moment his sister re-aligned the horses and felt a tug of pride.
‘You have been practising while I have been away?’
Laughter greeted his question. ‘If that is your way of telling me I have improved, brother, then so be it.’
‘You have improved.’ The words came readily and he felt his sister lay her hand across his own.
‘From you that means a lot. All my life I have been in the shadow of my big brothers and it is good to finally cast one of my own. I appreciate the loan of your team in my quest to master this horsemanship, by the way, and if there is ever anything that you would like in return…’
He shook his head. ‘Become the Original you are destined to be, Lucinda, and that will be payment enough.’
‘Whomever you finally marry will be a lucky lady, Taris, because you have never allowed yourself to define others in the way the ton demands. With you I always feel that I could be…anything.’
The wind took his laughter and threw it across the street and in the corner of his vision he could just make out the forms of people watching them.
Women by the looks with their gowns and hats, and the sound of bells pealing out across the afternoon.
Two ‘clock. By five he would be on the road south, leaving the traffic and the noise of London behind him. He closed his eyes briefly and imagined the promise of Beaconsmeade and the warm comfort of his home.
He would take his own carriage for the ride down, however, for his recent poor experience with the public transport system allayed the delight he so often felt in mixing with the ordinary folk.
A gentler vision of well-rounded breasts and long dark curls made his fingers clasp with more fervour on to the silver head of his cane. Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke!
They had both agreed to the limitation of just one night and he had heard the sound of relief in her voice when he had not demanded different. Perhaps the state of widowhood was more promising than that of Holy Matrimony with its sanctions and its rules. As a man he saw the strictures that a woman was placed under when she married and if she had any land at all…?
No, he could not now search for Bea or betray such a trust. He had no earthly reason for doing so and she did not seem the type of woman who might welcome a dalliance. Besides, a wife was the very last thing he needed with his receding sight and his blurring vision.
Whomever you finally marry will be a lucky lady…
‘Your horses are attracting a lot of attention, Taris. Why, nearly everyone is watching their excellence.’
‘Well, Lucy, one more round and then home; I have much to do before I depart for Kent.’
‘Ash asked you to stay longer.’