Margarita and the Earl Page 7

  At that she turned into his arms. Everything inside her was broken and bleeding, and she wept as she had never wept before. She was exhausted when it was all over, and he carried her back into the house and upstairs to her bed.

  *

  It was a beautiful spring. Margarita walked in the garden and rode around the estate, sometimes with Nicholas and sometimes alone. The apple orchards were magnificent, with enormous blooms that kindled the unaccustomed joy within her. The scent of lilacs hung in the air and the soft breeze ruffled her hair when she took off her hat. She was conscious, too, of the child within her. The sense of life, of creation, was very strong in her now. She was profoundly aware of this new life she was carrying, she was creating. She had wanted so desperately to do something to counter the destruction she had seen all around her in Venezuela. And now she felt she was. She was creating a life. She was putting something back into the emptied world.

  The scars of the revolution were still there. They showed in the recurring nightmares that troubled her sleep. They showed, too, in her hypersensitivity to pain or death. The sight of a wounded animal upset her dreadfully. She could not even bear to kill the spider who had made a web in the corner of her sitting room.

  But once again she belonged to life. It was Nicholas who had done this for her, and she looked to him with gratitude and thankfulness. He was her rock, her fortress, her bulwark. She thanked God on her knees every night that he had given her Nicholas.

  *

  Nicholas was both moved and frightened by the change in Margarita. The depths of her feelings, the intensity of her response to even the ordinary things of life, awed him a little. She was too vulnerable. It was not safe to be that vulnerable. He felt responsible for her and sometimes, when he looked at her, he felt the responsibility was too great.

  She asked nothing of him. Of all people, Margarita was one of the last who would ever intrude where she felt she was not wanted. She never once tried to broach the solitariness that was at the core of him. She was content with his presence when he chose to bestow it upon her, and she became increasingly interested in the work he was doing on the estate. Because she never pressed him, he shared more with her than he had with any other person since his mother. He felt a closeness to her that was human rather than sexual.

  He had not approached her for sex since he had come back from London. At first she had been too sick, and then, as she began to get better, he too was conscious of the child. He was afraid, as well, afraid to shatter the happiness he could see growing in her along with the baby. She never once made a gesture that would indicate that she would welcome the resumption of any kind of physical relationship with him. She seemed, he thought somewhat ruefully, to regard him as a surrogate big brother.

  It was a situation he did not find totally satisfactory, but he accepted it. And went regularly, several afternoons a week, to visit Catherine Alnwick at Sothington.

  Catherine Alnwick was thirty-six years of age and a widow. She had two boys, both of whom were at Eton. She went to London for a few months each spring, but most of the time she lived in Worcestershire. Her relationship with Nicholas had been going on since he came home to Winslow five years ago. The death of her husband four years ago had only made things easier and less risky for them.

  Catherine was a very beautiful, very independent woman. She had only been thirty-two when her husband died, but she showed no signs of interest in marrying again—and she had had a number of chances. When she went to London she moved in the best of circles; she had friends and relatives who owned country homes all over England and she was invited to visit regularly; she had plenty of money. But she remained a widow. Her sisters did not understand it, but then her sisters knew nothing of Nicholas.

  Catherine was very satisfied with their relationship. She had no great desire to marry again; the freedom of widowhood suited her very well. She did what it pleased her to do and had to account to no one. Nicholas was the perfect solution for her. He aroused her more than any man she had ever known. Even after five years, the sight of him riding up her driveway was enough to start her pulses pounding. He satisfied her body and made no claims on her freedom. She went to London when she liked, visited whom she liked, slept with whom she liked. And he did the same. Obviously he had found their relationship as satisfactory as she; he had held to her for over five long years, and his marriage did not seem to be posing any obstacles at all.

  Catherine had never met Margarita. She had not been in Worcestershire last winter when the local gentry were paying calls on the new bride at Winslow, and she was intensely curious, to meet her. “Really, my dear,” she said to him humorously, as he was leaving one afternoon, “you are turning into a recluse. Jane Hopkins was asking me only yesterday if I thought you would be offended by an invitation to dine at Twinings.”

  “Offended?” His strongly marked brows drew together. “Why on earth should I be offended?”

  “No one in the neighborhood has seen you since last winter. People are not quite sure how to regard you. You have been rather brutally refusing invitations, you know.”

  “My wife has been sick.”

  “I realize that. But she is better now, you say. I think it is time you made your reentry into the neighborhood, Nicholas.”

  He looked down at her, a faintly sardonic smile on his lips. “Do you Cat? All right. Tell Lady Hopkins to send her invitation.”

  She felt, uncomfortably, that he was reading her too accurately, but she replied calmly enough, “I will.”

  Two days later the invitation arrived at Winslow and was duly answered in the affirmative.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Smoake can never burne, they say,

  But the flames that follow may.”

  —Thomas Campion

  Margarita was a little nervous about making her first appearance in English society, but she comforted herself with the thought that Nicholas would be beside her. She had met three of the people who would be at Twinings before, but she had no clear recollection of them. She had been so frozen with unhappiness last winter that nothing and no one had registered very clearly on her consciousness.

  She had a new dress to wear. Nicholas had insisted that she give up her eternal black, and so this last month a dressmaker from the village had made her some new clothes. “After the baby, I will take you to London for a completely new wardrobe,” he told her. “I suppose it wouldn’t make much sense to do it now.”

  Her dimples appeared. “What I need at the moment, my lord, are dresses that can be let out easily. Most decidedly, a new wardrobe should wait until after the baby is born.”

  Margarita was actually looking very well. The high-waisted styles were an advantage, and although if you looked at her closely her pregnancy showed, the dress concealed it to a large degree. She wore a gown of delicate rose-pink silk, scooped low in the front. It had small puffed sleeves and the skirt that fell from its high waistband was a little fuller than style dictated. Her hair was knotted smoothly on top of her head, and in her ears and around her throat hung the famous Winslow diamonds.

  Nicholas smiled with pleasure when he saw her. “You look lovely,” he told her approvingly.

  In return, Margarita regarded her husband. She reached up to smooth back a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Were you writing in the library?” she asked severely.

  He grinned. “Guilty.”

  “I can always tell by the way you tug at your poor hair.” She stepped back. “There, it looks tidy enough now.” She picked up her cloak. “I am ready if you are.”

  “Margarita!” He stared at her cloak. “Surely you don’t need that! It is June.”

  She handed the sable-lined cloak to him. “It is already feeling a little chilly, and by the time we come home it will be cold.”

  He sighed and draped it over her shoulders. “I was positively hot all afternoon.”

  “You go around half the winter without even a coat,” she replied accusingly. “Clearly
you have no sensitivity to cold at all. I have.”

  “So I have observed.”

  She smiled at him. “You are teasing me, my lord, and it is very nice of you to try to take my mind off this party. You will promise not to desert me if there are cards?”

  Nicholas had warned her that it was likely that Lady Hopkins would get up a few tables of whist. He had been teaching her how to play, but she was still very much a beginner. “I promise,” he said.

  *

  The dinner party consisted of Sir Henry and Lady Hopkins, Lord James Tyrrell, who was visiting them again, Mrs. Alnwick, Mr. Knight, who owned Eversly Manor a few miles away, and his wife, Lady Anne, who was a daughter of the Earl of Lawnthorpe. The only ones who had ever met the new Lady Winslow were the residents of Twinings; the rest of the company were politely but definitely curious.

  Catherine Alnwick found herself staring in great surprise at Margarita; somehow she had not expected her to look like this. “How do you do, Mrs. Alnwick,” Nicholas’s wife said in a low, clear voice. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Catherine said something in reply and Margarita passed on to Lord James Tyrrell, who bowed over her hand with reverence. Catherine’s eyes went from the face of his wife to Nicholas, but she could discern nothing behind the pleasant, courteous expression on his too-good-looking face.

  They went into dinner. Margarita sat next to Sir Henry and on her other side was Mr. Knight. Nicholas, chatting lightly with Catherine Alnwick, saw that she was charming the two older men effortlessly. She was so modest, yet so attentive and aware, with her big brown eyes and soft gravity. Mr. Knight, who was often stiff and haughty with strangers, was smiling at her genially and telling her about his dogs, which he was famous for breeding. By the time the last course was served he had offered her a puppy. “Come and choose one for yourself, Lady Winslow. Get your husband to bring you. We’ll be glad to see you any time.”

  Nicholas, hearing this, said to Catherine Alnwick, “Knight has just offered Margarita a puppy. If she can accomplish that in the course of one dinner, I ought to enroll her in the diplomatic corps.” His voice was softly amused and she looked at him sharply.

  “She is very lovely. And so young.”

  He slanted a look at her, eyebrows raised. “She is eighteen,” he said. “You knew that.”

  “Yes, I suppose I did.” She smiled a little ruefully. “What I meant to say was that she looks so young. I suppose I must be feeling old.”

  A flash of amusement came and went in his face. “I shouldn’t worry, Cat. You are looking very lovely yourself tonight. I always like you in blue.”

  The rest of the company was surreptitiously watching this low-voiced exchange between Nicholas and Catherine. There wasn’t a person in the room, including the servants, who didn’t know about Nicholas Beauchamp and Mrs. Alnwick. They also knew that his marriage did not seem to have interrupted the most famous secret liaison in the neighborhood. They looked from Catherine and Nicholas to Margarita, who was listening to Mr. Knight. There was not a shadow on her serene young brow. Obviously, they all thought, “the wife” had not yet found out.

  *

  Margarita bore up very well under the polite but relentless scrutiny of the ladies when they retired after dinner to the drawing room. She was conversing amicably with Catherine Alnwick when the gentlemen joined them. Catherine was surprised to find she did not at all feel as if she were talking to a young girl; there was a dignity and graciousness about Margarita that was rarely seen in English girls of her age.

  As Nicholas had surmised, Lady Hopkins set about arranging two tables of whist. She was about to suggest that Margarita play with Lord James when Nicholas said easily, “If you do not mind, Lady Hopkins, I will partner my wife.”

  “Of course I do not mind,” replied Lady Hopkins, good breeding effectively concealing her surprise.

  “You see,” Margarita explained with a shy smile, “I am just learning to play, and my lord is so patient with me.” At that Lady Hopkins did stare in surprise. Patience was not one of Nicholas’s more well-known virtues.

  They played against Catherine Alnwick and Lord James Tyrrell. Catherine was a very fine card player and usually partnered Nicholas, who was himself an excellent and demanding player. It soon became clear that Margarita was not in their class, although she did not do badly for a rank beginner. “I did not know you had that card,” she said to Nicholas after he had played the king of hearts.

  “When the king was not played earlier, you should have known Lord Winslow had it,” Catherine explained kindly.

  Margarita frowned a little, going over the play in her mind. She nodded. “Yes, I see.” She looked at her husband. “I should have led a heart back to you, should I not?”

  “Yes, but there’s not much damage done. I was able to use it after all.”

  Margarita sighed. “There are so many things to remember. I will never learn it all.”

  “You are doing very well, Lady Winslow,” said Lord James reassuringly. “In fact, you and Nick are winning.”

  “That is because Lord Winslow has drawn all the cards tonight,” Catherine said a trifle tartly.

  “It has been a lucky night,” Nicholas agreed suavely.

  Catherine shot him a look from under her lashes. There was a smile touching the corner of his mouth as he regarded his cards. She looked at that firm, well-cut mouth and then forced her eyes back to her own hand. Margarita tentatively laid a card on the table and Nicholas smiled at her warmly. “Good girl,” he said and she flushed with pleasure.

  Afterwards, over tea, the conversation became more general. Margarita, seated by the fire, was feeling extremely sleepy and wondered how long it would be before she disgraced herself and yawned. Nicholas, noticing her growing silence, looked at her intently. Her back was as straight as ever, her head was erect. Her eyes were black and enormous, and seemed to engulf her small face. He leaned across to ask her softly, “Are you tired?”

  She looked like a child caught out in mischief. “A little.”

  Ten minutes later, they were seated in their carriage on the way home to Winslow. Everyone had been most understanding and Mr. Knight had patted her paternally on the shoulder. “Your husband is quite right,” he said. “You must be sure to get proper rest. Mind now, don’t forget the puppy.”

  “I won’t, Mr. Knight. I should love a puppy,” she responded softly.

  “I am glad to see Winslow is taking care of her,” Mr. Knight announced to the remaining company. “She seems a very sweet little thing.”

  Lady Anne and Lady Hopkins exchanged glances. They agreed that Margarita seemed a very sweet little thing. They agreed that Nicholas did indeed seem very attentive. Both ladies looked with veiled speculation to Catherine Alnwick, but her lovely face gave nothing away.

  Chapter Twelve

  “But in the world I learnt, what there

  Thou too wilt surely one day prove,

  That will, that energy, though rare,

  Are yet far, far less rare than love.”

  —Matthew Arnold

  Margarita and Nicholas did pay a visit to Mr. Knight and went home with an adorable spaniel puppy that Margarita called Eva. The little bitch became her faithful companion, walking with her in the gardens and riding beside her in the old-fashioned phaeton that Nicholas had taught her to drive.

  She loved to drive around the estate, surveying the fields of ripening wheat and oats and growing vegetables. The orchards were lovely and loaded with fruit. The cattle grazed peacefully in the summer sun. The fruitfulness of the land was a balm to her spirit. She found herself endlessly interested in Nicholas’s schemes; after the destruction and death she had seen in South America, making things grow seemed to her the most wonderful of ambitions.

  Nicholas expanded under her interest. He was used to being regarded as freakish for his passionate interest in agriculture. Even in those who were outwardly sympathetic, like Catherine Alnwick, he detected a note of amused
bewilderment. It was all very well to want to improve one’s property, but no one thought it necessary for Nicholas to spend his days in the fields.

  His devotion to the land, to Winslow land in particular, had manifested itself after his mother’s elopement. He had been left rootless, without an object on which to focus his quite considerable capacity for love. People, particularly women, seemed to him untrustworthy. Never again, a ten-year-old Nicholas had sworn, never again would he let himself be hurt as his mother had hurt him.

  And so his love turned to Winslow: to the land that had belonged to his family for seven hundred years, to the land that would one day belong to him. Like Margarita, he found enormous satisfaction in making things grow. He had never been able to share this satisfaction with anyone, until she came.

  He worried about her driving around by herself. He had refused to let her go out alone until he was satisfied that she was competent holding the reins, and the horse he insisted she drive was placid and steady. He understood very well her dislike of having a groom with her; he too preferred to be alone. And he was delighted that she wanted to get out of the house. So he crossed his fingers and let her go, and she managed very well. Several times a week he would run into her on one of the small roads that crisscrossed the Vale, ambling along in the sun, a straw bonnet on her brown head, and Eva perched up beside her. He always turned his horse to walk beside her for a while, and her small face, upturned toward him, would glow with pleasure.

  At night, after dinner, they took long walks in the summer twilight, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, absorbed in their own thoughts. As her body thickened with the child, Nicholas insisted that they confine themselves to the gardens and stay off the hill, but still they walked every evening. Then they would go in for tea, and afterwards Margarita would go upstairs to bed.

  It was a time of healing for Margarita. She had begun to correspond with Andrés Bello and his letters usually left her depressed for days, but it was not the all-enveloping misery she had suffered last winter. The Spanish fleet had reached South America, and the first action of the commander, Morillo, was to take Margarita Island. The Republicans had no base left in Venezuela. Bolivar left Cartagena and was in Jamaica, trying to interest the British in aiding his cause. Andrés Bello wrote her that there was no chance the British would intervene; their relations wth Spain were too tenuous.