The Loving Spirit Read online

  Her face brightened suddenly. Following her gaze, Kate saw Amelia’s husband approaching the rose arbour, and rose hastily to move away.

  Justin Edward Surtees Hanwood, Earl Farringdon, was a man more likely to strike observers with awe than affection. Over six feet tall and broad of shoulder, with long legs sheathed in buckskin breeches, he was thirty-six years old with a powerful, athletic figure. There was about him a massiveness that suggested a life spent in sporting pursuits. He would have been out of place in elegant society, and on his rare visits to London he was more likely to be found in Jackson’s Boxing Saloon than in the drawing-rooms of the ton.

  Kate’s scholar father had raised her to know the Greek language and the Greek legends. She had been fascinated by the story of the Minotaur, the creature whose mother had been a woman and whose father a bull, who spent his life trapped in a labyrinth, devouring human sacrifice.

  She knew it was improper to liken Lord Farringdon to the Minotaur, but she found the comparison irresistible. In his youth, he had been known for the wildness of his exploits, and his bitter, uncontrollable temper. The world had prophesied a bad end for him, even perhaps the gallows.

  Instead he had met Amelia, a girl with a magic talisman that could calm him, and bring happiness to his fierce, joyless soul. They had been married for fourteen years and he lived an exemplary life; a good father, a devoted husband, an excellent landlord. Yet Kate had sharp eyes, and she couldn’t lose the impression of a wild beast, imperfectly tamed.

  Even in domestic surroundings he carried an aura of danger. Everything about him suggested force: his height, his strength, a slight shagginess about his head, for when in the country he had to be reminded to trouble with a barber. His dark locks often flowed almost to his shoulders, increasing his resemblance to a bull, she thought.

  His face might have been handsome but for its habitual harshness. He had dark, brilliant eyes, a long straight nose and a chin that was firm to the point of stubbornness. It was a sensual face, with a wide, mobile mouth, that could become charming when it smiled. But he kept his smiles for Amelia, and then only when they were alone.

  He had succeeded to the title when he was twenty-two, and already so stern of manner that he seemed older than his years. Early responsibility had emphasized his less amiable traits. He was arrogant, proud, confident in his own judgement, impatient of argument, imperious in enforcing his will.

  His servants respected him but did not warm to him. His children regarded him with awe. Kate both disliked and feared him. Only one person loved him totally, and that was the wife to whom he had given his own heart without reserve.

  He saw Kate preparing to depart and restrained her with a peremptory gesture.

  ‘One moment, Mrs Hendricks, if you please. Your son has been caught trying to run away. As usual he was set on joining the army. You should let him join up, ma’am. It’s not good for a boy to be tied to his mother’s apron strings. I’m prepared to advance some money to give him a decent start.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, but – ’ Kate began awkwardly.

  ‘You can call it a gift from my wife,’ he interrupted her. ‘Since his father was in the army, the boy should be allowed to follow his footsteps.’

  ‘But I...’

  ‘I can begin the arrangements at once...’

  ‘No!’

  The sharpness of Kate’s tone made him stare. Lord Farringdon wasn’t used to the word no, especially from one of his dependants.

  ‘That is...’ conscious of the enormity of her offence, Kate stammered, ‘Your Lordship is very good but...it is not my wish...’

  ‘You’re making a mistake ma’am,’ he said impatiently. ‘You should value him – he’s vigorous, manly beyond his years, and full of courage. There isn’t a risk he won’t take. I wish my own eldest showed the same kind of spirit.’

  ‘Philip is a scholar,’ Kate said quickly. ‘Not a sportsman.’

  ‘Can’t a man be both?’

  ‘He can, but very few are,’ Kate retorted swiftly.

  ‘Believe me, you should trust my judgement in this matter.’

  ‘Don’t press her, Ned,’ Amelia said quickly.

  She put her hand on his arm and addressed him with the name that only she ever used. When his wife called him Ned, in a tone of special pleading, he couldn’t refuse her. So, to please Amelia, he dropped the subject. But because it embarrassed him to display his devotion to her before others he shrugged impatiently, and nodded to the governess to be gone. Kate hastily gathered up her sewing and slipped away to the house.

  As she crossed the hall she was intercepted by Millicent’s sharp voice.

  ‘Hendricks!’

  Kate turned to face her.

  ‘I was never in favour of your employment here,’ Millicent said coldly. ‘You have no control over the children, and you don’t know how to behave.’

  ‘May I ask if Lady Farringdon has any complaints about me?’ Kate said, emphasizing her employer’s name slightly.

  ‘Don’t be impertinent, madam.’

  ‘I am not impertinent.’ Kate defended herself. ‘Lady Farringdon is my employer, and she alone can judge me.’

  ‘Not so,’ Millicent said with a malicious little smile. ‘It is Lord Farringdon who employs you, and that won’t be for much longer, I can promise you. What are you? A little nobody from nowhere, hired because she was a friend of Lady Farringdon, another nobody from nowhere.’

  ‘You mustn’t speak of her like that...’

  ‘Damn your insolence? If I choose to say that my nephew’s wife is totally unworthy of the high position he’s given her, I shall say it.’

  ‘If you mean that Lady Farringdon didn’t dance with the Prince of Wales when he was young and handsome, that’s hardly surprising,’ Kate said with suppressed vehemence. ‘She isn’t nearly old enough.’

  She fled up the stairs without waiting to hear more than Millicent’s outraged gasp. As she ran she condemned herself bitterly. How could she have been so reckless as to speak her mind like that? She, whose whole life was lived so as not to attract attention.

  But her lively tongue had always run away with her. Long ago Papa had condemned her for her frankness, so unbecoming in a young lady. Her mother too had warned her about her high spirits.

  ‘You must show more restraint, my love,’ she’d said. ‘Otherwise gentlemen will think you’re fast, and try to take liberties.’

  Oh, how right she had been! And how bitter the lesson!

  ‘Mama! Mama, wait!’

  The sound of her son’s voice made Kate turn swiftly. Tom was bounding up the stairs towards her, his face eager. He was a fine, well-grown lad, broad-shouldered and handsome, with clear green eyes and a delightfully open face.

  ‘Mama, Lord Farringdon says he’ll buy me a cornetcy and speak to some army friends on my behalf. Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘Yes, he did, and I told him you are too young, and I won’t hear of it.’

  The joy faded from the young face, leaving shock and anger behind.

  ‘But Mama, you know I’ve never wanted to be anything but a soldier, like my father.’

  ‘Tom, my answer is no, and that’s final.’

  She hurried away from him. It hurt to refuse her darling his heart’s desire, but she couldn’t tell him the true reason. She wasn’t keeping him tied to her apron strings as Lord Farringdon had accused.

  The day Tom Hendricks enlisted in the army, questions would begin to be asked about George Hendricks, the soldier father in whose footsteps he was supposedly following. And those questions mustn’t be asked: for George Hendricks had never existed.

  *

  To the awe-struck fifteen year old, Major Leon Danby had looked like a prince from a fairy-tale. Tall, slender, with laughing green eyes, handsome features and a curving mouth, he had cut a glorious figure in his regimentals. How his silver buttons had shone, and how tightly his breeches had moulded themselves to his muscular thighs.

  Such a god-
like creature had never been seen before at Miss Ellison’s School For Young Ladies. The windows overlooking the drive had been crowded to watch him arrive to visit his sister Maria, a pupil at the school.

  Because Maria’s tongue ran on wheels everyone knew about Major Danby, how gallantly he’d fought with the army, at that time in India, and returned home wounded. The innocent girls had all sighed romantically at the sight of him.

  But it was Kate who’d caught his eye. She’d had another name in those days, but she’d blotted it out so totally that now she thought of herself as Kate, even when remembering that time.

  She’d been a giddy, high-spirited girl who’d learned too little about self-restraint. She’d also, tragically, been a beauty with large, deep-blue eyes, golden curls and a soft, peach-like skin. Leon had watched her the first day, and there had been something in his eyes that scorched her.

  That night, in her narrow white bed, she’d relived every moment and known, with utter conviction, that she’d found true and lasting love, the kind of which the poets sang. Hot and cold shivers possessed her at the memory of his caressing eyes, and she was in a fever for their next meeting.

  He was the nephew of an earl, which heightened his romantic aura, but the love-struck girl cared less for his title than for the glow that shone from him whenever he looked at her, and the way he spoke the most conventional words in a way that made them seem just for her.

  Each week there was a dancing class and some of the local young men were permitted to act as partners. Leon begged leave to attend, ‘to study his sister’s progress.’

  But it was Kate with whom he danced the minuet, and into whose ears his sweet murmurs fell like poison.

  ‘You dance more daintily than any of the fine ladies in London.’

  ‘How I should love to see London!’

  ‘One day I shall take you there, and we shall waltz together.’

  She’d heard of the indecent dance that was sweeping the country, in which a man and a woman held each other in an embrace. The thought of dancing it in his arms, made her blush.

  ‘Would you not like to waltz with me?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Indeed not, sir,’ she managed to say. ‘I have heard it is shockingly improper.’

  ‘Very improper,’ he agreed at once. ‘That’s what gives it such charm. To hold the woman you love in your arms, to draw her close, to steal a kiss...what could be more delightful?’

  ‘I...I don’t know.’

  ‘Have I offended you by speaking of kissing?’

  ‘Yes...no...I cannot say.’

  ‘If we were alone, I would kiss you.’

  His words created in her a storm of sensation such as she’d never known before. Suddenly she could think about nothing but his kiss. It was wicked and unladylike, but she couldn’t help herself. Her eyes were drawn constantly to his mouth. At night she dreamed of feeling it laid on her own, and awoke trembling.

  Like other girls, she had no idea what men and women did together, apart from kissing. She found out, with brutal suddenness, one summer night when she had crept out to meet Leon in the garden. With horrifying speed, the romantic tryst turned into an experience of incredible ugliness.

  Leon had pulled her down beside him on the grass, seized her hard in his arms and rained fierce kisses over her face and neck. She had tried not to be alarmed. This was her Leon, who loved her. If only his hands didn’t rove over her in such a predatory way, outraging her modesty.

  ‘Leon...please...’ she begged breathlessly.

  ‘Why, you saucy little minx! You’re wearing only a night gown.’

  ‘I...I had to creep out after I went to bed.’

  ‘All ready for me, eh? You can’t wait, can you?’

  She didn’t understand his words. She was in a wild confusion at the hot breath on her face, the feel of his hands yanking up her nightgown, exposing her nakedness.

  ‘No, you mustn’t...’

  ‘No simpering airs! Can’t stand a woman who teases and then changes her mind. Stop fighting me, you little fool.’

  She was mad with fear, trying to push him away, to fend off his hand between her legs, forcing her into the position he wanted. Then his knee was there, keeping her legs apart while he fumbled with his breeches. The next moment a terrible pain shot through her. She tried to scream, but he silenced her with one hand clamped ruthlessly over her mouth. His weight held her imprisoned on the ground while the pain was repeated again and again as he thrust into her, and she thought she would die of it.

  At last the horror was over. The weight was removed and she was aware of him getting to his feet, buttoning his breeches. She rolled over on the grass, her face buried in her hands, and sobbed.

  ‘Stop making that noise,’ he hissed. ‘Do you want to wake the place?’

  He dropped down beside her and pulled her around to face him. When she still sobbed he gave a sigh and gathered her into his arms. There was more irritation than tenderness in his manner, but she was too distraught to know.

  ‘Come along, there’s a good girl. No need to make a fuss. Lord, what a mess this is? How was I to know you were a virgin?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she choked.

  ‘All those pert messages you were sending me. Flashing your eyes, and that little wiggle of your hips when you walk. You led me on, don’t try to deny it.’

  Nothing that he said made any sense. Through the nightmare, only one thing was clear: it was all her fault.

  ‘I...I didn’t mean to lead you on.’

  ‘Too late to say that, now you’ve got us into a mess.’

  ‘You mean...you don’t love me?’

  He drew a sharp, hissing breath before saying heartily,

  ‘What nonsense! Of course I love you. Haven’t I just proved it? We’ll be married as soon as possible. Just give me a few days to make the arrangements, and I’ll be back with the ring. In the mean time, it’ll be our secret, eh?’

  He helped her as far as the side entrance to the school, swore her to silence again, and slipped away.

  She was too hysterical and confused to ask herself if she wanted to marry a man who used her so brutally. Besides, she knew she had no choice. She belonged to Leon now. She loved him, and he loved her, and somehow things would go right. She was fifteen. She knew no different.

  Somehow she got back to the room she shared with Miss Amelia Franklin, without being discovered, and lay staring into the night, trying to tell herself that she must be happy because she was betrothed to the man she loved. At last the sobs overcame her, so loudly that Amelia woke and crossed the floor to comfort her, begging to be told the trouble. But even with Amelia she couldn’t find words to describe the hideous experience. She only wept in her friend’s arms until she fell asleep.

  In the days that followed she managed to speak about that night, but only a little. Amelia received a confused impression of a lovers’ meeting that had ended badly, but that all would be well at last. Amelia’s friendship was her one consolation in those terrible days, and soon even that was taken away from her.

  Amelia was summoned home to care for her sick mother, but soon she wrote to say she would not be returning. She had met Justin, Lord Farringdon, who was visiting friends in the neighbourhood. And they had fallen instantly in love.

  He was twenty-two, although his quiet manners made him seem older. Mama was anxious for the match, as Justin was an earl, but Amelia confided that she would have gladly married him if he’d been a nobody. She loved him more than she could say.

  With Kate things were terrifyingly different. Weeks had passed with no sign of Leon, and, ignorant though she was, she had begun to suspect that her life had changed for ever. Each morning she was violently ill, a fact which escaped detection only because she was sleeping alone since Amelia’s departure.

  Then the first blow fell. Maria announced to her admiring school fellows that Papa had purchased a better commission for her brother, and Leon was now a lieutenant colonel. At this very m
oment he was on his way back to India to take up his new command.

  Kate collapsed with shock. She was put to bed, and Miss Jakes, the senior mistress, her eyes hard with suspicion, took the other bed, to keep watch over her. The second blow followed swiftly. At dawn she was overtaken again by nausea, and this time there was somebody there to see.

  There followed a violent and hideous confrontation with Miss Ellison, whose sole concern was to protect her school. Coldly she demanded the name of ‘the low stable lad with whom you’ve been disporting yourself’.

  Kate had choked out Leon’s name, and the next moment was sent reeling by a savage blow across the face. She screamed, but the sound was cut off by the older woman’s hand across her mouth. With her other hand she grasped Kate’s hair, wrenching her head back cruelly.

  ‘You deceitful little slut,’ she hissed. ‘Do you think I’m going to let you ruin my school with your lies? You’ve been with some village lout, and you think you’re going to pass off your bastard as a gentleman’s son? I warn you, if you dare repeat that name I’ll have you taken to the madhouse.’

  Kate had been locked in her room without food or water while her parents were sent for. She sat for hours, trembling violently, dreading to face them, but longing for them to arrive and take her away.

  Miss Ellison came for her and said coldly, ‘Remember, keep your crazy illusions to yourself or you’ll be locked up for the rest of your life.’

  The threat so frightened her that she dared not speak Leon’s name to her parents. Nor was there any comfort to be found in them. Her mother wept and her father stared at her coldly. She had been his pet, but in his anger and disgust he became an enemy. Kate would remember to her dying day the sound of his freezing voice saying, ‘You are no longer my daughter. I wish never to see you again.’

  ‘Papa!’ Kate cried in terrible fear. ‘Mama. Don’t leave me here!’

  Miss Jakes and Miss Ellison had manhandled her, struggling and shrieking, upstairs to her room, and locked her in. She’d flown to the window, hammering on the glass and screaming to her parents, whom she could see below. But they climbed into their carriage and drove off without a backward glance. As she knew herself abandoned, her shrieks became demented. An hour later she saw the arrival of the black van, and understood. They were sending her to the madhouse.