The Loving Spirit Read online

  ‘Did you bring him home?’ she cried.

  ‘Tom is with me, yes...’

  ‘Then you got there in time?’

  ‘No, I was too late. He’d enlisted. But Kate, there is something else I must say to you.’

  ‘Yes?’ Distraught, she waited for disaster to engulf her.

  ‘I think I’ve been of some service to him, and I hope that will soften the blow for you. I’ve purchased him a cornetcy. He’ll be an officer, albeit a very junior one. He’ll live among gentlemen, and when he’s a little older I can ease his path some more.’

  At first she couldn’t take it in. ‘You mean...?’

  ‘Tom is my stepson now, and I’ll help him all I can. I know he’ll do me credit and make a fine officer.’

  The truth was dawning on her. There had been no scandal about Tom’s father because Justin had assumed that position, spreading a cloak of lordly patronage over the boy that silenced all questions. For an earl, matters could be arranged.

  ‘I obtained permission to bring him home to say goodbye to you,’ Justin continued. ‘He’s so pleased. Don’t spoil it for him with reproaches.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she vowed. She was almost faint with relief. Justin strode to the door and pulled it open.

  ‘In that case, madam, let me present you to Cornet Thomas Hendricks of the 52nd Light Infantry.’

  And there was Tom in the doorway, looking abashed before his mother, yet also proud to bursting point in his new uniform with its red jacket and blue pantaloons. Under one arm he held a tall black stovepipe cap sporting a green plume at the front. How tall he was, she thought, how handsome, as he marched into the room and stood straight for her inspection.

  ‘At your service, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh Tom,’ she whispered, ‘My dear boy!’ She stood back and regarded his magnificence. ‘You’ve been growing into a man and I didn’t realize.’

  ‘Well, I am nearly fifteen.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s right that you should go your own way now.’

  His young face broke into a smile of relief. ‘Thank you, Mama. I wouldn’t have liked to go to Spain without your blessing.’

  ‘Spain?’

  ‘He leaves for Spain tomorrow,’ Justin said.

  She wanted to cry out. He might be killed. This might be the last time she ever saw him. Her horror made her eyes wide and defenceless. Justin, watching her, drew in a slow breath.

  She forced herself to smile and be calm. ‘Well, you’re going to fight for your country. You’re a man now.’

  His smile of relief was her reward.

  ‘You’ll wish to talk alone,’ Justin said abruptly.

  She went with Tom to his room and packed up the things he hadn’t managed to take with him before. Her son chattered happily all the time.

  ‘Lord Farringdon was wonderful, Mama. As soon as he arrived everything changed. He told them I was his stepson, and when they knew that it was like magic...they treated me differently. He’s even making me an allowance so that I can live on equal terms with ‘my fellow officers’. That’s how he put it. He’s awfully decent really, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, he is.’

  The children joined them as they went downstairs, the boys cheering, Grace wide-eyed and shy. Justin’s chaise was waiting for them below, and only now did Kate realize that he meant to return with Tom. It was an attention she hadn’t looked for, and she threw him a grateful smile.

  ‘He’ll come to no harm,’ he assured her abruptly.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said, throwing all her heart into the effort to seem cheerful.

  ‘I’ll make you proud of me, Mama,’ Tom said eagerly. ‘I’ll get mentioned in despatches and...’

  ‘I’m proud of you now,’ she interrupted quickly. ‘Just come home safely.’

  She opened her arms to him, almost fearing that he would shy from her embrace as not befitting a soldier. But at the last moment he became a boy again.

  ‘Mama!’ he cried, hugging her with sudden fierceness, and briefly she felt his tears on her cheek. ‘Mama!’

  ‘Goodbye, my dearest boy.’

  He gave an awkward laugh, wiped his eyes and hurried into the chaise. The door slammed and they were away. She was standing alone on the path, waving at the retreating vehicle.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she whispered. ‘Come back to me.’

  She was racked by feelings of pride, joy and misery. She began to walk, not looking where she was going, and found that her feet had taken her by instinct to the rose arbour, an empty place now. In the gathering dusk she pulled her shawl about her, sat on the bench and wondered what was going to happen. She felt lonely, and Amelia was nowhere to be found.

  At tea, the children were full of the excitement of Tom’s splendid departure. The boys chattered endlessly, but Grace fell quiet.

  ‘Hush boys, you’re upsetting her,’ Kate told them.

  ‘You goose,’ Jack chided his sister. ‘Nothing will happen to Tom.’

  ‘It’s Kate,’ Grace said tearfully. ‘You shouldn’t laugh at what makes her sad.’

  The boys looked at her, stricken, and Kate hurried to say, ‘I’m not sad...well, just a little because Tom has gone away. But he was bound to, one day.’

  Something had changed in the atmosphere, and they all seemed to feel it, for Grace was especially loving to her, and the boys each hugged her tightly her before going to bed.

  She ordered dinner delayed for Justin and, as the darkness fell, she wandered the house, knowing she couldn’t be at ease until he arrived. His blunt manner and plain speaking were just what she needed to stop her falling into a melancholy. At last she heard the chaise wheels on the drive, and a few minutes later they were sitting at dinner.

  He seemed to understand what she needed for he spoke cheerfully about Tom’s prospects. Kate knew he was seeking to reassure her, and she responded as best as she could. But at last Justin fell silent.

  ‘You blame me for interfering, don’t you?’ he asked wryly.

  ‘No, truly, My Lord...’

  ‘No need for ‘My Lord’. If you call me Justin it may make it easier for you to tell me what you really think of me.’

  ‘I think you were right about many things,’ she said carefully. ‘Tom must lead his own life, and you’ve done something for him that I never could.’

  ‘Used my rank to usurp your parental authority, you mean, don’t you?’

  That was exactly what she was thinking but she shook her head. ‘Please, let us speak of it no more.’

  ‘But it disturbs me to know that I’ve angered you.’

  ‘As though my anger mattered to you one way or the other,’ she broke out before she could think. ‘You do as you think right, you toss out a few words of comfort afterwards and you expect that to be the end of the matter. But for me it cannot be.’

  ‘I thought you might be glad that Tom will benefit from my help.’

  ‘If he lives he will benefit.’

  He flinched and she knew he couldn’t answer her. She felt suddenly weary, and wondered what she was doing, fighting with him. A sound made her look up. Startled, she saw that the door had opened and two small figures in night shirts were advancing nervously but determinedly into the room.

  ‘Charlie, Jack, what are you doing here?’ she asked.

  `We had to see you,’ Charlie said, trying to speak firmly but with a wary eye on his father. ‘We had to say...we’re sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  The boys exchanged a glance as if to take courage from each other, then Jack took a deep breath and said,

  ‘It was us. We helped Tom escape. He gave us the note he’d written you and we waited until he’d had a good start before we put it on your pillow, so that it’d be too late for you to get him back.’

  For a moment the air seemed to vibrate. Kate clenched her hands, sharply aware of two things: Justin’s tense stillness, and the boys’ anxious eyes fixed on her.

  ‘We didn’t know that you’d
be so upset,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I think you did,’ Justin said in an iron voice. ‘Otherwise, why the secrecy?’

  ‘No, sir, truly. We thought Kate would be angry but...but she was just unhappy.’ Charlie hung his head and they both looked miserable.

  ‘Come here,’ she said, opening her arms to them. After a moment they ran to her and she embraced them both.

  ‘I don’t blame you. Tom is very good at talking people into things and you thought it would be a wonderful adventure. I’m not angry, and I’m not upset any more.’ As one, the boys looked at Justin. ‘And your father isn’t angry either.’

  ‘Am I not?’

  ‘No, for they did only what you did yourself. Now, back to bed, both of you.’

  When they had gone Justin looked at her wryly. ‘I shall have no authority left with my sons when you have finished undermining it.’

  ‘They needed kindness, not anger.’

  ‘I see. You can forgive them, but not me.’ He walked off to the library, leaving her to follow.

  By the time he’d settled on the sofa and she had taken her usual place on the leather stool by the fire she was able to say, ‘I’ll forgive you if you think you need forgiveness. Perhaps I clung on too long, but he was all I had.’

  ‘You have others who need you now,’ Justin reminded her quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

  ‘But it isn’t the same. I know. What about your husband? I believe you were widowed early?’

  ‘Very early,’ Kate said hurriedly. ‘May I pour you some brandy?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Did Tom’s father ever see him?’

  ‘No, My Lord. There, I’ll put the glass just there within reach.’

  ‘You don’t want to talk about him?’

  Through the nervous thumping of her heart she managed to speak calmly. ‘I see no need. It’s been many years.’

  He made a sudden, alert movement. ‘And your grief still lives? Did you love him so very much?’

  She was silent.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said tiredly. ‘I demand care for my own feelings yet show none for yours. I hadn’t thought your pain would still be sharp after so long.’ He reached over and took her hands between his. ‘You’re shaking.’

  ‘I can’t think why...it’s all over now. She stumbled to silence. His touch unnerved her.

  ‘But it isn’t over if it can still distress you.’

  ‘Truly, I am not distressed,’ she said, forcing herself to be calm.

  She drew her hands from his and folded them together, pressed against her. She could still feel him, the strength and warmth of his fingers, offering comfort when, every day, she was wanting more. She looked into the flames. If he saw the flush on her cheeks he would think it was only the fire.

  Justin watched her for a moment, wondering if she would look at him again. When she had said farewell to Tom he had noticed her eyes as if for the first time. Through her years as governess he’d never noticed them. Even since their marriage she’d seldom looked him in the face, and then usually with her eyelids lowered, as though she would withhold some vital part of herself.

  He remembered the night he’d clasped his hands around her neck, as if to strangle her. She’d looked full at him that time, but the creature he held hadn’t been Kate. It had been some fierce, unearthly being, unafraid, daring him to do his worst, and the eyes that glittered at him out of the darkness had belonged to a magnificent wild animal.

  In the turmoil that followed he had forgotten. Until today. The sight of her defenceless face as Tom left had startled him. It had been like seeing a different woman, beautiful, with a rich and subtle inner life. Not just Kate the governess. But who was she, really? Behind the governess was a woman who had loved a man, borne a child and seen death take her beloved. Had she feared to lose her son as she had lost her husband?

  But he couldn’t tell, because now she had withdrawn again. He threw himself back on the sofa, obscurely troubled. The anguish that had brought him close to suicide in the early days had shaded into an unending heaviness, from which only Kate’s bracing words brought relief. She had become the friend whose hand in the darkness held him hack from despair. He’d come to depend on her, even to be glad of her, but never, until today, had it occurred to him that she was a woman with a life of her own...a life that now belonged to him.

  A log fell in the fire, and she took up the poker.

  ‘The days are growing cold,’ she said. ‘I must have the fires lit sooner.’

  He made no answer and, turning, she saw that he was asleep, stretched out on the sofa. He was in his usual dishevelled state, his hair tousled and the throat of his shirt torn open. Moving quietly she went to take the glass from his hand. Now she was close to his face, and could see how the harsh lines had been smoothed out by sleep.

  Pity overcame all other feeling. He was a wounded animal whose agony had softened her heart. It was a long time now since anything had mattered but making his life bearable.

  In watching his face she forgot everything else. This was her husband, and yet not her husband. She was nothing to him...except his wife. At their wedding he had said, ‘With my body I thee worship’, to a woman who would have held no attraction for him, even if he had not been grieving for his beloved.

  ‘With my body, I thee worship,’ she murmured silently to herself. And now it was useless trying to keep out the thought she had striven not to remember, the memory of him lying naked in bed, his great powerful body almost shocking in its beauty: a body that had worshipped only one woman, and that woman not herself.

  Her sole experience of a man’s passion had left her with no wish to know more. It should have been the thing that made her strange marriage possible, the knowledge that she wanted him as little as he did her. But that was changing moment by moment, and now she could no longer deny the stirring in her flesh that threatened to become desire.

  She must move away from him quickly. She tried to rise, but suddenly his eyes were open, looking directly into hers.

  ‘Kate,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Kate!’

  ‘I’m here. I thought you were asleep.’

  She reached out and he seized her hand with a force that made her wince.

  ‘I’m going mad,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t you realize that?’

  ‘But you’ve seemed a little better recently.’

  ‘Only on the outside. Inside I’m in chaos and it gets worse every day...I don’t want to go mad...Kate, please!’

  ‘You won’t. I won’t let you.’

  ‘Millicent was right. I should be put under restraint before I smash everything and everyone. Help me, Kate. Hold on to me. Don’t let me go mad.’

  Forgetting everything but the need to help Justin she gathered him in her arms. He clung to her like a drowning man clinging onto the spar that might save him.

  ‘I’m here,’ she promised. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’

  She wasn’t sure if he heard her. He was muttering feverishly, almost to himself. ‘I had no right to marry you and suck you down with me.’

  ‘Justin, look at me...look at me.’

  She put her hands on either side of his face and spoke his name urgently until he quietened. And then something happened. Warmth flooded her, making her gasp with its intensity. Meeting his eyes she saw that it was the same with him, and the next moment he had pulled her hard against him and his mouth was on hers in a passion of wild, urgent kisses.

  Cruel kisses that spoke of desperation, not tenderness. Kisses whose bitter intensity lit a flame in her and made her strain against him, crushing his mouth as fiercely as he crushed hers. Kisses that made her want more, and still more until her body blended with his.

  He kissed her as though he would have taken her prisoner, and nothing could have stopped her responding as she had done in a thousand fevered dreams that she’d denied by day. How insipid were those long ago touchings of the mouth exchanged with Leon, and which, in her ignorance, she’d thought were kisses. She k
new better now that she felt Justin’s lips moving over hers with fierce purpose, seeking, demanding something which every part of her yearned to give.

  She was trembling violently and so was he, and when he released her lips his hands still gripped her shoulders while he stared at her with eyes that saw nothing. But gradually the blankness cleared to be replaced by dismay, then to horror. His breathing became harsher, as though he was fighting. He released her suddenly and fell back against the sofa with a groan, an arm flung across his eyes. She didn’t need to be told more. It was rejection. She was the wrong woman and he couldn’t bear to look at her. She rose swiftly to her feet and fled.

  Upstairs she dismissed Jane hurriedly and undressed herself. She had to be alone. She would have given anything to return to her old room. How could she sleep in Amelia’s bed when she had so betrayed her? She lay wakeful, tortured by guilt on the one hand and thwarted desire on the other?

  She wanted him. She wanted her friend’s husband, for in her mind that was still what he was, and no funeral and wedding could make it otherwise. She knew now that the fever had been growing in her since the night she’d surprised him naked in bed, but in her ignorance of passion she hadn’t understood her own sensations.

  Now there could be no more self-delusion. His lips on hers had caused a riot of sensation throughout her body, shocking in its beauty and ferocity. She had kissed him back. She knew she had. And she had wanted to do more than kiss him. Had he known that? Of course he had.

  She heard his footsteps in the corridor outside, the pause, the sound of him entering his room, the quiet movements as he prepared for bed. Then silence.

  She tossed aside the bedclothes, hoping to cool her fevered body, but still she was possessed by heat. The fire he’d lit refused to die down. It roared through her so that her skin seemed to be made of pure flame, and in desperation she pulled off her nightdress and let the cold night air bring her some relief.

  She fell into an uneasy, heated sleep, awoke, dozed again. And then suddenly her eyes were open, every nerve quivering as the connecting door was opened. It was done quietly, but she heard everything, including the breathing of the man pausing on the threshold, as if undecided, then the click of the door being closed again, and the creak of the floorboard as he neared her.