His Duty, Her Destiny Page 14

  Fergus himself had been dragged off his horse too, and had taken on three of them single-handed. It had been hard going, and by the time the three were laid out cold, the waggon had disappeared. Guesswork, intuition and luck brought Piero, Captain Foscari’s lad, and Fergus together with the rest of the galley’s crew, and not a moment too soon, for Lord John’s men had been too many for Captain Foscari to tackle alone as he had expected to do. There would be no more trouble from Nicola’s erstwhile friend, however. Fergus’s Genoese galley could now boast the only real earl amongst its oarsmen.

  It was Lady Charlotte Coldyngham, Nicola’s elegant sister-in-law, who began to see, quite early on, that the adventure—as Fergus called it—had had a far more profound effect upon Nicola than on the brawny Scot, and that he was not taking her injuries with the required amount of gravity, however she had come by them. For her part, Lotti did not accept Nicola’s explanation that the basket into which she had been bundled had grazed her face for, apart from broken skin, there were bruises, a cut lip and a swollen eye that was quickly turning purple. The tear down the back of her bliaud Nicola had tried to explain away as part of the struggle, but Lotti had known her for many years, and the dreadful melancholy that had descended upon her since the violent abduction was acutely disturbing and very untypical of Nicola’s natural resilience. There was more to that torn bliaud, Lotti told herself, than a struggle.

  Nicola’s melancholy was no illusion, nor was it a pretence or a bid for attention, nor was she able to rouse more than a weak smile when Fergus went to speak to her the morning after. She had slept badly in spite of the sedative, tormented by nagging pains caused by the cruel ropes, cramps, the vicious blow to her head, and her reopened wound. Most disturbing of all was Fergus’s failure to understand her fear that he might have been killed. Apparently no such fear had crossed his mind that something similar might also have happened to her, for he had related the details of the rescue to George with the same kind of understated directness he had used as a lad of sixteen when they had just beaten the neighbour’s sons at jousting.

  He found her out in the garden with her feet up on a stone bench, cushioned and swaddled like an infant in a blanket that Lotti had put round her. Her hair was in a simple plait, and the colourful bruising glistened with salve, her mouth was swollen and lop-sided, the bruises to her neck still showing. Quickly, she pushed the blanket up to hide them.

  Fergus sat down next to her feet. ‘Well, my lass,’ he said. ‘Feeling better now?’ There were red weals on his cheekbones and the knuckles of both hands were raw, but he had not elaborated on his injuries and, apart from a certain wariness in his gait, he appeared not to be suffering.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she whispered.

  He leaned forward, reaching out to touch her cheek, to caress it. But she shied away with a frown. ‘It hurts?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’ The hand dropped. ‘I’ve told Muir about the Lord John thing. He sends his regards and farewell. He’s gone up home today.’

  ‘To Melrose?’

  ‘Yes. His wife’s expecting their firstborn in a few months.’

  ‘His…his wife?’ She looked at his hands, her mind temporarily blank. She looked up at his face, still heart-stoppingly handsome with the light scar that ran upwards from one eyebrow. His eyes were laughing. ‘He has a wife? He told me he came down here to escape a love affair. He told me,’ she said, indignantly, ‘that he needed to stay. He flirted with me.’

  ‘He told you it was an affair of the heart, lass. To bring the best physician from London for her. And that’s what he’s doing.’

  ‘That’s disgraceful! He deceived me. And he did flirt.’

  ‘Not seriously. He had his orders.’

  So, Muir had played her along and she had fallen for it. The two of them had schemed to get her into Fergus’s arms that evening, making a fool of her, just like old times. ‘ I see,’ she said, seething anew with hurt and resentment at this latest débâcle. ‘Then you must both be feeling very pleased with yourselves. Have a good long laugh at your brief victory, Sir Fergus, but have the grace to wait till I’m out of earshot.’ Humiliated, she turned her face away. ‘I think you’d better leave me. Please go.’

  ‘What about our deadline? We had an agreement, do you remember?’

  ‘We both missed it.’

  ‘It was you who missed it.’

  ‘That was none of my doing.’

  ‘Then I’m prepared to extend it.’

  Nicola said nothing. She had been thinking that he might have changed, but quite clearly he had not. It was not going to work.

  Fergus peered at her. ‘Well? Are you interested?’

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered, fighting back sudden tears.

  Slowly, he straightened, rigid with affront. ‘For pity’s sake, Nicola,’ he said, ‘what’s the matter with you? Is it about that silly prank with Muir? Forget it, it’s nothing. Yesterday in the wood, you were—’

  ‘I know what I did in the wood,’ she snapped. ‘That was then. This is now. Things have changed.’

  ‘What…again? Hell, woman. Let me know when you’ve stopped changing, will you, so that I can catch up? What is it this time?’

  Too many to mention. She thought of Prioress Sophie, whose tragic story must be discovered, presumably from Fergus’s mother. That now seemed like a distant promise with no immediate resolution. She thought of the thanks due to Lady Melrose from Lord Coldyngham, pledged in the form of her marriage to Fergus: that too would be withheld, and the connection would not be made, the house of Melrose to the noble house of Coldyngham. She thought of the much-needed protection so close to her grasp, protection necessary to a noblewoman of her age and wealth. Fergus could provide it, and had already done so, but something essential was missing. Had she any right to demand more? Was it a woman’s right to yearn for husbandly devotion, for gentleness, for sensitivity and love? He had not breathed a word of that, only duty to his father, and deadlines. Only she had changed, not Fergus.

  ‘Duty,’ she whispered. ‘Please go away, Fergus.’

  He saw her trembling. He saw his chances slipping silently away with her refusal to communicate. He saw the woman across his lap in the woodland, her eyes full of desire, her willingness on the brink of surrender. He saw failure and, as ever, it was not something he was willing to accept.

  He stood up and went directly to her side, squatting on his haunches so that his head was level with hers. Taking a hand to her chin, he tried to turn her face towards him and then, when her eyes would not follow, slid the hand down over the blanket to her wounded breast. ‘Nicola,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’

  Her recoil was instant, almost violent, her eyes wide, fearful, even horrified. Knocking his hand away with an arm beneath the blanket, she rolled off the opposite side of the bench, dragging the woollen wrap behind her like a train, stalking off on shaking legs along the gravel path where two screaming children hurtled towards her while trying to grab at the long blue lead of a white rabbit. Two nurses followed, white veils flying. Then came Lotti, Lady Coldyngham.

  ‘Nicola, my dear. What is it?’ She held out her arms.

  But Nicola stumbled past, unable to answer.

  Ahead, the large figure of Fergus Melrose slowly rose to his feet and waited for Lotti to join him, her concerned expression absorbing his look of blank astonishment. ‘Something’s wrong, my lady,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Sir Fergus,’ said Lotti. ‘Something is very wrong. Shall we sit?’

  As a result of their long talk, Fergus sent for the captain of his galley, Signor Foscari, for a full explanation of exactly what had happened to Nicola below decks during that torrential thunderstorm. He hoped the good captain had fully recovered from his unconsciousness. When Signor Foscari had answered every question regarding his gentlemanly care of Nicola, with whom he had fallen more than a little in love, he noticed that the Scot’s face was not only pensive but as white as a sheet, his mou
th set in a dangerous line that all his employees knew to beware of.

  ‘You did well, signor,’ said Fergus, with a grim seriousness. ‘I am most grateful to you. I wish I could say the same for myself.’

  Chapter Seven

  Following her two boisterous children up the great carved staircase at a more sedate pace, Lady Charlotte Coldyngham espied the faded blue and violet surcoat and kirtle and thought at first that her sister-in-law appeared to be weeping. She then saw to her relief that she was mistaken when Nicola’s hands left her face to pick up her skirts ready to walk away. ‘Nicola, don’t go!’ she called from halfway up the stairs.

  ‘The children went that way,’ said Nicola, tonelessly.

  ‘Yes, my dear, I know. Wait.’ Why was it, Lotti wondered, that Nicola had chosen to wear her oldest and most-mended clothes these last few days? Surcoats had gone out of fashion years ago, and so had the bliaud that she’d worn yesterday, and Nicola had always been ahead of such things. Was this some form of protest at the way her life was moving, or a reflection of her state of mind?

  She lifted her own sunny skirts into the crook of one arm and took the last few steps, sensing the reluctance in Nicola’s waiting stance and being aware yet again of her own self-reproach that her two guests had come to such harm while sharing her hospitality. George had said it was hardly her fault if they chose to go off unescorted after all that had happened, but still Lotti’s days had been darkened by guilt, and she had tried to compensate by sparing no effort to relieve the effect of their separate ordeals.

  Signalling to the children’s nurses to go on ahead, she stopped by Nicola’s side, saddened to see the lovely and usually lively face mottled by an angry flush, the skin so marked, the perfect mouth still swollen. The lustrous brown eyes were guarded, holding no smile before they looked away, and Lotti sensed that a private talk was something Nicola would refuse, if she had been asked, for there was something raging angrily inside, toiling alone, and bitterly. She took one of Nicola’s limp hands between her own. ‘Will you come with me to the still-room? I’ve made something new for you. I think it may help.’ She felt the hand between hers respond with a gentle squeeze and took this for an answer, leading Nicola along the passage to a small room overlooking the kitchen gardens where an outer door led to a flight of stone steps.

  Nicola looked down from the high vantage point into the sparkling greenery where, at the far end, a gardener pulled up radishes to pile into his wheelbarrow, unaware of how his lettuces had been discovered by a white rabbit.

  Lotti’s mixture of treacle, rosewater and wine was offered in silence and, just as silently, Nicola accepted it and stirred some more, staring into the swirls. ‘Thank you, but I didn’t want this to happen, Lotti. It’s not what I had in mind for my twenty-fourth year. If he’d stayed at sea in one of his ships, all this wouldn’t have happened, would it?’ She knew that Lotti and Fergus had been talking about the situation and that she had been caught for a similar talking-to.

  Moving slowly so as not to disturb the unexpectedly private comments, Lotti came to sit on a stool next to the basket of lavender and began to gather a handful of stalks ready for tying. Like her husband, Charlotte knew how to wait, though on this occasion she could not have predicted its length and the sigh that was to mark its end.

  ‘I can’t talk about it, Lotti,’ Nicola said at last.

  ‘I understand. A little sip?’

  Obediently, and out of politeness, Nicola sipped, took a closer look at the concoction and sipped again. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Nicola, my dear, if you’re concerned that what you say to me will be passed on to George and then from him to Sir Fergus, don’t be. There’s no question of me breaking a confidence, even to your brother. I know you’re taking the blame for some of the happenings, but I think you’re being too hard on yourself. And I know how you must be feeling about Sir Fergus when you were so…’

  ‘You don’t know how I feel, Lotti! Nobody can know how I feel.’ The words were cried straight from the heart, fiercely grating and passionate, cutting through the peaceful room and shaking the potion in her hands so that the spoon rattled.

  Lotti leaned forward to remove the drink and place it on the table, taking Nicola’s hands once more into her own to feel their icy chill, despite the warmth of the sun. ‘No, my dear. You’re quite right, I don’t know. If you could tell me, talk to me about it? It often helps if you can let it out. Did Sir Fergus ask what had happened to you? Was he concerned?’

  ‘He asked,’ she said.

  ‘And you told him?’

  ‘Only some of it.’

  Charlotte released her hands. ‘Only some of it. Was that because you thought it not important enough or because you’d rather he didn’t know?’

  ‘Neither. It was because he didn’t pursue the matter. Perhaps he thought he could guess, or perhaps he felt it was too unimportant to bother about. I’m not surprised. He was never one to dwell on injuries, especially mine.’ There had been recent exceptions to that accusation, but those were entirely out of character and certainly not to be shared with anyone. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t begin to tell him how I feel about what happened. I don’t know him well enough to confide in him to that extent. He cannot possibly understand how a woman feels to be so treated…’ Her voice shook and faded away as the air in her throat became tangled in memories and emotions.

  Lotti handed her the treacle mixture and watched as she took a sip, then another, admiring the way she collected herself so bravely. She removed the drink again. ‘No, probably not,’ she said, ‘but I can. I can understand it. Can you share it with me, dear one? I can help, if you’ll allow it.’

  Looking down at her lap, she saw it all happening again in every terrifying detail. ‘A man would think nothing of it,’ she whispered, shaking, ‘but I’ve never been struck before. Never in my life. I’ve had more than my fair share of injuries with the boys, but never like that, Lotti. There were several men. Ruffians. They pulled me off the mare and trussed me, blindfolded me and threw me into a basket. It hurt, Lotti. I was terrified by what they might do to me. But worse than that was him, that dreadful man. I felt disgraced, bullied, threatened, insulted. He called me a whore, Lotti,’ she whispered the word, ‘because they’d seen us in the woodland when I believed it was so private…and special. He tore my bodice and threatened me with his dagger, and I felt dirty…so dirty when he looked at me.’ Covering her face with her hands, she shook like an aspen leaf, and Charlotte ached with sorrow for the suffering and for the spoilation of a moment that, left alone, would have remained private and special for ever. This pain was far worse than bruises and would take longer to mend.

  She took the shaking Nicola into her arms and held the dark head upon her shoulder, smoothing her back with motherly hands, appalled by this news.

  ‘He knocked me to the floor, Lotti.’

  ‘Oh…Nick! You told us it was the basket that—’

  ‘I didn’t want to speak of it. It was so…’ At this point, the control she had tried so hard to maintain was torn from her in the too-recent and vivid memories that haunted every waking moment, and her softly muffled howl became a roar like that of a trapped animal, pitching her into a crashing wave of grief and pain. Rocking in Lotti’s arms, the rasping sobs broke upon the softly comforting shoulder until at last they subsided into half-words that sounded to Lotti like apologies.

  ‘Hush, sweet,’ she whispered. ‘Let it go now. Let it go. If only we’d known. Hush now. I didn’t know the tear was done deliberately. It was down the back of your bliaud.’

  Hiding her swollen face in Lotti’s shoulder, Nicola explained, punctuated by convulsive sobs that fractured her words. ‘The captain helped me to reverse it, to cover me. He saw me too, but he was kind. But I’m so shamed, Lotti. I’d begun to enjoy being admired and respected, and then to find that the man I called my friend could hardly wait to slander and betray me, to sell me, even. That’s…that’s disgraceful. He could
have asked me for money if that’s all he needed, and I’d have given it him. He had no need to do what he did. And now, the one man who seems not to care how sullied I am is the only man I’ve ever tried to impress by my superiority. I’ve never said half the things to anyone that I said to Fergus when he first offered for me, Lotti. I never had any desire to convince anyone of my worth. I said things to wound him, and he knows that, but after what’s happened I don’t think I can ever give myself to him without remembering that man’s insults and his vileness, his hands on me, his coarse talk of my virginity. Fergus is not going to want me for a wife once he knows how I feel. It’s too soon…too soon. It’s spoiled, Lotti. Spoiled.’

  Charlotte took her by the shoulders, holding her away to look at her, but knowing that her own eyes were reflecting pity instead of the strength that she intended. ‘When it comes to giving yourself,’ she said, ‘I think you’ll find that Sir Fergus will understand your fears once he knows what you’ve been through. I believe he’s quite an extraordinary man, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do know. He was quite an extraordinary youth, too, but I never thought that sensitivity was one of his more outstanding qualities. And if he could understand any of my fears, Lotti, he’d not have told me just now how he and Muir lured me into his arms that evening in the garden, would he? He would have saved it until a more appropriate time.’