Perhaps he was striving for a lighter note now, and she did not resist. It could do no good to continue to upbraid him. She was as securely tied to him as she’d ever been to Edward, and only time would tell if that had been a terrible mistake.
‘I did not ask him to – why would I? The damage was already done. I did not love him, so why should I care that he did not love me? I had no quarrel with her, poor lady. She is there still, and I often look at her and wonder. She must have been strong in herself, to refuse to pass another woman’s child off as her own when he pressured her so and the stakes were so high. Later, he had me painted too, at great expense and by Mr Thomas Lawrence, which was a sort of apology, I suppose. I am up on the wall in the picture gallery now, in my best red silk, along with all those ancestors you showed me once. Future generations can marvel at my double chin.’
‘But they will not be able to kiss it, as I have, and later will again, I hope. If you allow me that privilege. Painted with the boys?’
‘Can you seriously doubt it? I always knew I had no value to Edward in myself.’
‘Foolish of me even to ask. Where does all this leave us, Viola?’
‘Apart from the fact that we have cleared the air between us a little, exactly where we were before,’ she told him with a fair show of composure. But she wasn’t sure it was true.
She realised now that she must have been hoping he would deny that he had ever been any kind of criminal, perhaps repudiate too the shocking idea that he had been a traitor with a vehemence and passion that might have gone some way towards convincing her – but he hadn’t. He’d all but admitted it, every dirty part of it, and that must be a grievous blow. She could only hope the boys never came to hear of it – what could she tell them, if they did? It was yet another reason to take them out of school as soon as possible.
But he’d also admitted a deep-seated and long-enduring concern for his sons – not in mere words that could have been false but in practical actions that she must believe – that she had not previously suspected. She should have realised how deep his feelings for them ran – he’d been right when he told her that. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to accept it. The thought of him standing and watching them undetected, unable to speak to them, affected her very deeply. And she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be so touched, or to weaken towards him. Nothing had really changed, after all, just as she’d told him, except that she now knew for certain what he was, instead of just suspecting it. Speaking about the past did not alter it, or take away the hurt. Nothing could do that.
28
Eventually, the great party of Constantines left Winterflood, and peace was restored, but Viola and Richard did not move back into the big house. When they went over at her suggestion to look about them and consider whether they should, and which rooms they should take if they did, she was profoundly shaken by the memories of Edward, and most of all their younger selves, that lurked in every corner. It was almost as though out of the corner of her eye, she could see an eighteen-year-old Viola climbing the grand staircase, wrapped in the months-long frozen misery that she had managed by and large to put out of her mind till now. Or, in some dark corner, a much happier girl who’d been brought back to life by Richard’s kisses, like Sleeping Beauty. His hand had caressed her face with a tenderness that had been entirely new to her, and she had melted into his arms with utter trust. They had both been so young, so innocent – but that wasn’t true, she must remember, because even then, Richard had been lying to her. She had bared her soul to him all those years ago; he had not paid her the compliment of doing the same, and still hadn’t. And therefore, she couldn’t be sure she should trust him now. What did she really know of his life? Almost nothing, and all she knew was terrifying.
The second vision of her past unsettled her almost as much as the first; she did not want to remember how much she had loved him, and how little hope there had always been for them, for so many reasons. She didn’t speak of it now, but she could see that Richard was aware of her unease; it might have pleased her to think that he was so attuned to her moods, just as he had been when they were young lovers, except that she supposed that spies must be trained to be observant – their lives might depend on it. So she should not flatter herself that it held any particular significance.
She was puzzled by her own distress when she contemplated her past life at Winterflood. Considering that she’d lived there for so many years – with Edward, in tolerable harmony once she had asserted herself, and happily with the children in the years after his death – and rarely been troubled in such a fashion, it was most odd. Such foolishness would have to be overcome, presumably, but not just now.
Lord and Lady Ventris stayed in the dower house for the rest of their honeymoon.
It was a strange time, or interval out of time. Viola was not sure she even liked her new husband, and his current feelings towards her were a complete mystery, but it could not be denied that they could not get enough of each other. The underlying reason for their intimacy, and the dire consequences if they failed, didn’t seem to matter – they’d tacitly agreed not to discuss all that, at least for now. The lightest of touches, even a glance, could inflame them both. Whatever else they did not share, however much Viola feared that in certain ways, she could never depend on him or respect him, their mutual desire was overwhelming, even alarming in its intensity.
It was not just at night. Their passion was a compulsion that could overtake them at any time of day. If one of them came into a room and found the other there, it was more likely than not that in a heartbeat, they’d fall upon each other in mutual hunger. It was something quite outside her experience; their previous intimacy had been so brief and so constrained by secrecy that this mutual wild abandon came as a surprise to her, turning her into a person she barely recognised.
She entered the sitting room one rainy afternoon to find Ventris by the fire, reading; he rose politely at her arrival and set down his book, but she gestured impatiently for him to resume his seat. She did not speak, and nor did he, and in the absence of light words of conventional greeting, there was nothing to conceal the instant physical tension that stretched taut between them. He shifted a little in his chair, and she knew – because she felt the same – that it was arousal that made him suddenly uncomfortable. She crossed the carpet with swift, confident steps and sank to the floor at his feet, her dark-red gown pooling around her. Looking up at him, she saw that his grey eyes were black with desire. With fingers that trembled only a little, she reached out and began to unbutton him, and his fully erect member sprang into her waiting hand; he sighed, and jolted at the contact, skin to skin. Unsure whom she was tormenting, she bent her head and licked the slit with the tip of her tongue, and he leapt again at her touch.
‘This will not put a child in your belly, madam,’ he growled. She couldn’t tell if he meant it seriously, or was playing with her, but still she gloried in the power she had over him.
‘You don’t want this, then?’ She still held him, the skin hot and silky smooth under her caress, the blood throbbing so hard in him that she could feel it, and her mouth was so close to him that as she spoke, the breath feathered over his sensitive flesh and made him twitch once more. Her tongue-tip crept out and tasted the salty sweetness of him again, and now she allowed herself to draw him into her mouth and suck, just a little, before she pulled away. But not very far away.
‘It must be obvious that I do,’ he almost gasped.
She closed her eyes and moved her mouth upon him, and the feel of him against the tender skin inside her lower lip made her shiver, and draw him deeper in. She put her free hand on his hard thigh and pulled his legs tighter about her, enjoying the sensation of being encircled and held, and losing herself for a moment in mindless pleasure. Then she looked up, and the unguarded softness of his face affected her like a caress. Little tongues of flame spread through her limbs and kindled fire at her core. ‘Indulge me in this for a little while,’ she whispered between licks, ‘and then take me. Throw me over the table and have me, if you will.’
‘With so little ceremony? Are you ready for that, my lady?’
‘I was ready when I walked into the room, Richard. You know I was.’
She slid her mouth down his length once more, and began sucking on him greedily, but after a moment, she heard him say raggedly, ‘Stop, Viola!’ and she instantly let him go. He pulled her effortlessly to her feet, rising with her, his hands hard about her waist. Her mouth felt bereft of him, and she moaned in frustration, but the last thing she would do would be to beg for his kiss. And then he lifted her up and laid her roughly down across the table that stood behind the sofa, and whatever objects stood upon it crashed unheeded to the floor as he dragged up her skirts and took her with a fierce, ruthless urgency that made them both gasp. He had always known how to hold her as she needed to be held, and she welcomed each powerful thrust, her feet seeking for purchase on the smooth tabletop, her legs spread wide to receive him. His hands were hard on her hips as he drove into her, holding nothing back – or nothing physical, at least. It was an animal connection that joined them, something savage and primitive and, always, dangerous. But she did not care, in the moment when he gave a great cry and spent himself in her, as waves of pleasure broke over her too and carried her away for a while.
When they came back to themselves, he helped her to her feet and smoothed down her ruined skirts around her shaking body. It was just a few steps to the sofa, and she lay down on it, her feet raised on a cushion. He looked at her intently for a moment, as if about to speak, and then apparently thought better of it, and resumed his seat by the fire, picking up his book with a fine show of unconcern. It struck her afresh, how little idea she had what he was thinking, and how strange this life was that they had both committed themselves to. What would become of them? Whether she had a child or not, what could possibly become of them?
29
Viola did not catch a glimpse of Ventris Castle when it appeared on the horizon; her view of it was blocked, as the carriage window was full of excited young limbs and craning heads. Richard had beguiled the latter part of their long journey by telling the boys stories of the ancient building and its unruly inhabitants, his mother’s ancestors, and these stirring tales, well told, had inspired them with a great fascination with their destination, and a desire to catch sight of the romantic near-ruin as soon as possible. Though the border was almost a hundred miles away, the Castle’s history, as he told it, was one of almost constant reiving, plenty of pitched battles with the Scots and almost as many with their equally warlike English neighbours, the Nevilles and the Percys. There had been trickery, bloodshed, betrayal and acts of almost insane daring on both sides. As befitted what she knew of the Ventris family, women were just as likely to have played a decisive part in all this mayhem as men. They’d defended the castle, raised warbands, and stabbed their enemies and friends in the back with as much gusto as their menfolk. The boys had, as far as they were aware, no personal investment in these matters, but listened to them raptly as they might to a Walter Scott poem read aloud; she could only guess how it felt for her husband, who knew differently.
Because he’d told them so, they knew that they were close now, as they crested a rise and descended towards the sea, and they jostled each other in brotherly rivalry to claim the prize of the first sight. But both called out in triumph at the same moment, and fell to laughing and squabbling amicably over who should carry off the honour.
‘Perhaps you might let your mother see, you pair of savages, now that you have both done so to your fill,’ Richard suggested drily, his face amused. They did not seem to resent the mild reprimand, if that was what it was, but apologised in haste, and returned, at least temporarily, to the rear-facing seat they shared.
It had been a day of fitful sunshine and sudden showers, and Viola had passed the time by listening idly to Richard – more his voice than his words, in truth – and watching the clouds and the sunbeams chase each other across the moors in an endless procession of light and shade that she found oddly soothing. The air was cold and fresh, and smelled clean. She’d never been so far north before – she could hardly call herself a well-travelled woman – but what she had seen till now she liked, as she watched the landscape grow harsher, revealing its strong bones, and the very stones with which the buildings were made changed colour on their days-long journey. They’d stopped last night at the Talbot Hotel in Malton, in the old coaching inn’s finest newly refurbished rooms, and had come on in easy stages since they’d left the bustling town. Now they were here at last.
Viola seized her chance before the boys became restless again, leaning forward and peering out. She might have gasped at what she saw.
