“If he were fond of me, he would do what I want!” she said pettishly, fully aware that she sounded childish. “Or at least, he would be honest about his plans. He wants my fortune for himself, that is the truth of the matter. Besides, like all gentlemen, he is stuffy and dull and boring.”
Even as she spoke the words, she recalled his enthusiasm for climbing trees and breaking into houses at night, calling it an adventure. And that kiss! That was not stuffy at all! But she was not minded to be generous towards him.
“You prefer men like Tom Shapman.”
“I love Tom,” she said in a small voice. “He is part of the ordinary world, where people work for their living instead of idling the days away in mindless amusements, just to pass the time between breakfast and dinner. I love to watch Tom at work, his hands so deft, so certain, his expression so intent. It is hard to explain.”
“No, I completely understand. It is physical work that he does, too, and there is an attraction in that, especially if his coat is off. There is something compelling about a man in his shirtsleeves engaged in some physical activity. One would not take pleasure in watching a clerk at work, I think.”
“Yes, that is exactly it,” Tess said, pleased. “Youdounderstand.”
“Oh, certainly. That was how I fell in love with my husband, after all. There was a great gathering at my uncle’s house to celebrate a betrothal, and Michael was there as a very minor guest, invited mainly to fill the card tables in the evening. He was very amusing, very chivalrous, a little flirtatious and so, so charming. Ilikedhim at once. But one day, I found him in the long gallery with a sword he had taken from the wall. This sword was long, almost as long as Michael, but he wielded it with such confidence, and as intently as if he were in battle.”
“He loves his sword,” Tess said. “I rarely see him without it.”
“He loves all such weapons and he has great skill with them, too. There was a little taunting amongst the men, and Michael became embroiled in a fencing match with one of them, with duelling rapiers. He was mesmerising to watch. My goodness, but he looked so… sodistractinglyattractive as he fought.”
Tess laughed, and said, “Did he win the fight?”
“Oh, yes. Michael usually wins, although he was slightly injured, so I had the very great pleasure of bandaging his arm. He was obliged to remove it from his shirt sleeve, and oh heavens, the sight of it had me almost overset. Bare skin… and muscles! Michael is very well endowed with muscles. And we talked and talked, and by the end of it I was nine parts in love with him. So I entirely understand the attraction of a man like Tom Shapman, Miss Nicholson. But he is very far from your equal.”
“It hardly matters now, does it?” she snapped. “He is going to marry his poultry maid.”
“Who is certainly his equal,” Mrs Edgerton said crisply. She bent her head to her stitchery again, saying softly, “I do not presume to advise you, Miss Nicholson, for you must be the best judge of the man who would suit you, but you should be aware that if a gentleman, even a stuffy, dull gentleman, is peeled out of his confining garments — the starched cravat, the perfectly fitted coat, the tight waistcoat — he might display to just as much advantage as a working man.”
“As Captain Edgerton did?”
“And still does,” she said blushing slightly. “I can see that your cousins are not promising specimens in that way, except for Mr Walter Atherton, perhaps. He is a fine figure of a man. But Mr Eustace? Mr Kent? Mr Bertram? I do not think many muscles lurk beneath their shirts. Lord Tarvin, on the other hand—”
“Ah, I knew we should get back to Lord Tarvin sooner or later,” Tess said. “You think I should marry him, do you not?”
“I think you should marry someone of your own class, certainly. It does not need to be Lord Tarvin. However, I would disagree with you on one point — I do not think he is interested in your fortune. He has an income of twelve thousand pounds a year, and unless he has an unsuspected liking for the gaming tables or an expensive mistress, he cannot spend even half of it.”
“I would like him better if he were a gambler or had a mistress,” Tess said. “At least that would make him a degree less dull. But of course he is interested in my fortune! Anyone would be interested in such an amount — fifty thousand pounds in total, including what was in the bank. I suspect he thought I was making it all up about the gold bars. He imagined he would break in and find the safe empty, or full of nothing but dusty olddocuments, but when he saw all that gold, he decided he would have it for himself.”
“Yet he offered to marry you before he knew what was in the safe,” Mrs Edgerton said.
“Oh, I see you are determined to paint him as a hero,” Tess said crossly.
“And you are determined to keep him as a villain,” Mrs Edgerton said, smiling.
She was so good-humoured that Tess could not help smiling too. “If you had seen him at Harfield Priory, all aristocratic hauteur, you would understand that he is a natural villain. I will not admit to a single virtue in him. Hateful man!”
Mrs Edgerton laughed and shook her head. “Have it your own way, my dear.”
***
From the window of his bedchamber at the Pickering inn, Edward watched Tess leave for York in the company of Captain Edgerton and his wife. At least he knew she could get up to no mischief under the captain’s watchful eye. Then he made the rounds of the ostlers and grooms who had refused to provide transport for Tess, and gave them suitable recompense. After that, there was nothing else for him to do but to pay his shot at the inn and climb once more into his own carriage, with only Deakin’s plain features to distract him.
He closed his eyes and allowed Tess’s pretty face to fill his mind. He had not thought her at all well-looking the first time he had seen her, her riding habit muddied from hem to neck, her hat drooping and her wet, windswept hair making her look like a vagabond. But clean, dry and in her neat black gown, she was pretty indeed, and especially when she was berating him forsome perceived misdeed or other. How her eyes flashed fire at him! He almost laughed out loud at the thought of it.
There was no cause for laughter in the decisive way she had spurned him, however.‘Nothing about you holds any attraction for me.’So she had said, but later, when she had begun to think about it more seriously, she had seemed to soften towards him. Certainly she had allowed him to kiss her without protest. But then he had spoilt the moment by telling her of Shapman’s poultry maid, and now she had gone off with Edgerton to see her woodworker again.
Another man might have been downhearted by these difficulties, but Edward was a patient man. He had arranged the visit to Shapman with Edgerton, after all, as a way of keeping Tess out of the way of his own plans. His first objective was to get Shapman out of prison and safely married to his poultry maid. Then he could begin to devise a way to separate her from Ulric. And then… perhaps then, when her alternatives were gone, she might turn to him.
His journey was pleasantly uneventful. He went first to Corland Castle to deposit Deakin and his luggage, before borrowing a horse and a groom to show him the way to Gowland’s Farm. His business there satisfactorily concluded, he had time to call on Sir Hubert Strong, the magistrate. Sir Hubert was a sensible man of middle age, who accepted the news of Shapman’s retracted confession with aplomb.
“You have talked to Gowland himself?” Sir Hubert said, handing Edward a glass of Canary.
