Meridon Read online

  I raised my riding crop and brought it down with one wicked slash across his face. He snatched it off me and he broke it across his knee and threw the two pieces towards me. Sea shied and reared high, frightened by the noise and the anger, and I had to cling to his mane to stay on.

  ‘I hate you,’ I shouted. I was choked with abuse which would not come.

  ‘I hate you,’ Will replied instantly. ‘I’ve been a fool for months over you, but every time I have been with you I went home to Becky and she took me into her arms and loved me, and I knew that was where I belonged.’

  ‘You go back to her then,’ I said. My voice was choked with anger, and my cheeks were wet though I was not crying. ‘You go back to her and tell her that she is welcome to have you. I don’t want you, I never have wanted you. You’re a dirty common working man and I’ve seen thousands like you everywhere I have ever lived. You’re all the same. You’re all boastful and braggart, randy as dogs and weepy as chavvies. I’d rather have Perry than you any day. So go back to your slut, Will Tyacke, and her dirty little bastards. Go to your stupid farm in the north and rob and ruin another landowner. I don’t want to see you ever again!’

  I wheeled Sea around and thundered away, forgetting all about the rule of not galloping in the park. I raged against Will, shouting abuse and swearing out loud, all the way back to the gate, and then as we trotted through the streets I swore under my breath, the rich filthy language of my childhood. I stormed up the steps to the front door and hammered on it loud as a bailiff. The footman gaped at me and I ordered him to take Sea around to the stables for me in a voice which made him leap to do my bidding. Then I raced up the stairs, two at a time, to my room and slammed the door behind me. I was so angry I could not think what to do or what to say.

  I leaned back against the door, my hat squashed against the wooden panels and I shut my eyes. They felt hot in my hot face. Then I remembered what he had said about Becky, and I found I had clenched my hands into fists and I was cramming them both against my lips to stop me screaming in rage. He had told me that he loved her, that he loved her body, that he loved to hold her in his arms, that he was going to marry her.

  That last took the rage from me as if I had had the breath knocked out of me with a fall. I thought of him smiling and kissing my wrist and then going back to his cottage where she waited for him. I thought of her three little children around his table, pleased to see him home. I thought of her sitting on his lap in the firelight after the chavvies had gone to bed, then I thought of him holding her in his arms all night long. He had said that she adored his touch.

  I stood with my back against my bedroom door staring into the room, silently, for a long time.

  I went over to the writing table and I drew a sheet of the expensive notepaper towards me. It was embossed with the Havering crest in gold, and on the right-hand side I spelled out the London address. At Havering Hall they had notepaper with the Sussex address. One day soon I would be the new Lady Havering and all this, two sorts of notepaper and everything, would be mine.

  It took me a white, for I could not write swiftly. I had to print the words and many of them were spelled wrong for all I knew. So it did not look as proud and angry as I wished. I wanted to hurt him, to cut him to the heart.

  To Will Tyacke,

  Your behaviour and language in the park today were not what I expect of one of my farm workers. I would be grateful if you would terminate your work on Wideacre forthwith and leave my land.

  Yours faithfully,

  Sarah Lacey.

  Then I wrote another:

  Dear Mr Tyacke,

  You have no right to speak to me as you did today, and you know it. I pledged my word months ago to marry Peregrine Havering and of course I intend to hold to that promise. Your own affairs are your own concern. I have no interest in them. If you wish to leave Wideacre I am sure I am very sorry to see you go. If you wish to stay I will accept your apology for speaking in an improper fashion.

  Yours faithfully,

  Sarah Lacey.

  I slid that version to one side and went to look out of the window. Then I turned and went back to the little writing table. I was in an anger hotter than anything I had felt in years, perhaps ever. I could not let it go with formal words.

  Dear Will,

  How dare you talk to me like you did today!

  You must be mad to even dream of speaking to me as you did!

  Let me tell you two things. One is that I am your employer, the squire of Wideacre and shortly to be Lady Havering. One word from me, one word and you don’t work in Sussex any more. And don’t think that you could get work elsewhere. There isn’t an employer in the country who would take you on after I tell them that you abused me to my face, and in the coarsest of terms.

  I have no interest whatsoever in your messy little intrigues with your woman, nor in your opinions. I want you gone from Wideacre at once, but before you leave I insist that you come to London and see me at once. At once, Will.

  Sarah Lacey.

  I sat with that version before me for a long time. Then I sighed and pulled forward another sheet of paper. The anger was seeping away from me.

  Dear Will,

  I am angry with you, and I am sad. You are right and I am a fool. I have lived my life here in London, and also with them at the Hall as if I were blind, as if I had forgotten where I was raised and what mattered most to me.

  You don’t understand how it is with me and Peregrine, and I let you misunderstand me. He comes to my room because he is like my brother, like a little brother to me. I can’t withdraw from the marriage – he needs me, and I like how I am when I am with him. I like to give him the care and courage he needs. I have never given anyone anything, except one person once. And I failed her at the last. Now there is someone who needs the things I can do, who looks to me for help. I want to be good to him Will. That cannot be wrong. Forgive me, it is truly what I want. I am afraid it is all I am fit for.

  Your friend,

  Sarah.

  The clocks chimed softly; it was eleven already. I should be changing for breakfast at noon, and then I should change again to go out to the princess’s luncheon. I swallowed experimentally. My throat was sore. It was not sore enough to let Lady Clara excuse me from lunching with the princess. I put my hand to my forehead. It was hot, but not hot enough. I would have to go. I would write a letter and put it in the post for Will before I went.

  I thought of him riding back to Sussex, in a rage; alone. And I wanted to speak with him, to take back the things I had said which I had not meant. I thought of the weal of the riding whip which had come up on his cheek and though I had known blows and bruises a-plenty, I felt that this single blow was the worst I had ever known. And it had been from my hand.

  I was too rough, I was too wild. I was wrong for Perry, I was a foul-mouthed little pauper, no match for Perry’s delicacy. But I was too hard for Will. It was all wrong. I belonged where I had been raised, down among the fighters and the swearers, where you lived by your wits and your fists, and you never loved anybody.

  Dear Will,

  You are right, they have trapped me. I thought I was so clever and I thought I was winning my way through to the life I wanted to lead. But I was wrong and they caught me while I thought I was catching them. They have caught me – all of them. The Haverings and the Quality and the lords and ladies and the life we live in London. I have been a fool Will and I have to pay for it.

  Not Perry. I know you hate him because he is what he is – a drunkard and a gamester and a fool. But he is also like a child, he is not a cheat. He loves me Will, and he needs me. And his love for me and his trust in me will make me a better person, a kinder woman. If I stay with Perry I may learn to love him as a woman ought to be able to love a man. If I stay with Perry I think I can rescue him from his folly, and myself from my coldness. I think I can get him away, away to the country, and we will find some way of treating each other with tenderness and love. He will do as