The Favoured Child Read online

  I nodded. I could have told her, but I did not, that I had already served a hard apprenticeship in giving way to Richard. It had been my choice to obey him since we had been small children. I could envisage no change. I did not even want a change.

  ‘It is not always easy, obeying one’s husband,’ my grandmama said, her words stilted. She gave a little sigh which should have told me of a lifetime of self-discipline, of temper bitten back and never expressed. Of complaints, and slights, and accidental cruelties. ‘They will tell you in church that marriage is a sacrament. But it is also a binding legal contract, Julia.’

  Dench had stowed my box and was standing at the horse’s head, waiting out of earshot, patient.

  Grandmama tutted under her breath. ‘You may marry for love, my dear; but I would want you to remember that marriage is a business contract, and after the love has gone you are still forced to keep your side of the bargain.’

  I looked at her uncomprehendingly, my child’s eyes wide.

  ‘When love has gone, when liking has gone, you are still married,’ she said sternly. ‘There is no escaping that. And the services you performed out of love, you have still to do out of duty. That is when you are glad you can say, “I am a lady,” or “I am a Lacey,” or anything which reminds you in your heart that you are a person in your own right, even if you lead the life of a bondsman.’

  I shivered although the sunlight was bright. It sounded ominous, a bleak prophecy. But I knew in my loving, trusting heart that she was wrong. She had married fifty years ago in obedience to her father and, when widowed, married again to win a home for herself and her child. Of course marriage seemed to her a contract – and one which carried severe penalties. But Richard and I were quite different. Our marriage would be a natural extension of our childhood love. When the dream of a rebuilt Wideacre became finally true, I knew I would never have to search my heart for a sense of my own individual pride to bear me up through shame and pain. All I ever needed to define myself was the knowledge that I loved Richard and that I was Richard’s love. I would never need anything more.

  Something of this certainty must have shown in my face, for my grandmama gave a harsh laugh and bent and kissed me once more. ‘There’s no telling anyone,’ she said, resigned. ‘Everyone has to learn their own way. Goodbye, my darling, and don’t forget to give those receipts to your mama.’

  I nodded, and hugged her, and jumped up the step to the seat of the gig while Dench swung himself in beside me. Then I waved to her and smiled at her with love. I knew that she was a fine woman, a brave woman. But I had no thought that I would ever wonder where her courage came from; that I would ever need that courage for myself.

  ‘Home, then?’ Dench said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Sitting high in the gig beside Dench was comfortable. I could see over the hedges to where the self-seeded fields of Wideacre blew in a rippling autumn wind. I liked Dench, I liked the drawl of his downs accent and the way his face stayed still so that if you did not know him you might think he was cross, but then his eyes twinkled. And I knew, in the way that children always know, that he liked me.

  ‘Glad to be going back to your mama?’ he asked kindly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And my cousin Richard too. Is he riding much, do you know, Dench?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. He gathered the reins in one hand as we turned left down the lane towards Acre. ‘But Jem tells me his hands are as heavy as ever. He’ll ruin that mare’s mouth. I don’t know what m’lord was thinking of.’

  ‘She’s his horse!’ I said, instantly on the defence.

  ‘Aye,’ Dench said, wilfully misunderstanding me. ‘You don’t get a chance, do you, Miss Julia?’

  ‘Ladies often don’t learn to ride until they are married and their husbands teach them,’ I said, quoting the wisdom of my mama without much conviction.

  ‘Ever sat on her back at all?’ Dench asked me with a swift sideways glance. ‘Not sneaked into her stable and climbed on from the door?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, incurably truthful. ‘But Richard caught me.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ Dench said invitingly, and waited for me to go on. But I did not.

  Richard had come into the stable just as I had swung a leg over Scheherazade’s back, having lured her to the door with two windfall apples in a bucket. She had thrown her head up and moved back when I had launched myself from the half-door on to her back. But once she had felt my weight she had dipped her head to the bucket again. My skirts up, sitting astride, I was a proper hoyden and I knew it. But, oh! the delight of feeling that smooth warm skin and the fretwork of muscles beneath it. And to be so high in the stable! And when she lifted her head, I saw her column of neck and that great wave of her mane! I adored her. I dropped my face into her mane and hugged her neck in passion.

  I did not hear the footsteps come across the yard. I did not even hear the stable door open and close.

  ‘Get down.’ Richard’s tone was icy. I sat up and looked around wildly. Richard had come into the stable and closed the door behind him. He was standing at the back of the stable in the shadows, the saddle and bridle held before him, his riding crop stuck under the stirrup leather.

  ‘Get down,’ he said again. His voice was light, but I am no fool. I saw his eyes were blazing; even in the darkness of the stable I could see the heat behind them.

  I clung to the mane and swung my leg over and slid down Scheherazade’s smooth flank, loving the touch of her shoulder against my cheek.

  As soon as I dropped on the straw, I turned to face him. ‘Richard…’ I said apologetically.

  He had put down the saddle and bridle while I was dismounting and he dragged me away from the shelter of Scheherazade’s side. He held my wrist in one hard unforgiving hand and pulled me into the corner of the stable. Scheherazade threw her head up and shifted uneasily, and Richard gave a little gasp and swung us around so that I was between him and the restless animal.

  ‘Scheherazade is my horse,’ he hissed, his face very close to mine. ‘Lord Havering gave her to me. He taught me to ride on her. You may be a Lacey, but it is my papa who pays the bills here. Lord Havering may be your grandpapa, and not mine, but he gave the horse to me. And I warned you not to touch her, didn’t I?’

  My lips were trembling so much that I could not speak. It was worse than the pretend water-snakes in the river all those years ago in childhood. It was the worst it had ever been. ‘Richard…please…’ I said pitifully.

  ‘Didn’t I he insisted.

  Y-Yes,’ I said. ‘But Richard…’

  ‘I warned you, Julia,’ he said authoritatively. ‘I told you that you would learn to ride when I was ready to teach you. And I told you to keep away from my horse.’

  I could not stop the tears from coming, and they rolled down my face, making my cheeks as wet as if I were out in a rainstorm, while I looked and looked at Richard, hoping he would see them and release the hard grip on my wrist and catch me up to him, and kiss me kindly, as he always did.

  ‘Didn’t I warn you?’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ I sobbed. There seemed nothing I could do to break the spell of this shadowed misery. Mama was far away in the house, Jem was cleaning tack in the tack room or sitting in the kitchen. Richard had me at his mercy, and he had no mercy. He had indeed warned me. He had told me not to touch his horse and I had disobeyed him. He had warned me that if I did, he would be angry. And I had foolishly, irresistibly gone to Scheherazade and now I had to face Richard’s blazing blue-eyed wrath. Then, suddenly, my own temper went.

  ‘You don’t even like her!’ I said. ‘You never did like her as much as me! You promised you’d teach me to ride her, but I don’t believe you ever will. All you ever cared about was your stupid singing! You can’t do that any more! And you can’t ride either!’

  Richard grabbed me and spun me around, his full weight throwing me against the stable wall. TU kill you!’ he said in the total rage of a child.

  I had both hands braced against the