The Favoured Child Read online

  The next day he was up early again and saw me at the parlour window.

  Again I told him that I felt restless, that I wanted to be sitting in the window-seat watching Jenny light the fire, her routine disarranged by my capriciousness. Richard nodded as if he understood, and his smile was a gleam of white, with a little hint of mischief at the back.

  On the third day he was there when George rattled the doorknocker and I heard Stride cross the hall and open the door.

  There were letters for the household.

  There was a letter for me.

  Stride brought it in on the silver salver and Richard paused on his way to the door. ‘Who could be writing to you, Julia?’ he asked, interested.

  I flushed up to my forehead. ‘I think Sarah Collis, from Bath,’ I said. And the lie slid easily off my tongue, making me blush again.

  Richard’s eyes were very warm and confident.

  Open it, then,’ he said, and his voice was silky.

  I should have been warned by that special sweetness of tone, but the letter was thick in my hand and I could only think that it would have news of Ralph.

  ‘I’ll open it later,’ I said, getting up and going to the door.

  As I went past Richard, he caught my wrist and held me, rooted where I stood. I instinctively clutched the letter close to me and caught my breath. His face was not angry; it seemed there was nothing to fear. His smile was as sweet as a May morning.

  Open it here,’ he said. ‘Read your letter here. I know girls have secrets. I shall not ask to see it, for I am going out now. Sit and read it here, my love.’

  My eyes flashed to his face, for I was surprised at the endearment. He pressed me into the chair by the table and stood back, leaning against the wall, as I put my finger under the flap and broke the seal.

  I did not look carefully at the seal.

  There was no letter inside. There were eight pieces of torn paper and a torn envelope, a bulky package. I forgot Richard was watching and tipped the eight thick jagged scraps out on the table before me, and pieced them together.

  It was my writing on the envelope. It read: ‘James Fortescue, Esq.’

  I slumped against the back of my chair, and my heart pounded so fast I was afraid for the little child who lay quiet inside me and depended on my body for its safety. But this is a dangerous world for little children. It is a dangerous world for grown men. I gave a little moan of distress.

  My first thought was that James Fortescue had recognized my hand and had torn up the letter in a temper, and sent it back to me in spite.

  But then I hesitated, and I knew I did him a disservice. James would never be spiteful. James was always generous.

  I knew only one man who would post scraps of paper to me.

  I raised my grey eyes to Richard’s face, and saw his deep, dangerous resentment.

  ‘You wrote to another man,’ he said.

  I said nothing. My thumbs burned. I could hear a humming in my head. I could smell danger like smoke on the wind.

  ‘You wrote to another man. You thought to hide that letter from me,’ he said. His voice was soft and infinitely menacing. ‘I had to have Jimmy Dart arrested,’ he said. ‘I had been watching him a long while. I knew you would try and betray me. I was ready for your infidelity.’

  I gulped like a landed fish. ‘Richard…’ I said beseechingly.

  His eyes were like sapphires. He was my husband and my master. He was the squire, and he knew it. Oh, he knew it.

  ‘I won’t have it, Julia,’ he said simply.

  He could invent rules for Wideacre, for Acre, for me, until the world ended. Richard was the squire and he had the power of God.

  ‘I won’t have it,’ he said, and I knew his word was law. ‘You wanted to be married,’ he said, his voice exultant. ‘I did as you wished. Now we are married, and you will behave as a proper wife to me. You will not write to other men, and you most certainly will not discuss our business with them. There are means I can take to ensure you do not write to other men, or indeed to anyone.’

  He hesitated to see if I would complain. But I said nothing. The scraps of paper lying on the table told me mutely that I was defeated. I looked blankly at them and thought of the little letter inside them which I had hoped would save Ralph. I knew then that nothing could save me, but I had hoped to help Ralph away from the wreck which was Wideacre.

  ‘You must learn your place, Julia.’ Richard said softly.

  I bowed my head slavishly. I knew I must learn it indeed.

  From that moment I rebelled not at all. The Chichester accoucheur advised against any long walks, and the weather was bad, so that I looked for no help from the dripping beech trees or the sorrowful burble of the Fenny. I did not mind being confined at home.

  I no longer got up early for the post. On some days I did not feel like getting up at all. I lay in Mama’s bed in Mama’s bedroom, for Richard had insisted that I make the change to the best bedroom in the house, and I watched the grey ceiling turning pale with dawn, and yellow with the midday light, and some days I watched it growing dark again with twilight and never moved the whole day.

  No one disturbed me. No one troubled me any more with the news of Acre. I heard nothing of Ralph. I knew nothing about the land. I lay like a whale beached on some desolate shore and I did not stir.

  The greatest effort I made was to rise and get down to the parlour in time for Richard’s return to dinner so that he would not come to my room. Even then I could not be troubled to ring for candles but sat in firelight, watching the flames flicker, and I would wonder what would become of me when the waiting time was over, and whether this feeling of floating, of drowning, would ever end at all.

  ‘Sitting in darkness?’ Richard demanded. The parlour door had opened so quietly that his voice made me jump and made my heart thud with nervousness.

  ‘I must have dozed off by the fire!’ I exclaimed. ‘How very dark it is!’

  ‘They say there’s a storm coming,’ he said.

  He came towards the fire and pulled up his riding jacket so he could warm the seat of his fawn breeches. I was sitting in Mama’s favourite low chair and he towered above me. His riding and his work had broadened him. He was breathtakingly handsome, with eyes as blue and as careless as a child’s, and that dark curly hair as soft and bouncy as a lamb’s fleece.

  ‘I met Dr Pearce in the lane,’ Richard said. He leaned over me and pulled the bell for them to bring candles. ‘He had a young curate friend with him. I asked them both to dinner.’

  ‘Today?’ I asked languidly. Mrs Gough had a menu for the week, but she would welcome the opportunity to exert herself to please Richard.

  ‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘They said they’d come at about four o’clock and we could have a game of whist afterwards.’

  I glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece. It said ten past three. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Gough,’ I said. Richard put a careless hand down to me and hauled me out of my chair. ‘And then I’d better change,’ I said.

  ‘Do,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of seeing you in that dull black gown all the time. And the fatter you get the worse it looks.’

  I checked on my way to the door. It must have been my condition and the fact that I had just woken, but the hardness in his voice made tears start in my eyes. With Mama gone, and Ralph gone, I could not bear it if Richard was in a mood to bully me.

  ‘Oh, Richard,’ I said reproachfully. ‘I am not fat, it is just the shape of the baby. It is just a large baby.’

  Richard stood astride in front of the fireplace. The flickering flames made his shadow leap, large as a giant, on the wall behind me. ‘Well, you look damned fat to me,’ he said cruelly. ‘Run and see Mrs Gough and then put on a proper evening gown, and wear some jewellery to set it off. We’re dining at home, after all, and Dr Pearce won’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t really have any jewellery,’ I said in a low voice. I was thinking of Mama’s rose-pearl necklace which the highwayman had taken. She t