Mary Brendan – A Kind And Decent Man (страница 3)

His boot had once sent an amateur opportunist sprawling down his elegant front steps, causing Dickie to say admiringly that it took one to know one. That irreverence had earned his friend a playful cuff…David was professional…especially when devious. He slanted a glance at the old retainer who had stayed with the Lords Courtenay through fair, foul and fair again. Jacob was an inquisitive, irreverent old buffer, but he was extremely efficient and unwaveringly loyal and trustworthy. David knew that his half-hearted threats to put him off were now a source of amusement to them both. In fact, he’d really grown quite fond of him.

‘Make sure that Mainwaring has that response regarding the sale of the property in Chelsea and deal with all other matters as we discussed.’

Jacob’s short, wiry body carefully unfolded from the chair. He cradled his day’s work in one arm while the other hand sprang to catch his spectacles before they slid from the end of his nose.

Reaching over his desk for another cheroot, David lit it and drew deeply until the tip ruddied. He speared long fingers through his dark mahogany hair, aware of the length of it and that he should get to his barber some time this week. In all other respects he was immaculately turned out as usual: a shirt of finest white lawn, a deep chestnut silk cravat similar in shade to his thick hair, and buff breeches of excellent quality and a style that snugly emphasised the considerable muscular length of his legs.

‘Mr Du Quesne,’ Jeremiah Clavering, his butler, intoned from the doorway, allowing David’s comrade, well wrapped into his exquisite greatcoat, entrance to the cosy study.

As he caught the draught from the corridor, David stirred the glowing coals with the tip of his expensive leather boot. It had been a long, hard winter and these February mornings were invariably solid with frost. A sideways grin at Dickie acknowledged his glowing red nose, white cheeks and blond hair, lank with cold. His freezing friend immediately sought a place by the roaring fire.

‘Nippy out there?’ David needled.

‘I’d taken two extra turns of the square with that silly bitch before someone hove into view and I managed to dump her. I’m not sure Wainwright will still be speaking to me…Damn!’ he exclaimed, through chattering teeth. ‘He’d best not consider returning her home a favour and cancel my duns.’

David laughed down into the leaping flames. As the chill from his friend’s body permeated his comfortable warmth, he shifted to allow Dickie the best position in front of the hearth. ‘You did well,’ he soothed. ‘Had you brought her in here, I would not have been best pleased. You’ll get your money from Wainwright—’ He broke off, noting Jacob was hopping from foot to foot, shifting and balancing documents in his arms while making grabs at the door handle. He strolled over and held the door wide. As the clerk exited under his braced arm, David instructed, for no reason he could understand, ‘Forget that letter to Mrs Hart. I’ll convey condolences myself at the funeral.’

It was certainly comforting to see so many paying their last respects to her dear Danny, was Victoria’s consoling thought as she buried her small, trembling hands further into her sable muff.

This February morning was bright with winter sunshine but bitterly cold; the grave-diggers had laboured long and hard to scoop out her husband’s final icy resting place.

Parson Woodbridge dropped a fistful of dark soil into the grave and it hit Daniel Hart’s coffin with a splattering thud. He inclined his head at her and she stepped unsteadily forward on numbed legs at the signal. The mixed sheaf of fragrant herbs and flowers she had collected that morning was released into the earth-dark void. Despite her solemn promise to Daniel that she would not cry, she felt melancholy tears heating her hastily closed eyes. Withdrawing her gloved fingers from their warm nest, she pressed them to her eyelids, chafing delicate skin with the black lace veil shrouding her small, sculpted face. Damp, inky lashes slowly unmeshed to expose luminous damson-grey eyes and she raised her head, again composed…and saw him.

She squinted through a teary film and an involuntary gasp of recognition was heightened by fierce frosty air abrading her throat. He was standing a way off, absolutely still—a solitary figure divorced from those by the graveside stamping frozen feet and huddling close together for warmth. She was sure he was staring at her as intently as she was at him, despite her veil and matted lashes distorting her view. And she quietly knew that after seven years he would look as she remembered him even though his features were indistinct. He looked statuesque outlined against a washed winter sky, and quite frighteningly imposing. He seemed more powerfully built. Perhaps he had grown broader, or perhaps it was just an illusion created by his heavy black greatcoat. A steamy haze froze before his face and this undeniable proof that he was not a figment of her imagination but a living, breathing man simultaneously cheered and alarmed her.

He must have just arrived, walked up alone from Hartfield to the chapel, for he hadn’t left with the mourning party. He was a head taller than any man here and impeccably attired; she would never have missed him.

Victoria dragged her gaze back to Parson Woodbridge’s kindly face as he concluded the funeral service and indicated to her that the pair of grave-diggers would like to continue about their business.

It was too final! She couldn’t yet relinquish the man who had cared for her, provided for her and her relatives. It was too soon.

Despite the empathy radiating from the friends and neighbours grouped about her, she felt alone and frightened, and that stomach-churning anxiety was now oddly intensified by the shadowy, remote figure on the edge of her vision. She suddenly wished that Daniel hadn’t insisted she write and ask him to come. Why had he? There had been no bond between them other than a distant kinship that neither man had ever sought to acknowledge or build on.

She became conscious of people looking more purposefully at her. Stiff fingers were being warmed with puff-cheeked breaths and chilled cloaked bodies batted with rigid arms. They were patiently awaiting a signal to leave.

‘Are you ready, Victoria, my dear?’ the parson enquired kindly as he took a pace towards her. ‘Come, my child, you’ll freeze,’ he coaxed, taking her arm gently and turning her about. ‘You can return later, when these men have done their work, with another pretty posy and a nice hot toddy inside you.’ He lifted a bony gloved hand to his bulbous nose set in a curiously gaunt face. ‘I do believe this is twice its normal size,’ he gently joked as he led her away. Sheeny grey eyes raised to his painfully purple proboscis and Victoria choked a hysterical giggle. She gratefully held his arm as they slowly made their careful way back down the frost-glistening grassy hillock to the shingle path that wound to Hartfield. The mourning party, approximately a score in number, fell into step behind them. A quiet murmuring among its members could be heard, conveying gladness that the ceremony was satisfactorily accomplished, and that a fire and a warming drink awaited them at Hartfield.

They would pass close by him, Victoria realised, for he had not so much as budged an inch from his isolated spot. Raising her head as she drew level, she turned; courtesy decreed she acknowledge him. Glistening grey eyes were immediately entrapped by a steady sapphire gaze. Powerless to break free, she glided on until looking across at him became impossible and she finally twisted her veiled face away and exhaled.

The blonde woman climbed the last mound. Pausing to draw a spiteful breath, she spied the snaking trail of mourners trudging away towards Hartfield. But her narrowed green eyes were almost immediately skimming back to the churchyard, targeting the sole remaining figure. Her interest quickened at his virile attractiveness, but it was his obvious affluence that drew forth a calculating smile.

Ignoring the open grave, the tall, impressive man strolled the rimed grass towards the shingle path. Feline eyes tracked him until he latched the lychgate, when they pounced forward onto the slightly built young widow far in the distance and close to the saintly parson.

The woman’s generous mouth thinned in malice. Wrapping herself more closely into the warmth of her thick cloak, she picked a careful path across the slippery turf. She glared boldly at the two labourers who began whispering as she approached. Leaning on shovels, they watched curiously as she stared down at the coffin partially obscured by a few scoops of rich dark soil.

Muttered curses, loud and crude enough to make the grave-diggers exchange an appreciative look, preceded earth piled along the edges of the grave being sent hurtling unceremoniously back into the void by a small booted foot. Then, with a dramatic swirl of her cloak, the blonde woman was hastening back across the fields in the opposite direction to the mourners and Hartfield.