‘Harry seldom drinks to excess,’ I said at random thinking of her stepfather.
‘Oh, no!’ she said quickly, and I had drawn a blank there, too.
‘I am sure he loves you very, very much,’ I said. Envy made me faint as if I had an illness. But it was true. I was sure he did, damn her.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s the trouble really.’
I recovered rapidly. The trouble? What trouble? ‘The trouble?’ I repeated.
Her head with the pretty little bonnet bowed low. I saw a tear drop on her figured satin and one gloved finger covered the spot.
‘He’s so …’ She couldn’t find the word and Lord help me I couldn’t think what could be wrong.
‘He’s so …’ She tried again, and I was dumb.
‘He’s so … unrestrained …’ she got out. ‘I suppose it is because he is interested in farming … but really …’
I nearly gasped aloud at this revelation. While I had been aching and longing for Harry and trembling at his touch, this little ice maiden had been refusing his kisses and shrinking from an arm around her waist. Envy made me physically queasy, but my face must not show it.
‘I expect men always are,’ I said, imitating her awed whisper. ‘Is he always like that?’
‘Oh, no!’ she said. The deep brown eyes flickered to my face. ‘The last two Sundays, he changed. He tried to kiss me …’ – her voice dropped even lower – ‘on the mouth! Oh, it was horrid.’ She broke off again. ‘Something else, too.’
I remembered with every cell of my sensuous body the warmth of Harry’s body against mine, my lips opening beneath his and my tongue seeking his mouth. His hand tightening and pressing my breast. That had caused the change.
‘He forgot himself,’ said Celia with some little determination. ‘He forgot who I am. Young ladies do not …’ She paused. ‘And certainly they do not let gentlemen touch them … in that way.’
I caught my breath in a hissing sigh. It had to have been the evening in Mama’s parlour that had made the difference. I had pressed his hand to my breast. I had opened my mouth to him. He had gone from me to Celia hot with desire and tingling with the touch of his first woman – and cold, unloving little Celia had rebuffed him.
‘Did you tell him so?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ she said. The brown eyes opened wider and she stole another glance at me. ‘He seemed angry,’ she said. Her lower lip trembled. ‘It made me rather afraid … for later.’
‘Don’t you want him to kiss you?’ I burst out.
‘Not like that! I don’t like kisses like that! I don’t think I ever will! I don’t see how I can learn to bear them. Mama and Step-Papa don’t behave like that; they … they have an arrangement.’
The whole world knew that Lord Havering’s arrangement was a ballet dancer in one of the London theatres when Lady Havering put her foot down after two children and four miscarriages.
‘You would like that with Harry?’ I asked. I couldn’t believe my ears.
‘Oh, no,’ she said miserably. ‘I know one cannot, until there is an heir. I know there is nothing to be done. I shall just have to … I shall just have to …’ She gave a piteous little sob. ‘I shall just have to endure it, I suppose.’
I took her hand in my firm clasp.
‘Celia, listen to me,’ I said. ‘I will be a sister to you in October, and I will be a friend to you now. Harry and I are very, very close – you know how we run the estate together – he will always listen to me because he knows I have his interests at heart. I will be a friend to you, too. I shall help you with Harry. I can talk to Harry and no one but you and I need ever know what you have told me. I can make it all right between the two of you.’
Celia raised her eyes to my face.
‘Oh, if you would!’ she said. ‘But won’t Harry mind?’
‘Leave it to me,’ I said. ‘I make only one condition.’ I paused and the cherries on her little bonnet trembled. I realized that to escape Harry’s embraces she would promise me anything.
‘The condition is that you always tell me everything about you and Harry, everything.’
The cherries bobbed as she nodded vigorously.
‘Should you change in your feelings to him, or should he change to you, you will tell me at once.’
The cherries bobbed again and she held out her hand.
‘Oh, yes, Beatrice. Let’s shake hands on the bargain. I promise you shall always be my best and closest of friends. I will always confide in you and you shall have thousands of favours from me. Anything you want that I can give shall be yours.’
I smiled and kissed her cheek to seal the agreement. She had only one thing that I wanted – that I would ever want – and she was far along the road to giving it me, my heart’s desire, my brother Harry.
I came home from that drive my head full of anything but turnips. Celia’s inarticulate murmurs about Harry’s courting had made my head throb with jealousy and longing. She might be happy to hand over to me the control of her married life, but it was still her downcast eyes that Harry watched, even when I was near by. And when we stood side by side looking at the turnip field, he had bent his head low to see her pale prettiness under her parasol.
I left her in the parlour and went to my room to take off my bonnet. I looked at myself in the little mirror but my reflection gave me scant joy. If Harry preferred sugar and cream then my clear strong beauty would help me little. My green eyes looked blankly back at me, dark with desire. I could not believe, I could not make my mind believe, that any man would refuse me if I set my heart on him. I sighed and pressed my forehead against the cool glass and longed and longed for Harry.
My skirts hissed as I turned from my room and went downstairs. Celia might not want his love, but she had it. And while I flinched at the sight of his courtesy to her and his gentle words to her as she sat sipping tea, it was worse to be in my room alone, knowing that downstairs he was beside her on the sofa. I might spend more hours with him but never, never could I sit, my eyes downcast, and feel his gaze scanning my face. Never could I look up in the delicious certainty that my eyes would meet his. We were much together, but our magical moments were few. We were always interrupted; Mama was always coming in and out and her eyes were sharp on her beloved son.
At the turn of the stairs I paused. Some careless maid must have left the back-stair door open and one of the stable cats had sauntered in and was sitting, proud as punch, in the first-floor corridor. Mama was ill whenever she was in a room with a cat and it was a house rule that all the stable cats were locked firmly out. I should have to rush this one back to the yard and then air the corridor, or she would have one of her painful gasping attacks when she could not breathe and her face went from white to yellow. Her heart was delicate and last time she had suffered an attack the London specialist had warned her most strongly against risking another. So the rule against cats was rigidly enforced and I should save someone a dismissal if I got the animal away before Mama came up to change.
But as I went towards it something made me pause. And then I stopped stock-still. I had no idea in my head, nor the shadow of a plan. But my passion for Harry moved me as if I had no will of my own. I was in the grip