Breathing out, she tried to stop the name that would come to her mind next. No, she would not think of him, of that night, of the way that he had left without even once glancing back; when her friend Elspeth Hardy came into the room with another pile of papers in her hands, Bea was glad of the interruption.
‘We have nowhere at all to put those, Elspeth. Perhaps if you could take them back upstairs we may discuss the contents next week.’
‘But they talk of the habit of wife selling, a topic that has been raised before—I wondered if they might add to the discussion?’
Bea screwed up her nose. ‘I have read many accounts of such a practice, and have become increasingly of the view that the intention of these bargains is a way in which a woman can move on with her life, both parties having agreed to the proceedings.’
‘ You are not against them? I cannot believe it of you!’
Beatrice laughed. ‘Often the purchaser is a lover. Would you not countenance such a path, given the impossibly difficult and expensive alternative of filing for a separation through church or court?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps you might be right…’
‘We will think about it later, for tonight I have prepared a talk on the ills of piracy and the human cost to such a vocation.’
‘Piracy! A topic that should appeal to the growing number of men now attending! Have you not noticed that, Bea? Over the last month we have had an almost equal composition of the sexes, which is…encouraging to say the least.’
Beatrice nodded and sought out the trays to set. The new financial independence that she had inherited on the death of her husband was sometimes bemusing and she still liked to do as much around the home as she had when her situation had been less flush.
Tonight, though, she felt nervous for some reason, her heartbeat heightened and her hands clumsy. When she dropped a cup it shattered on the parquet floor and as she bent to pick up the shards of china one cut deep into her forefinger.
The blood welled immediately, running down her palm and threatening the sleeve of her gown. Snatching at the muslin cover used for the cakes, she was thrown back into that darkened carriage outside Maldon when Taris Wellingham had offered her the square of material wrapped around the fruitcake as a scarf. At the time she had barely thought about it…but now? Other things began to pile into recollection. The way he used his hands and the scar that marred his forehead. No small accident that. An injury collected when he was a soldier, perhaps, or a little later…
‘Shall I find a bandage, Bea, or is that stopping?’ Elspeth’s sister Molly had come to join them.
‘No, it is all right, thank you.’ She gingerly took the fabric away and was relieved when the skin looked knitted and clean. The fear in her very bones did not diminish, however, and when the clock in the hallway struck seven o’clock she jumped visibly. Two days ago, as she had walked along the street to the bank, a man had jostled her quite forcibly, the pile of papers she held in her hands scattering around her. He had stayed long enough to peruse the contents and then had disappeared, neither helping her nor apologising.
He had seemed angry, though she could not truly catch sight of his face to determine if she had met him before. Perhaps the outwardly Bohemian nature of her lifestyle had galvanised him into a reaction that was rooted in fear. Fear that, should women start to think, they might displace men who were less astute in the work-force and in society. Her roots in business probably added to the equation, as the Bassingstoke fortune had been wrought from the hard sweat of rolling iron for the ever-burgeoning railway.
The whole thing was probably harmless, but added to the accident in the coach she was beginning to feel…watched.
Beatrice shook her head hard. It was half an hour before the first men and women would be arriving and she still had much to do. All this ruminating on a perceived menace would neither get the room organised nor help her ridiculous case of the jitters. Smiling at Elspeth and Molly, she resolved to put her worries aside, and, plumping the cushions in the room, she dusted off the seats of the chairs and sofas.
The downstairs salon was full to bursting and the discussions were under way when a new arrival made Beatrice stop in mid-sentence, for the woman who had run into the open arms of Taris Wellingham in the barn was here.
Emerald Wellingham?
A wave of embarrassment washed away any sense of the argument she was trying to forward. Why would she come? What possible reason would bring her here, for surely she had understood her brother-in-law’s wish for distance as he had left the barn so quickly after the carriage accident? The Duchess of Carisbrook was a beautiful woman, her countenance in this room even more arresting, if that was at all possible, than it had been in a snow-filled night.
‘As I was saying…’ Bea could barely remember the thread of her prose. Would the woman tell others here of her escapade, bringing up the scandal of her night alone in the company of an unmarried man for all to judge? Lord, if any of it should be known, her presence would hardly be countenanced in polite company, an ageing widow who had crossed a boundary that brooked no return.
Ruin!
And that was only with the knowledge of half of it. Taris Wellingham’s hands in places no one had ever touched before, the waves of pure delight that had run across her body, melding it into rapture.
Tearing herself back to the topic under discussion, she finished off her speech. ‘…and so I reiterate again that many of these so-called pirates were refugees from the gaols of the world or deserters from the rigours of harsh naval discipline.’
‘So you do not think some were just natural-born leaders who chose a life of crime by instinct, piracy being an attractive proposition when measured against what might have otherwise been available to them at home?’
Emerald Wellingham asked the question of her and there was a burst of discussion around the room as Bea tried to answer it.
‘There are some who would agree with you. Some who might even say that piracy was an honourable, if not a noble, profession.’
A man interjected. ‘These people were murderers who committed untold acts of barbarity on the open seas. They are not to be excused.’
‘Priests and magistrates and merchants in the West Indies excused them all the time, sir. Money sometimes has a louder voice than morality.’
Emerald Wellingham again! Beatrice felt swayed by her argument.
‘Indeed.’ She sought for the words that might not alienate a group of folk who were by and large titled and wealthy. ‘If one was from the West Indies, the availability of goods sacked by the pirates might have been considered a godsend.’
‘You speak of heresy.’ The same man as before spoke and his face had reddened.
‘And of conjecture,’ Beatrice added with a smile. ‘For such stories are often that of fable and myth and it could take one a lifetime to truly know the extent in which they were entangled.’
She hoped such a platitude might console the man’s anger and was relieved when it seemed to, and Elspeth’s announcement of a light supper was timed well.
As all those present moved through into the dining room, Beatrice tidied her notes and when she looked up Emerald Wellington stood beside her.
‘For a woman of strong views you are remarkably diplomatic.’
‘Perhaps because a heart attack of a patron at one of my soirees may not be conducive to their continuation.’