By the time he was sixteen, he was a strapping six feet tall, with glowing olive skin, black curly hair and smouldering dark eyes, and it wasn’t only the female servants who looked at him longingly, but many of the grand ladies who visited Hever. Albert found he couldn’t respond to them in any way, however. It wasn’t shyness, he just didn’t like them. Yet he could look at certain men and his pulse raced and his cock twitched.
It was as if the groom had put a curse on him, and in his anger he vowed to himself that he would never let another man use him again. In future he would do the using and make it pay. Fortunately there were many distinguished men who came to Hever and who preferred boys to girls, and Albert found he could recognize them immediately.
He remained at Hever until he was twenty-one, and in between a series of lovers who gave him money and expensive presents, he was happy working in the gardens. He never thought of it as a menial job, to him a beautiful garden was a temple, and he worshipped in it. In his spare time he learned everything he could from the old experienced gardeners and from studying plant books. His vision for the future was to design and build a garden from scratch. He imagined a lake, woodland, formal flower gardens, sweeping lawns, rockeries with tumbling water and secluded bowers.
But the wealthy man who would provide the land for such a project eluded him, and when the whispers about his sexual exploits began to circulate around the estate, Albert found himself banished to the gardens of the Bishop’s Palace in Wells.
He never liked to dwell on the humiliations he met there, prayed over by pious men he knew were the same as him, worked to exhaustion by sadistic brutes and ignored by the rest. Then one evening in the neighbouring ale house he met William.
The ale house was mostly frequented by farm labourers; the gentry used the coaching house across the main street. William stood out like a thoroughbred stallion in a field of donkeys, for he wore a blue checked riding jacket which fitted his slender body like a glove, and his ripe corn curls were tousled and shiny. He was drinking with an older man who looked like a farmer, but his eyes locked with Albert’s across the crowded bar, and suddenly it was as if they were the only two people in the room.
It wasn’t difficult to find out who he was, where he lived, or to be outside when William finally left, the worse for drink. Albert was there to hold his horse steady and help him into the saddle. He asked him if he needed a gardener, and William told him to come out to Briargate the following day.
Albert knew he was taking a big chance leaving the Bishop’s Palace for good the following morning. Sir William might not remember asking him to come; he might not even need a gardener, especially one without a character. But Albert thought only of the man’s wide sensual mouth, periwinkle-blue eyes and firm, small buttocks as he walked the seventeen miles.
As he turned into the drive past the gatehouse and saw Briargate ahead, Albert felt he’d fallen into his dream. The setting of the house was perfect; someone had already planted many lovely trees, but he could make it much more beautiful. This was the place he’d been looking for.
Luck, or fate, smiled on him that day. William was home, and he not only remembered Albert from the night before, but was delighted to see him again as he did really need a gardener. By night fall Albert was tucked up in a comfortable bed above the stables, already head gardener of Briargate at the age of only twenty-five, and Willy, the under-gardener, who was half-witted, would do exactly as he told him.
It wasn’t hard to make William love him. He was a man so riddled with guilt that he only needed to be shown friendship and understanding. He was keen to work with Albert on the garden, and the hard physical labour of digging and clearing ground gave him new purpose. Albert let William make all the overtures, playing the innocent lad slowly falling for his master.
But Albert’s only true love was the grounds of Briargate; to him William was no more important than a resident dog whose company he enjoyed. He was happy to romp with him, he showed him as much affection as he was capable of, but Albert sawhimself as master.
The only time William ever got the upper hand was when he insisted Albert was to court and marry Nell. Albert could see why William thought it necessary. But William never understood just howmuch Albert loathed women. William didn’t share that repugnance, he liked their company, and young Rufus was evidence that he could, if necessary, even roger them. William’s plan was that Albert should emulate him, impregnate Nell once or twice, and then no one could ever point the finger of suspicion at his master.
Right from the first time Albert met the whole Renton family he knew he could never carry it off. They were typical peasants – strong, virile males and plain but earthy women, built for childbearing. Up against such men he felt inadequate, and even though he knew little of women, he sensed a female Renton would be like a bitch on heat.
The wedding and the party afterwards were torturous. His own family were cold and brooding, his mother a vicious, spiteful woman who had always belittled any displays of tenderness or affection. In contrast, the Rentons hugged and kissed, danced and sang, and he felt like a fish out of water. He shuddered as he overheard many innuendos about the wedding night and the baby they hoped would soon follow. For two pins he would have run away then, anything rather than face what he knew was supposed to come next.
He was aware he’d handled the wedding night all wrong; maybe he should have asked William how he’d managed it. He could bet William never told Anne she was a whore for wanting him, or pushed her away as he did Nell.
But marriage was for ever, and as mere servants they didn’t have the luxury of separate rooms either. Sharing a bed with Nell turned his stomach, her soft flesh pressed against him, her repulsive female smell, and that desperate need wafting out of her.
The reproach in her eyes and her silent tears were unbearable and drove him mad with hatred. He knew she was a good woman, but that just made the situation worse, and he had to pick on her constantly to justify the rage inside him.
Then Hope came to live with them, and every time he looked at her pretty, innocent face he felt threatened. She wasn’t like Nell, she was smart, sparky and brave and very likely to work out for herself that he wasn’t a real man.
His first thought was to kill her that day she caught him with Sir William. He could have wrung her neck like a chicken and buried her in the woods and he would have had no qualms about it. But then he sawthe letter and knew there was a better way to get rid of her. He wanted her to suffer degradation and isolation just the way he had at the same age, and with no money or character there was only one route open to her. There was the bonus that he retained the letter from the Captain too, a little insurance in case he ever needed it.
It worked out even better than he’d expected. He got rid of the girl and Nell. He had the gatehouse to himself at last. He wasn’t in the least concerned when William wanted to end their affair as he had already become very tired of his heavy drinking and his dependence on him. He was fast becoming a liability.
For six years now he’d been supremely content. He took great pleasure in watching the standards at the big house falling and Anne and William clinging together like shipwrecks as their friends, neighbours and servants abandoned them. Their looks were fading, and it was only a matter of time before their money would run out too. And through it all Albert kept the garden at the peak of perfection, knowing the whole estate would be his one day.
But his plans were shattered now.
He picked up the bottle of rum from the table and took a long, hard swig.
‘I won’t leave here,’ he muttered. ‘It’s mine. I worked for it.’
Getting up, he lurched drunkenly across the kitchen, pulled open the door and looked up the drive towards the big house. He could only see the dark shape of it for the moon was behind cloud and there were no lights in any window.
There’d been a time when every window was lit, just as there were horses in the stables, wine in the cellars and a dozen servants scuttling around. Now just William and Anne were there, with only old Baines tottering around still trying to pretend he was running the place. Mrs Crabbe and her daughter who helped out by day would be back in their hovel in the village.
He had spent so many evenings, summer and winter, gazing up at the house and dreaming of the day when it would be his. He had never once considered that anything could change them from the weak, fearful and guiltridden people he knew so well, not before their money ran out and they were forced to sell up.
But he hadn’t known them today. They were proud, confident and determined, and they had an answer for everything. He had no idea what it was that had given them this sudden strength, but he did know they meant what they said.
‘I’d sooner burn the place down than let you two beat me,’ he muttered, taking another swig from his bottle.
The cloud obscuring the moon swept away, and all at once Briargate was illuminated. He could even see the ghostly white of the marble statues in his rosebeds, and that taunted him still further. Even though his mind was befuddled with drink, the thought of a fire stayed with him.
The estate would have little value to anyone without the house. Master bloody Rufus was too busy lording it up with his flashy friends in Oxford to want to rebuild it. But it would have value to him, and he’d get it even cheaper then. No one would suspect him; they’d think it was just a burning coal that fell out of a fire. And he’d make sure he was up at the house doing his best to put the fire out when people on the neighbouring farms sawthe flames and came running to help.
The study! A few books and newspapers left on the hearthrug would soon catch everything else alight. Leave the study door open and the flames would be across the hall and up the stairs in no time and they’d be trapped.
Of course old Baines was up there too, but he was so frail now that he was no more use to anyone.
Just a few minutes later, Albert was making his way through the field outside the railings of the drive as he didn’t want William or Anne to be woken by a scrunching noise on the gravel. He had it all planned now. There was a spare key to the kitchen door kept under a box in the yard. In the past, Baines or one of the other servants had always locked and bolted the door from the inside at night, but for a year now Albert had seen Mrs Crabbe fishing a key out in the morning to unlock it. He’d go in that way, set the fire, and then relock the back door and go back to the gatehouse. He could watch the fire from there, and only run to attempt putting it out once it had really got going.
‘A stiff wind tonight too,’ he said aloud gleefully, turning his coat collar up. ‘That will help spread it.’
Chapter Eighteen
Matt Renton hesitated by the gatehouse of Briargate. He had spent the evening with a farmer friend at Chelwood, and as it was now well after midnight, and very cold and windy, he was anxious to get home quickly. Going up Briargate drive and skirting around the back of the big house was a shortcut, while the other way through Lord’s Wood was much longer and treacherous in the dark; he’d come that way earlier and got plastered in mud.
His indecision was because of Albert. If he spotted Matt, he was likely to take a pot shot at him, using the excuse that he thought he was an intruder. But as the gatehouse was in darkness he surmised Albert was fast asleep and therefore he’d be safe enough.
Matt was thirty-seven now. His hair was growing thin and grey, his face very weatherbeaten, but he was still as strong and lithe as he had been fourteen years ago when he married Amy. Life had treated him pretty well. He’d managed to hold his head above water through several bad harvests, and over the last three years he’d done well enough to put a bit of money away. He counted himself blessed that he had four healthy children and the best wife a man could wish for.
His younger brothers, Joe and Henry, had slunk back to the farm three years ago with their tails between their legs. London had not been good to them. They were thin, hungry and filthy, without a penny to their name. Matt acted cool with them, reading them the riot act before agreeing to let them stay, but in his heart he was overjoyed to have them home. And the boys had kept their promise to him, working hard and keeping out of mischief, and they both had sweethearts now, steady girls who would make good wives.
But Joe and Henry always reminded Matt of Hope for they’d been inseparable when they were all small. It seemed incredible to him that she’d kept her silence about where she was for six whole years. Sometimes he thought Albert must have killed her after all, or that she’d been carrying a child when she ran away and perhaps even died having it. But mostly he was concerned she’d got herself into such bad trouble she was afraid to come back.
Nell still believed Albert had killed her, but that didn’t stop her hoping for a miracle. Each time she came back to the farm the first thing she asked was if there was any news. Rufus was the same. Going off to that school for young gentlemen and then going away to university hadn’t stopped him caring about her. The minute he got back to Briargate he rushed down to the farm. Matt wished more than anything that one day he’d have something good to tell them both.
Matt was about ten feet from the stable yard, just about to go behind the wall to the stile and the footpath to the village, when he heard something.
It wasn’t a loud noise, just a clicking sound which might have been the wind moving something, but it could have been a key turning in a lock, so he dived out of sight behind the stable wall.
Straining his ears, he waited. The wind had become quite fierce and he could hear nothing above it, but a sixth sense told him someone was there. He was right; he heard a muffled cough, and then suddenly there was Albert.
Matt knew little about the routine at Briargate, but he couldn’t imagine any reason why a gardener would be in the house this late at night, unless of course he was bedding Lady Harvey.