Tallie's Knight (35 page)

But she was not. It
was clearly a woman’s room, fussy and expensive and elegant. The chairs were
tiny, dainty, with delicate twisted flutes for legs. They matched the dressing
table. The window frames and bed were painted white and draped with gold silk.
Large gilt looking-glasses were on every wall and Tallie could see herself reflected
no matter where she stood in the room. White fur rugs lay scattered on the
floor. Tallie hated the room on sight. It had an atmosphere, a hardness she did
not like. She could not feel comfortable sleeping in here.

“Whose was this room?”
she asked Mrs. Cobb tentatively.

“His lordship’s
mother’s, my lady.”

“Oh,” said Tallie.
Magnus had never spoken to her of his mother. Perhaps he found it too painful
to talk of her. It was hard, losing someone you truly loved, and a mother was
special. “What was she like?”

Mrs. Cobb pursed her
lips oddly, then shook her head.

“More’n my job’s
worth to say, my lady, begging your pardon.”

Tallie stared at her,
astonished.

“I didn’t mean you to
gossip about Mag —Lord d’Arenville’s mother. Just to tell me what sort of a
person she was.”

Mrs. Cobb shrugged.

“Can’t do one without
doing the other,” she said. “Best not enquire too closely about the past. Only
one Lady d’Arenville is important now —best you forget about what’s gone and
get on with your life, begging your pardon, my lady.” She eyed Tallie’s waist
shrewdly. “I hope you don’t think me impertinent, my lady, but would you be expecting
an interesting event in the not too distant future?”

Tallie blushed and
laid her hand on her belly.

“You mean the baby?”

Mrs. Cobb beamed and
nodded.

“Thought as much.
Good news for d’Arenville, my lady. His lordship’s pleased, I expect. May I
tell the other servants?”

Tallie nodded.

“I do not see why
not. They will all be able to see for themselves before too long. I am getting
so fat!”

“Fat? What nonsense!
Bloom about you. A joy to behold.” Mrs. Cobb nodded again. “Good news you bring
us, to be sure. Tis too long since there was a child at d’Arenville.”

“Were you here when Mag
—his lordship was a boy?” Tallie asked eagerly.

“Not really,” Mrs.
Cobb said. “I’ve been here just over a score of years, come Michaelmas.”

Tallie frowned in
puzzlement.

“Twenty years? But my
husband is only nine and twenty. You must have known him as a boy.”

Mrs. Cobb looked at
her a moment, then shook her head.

“He were off at
school years before I started here.”

Sent to school at the
age of six or seven, poor little boy, Tallie thought. She touched her stomach
protectively. If this child was a boy he wasn’t going to be parcelled off to
school at a young age like his father.

“But in the holidays—”
Mrs. Cobb shook her head sorrowfully.

“He weren’t often
asked home in the holidays.”

Asked home? As if he
were a guest! “Not asked home in the holidays?” repeated Tallie, appalled. “But
why not?”

Mrs. Cobb pursed her
lips, shook her head, opened her mouth then closed it. After a moment she said,
“You never heard this from me, mind, but word was in servants’ hall his ma
couldn’t abide him. And his ma’s word was law to his old lordship. Despite her
immoral ways.”

Tallie could hardly
believe her ears. His mother hadn’t been able to abide him? And so Magnus hadn’t
often been asked home in the holidays?

She had never heard
of anything so shockingly selfish and callous in her life. Oh, to be sure
Tallie had spent her own childhood in a school, but that had been because her
parents had been forever travelling, not because they hadn’t been able to abide
her. She had a packet of letters from her mother, tied with a ribbon, to prove
it.

But poor Magnus. Poor
little boy. What sort of a woman would do that to her own child?

A horrid, cruel
woman, and Tallie knew she would sleep not a wink under her vile gold silk
canopies.

“I won’t sleep here,”
she said decisively. “Please find me another bedchamber.”

“But his lordship
said—”

“You may inform his
lordship that I did not wish to sleep in his mother’s old room and that I chose
another.”

“But—”

“That will be all,
Mrs. Cobb,” said Tallie firmly, feeling bold and autocratic. She had learned a
thing or two since she was insignificant Tallie Robinson, and one was how to
avoid an argument —with servants, at any rate. Her husband was a different matter.

Tallie looked around
the breakfast room in surprise. She turned to the butler.

“Has his lordship not
yet come down?”

“Yes, m’lady, he
broke his fast early.” Harris pulled a chair back and waited.

Tallie sat, feeling
quite despondent. It was her own fault —she had stayed awake late last night,
hoping he would come to her, and then overslept this morning.

“I suppose I shall
see him later, then.”

Harris, in the
process of serving her with scrambled eggs, hesitated.

“He had urgent
business to attend to, m’lady.”

Tallie ate her eggs
slowly. She had no idea what to do with herself.

The previous day
Magnus had made it plain that he wished her to take up the reins as mistress of
this establishment. Thanks to Laetitia’s habit of delegation, Tallie was not
without some experience in running a household. But this house was at once bigger
and much grander than anything she had ever seen before. At Manningham she’d
been her cousin’s dogs-body, an errand-runner rather than mistress. Here she’d be
expected to know everything.

Tallie glanced around
the breakfast room with a critical eye. The room had a pleasant prospect,
facing east, receiving morning sunlight. And the windows would have let in
plenty of sunlight, had not they, like every other window here, been shrouded
in heavy drapery. It was all so gloomy.

She wondered how
Magnus would respond if she asked his permission to make a few changes. In her
admittedly limited experience, men didn’t like changes to their homes. Her
cousin’s husband George had complained incessantly when Laetitia redecorated
their country home.

He hadn’t minded her
turning the
London
house upside down with ‘fancified nonsense’, but his boyhood home had been
another matter. On the other hand, according to Mrs. Cobb, Magnus had not spent
much of his boyhood here at all, so. No, Tallie decided, she’d speak to him about
it at dinner. And in the meantime she’d ask Mrs. Cobb for a tour of the Hall.

By the end of the day
Tallie was tired and dusty, but faintly satisfied. She’d been through the
pantries, the linen presses and the storerooms, and examined the house from attic
to basement. Many of her tentatively offered suggestions had been roundly
approved by Mrs. Cobb, and she now felt more confident about discussing changes
to the house with Magnus. It was barely half an hour until dinner, so she
hurried upstairs to bathe and to change her gown. Magnus had seen her rumpled and
untidy enough times, and hadn’t seemed to mind, but that had been when they
were travelling. This was different. Tonight they dined at home together for
the first time in their married life and she wanted to look her best. She had a
quarrel to mend.

She hurried through
her preparations and sat impatiently in front of the looking-glass while
Monique did her hair, scanning her reflection intently, hoping her looks would
please Magnus.

The gown she had finally
chosen was one he’d bought her in
Vienna
.
It had become a little limp during their travels, but now, in a big house with
skilled laundrywomen, it looked almost as good as new. The fabric was fine and
delicate. It clung to her breasts and swirled around her hips. It looked a lot
like her golden
Paris
tea gown that Magnus had ruined so dramatically.

Her eyes misted
reminiscently as she recalled how he’d swept her into his arms and ascended the
stairs two by two. Could this gown, too, cause a wondrous, utterly splendid
night of passion? And put an end to a distressing period of coldness.

Tallie gazed at the
gown in the looking-glass. She was counting on that reaction tonight. It was
the only way she could think of to break down the icy barrier that had arisen
between them. Talking would do no good, for she was determined not to give in
to him and she could not imagine him giving in to her. No, this was the only
way. And maybe then he would be able to forgive her intransigence.

She fastened a string
of pearls around her neck. Her breasts, slightly enlarged with pregnancy,
swelled above the low-cut gown most satisfactorily. Her skin, with a light
dusting of rice-powder to disguise the dozen or so freckles, looked pale and
smooth. Tallie frowned critically at her image, then tugged the neckline a
little lower. She had no intention of being sent to her room tonight, alone with
a supper tray, like a naughty child to contemplate her sins. No, her husband
might be displeased with her defiance on the matter of her brother, but she had
every intention of seducing him back into her bed.

Tonight.

His urgent business,
whatever it was, had kept him away from the house all day. She had imagined her
first day at d’Arenville Hall —Magnus would show her around, telling her tales
of this and that as he introduced her to her new home, her arm on his, or,
better still, his arm around her. Today Mrs. Cobb had shown her the house, not
Magnus, but Tallie was determined Magnus would show her the rest. And then, perhaps,
she would come to understand the man she loved —to discover the boy and learn
what had made him the man he was. Urgent business or not. She could wait for
urgent business, but she would wait with him, not for him. And when it was
finished, she had urgent business of her own. Tugging her gown a little lower,
Tallie stood up, took a deep breath and left her chamber.

The pale young
princess descended the curving marble stairway slowly.

Her enchanted silken
gown clung to her figure whispering softly with every movement. Below her, a
statue of a handsome, dark-haired prince awaited her, his marble features cold
and unmoving, his eyes blind and unforgiving, trapped in a spell by an evil
Ice-Witch. Candlelight gleamed on his frozen features.

The princess came
closer. With each whisper of the magic gown, each flicker of golden
candle-flame the statue seemed to warm. The eyes flickered and darkened from a
pale ice-grey to a stormy sea-dark colour. The blindness lifted from him and
marble melted into flesh.

Slowly he moved towards
her, first one step then another, then he was leaping up the stairs towards
her, two, three steps at a time. He swept the princess into his arms.

“Tallie, my dearest
love, forgive me my coldness. I need your warmth, your love.” And his mouth
descended on hers and the evil spell was broken.

But there was no
Magnus waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.

There was only
Harris, the butler. Magnus must already be in the dining room. She was a little
late from fussing about her appearance.

He must have become
impatient.

“Good evening,
Harris.” Tallie smiled. “I am looking forward to dinner. The aromas coming from
the kitchen earlier were delicious, and I must confess I am extremely hungry.”
She hurried towards the dining room.

But when she entered,
she came to a sudden, shocked halt. The long, gleaming table was set for only
one person. He could not, surely, still be attending to his business?

“M’lady,” murmured
Harris.

Hiding her anxiety,
Tallie allowed him to seat her.

“Is my husband not
joining me?”

A footman entered
with soup, and Harris waited until she had been served and the footman had gone
before answering.

“I told you this
morning, m’lady. He left on urgent business.”

“But his business
surely cannot last all night,” she said. “Lord d’Arenville must eat, must he
not?”

Harris looked
awkward.

“M’lord left d’Arenville
this morning. He did not say when he would return.”

Left d’Arenville?
Tallie stared at the butler in confusion, a cold thread of dread winding around
her heart.

“I assumed you meant
he’d left the house.”

“No, m’lady. He left.”
The butler looked at her in concern.

Left? Left for where?
Tallie tried to keep her features even.

“Did you not know
about it, m’lady?”

Tallie attempted a
smile.

“Yes… yes, of course
I did, but I did not realise he meant to leave today. I thought he was going to…
to…”

She felt her lips
quivering and hastily touched a starched linen napkin to them to hide her
distress.

“A foolish
misunderstanding, that is all,” she mumbled, and lowered her head as if to say
a silent grace.

Where had he gone?
And for how long? All day and night, obviously. But without a word to her? She
spooned up some steaming substance and conveyed it to her mouth. Her hands were
shaking. She laid the spoon down with a clatter, hoping the butler hadn’t noticed.

There was a short
silence. She wondered whether Harris could hear her heart pounding. It sounded
terribly loud to her.

After a time he
cleared his throat and said, “Lord d’Arenville left a letter for you, m’lady.
Did you not receive it?”

Tallie stared.

“A letter?”

“Yes, m’lady. I shall
fetch it immediately,” said Harris, sweeping from the room. He returned in a
moment, bearing a sealed letter on a silver salver. He placed it beside her,
hesitated, then bowed and left the room.

Heart pounding, Tallie
watched him leave. Her first letter from Magnus. She broke open the wafer and
began to read.