A Most Unseemly Summer

‘Out of the frying-pan, into the fire’ was a saying that occurred to her as she went about the first duties of the day, now demurely dressed in a blue velvet overskirt and bodice that set off the white under-sleeves embroidered with knotwork patterns. Black-work, they called it, except that this was blue and gold. Her hair was tidily coiled into a gold mesh caul at the nape of her neck almost as an act of defiance to the man who had warned her of his men’s easily deflected attentions. At home, she would have worn a concealing black velvet French hood, yet she had never been overly concerned by prevailing fashions and saw no reason to conform now that there was no one to notice. That dreadful man had seen her at her worst; whatever he saw now would be an improvement.

The first floor was thronged with men carrying tables, stools, chests and cupboards and, in her chamber, several of the carpenters were erecting the great tester bed and hanging its curtains. The ground floor was the servants’ domain, containing the great hall and steward’s offices, but the top floor covered the length and breadth of the building, a massive room flooded with light from new oriel windows that reflected on to a magnificent plasterwork ceiling. Knowing that these additions were the result of the surveyor’s vision, Felice tried hard to find fault with it, but came away with grudging admiration instead. It was no wonder he had been irked by her takeover.

She visited the kitchens across the courtyard next, but came close to being trampled underfoot by lads carrying boxes, baskets, pans and sacks; so, to give her feet some respite, she headed for an area at the back of the Abbot’s House that gave access into the derelict square cloister. Here at last was peace where, in the enclosed warmth, the kitchen cat poured itself off a low wall at the sight of Flint and Fen and disappeared into the long grass.

Shelving her thoughts about how to make a dignified return home, she sat with her legs stretched out between the stone columns that topped the low wall, her eyes unconsciously planning a formal garden with perhaps a fountain in the centre. Not that it mattered; she did not intend to stay. She removed her shoes to inspect the soles of her feet in valuable privacy.

The deerhounds nosed about behind her, so their silence went unheeded until, sensing their absence, she turned to check on them. Their two heads could not have been closer beneath the hand of the tall intruder who stood silently in the shadows on the church side of the cloister, watching her.

Her heart lurched, pounding with a new rhythm, and she turned away, throwing her skirts over her bare ankles, pretending an unconcern she was far from feeling. She snapped her fingers, angrily and called, ‘Flint! Fen! Come!’—by no means sure that they would obey but reluctant to turn to see.

The hounds returned to her side but they were not alone, nor had they obeyed her command but his, and she knew then that, like the steward deserted by his mastiff, she would never again be able to rely on them for protection. Angered by their inability to tell friend from foe, she snapped at them, ‘Lie down!’

Sir Leon was laughing quietly at this calamity as he came to sit on the wall just beyond her feet and, as she began to swing them to the ground, he caught one ankle in a tight grip, making her flight impossible. ‘No, lady,’ he said. ‘We have some unfinished business, do we not? A moment or two of your time, if you please.’

‘Be brief, sir. And release my foot.’

She did not need to look at him to see that he had already started work, for he had discarded his doublet and now wore only the jerkin over his shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to expose well-muscled forearms. A deep V of bare chest showed in the opening, and his boots were powdered with stone-dust. Unhurried by her command, his hand slid away and spread across his knee. ‘Well?’ he said, tucking away the remnants of a smile.

She frowned at him, puzzled. ‘Well, what, sir?’

‘I’m allowing you to state your case before I state mine, Lady Felice Marwelle. And you need not be brief.’

‘Nevertheless, I will be. You will be relieved to know that I intend to return to Sonning within the next few days.’ She spoke to a row of purring pigeons on the angle of the wall behind him, disconcerted by his close attention, his attempted dominance even before words had been exchanged.

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’ve changed your mind about staying.’

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t ask me why. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘You changed your mind to please me?’

Her mouth tightened. ‘No. It pleases me.’

‘Then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I must reject your decision.’

‘What?’ She frowned, looking at him fully for the first time. ‘You’re in no position to reject it. I’ve already made it.’ His eyes, she saw, were grey and still laughing.

‘Then you can unmake it, my lady. You’ll stay here and complete the task Lord Deventer set for you.’

Rather than continue a futile argument, Felice’s response was to get up and leave him, but her body’s slight message was deciphered even as it formed, and her ankle was caught again and held firmly.

‘Ah, no!’ he said. ‘I’m aware of your aptitude for bringing discussions to an abrupt conclusion but really, you have to give them a chance to develop occasionally, don’t you think so? Now, what d’ye think your stepfather will say when you tell him you haven’t even seen the place yet?’

Riled by his insistence and by his continued hold on her ankle, she flared like a fuse. ‘And what d’ye think he’ll say, Sir Leon, when I tell him of the disgraceful way I’ve been received? Which I will!’

This did not have the effect she hoped for, no sign of contrition crossing his face. ‘About mistaking you for one of his mistresses, you mean? That jest will keep him entertained for a month, my lady, as well you know. And if he’d intended to send a message to warn me of your arrival…’

‘To warn you? Thank you!’

‘…he would have done. Clearly he had no intention of doing so.’

‘Why ever not, pray?’

‘Because he knew damn well he’d have to look for another surveyor if he had. He knows my views about mixing work and women.’

Felice bent to clutch at her leg and yank it bodily out of his grasp, swinging her legs down on to the long grass. ‘Then there will be three of us pleased, sir. There is nothing more to discuss, is there?’

‘Correction. There’ll be two of us pleased. You’ll stay here with me.’

She sat, rigidly angry, with her hands clutching at the cool stone wall on each side of her. ‘Sir Leon, I am usually quite good at understanding arguments, but when they are as obscure as yours I’m afraid I need some help. Explain to me, if you will. If you are so disturbed about having women near you, why have you suddenly decided that I must stay? I can only conclude that you must need to please Lord Deventer very much indeed to sacrifice your principles so easily. Do you need his approval so much, then?’

He allowed himself a smile before he replied, revealing white even teeth. ‘Certainly I do. He pays me, you see, and the sooner this place is lived in, the sooner I can move on to others. I’m in demand, hereabouts.’

‘Not by me!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Barbarian!’

‘Still sore?’ He lowered his tone to match hers, catching the drift of her mind.

It was a mistake she regretted instantly, having no wish to discuss those terrible events, neither with him nor with anyone. Forgetting her shoes, she was quicker this time, managing to reach the centre of the overgrown quadrangle before her wrist was caught and she was brought to a halt. She shook off his grip and whirled to face him in a frenzy of rage.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she snarled, her eyes blazing like coals. ‘Don’t ever lay a finger on me again, sir, or I swear I’ll…I’ll kill you! And don’t think to dictate to me where and when I go. You are not my guardian.’ She turned her back on him deliberately, but had no idea how to get out of the quadrangle without climbing shoeless over the low wall. Her heart thudded in an onslaught of anger. She hesitated, feeling the sharp tangle of weeds on her sore feet. There was an uncanny silence behind her.

‘You’ll need these to get out of here, my lady.’ His voice came from where they had been sitting.

She knew he referred to her shoes but still she hesitated, wondering if it was worth risking more pain to her feet. The cloister walkways were littered with rubble.

‘Come on,’ he said, gently. ‘We’re going to have to talk if we’re to work together.’

‘We are not going to work together,’ she snapped. ‘I want nothing to do with this place. I’m going home.’

‘You’ll need your shoes, then.’

She turned and saw that he was sitting on the wall again with one leg on either side, holding up her shoes as bait. ‘Throw them,’ she said.

‘Come and collect them.’

She looked away, then approached, eyeing his hands. She reached the wall just as he dropped them over on to the paved side, beyond her reach. ‘Don’t play games with me, Sir Leon. I’m not a child,’ she snapped.

‘Believe it or not, I had noticed that, but I’m determined you shall conclude this discussion in the proper manner, my lady, whether you like the idea or not. Now, please be seated. I am not at all disturbed by the idea of having women near me, as you see. Actually, it’s something I’m learning to get the hang of.’

She knew he was being ridiculous. Any man who could move a woman so quickly and with such mastery was obviously no woman-hater. ‘You have a long way to go,’ she said, coldly. ‘About twenty years should be enough.’

The smile returned. ‘That’s better. We’re talking again. Now, my lady, I shall show you round the New House and we can discuss what’s to be done in the best chambers on the upper floors. The lower one…’

‘Sir Leon, you are under a misapprehension. I have already told you…’

‘That you are not staying. Yes, I heard you, but I have decided that you are. If Deventer has entrusted you with the organisation of his household here at Wheatley, and to furnish his rooms, then he must think highly of your abilities. Surely you’re not going to throw away the chance to enhance your credit with him and disappoint your mother, too? They would expect some kind of explanation from you. Do you have one available?’

‘Yes, sir. As it happens, I do. I intend to tell them that you are impossible to work with and that our intense dislike of each other is mutual. Indeed, I cannot help feeling that my stepfather guessed how matters would stand before he sent me here, so I shall have no compunction about giving him chapter and verse.’

‘Chapter and verse?’

‘You are detestable!’ she whispered, looking away.

‘And you, as you have reminded me, are a woman, and therefore you will hardly be deceived by my very adequate reasons.’

‘Not in the slightest. Nor would a child believe them.’

‘Then how would it be if I were to inform your parents of what happened last night?’ he said, quietly.

She had not been looking until now, but the real intention behind his appalling question needed to be seen in his eyes. He could not be serious. But his expression told her differently. He was very serious.

‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered, her eyes narrowing against his steady gaze. ‘Oh, yes, you would, wouldn’t you? And if I told them you were talking nonsense?’

‘Whose word would your stepfather take, d’ye think? Whose story would he prefer to believe, yours or mine? I could go into a fair amount of detail, if need be.’

She launched herself at him like a wildcat, her fingers curved like claws ready to rake at his cool grey eyes, his handsome insolent face, at anything to ruffle his intolerable superiority and to snatch back the memories he should never have been allowed to hold.

Her hands were caught and held well out of harm’s way and, if she had hoped to knock him backwards against the stone column, she now found that it was she who was made to sit with one at her back while her arms were slowly and easily twisted behind her.

His arms encircled her, his face close to hers, and once again she was his captive and infuriated by his restraint. ‘And don’t let’s bother about talk of killing me if I should lay a finger on you because I intend to, lady, one way or another. You threw me a careless challenge earlier. Remember?’

Mutely, she glared at a point beyond his shoulder.

‘Yes, well I’ve accepted it, so now we’ll see how much skill is needed to tame you, shall we?’

She was provoked to scoff again. ‘Oh, of course. That’s what it’s all about. First you pretend to be concerned with duty, yours and mine, and then you try threats. But after all that, it’s a challenge, a silly challenge you men can never resist, can you? How pathetic! What a victory in the eyes of your peers when they hear how you took on a woman single-handed. How they’ll applaud you. And how the women will sneer at your hard-won victory. Did you not know, Sir Leon, that a man can only make a woman do what she would have done anyway?’ She had never believed it, but it added some small fuel to her argument.

‘Ah, you think that, do you? Then go on believing it if you think it will help. It makes no difference, my beauty. Deventer sent you down here with more than his new house in mind, and somewhere inside that lovely head you have some conflicting messages of your own, haven’t you, eh?’

Frantically, she struggled against him, not wanting to hear his percipient remarks or suffer the unbearable nearness of him again. Nor could she tolerate his trespass into her capricious mind. ‘Let me go!’ she panted. ‘Loose me! I want nothing to do with you.’

‘You’ll have a lot to do with me before we’re through, so you can start by regarding me as your custodian, in spite of not wanting me. Deventer will approve of that, I know.’

‘You insult me, sir. Since when has a custodian earned the right to abuse his charge as you have abused me?’

‘Abuse, my lady? That was no abuse, and you know it. You’d stopped fighting me, remember.’

‘I was exhausted,’ she said, finding it increasingly difficult to think with his eyes roaming her face at such close quarters. ‘You insulted me then as you do now. Let me go, Sir Leon. There will never be a time when I shall need a custodian, least of all a man like you. Go and find someone else to try your so-called skills on, and make sure it’s dark so she sees you not.’

‘Get used to the idea, my lady,’ he said, releasing her. ‘It will be with you for as long as it takes.’ He picked up her shoes and held them by his side. ‘Fight me as much as you like, but you’ll discover who’s master here, and I’ll have you tamed by the end of summer.’

‘A most unseemly summer, Sir Leon, if I intended to stay. But, you see, I don’t. Now, give me my shoes.’ She would have been surprised and perhaps a little disappointed if he had obeyed her, yet the temptation to nettle him was strong and her anger still so raw that she would have prolonged even this petty squabble just to win one small point. As it turned out, the victory was not entirely hers.

‘Ask politely,’ he said.

‘I’ll be damned if I will! Keep them!’

Her moment of recklessness was redeemed by voices that reached them through the open arch that had once been a doorway, the way she had entered. Lydia and Elizabeth were looking for her. ‘My lady?’ they called. ‘Where are you?’

‘Here,’ she called back. ‘Elizabeth, ask Sir Leon prettily for my shoes, there’s a dear. He’s been kind enough to carry them for me.’ Without another glance at her self-appointed custodian, she held up one foot ready for its prize. ‘Such a gentleman,’ she murmured, sweetly.

It was better than nothing. But she could not bring herself to elaborate on the scene to Lydia, who was not taken in by Sir Leon’s stiff bow or by her mistress’s attempt at nonchalance, her blazing eyes and pink cheeks.

‘We’re staying, then,’ said Lydia, provocatively.

‘Certainly not!’ Felice told her, surreptitiously probing along her arms for more bruises. ‘We’re getting out of here at the first opportunity. Why?’ She glanced at her maid’s face. ‘Don’t tell me you’d like to stay.’

‘Well…’ Lydia half-smiled ‘…I’ve just discovered that he has a very good-looking valet called Adam.’

‘Oh, Lydie! Don’t complicate matters, there’s a love.’

Another reason for Felice’s reserve was that her discord with Sir Leon had now acquired a sizeable element of personal competition in which the prize was to be her pride, a commodity she was as determined to hold on to as he apparently was to possess. Removing herself from the field of contest would indicate that it was probably not worth the fight, leaving him to be the victor by default. And naturally, he would believe her to be afraid of him.

Perhaps even more serious was his threat to make Lord Deventer aware of their first encounter from which she had emerged the loser. While her stepfather would undoubtedly clap his surveyor on the back for taking advantage of such a golden opportunity, not to mention his night-time vigil, she herself would be severely censured for such conduct, irrespective of its initial purpose. The thought of Lord Deventer’s coarse laughter brought waves of shame to her face enough to make any castigation pleasant by comparison. He would find her a husband, one who was more concerned about the size of her dowry than her reputation.

As for Sir Leon, any man who could use such an intimate and enigmatic incident as a threat was both unprincipled and despicable; he must know that that alone would be enough to keep her at Wheatley. Still, there was nothing to stop her making him regret his decision, though she expected that future encounters would be both rare and brief. Except to Lord Deventer, the man had absolutely nothing to recommend him.

The news that men had been seen traipsing through the kitchen garden had intrigued her until she discovered at suppertime that they had been repairing the gap in the wall by the side of the river path. And when she had asked by whose orders—it was, after all, in her domain—she had been told it was by Sir Leon’s.

She might have let the matter rest at that; it would not do to display an inexplicable curiosity. But in the comforting darkness of her curtained bed, the soft images of the previous night took unnatural precedence over the day’s conflicts and would not leave her in peace. It was as if, in the darkness, they were beyond regret. She had now seen the man with whom she had been entangled and, although hostile, it was not difficult for her to recall the way he had held, caressed and kissed her, nor to remember how her own body had flared out of control before the sudden quenching of prudence. In the dark, shame did not exist.

With only the moon to watch, she took Flint and Fen quietly downstairs out of the front door and round through the kitchen courtyard to the back of the house, the reverse of last night’s frantic journey. At the entrance to the garden she stopped, confronted by the derelict place washed by moonlight where dear Timon’s memory had been cruelly disturbed by one insane moment of bliss, the like of which she had never known with him. Was it because of his absence? Her longing? She thought not, but no one need know it. She need not admit it again, even to herself.

One of the deerhounds whined, then the other, both suddenly leaving her and bounding up the overgrown path into the darkness. Incensed by their preference for rabbits rather than her, she took a step forward, yelling into the silvery blackness, ‘Flint! Fen! Come back here, damn you!’

They returned at the trot, ears flattened and tails flailing apologetically, but shattering her reminiscences and making her aware of their absurdity. ‘Come!’ she said, severely. ‘Stupid hounds.’

This time, her return was unhurried and more thoughtful.

Had the next day been any other but Sunday, there would have been a good chance of avoiding the cause of her sleepless moments, but churchgoing was never an option unless one intended to attract the disapproval of the vicar and his church-wardens. Furthermore, as a close relative of the abbey’s owner, Felice had a duty to attend.

She had had her hair braided and enclosed by a pearl-studded gold-mesh cap that appeared to be supported by a white lace collar. Over her elegant farthingale she wore a light woollen gown of rose-pink, a soft tone that complemented the honey of her flawless skin. As the early morning mist had not yet cleared, she wore a loose overgown of a deeper pink lined with grey squirrel, and she assumed Sir Leon’s long examination of her to be approval of her outfit. But, as she had feared, she was given no choice of where to sit, the better benches being at the front and the church already well-filled. So his, ‘Good morrow, my lady,’ had to be acknowledged as if all were well between them.

Fortunately, there had been no time for more. The vicar, a lively and well-proportioned middle-aged man, was nothing like the sleepy village priest she had half-expected, and it was not until after the service when introductions were made that Felice discovered he was married to the lady who had been sitting beside her.

‘Dame Celia Aycombe,’ Sir Leon presented the lady, ‘wife of the Reverend John Aycombe, vicar of Wheatley.’

Knowing of the new queen’s objections to married clergy, Felice was surprised. Those who defied the royal displeasure usually kept themselves quietly busy in some isolated village which, she supposed, was what the Aycombes were doing. She had been equally surprised to see that Sir Leon’s unwelcoming steward, Thomas Vyttery, had been assisting the vicar, and to discover that he also was married.

Dame Celia introduced the woman who had been sitting next to her and who had been craning forward in perpetual curiosity for most of the service. ‘Dame Audrey Vyttery,’ she said to Felice, who saw a woman nearing her forties who must in her youth have been pretty when her eyes and mouth had still remembered how to smile. She was slight but over-dressed, and spangled with brooches and ribbons almost from neck to toe. Whereas the plumpish contented figure of Dame Celia held only a pair of leather gloves and a prayer book to complete her outfit, Dame Audrey fidgeted nervously with a pomander on a golden chain, an embroidered purse, a muff, a prayer book and a quite unnecessary feather fan. Acidly, she enquired whether Felice was to stay at Wheatley permanently and, if so, would she remain in the Abbot’s House? She had understood Sir Leon to be moving in there.

Catching the direction of the enquiry, Felice put her mind at rest while speaking clearly enough for Sir Leon to hear. ‘No, Dame Audrey. Certainly not. Indeed, I’m making plans to leave soon. This is merely a brief visit to check on progress for Lord Deventer.’ Surprisingly, she thought she detected something like relief in the woman’s eyes, but Dame Celia was vociferous in her reaction to the news.

Her pale eyes widened in surprise. ‘Surely not, my lady. This will be May Week, when we have our holy days and games. You’ll not return before we’ve given you a chance to see how we celebrate, will you?’

‘Of course she’ll not!’ The answer came from halfway down the nave where the energetic vicar approached them in a flurry of white. Billowing and back-lit by the west door, he bore down upon them like an angelic host. ‘She’ll not, will she, Sir Leon? No one leaves Wheatley during the May Day revels, least of all our patron’s lovely daughter.’

Sir Leon, who appeared to find Felice’s denial more entertaining than serious, agreed somewhat mechanically. ‘Indeed not, vicar. I’ve already told her she must stay.’

‘Good…good.’ The vicar beamed. ‘That’s settled, then.’

‘Then you approve of May Day revels, vicar?’ Felice said.

‘Hah! It makes no difference whether I approve or not, my lady. They’d still do it. I believe half the fathers and mothers of Wheatley were conceived on May Eve. Swim with the tide or drown, that’s always been my motto, and it’s stood me in good stead, so far, as you can see. I keep an eye on things, and so does my good lady here, and we baptise the bairns who’re born every new year. That’s probably why the church is so full. Now, have you seen the new buildings yet, my lady? A work of art, you know.’