Chapter Six

The Christmas boughs were set along the mantel and the fragrant candles placed in the spaces between the branches were lit. There were oranges there too, and small red paper flowers that had been brought in by a maid. It looked festive, and unusual, and Ariana felt her happiness at the sight bubble up.

A proper Christmas. A family Yule.

Her parents had never bothered with the tradition, and Henry Dalrymple had scorned her for even mentioning the thought.

But Christopher Northwell’s enthusiasm was catching and touching. People who loved Christmas loved life, she decided, for they had not given up on joy, had not settled into the nothingness of disappointment.

She admired his resilience, and his tenacity, and elected to make more of an effort with her own. Their tryst in the snow was still warming her blood and sending shards of delight through her, adding to the heat that was rising in her with each passing moment.

He wanted her. He had said as much. And she wanted him back with a longing that was surprising.

She wished she had met him six years ago, when first she had returned to London—before the two ill-chosen and disastrous lovers, before her reputation had suffered as a consequence.

But perhaps there was such a thing as a second chance, and Christmas with all its promise and exaltation seemed particularly suitable.

Looking at the decorated green boughs, she smiled. And Christopher Northwell caught her eyes, his brows raised in question.

‘Merry Christmas, Ariana, and may the joy of the season stay with you all year long.’

‘Perhaps you are persuading me to think more of the tradition than I used to.’

‘Then I am glad for it. In America I once stayed with a family who celebrated Christmas by draping the walls of their cabin with evergreen garlands. The decorations were all natural. Little pine cones, nuts and bright bittersweet berries that took the place of holly. They also had many activities, such as kissing under the mistletoe, storytelling and charades. Dinner would be of the best quality possible, including mincemeat pie and plum pudding made with fruits that grew close by in the forest.’

Ariana could imagine it—a far-off Christmas in the woods of a new land, full of all the games, decorations, food and fun that she had never known. She wished all of a sudden that there might be mistletoe hung above them here—a way of getting closer again, sharing laughter.

She was so tired of trying to survive on her own, picking at the small bits of the life she had been left with, keeping her head down, trying to be brave.

Christopher Northwell was showing her a life that could be lived if she took a chance and simply reached for it—left the past behind and moved forward without looking back.

As her aunt and the Duke returned from their viewing Ariana knew that there were as many undercurrents in the Northwell family as there had ever been in her own: a very public scandal with the burning of Stevenage, and the more private battle of suicide disguised as an accident.

The Duke looked as though he had barely weathered these things. He looked as broken as she was, and Ariana felt a kinship with him.

‘You have only been in London for six years or so, I hear, Mrs Dalrymple? Do you enjoy the city?’

North’s father asked this as he reached for a glass of brandy. Ariana noticed that his hand shook quite badly.

‘I always thought I did, but coming here to the country and seeing the beauty and the peace...’ She stopped, suddenly unsure as to what she intended with her answer.

‘My wife loved it here, too...’

There was a hesitation after that, a quick glance towards his son and a decided withdrawal. The Duke had not directly addressed his son once in all the time she had been in his company, but now Christopher Northwell tempered his father’s words with his own.

‘Loved it enough to die for it.’

Unexpected words. Jagged and furious.

The brandy spilt as the Duke slammed it down on the small table beside him. ‘Loved it enough to understand that it needed an heir, too.’

With a short click of his heels the Earl departed the room.

‘This family obviously has its troubles.’ Her aunt said this to Ariana as they readied themselves for dinner. ‘Odette Northwell made painting after painting of the fire in her studio, until there were too many to count, stacked as they were one on top of another. Her son’s face stares out of the flames in nearly every one of them, contorted and disbelieving.’

‘What are you saying, Aunt Sarah?’

‘I think she had gone mad. I think when she finally threw herself off the top of the Stevenage ramparts a few months after returning here she welcomed death because she had lost her son. And I think the Duke blames the Earl for her madness and her dislocation. They don’t speak, Ariana, have you noticed that?’

‘Or when they do it’s with anger. It is why the Earl invited us, I imagine. He wants to try to mend bridges.’

‘Well, it’s not working. If anything, having us here seems to have aggravated things further. The Duke told me Odette wrote to her son every week when he was in America, and yet she never received one answer.’

A new mystery. The Earl had not struck her as a harsh man, or a resentful one. Why would he not reply to the mother whom he said he had loved? Why would he arrive home only after her death?

‘Were there other paintings that held a different subject matter?’

‘A few. One of a dog, and another of a cottage in sight of Stevenage, with its silhouette looming in one corner. They were both propped on easels, which is why they were so prominent. The Duke asked me if I thought they would fetch a good price in London. It made me wonder about the fact that although he has considerable assets he may need ready cash.’

‘His son is said to have come home with more than a fortune...’

‘Perhaps he does not wish to share it?’

‘Christopher Northwell was adamant that he wanted to make peace with his father.’

‘But he has not. Every word that passes between them is toned in fury. If there is no significant improvement on the morrow then I think we should leave, Ariana.’

‘Leave?’

The word went round and round in her head. Leave the hope of another kiss? Leave the Earl in the heartbreak of his discordant family? Leave him to weather the storm without anchor, without anyone on his side?

Because she was, she realised suddenly, on his side—cheering him on, willing him to find at Stevenage some sort of a home that would not send him rushing back to the Americas.

‘You look pale, my dear. I hope you are not coming down with a cough.’

Turning at the words, Ariana caught herself in the mirror and barely knew the woman who stood in its reflection. Her eyes glittered and her lips looked swollen. She had chosen a gown tonight that covered almost all her skin, for hidden in the high folds of her collar were the marks of ardour...quiet, unseen things reddening with each passing hour.

This was a new, less broken version of her old self. And she smiled because in the transformation she felt only strength.

Dinner that evening was as difficult as the afternoon had been, with both men circling as though they wanted to rip the other’s head off.

Her aunt, in her own inimitable way, carried a great deal of the conversation and Ariana was glad of it—because she herself could never have managed it with such aplomb. Her heart ached for father and son, and the green boughs on the mantel, alight with candles, seemed to mock the cold uncertainty in the room and its lack of joy.

Finally she took her chance to speak quietly with Christopher Northwell as her aunt and the Duke talked of people known to them once in Society many years before.

‘For a man who is advocating a truce, you are making a poor show of it.’

He didn’t answer.

‘It’s Christmas, after all. A time of family and good will.’

This time he looked at her directly. ‘I thought you did not believe in the season?’

‘With candles and baubles threaded through pungent green fir only a few feet away from the table it is hard not to.’

‘An unwilling convert?’

‘I just want you to be happy.’

There—she had said it. Blurted it out with no finesse and little thought.

‘Why?’

‘Because I like you.’

He straightened and put down his fork. ‘Do you like me enough to want to kiss me again?’ The beginnings of a smile pulled at his lips.

‘Yes.’

‘Enough to join me in the library for a drink when the others go to their beds?’

She nodded, her heart beating so hard she thought he must see it in her chest under the thin velvet of her gown.

Her aunt seldom stayed up late, and she imagined the Duke would take to his bed early as well—though a sudden sound had her looking round to see that the older man was bent over and choking.

Her aunt was on her feet, but the Earl was quicker, wrapping his arms around his father’s chest and squeezing with force.

Nothing happened. The Duke’s face was set in surprise and fear, his mouth opening without sound as he pulled at his collar.

North tried again, this time making it a double movement so that the first squeeze came directly after the second. A piece of roast beef shot out from the Duke’s mouth and he began to breathe again—hoarse, desperate tugs of air at first, relaxing into more normal ones.

Tears ran down his cheeks, and as his hand slipped into his son’s the similarity between them was apparent. ‘Th-thank you, Christopher. If you had not been here...’

He couldn’t continue, the shock of his narrow escape making him shake.

‘You are all right now—although you might have a few bruises from my ministrations come the morning.’

‘I can live with those.’

The Duke had brushed the tears away and looked more himself. The distance was back, the isolation returned, though there was something in the air that was different. A sense of resolution, Ariana thought, on the part of the Duke. But she had no idea as to what that might mean.

He excused himself then, and a servant came forward to shepherd him off. The Earl stood there watching, with a look on her face that broke her heart.

‘It is lucky you knew a method to make certain he could breathe again,’ she said.

‘He’s a tough old thing. It would take more than a piece of beef to kill him.’

‘Though perhaps your mother’s death broke his heart?’

‘It was broken long before that, Ariana.’

Picking up his drink, he finished it in one swallow—just as her aunt stated her intention of going up to her room and resting.

‘All this excitement has exhausted me.’ Aunt Sarah’s voice sounded small.

Then there was just the two of them, and the servants fussing around, cleaning up the shattered glass that had fallen from the table and putting away the food and plates.

When both her aunt and his father were gone North held out his hand and turned to her. ‘Come—the library will be warmer and it is a much nicer room.’

She took his fingers and wondered at the coldness in them.

The library was a beautiful space, small and well furnished, and the leather chairs near the blazing fire were welcoming. All over the walls were pictures of sunny landscapes and gardens, and an earlier version of Stevenage Manor, with no flames in sight.

‘Your mother did these?’

‘She did.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Fragile. Uncertain. Loving. Needy.’

‘Everyone is a mix.’

‘Are you?’

The question was a serious one, so Ariana took some time to answer.

‘I think I am a hidden person and have been for a long while.’

‘Secrets do that to one, I suppose. Veiling what has happened for fear of what might occur next is too important.’

‘Like the glass star you gave me...full of prisms that show parts of it from different angles but never the whole.’

‘There’s protection in that, I suppose. No one is ever all good.’

‘But neither are they all bad.’

His smile reassured her.

‘I like talking to you, Ariana. I like being with you. More than any other person I have known.’

‘Thank you.’

He smiled again. ‘Come with me to America. Come and see a different land.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you are asking...’

‘Do you not?’

He leaned across and took both her hands in his. He was about to speak when a servant came rushing in to find him.

‘It’s the Duke, my lord. He has insisted on sitting up on the roof and I cannot get him to come in again.’

North was on his feet immediately, and she followed, up one flight of stairs and down a corridor. The window of the Duke’s bedchamber was wide open. Small drifts of snowflakes were coming in to the room, and two manservants hovered by the lintel.

‘If you will wait outside, Mrs Dalrymple and I will deal with this.’

The servants did as he asked and then it was only them and the old Duke, perched a few feet away on the roof, his feet bolstered by the raised stones that ringed the lower end of the guttering.

In one easy movement the Earl vaulted the window ledge and joined his father, sitting next to him but not touching him at all.

North wanted to grab him and hold on tight. He wanted to cradle him and rock him and make him understand that his mother had never meant any of it. But he wasn’t sure if his words would incense his father or calm him.

‘I won’t jump, Christopher. I just want to sit here for a while and remember.’

‘Remember Mama?’

‘Remember our family a long time ago, when things were good.’

‘She was sick, Papa. She didn’t understand what she was doing. She loved Stevenage, I think, but her demons were stronger.’

His father laid his head in his hands and breathed out. ‘And I let her get away with it. I let her ruin you.’

‘It was not your choice.’

‘Wasn’t it? You were crucified for our secrets. You bore the brunt of your mother’s madness with the scars on your arms and your isolation...’

He didn’t seem to be able to carry on.

‘I’ve survived—prospered, even. America is good for me and to me. Without it I’d have been like Andrew Shawler, directionless and lost. The burning of Stevenage did not break me, Papa, and what happened next was my choice.’

‘No.’ His father’s fisted hand slammed down. ‘It was my shame. The shame of wanting your mother to survive above all else. And that was wrong because I failed you.’

‘You protected her, just as I did. We both did that because we could do nothing else and she needed help. It’s Christmas, Father, the season of goodwill and new beginnings. Let’s make one now—tonight, this Christmas. I think Mama would be pleased in her place above if we should agree to bury bad feelings and concentrate on what is left between us, now and in the future.’

He watched his father nod.

‘She would have been pleased to meet Mrs Dalrymple, too, Christopher, I am sure of it. She is the only woman I have ever seen you truly happy with. And she is strong. Like you are. Together you will be invincible.’

North felt his words as a warmth. ‘Come inside now, Papa. It’s cold out here.’

He put his hand out and his father grasped his fingers tightly, almost as if he might never let go.

Ariana was waiting at the window, her eyes worried.

‘It’s fine. Father just wanted to remember my mother at Christmas.’ He said this as they climbed back inside.

‘I understand,’ she returned, and her smile lit up the room around them, making him wonder just how much of the conversation on the roof she might have heard.

But it didn’t matter. Soon there would be no secrets whatsoever between them.

In the library again, after seeing his father into the hands of his servants, North looked tentative—a man who was thinking of words to say and searching for the right ones.

Ariana had not been able to hear much of his conversation with his father from her place in the room, but had heard the mention of his mother more than a few times. She sat and waited, her fingers clenched.

‘I am not quite as people imagine me, Aria. The rumours—’ He stopped, as though taking stock. ‘My mother was different. I am sure you must have heard. Everybody said so.’

He waited until she agreed.

‘The thing is she was also...mad is the wrong word, I think. Perhaps delusional is a better one.’

‘Delusional about what?’

‘About things that were trying to get into Stevenage Manor to hurt us. Hurt Papa and me. She thought there were demons and she wanted to stop them. By fire. She thought it was the only way.’

Everything suddenly dropped into place.

‘It was her and not you.’

His eyes looked desperate, and the pulse in his throat was thumping.

‘You took the blame for your mother?’

‘I did. Because she could not have weathered it and neither could my father.’

‘You tried to put the fire out?’

‘I got the horses out of the stables, but after that... Fire has a sound to it, and a smell, and when the flames reached higher than the rooftops I knew I was defeated.’

She imagined him there, beating back flame as well as fury and horror and sadness. She imagined him afterwards too, crucified and alone, burnt and banished, the son of broken people in a circumstance that was unthinkable.

‘I love you, North.’

The words came simply, quiet and true, one after the other, bare and honest, with no hidden meaning and nothing held back.

‘I am not a saint.’

‘You have told me that before, and I say again that I do not require you to be one.’

‘But I am a man who will love you in the way that you deserve, with care and passion and devotion. For ever.’

She began to cry, because it was all she had ever wanted. He was all she had ever wanted.

‘Will you marry me, Ariana, as soon as we are able?’ He lifted the gold ring off his middle finger and held it out to her as a token of all he promised. The diamond in the gold winked in the light. ‘I don’t want a big wedding but I want a quick one, here at Stevenage, as soon as I can acquire a special licence.’

‘Yes!’ Throwing her arms around his neck, she felt herself being lifted and held close. ‘I’ve loved you from the first moment of meeting you, North.’

He breathed out—as if he had been holding everything in for far too long, as if Odette had finally been freed from the place inside him. Trust and love was a formidable thing...a force that could not be chipped away by doubt.

Then his lips came down across her own, and the same joy and elation that she’d known every time he had kissed her returned. But this time there was also the knowledge of love, and it was a powerful force.

He shoved the lock into place as he passed the door. One of his legs disengaged the pile of cushions on the large leather sofa, and his fingers were at the small pearl buttons along her back, causing the gold wool of her gown to fold back. Next he slipped off the sleeves of her silk petticoat and untied her corset with skill. Her breasts came loose and into his hands, waiting there to receive them, their full flesh goose-bumped with nerves.

Would he like what he was seeing? She was twenty-five, after all, and no longer young...

‘You are so beautiful...more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen or dreamed about.’

His voice was hoarse, emotion threaded through the words, and then his mouth came down upon one nipple, softly at first, and then with more ardour. Passion rolled through her and she felt the years of sadness washed away by love.

‘I love you so much, North, that it hurts.’

She clenched at his hair, saw the darkness of it contrasted against the white of her skin. His fingers were kneading her other breast, so that sensation made her stiffen, searching for more, wanting what she could feel coming, rushing towards her.

Then it was there, breaking over her in hot waves of airlessness, a feeling rising from within and covering her as she stretched out for it, willing it to last.

His hand was before her, one finger brushing the tears from her eyes, another tracing the line of her cheek. Telling her without speaking that she was cherished and that he would always keep her safe.

She felt as if she was floating into him...as if reality had been suspended and the whole world lived just in them and just in here.

‘I want more.’

He laughed.

‘I want you to show me how you do this...how you make me feel beautiful.’

The air around them became quieter, all humour fleeing. ‘I might not be able to stop, Ariana, if—’

She raised a finger to his lips. ‘I don’t want you to.’

‘You are sure?’

‘More sure than of anything else in my life.’

His fingers loosened more of the buttons down her back and she felt the fabric pool around her feet. Left in her corset, stockings, garters and shift, she watched him. What would come next.

Unexpectedly he swore, a ripe and heartfelt curse, and her hands crossed her chest in self-protection.

But he shook his head. ‘Even Aphrodite would not hold a candle to you, my love, and she was said to be matchless.’

His fingers came to her waist and he pushed all the clothes away, leaving her bare and vulnerable.

‘No, the goddess of pleasure and passion would pale against your beauty, the sheen of your skin, the curve of your breasts, the softness here and here...’

He stroked her stomach, and then her thighs, before finding the warmth between her legs. All the time watching to see if she might refuse him. He hoped she could not feel how his heart beat in his chest, could not see how he was struck by desire and also thankfulness. But she did not waver. Rather her legs opened and allowed him in, her eyes closing and her head falling back.

Trust.

She gave it without words, but it was there.

He wished he could lay her down in a bed of rose petals as dewy as her skin, but already his manhood was hard. Undoing the buttons on his fall front, he allowed it space. The Aubusson carpet underfoot would have to do, and the fire would warm her.

Outside, December rain hit at the windows—an oncoming storm making itself felt.

Just them. He had never before lived in the moment like this, but the past and the future were lost in the now as he lifted her against him, her clothes left behind, only beribboned garters and sheer stockings left.

He felt indomitable in a way he never had before, with the truth of who he had been, all his secrets uncovered into light. Well, not all of them, he thought quietly. His scars from the fire lay hidden still beneath the linen of his shirt.

Laying her down, he followed, pulling her to him so that their bodies touched, the heat of her propelling him on as he sought her centre. Poised on the edge of softness, he waited, tipping her face to his own and letting her understand his need.

‘I love you.’

He said it as a promise, whispered so that she could hear the echo of feeling in his blood and his bones. Then he was within her tightness, seeking entry, slick and hot. Deep and deeper. His hands under her hips tilted her, so that still he penetrated, fully embedded now, inseparable.

‘North...?’

She breathed the question and his lips came down, taking the word inside him, his answer silent.

He moved. There was no latitude or freedom from such a surge. He wanted Ariana Dalrymple fully as his—wanted to feel her sex cling around his own, asking for more, needing relief as much as he did.

Her fingernails dug into his back beneath the shirt, small pinpricks of pain that drove him on, his breath ragged with need.

‘Come with me, sweetheart, to the very edge of life.’

He felt her release even as his own started.

She was lost in sensation, floating in a world she had never known, taken by North to a place that was wondrous and astounding. All the pieces inside her were letting go of each other, until there was only a thread remaining in a tide of heat and promise and feeling.

Even breathing was difficult as her body stiffened, the far-off response coming closer and taking over her entire body, waves of it streaking inside her like magic. He held her still as she collapsed down on to the carpet, soft beneath her, and she held his hand across her stomach, finding the echoes and pressing.

The resonance continued, and when she opened her eyes she found his upon her, watching and knowing. There were no words for what had just happened, what was still happening, the wetness between them and the heat. She could only stare and find in the depths of his gaze a pledge that was for ever.

It was astonishing and shocking. For so many years she had thought lying with a man meant hurt and shame and suffering. Yet here, now, it was beautiful and fine.

She felt tears pool in her eyes.

‘Are you hurt, Aria?’

His words were given in concern.

She shook her head. ‘No, I am healed—and that is something I never thought I could be.’

‘By love?’

She reached her arms around his neck and drew him in, glad to feel his lips against her face and then on her mouth.

This kiss was different again—softer, more gentle, with a cherishing carefulness that was so very wanted.

He hardened inside her and she smiled, the very thought of it all happening again bringing a pleasure that was wondrous. ‘Love me, North.’

‘I do.’

She woke to birdsong in a room she had not seen before—a large chamber with a substantial fire burning and shelves of books on each wall. The bed was enormous, with four ornately carved wooden posts around it and dark green velvet drapes caught back by tassels of braided gold.

North lay beside her, still in his unbuttoned white linen shirt, though his trousers had long gone. He was asleep, his face gentler in slumber than it was when awake.

As if aware of her regard, he opened his eyes.

‘Good morning.’ His voice was rough with sleep and there was a dancing lightness in his gaze. ‘Did you rest well, my love?’

She felt the blood rise quietly in her cheeks. ‘You know that I did not.’

‘You were wonderful, Ariana. Wonderful and uninhibited.’

His hand dived beneath the crisp sheets and the covering of a feather quilt and she felt it trail across her stomach, then lower. With care, she opened to him, and he came again to the secret place that was waiting. She felt him push in further, stretching her, one finger and then another, the swollen flesh gathering around him.

‘I want you.’

She smiled, and closed her hand around his sex as she guided him home.

Much later she awoke again to hear rain. Heavy rain that darkened the morning light. The clock in the corner showed it to be the hour of eight. Still early enough to escape detection. Still early enough for a little more time.

His shirt was gone now, pulled off in the heat of their passion, and the scars on his arms were easily seen even in the gloom. Fire had ravaged him, leaving the skin rippled and misshapen, and his absolute beauty everywhere else made it even more shocking.

Knowing he was awake, she reached out to touch, feeling the pain he must have known with a jolt and understanding his bravery.

‘The fire spread to the stables,’ he said as she traced one long indentation. ‘I saved the horses.’

‘Who tended you...after...?’ She could barely speak.

‘Alistair Botham. He took me to Wales, to his seat there, and nursed me better. When I could walk, I left for America.’

‘You did not see your mother again?’

She knew he had when shards of pain crossed into his eyes.

‘My parents came to the Harding seat. They came to make sure my mother’s name remained...untainted. She could not have borne the slurs otherwise, or the threat of being sent to a place that might contain her madness. I agreed. My father took me aside and made sure that I realised she would not be long for this world. He told me that afterwards I could come home again.’

‘Still a betrayal?’

‘I don’t think he saw it like that, then. I think he viewed it as a duty.’

‘But not his?’

‘My mother wouldn’t have survived a day without him.’

‘So they sacrificed you instead?’

‘My mother left me a note before she threw herself off the roof. I found it here in my room, tucked into my writing desk, when I returned. She wrote it in one of her moments of lucidity and told me that she was sorry but she could no longer live at Stevenage, with all its memories. She also said that love was not always an easy thing and she thanked me.’

Ariana’s hand rested on North’s and she pressed down. ‘Yet sometimes it can be an easy thing, can’t it? It is here, with us.’

‘Strength banishes the difficult, I think. That is what I loved about you when we first met, Ariana?’

‘In that doorway on Regent Street?’

‘You didn’t apologise for who you were perceived to be, and it was so very liberating to be with a woman who was unrepentant even in the face of gossip.’

‘Imagine what they might say of us now—here in your bed, dishevelled after a whole night of lovemaking.’

‘I think every man I have ever known would be jealous of me—but I also think we should be married quickly to avert more rumour.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as I can procure a licence.’

She began to laugh. ‘You don’t do things slowly, my lord, or in halves.’

‘Indeed, I don’t, my beauteous will-be wife,’ he said, and his mouth came over hers to seal the bargain.