I appeared from nowhere!’
‘Like an angel from heaven,’ he said. ‘Come, I must escort you home. It is late, and the snow is beginning to fall again.’
Georgia tilted her head back and let a few large flakes land on her face. ‘It’s so refreshing. Thank you, Mr St Clair. Since meeting you I have had a lovely evening. We can walk to my uncle’s house, if you like – he lives in Brunswick Terrace.’
Bartholomew noted she had not said ‘we live’ – clearly she did not feel as though her uncle’s house was her home.
‘On a fine evening, Miss Holland, I could think of nothing better than to take your arm and stroll along the promenade as far as Brunswick. But I shall have to postpone that pleasure for another day. Your feet will freeze, even more than they already have. Look, we are in luck, here is an empty cab.’
He waved at the cabman who brought his horse to a skidding stop beside them. They climbed aboard and Georgia gave the address. She shivered and pressed her arm tightly against his. Minutes later the cab halted outside the grand terrace, its whitewashed walls gleaming in the wintry moonlight.
Bartholomew paid the cabman and asked him to wait. He helped Georgia down from the cab and led her up the entrance steps of her uncle’s house. The door opened as they approached, and a maid ushered them inside, into a grand hallway where the remains of a fire smouldered in the grate.
‘Oh, Miss Georgia, I am so glad you are back. Mr Holland were back a half hour ago and he said you had left the ball before him. I were fretting about you.’ She bustled around, taking Georgia’s cloak and exclaiming over the state of her shoes.
‘Agnes, I am perfectly all right. Kind Mr St Clair has been looking after me. We decided to walk part of the way home.’
The maid glanced accusingly at Bartholomew. She was a striking-looking woman, blonde like her mistress but with more mature features, as though she had grown into her looks. She was an inch or two taller, and looked, he thought, as Georgia might in a few years’ time, when she’d outgrown her childish playfulness. Beautiful, rather than pretty.
‘Sir, forgive me for speaking out of turn but my mistress were not wearing the right sort of shoe for a walk in the snow. See, the silk is ruined and her poor feet are froze. Sit you down here, Miss Georgia, and I will fetch a bowl of warm water to wash them.’ With another stern look at Bartholomew, she hurried along the hallway towards the kitchen stairs.
‘Agnes has been with me since I was fourteen. She does fuss, rather.’ Georgia sat on an uncomfortable-looking carved-back chair and rubbed at her feet. ‘But a warm foot-bath sounds just what I need. Perhaps, Mr St Clair, you would help me rub some life back into my toes?’ She looked up at him, a half-smile flirting with the corners of her mouth.
But Bartholomew was still gazing in the direction the maid had taken. For all Miss Holland’s coquettish ways, she was young and immature. Bartholomew was no stranger to women – he’d been near to proposing once to a merchant’s daughter in Bath, but she had accepted a better offer from a baronet’s son. He’d had a brief affair with the bored wife of a naval captain, until she tired also of him. And of course, there had been plenty of women of the night, who waited outside the Assembly Rooms to accompany lone men to their lodgings.
None of these women, however, had ever had quite the effect on him that the maid, Agnes, had. A thrill had run through him the moment his eyes met hers, leaving him hot with desire, his palms tingling, his heart racing. She was returning now, with the basin of water. She glared again at Bartholomew.
‘Sir, you are still here? You may think me bold to suggest it, but I think you ought to leave, afore the snow becomes too deep for cabs. I can ask the footman to fetch you a brandy if you need fortification before venturing out.’
He felt his blood thrill again at the forthrightness of the woman. A lady’s maid, who thought nothing of speaking to guests in her employer’s house, as though they were her wayward sons.
‘A brandy would be excellent, yes.’ He nodded at her, and she pulled on the bell-cord. A moment later a footman arrived, and Agnes sent him for the brandy. He was back a minute later, closely followed by Charles Holland, who had exchanged his captain’s jacket for a woollen dressing-gown.
‘Is that my niece back home at last? What do you think you are doing, keeping my staff up and waiting for you on such a night?’ He stopped in his tracks when he noticed Bartholomew. ‘Ah, I see. Sir, I thank you for bringing her home. Please, call on her again tomorrow morning. You will be most welcome.’ He nodded curtly and left.
Georgia smiled up at him. ‘You will come back tomorrow, won’t you? As my uncle said, you will be made most welcome.’
Bartholomew started. He’d almost forgotten about Georgia. The maid, Agnes, had filled his mind completely. But maids don’t have money, he reminded himself. And it was money he needed most. He dragged his gaze away from Agnes and returned Georgia’s smile.
‘Miss Georgia, you are forgetting yourself,’ scolded Agnes. ‘Come, dry your feet. I will help you upstairs. Sir, please ring the bell should you require anything more.’
Bartholomew gulped back the brandy brought by the footman, relishing the fiery warmth it brought to his belly. He watched as the two women crossed the black-and-white tiled hallway and made their way up the stairs. Each of them gave him one backwards glance – Miss Holland’s smile was cheeky and inviting; the maid’s glare was challenging, but with a half-smile and a raised eyebrow as though she had guessed the effect she’d had on him.
Without a doubt he would return tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that. He left his empty glass on a side table and let himself out of the house. Thankfully the cab was still there, though the cabman grumbled about how long he’d had to wait in the dreadful weather. Bartholomew gave the address of his lodgings in Kemptown and sat back, huddled in his cloak, planning his ideal future which involved both of the women he’d met that night.
Chapter Three: Hampshire, November 2012
I followed Vera Delamere through a tired 1970s kitchen into a large wood-panelled hallway, and then through to a cosy sitting room. She flicked on the lights, and crouched at the fireplace which was already laid with a mixture of logs and coal. As she struck a match, Harold shuffled in and sat down beside the fire, leaning his stick against the side of the mantelpiece.
‘Good-oh, we could do with a bit of warmth in here,’ he said, and she turned to smile fondly at him. They’d obviously been together for a very long time. I hoped Simon and I would be like them, one day. If we managed to resolve our differences and stay together long enough.
I looked around the room. A large built-in shelving unit occupied one wall. It was made of dark wood, and was clearly very old. It was beautiful.
‘That was here when we moved in,’ Mrs Delamere said, nodding at the shelves. ‘Riddled with woodworm, unfortunately, though we have had it treated.’
‘It’s gorgeous. I wonder if it was here when my ancestors lived here?’
‘I’ll go and make the tea,’ said Vera. ‘Sit down, Katie, do. By the fire, there. It’ll get going in a moment.’
I sat opposite Harold in a well-worn fireside chair. ‘This is a lovely cosy room.’
Harold
