Taking Liberties by Diana Norman

Author:Diana Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

‘ONLY a little cheese and fruit tonight.’ After the landlord’s funeral, she had been required, for form’s sake, to partake of a pasty or patty, or whatever they called the thing, and was not hungry.

Joan, who had drunk too freely, had gone to bed.

‘Shall I therve it in the Great Hall, your ladyship?’

‘Of course.’ She always ate there; she hoped there was no meaning in his question. ‘And send Mrs Green to me.’

When he’d gone, she crossed to the throne chair and made sure that its bolts were firmly in place. If the Frenchman disregarded her refusal to dine with him and came for her by way of the shaft he would find himself both mistaken and locked out. She must get the thing bricked up; she would not be prey to villains who thought to come and go as they pleased.

A rogue, she thought. A rogue and an actor. His speech at the inn praising the late Mr Hobbs had been a performance, a compelling one—which was why she’d been unable to drag her eyes away from him as he made it—but a performance nevertheless.

She looked out of the wreckers’ window and saw La Petite Margot anchored in the bay, her riding light reflected in the water. On the beach, dark against the light sand, was a rowing boat, indicating that whoever had come ashore was still ashore.

He will be at the Pomeroy Arms, she thought, and went to sit in her favourite chair by the oriel window where scented night air came through its open lights with the sound of revelry from the inn.

She had been pleased by the encounter with her villagers, smugglers though they might be. Most courteous and respectful.

Why the Hedley woman had also been welcomed into their midst, she could not think, nor what she had wanted with Babbs Cove in the first place. Something to do with smuggling, perhaps; a woman like that would not scruple to make money from the trade. Well, she had gone away empty-handed as far as T’Gallants was concerned and it was to be hoped that this day would see the last of her.

Remembering how Mrs Hedley had seemed more at home among the people at the inn than she herself, the Dowager experienced . . . what was it? Wistfulness? Jealousy? But, of course, she was a common woman among commoners and spoke their language. Inevitably, she herself must remain isolated by her class from the people down there who talked and laughed together.

The loneliness of privilege, she thought, the privilege of loneliness.

It had been impossible not to contrast the funeral she had just attended with Aymer’s, the emotion and camaraderie present in the impoverished little church with the lack of it in the over-decorated chapel at Chantries.

Past Pomeroys were recorded here and there on its walls, though their bones lay in the private chapels of other houses in other counties. There had been no memorial at all to Sir Walter.

Mainly, the wooden plaques on the walls of Babbs Cove’s church bore witness to the price the sea demanded from its users.

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