One Unashamed Night

Her voice did not suit the hardness of her name though in its careful cadence he fancied he heard the whisper of secrets.

Bassingstoke? A Norfolk family and she had made mention of Brampton. He had heard something only last month about them, though he could not quite remember what. Would this woman hail from the same bloodline? The quiet strength in her voice had helped him with everything and she had not eaten any of the cake when he had failed to understand what it was she was offering and did not reach out. Even now the small scent of raisins and rum permeated the air and he wished he might have asked her to open her bag again and cut him a slice.

The thought made him smile, though in truth there was very little humour in their situation. If a carriage or a horseman did not pass by soon he would need to get going himself, for the breathing of the older woman was becoming more shallow, a sign that the cold was getting to her. At least the lady next to him seemed determined to accompany him and for that he was glad. He would need a set of good eyes on the frozen road, one that could see even a glimmer of light in any of the fields, denoting a farmhouse or a barn. In this cold any help was gratifying. He had looked for his own luggage outside but could not glean even a shape of it in the snow. Indeed, the carriage had dragged along for a good few seconds before it had tipped and his case might be anywhere. A pity! The clothes inside it would have been an extra layer that he would have to do without, though with the driver recovered he could ask for his cloak to be returned at least.

He listened to the rustle of Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke dressing, her arm against his as she wriggled into the extra layers. A thin arm, he realised, the bones of it fragile.

Finally she seemed ready. He wanted to ask her if she had a hat on. He wanted to know if her boots were sturdy. He voiced none of these questions, however, deciding that silence was the wiser option and that Mrs Bassingstoke seemed, even on such a short acquaintance, a rather determined woman and one sensible enough to wrap herself up warm against the elements.

Chapter Two

The weather had worsened when they slipped outside half an hour later, Taris Wellingham carefully replacing the door and patting wads of snow in the gaps that he felt along both edges.

Bea was relieved in a sense to be away from the carriage and doing something, the wait almost worse in the extreme cold than this concerted push of energy, though her heartbeat rose with the fear of being swirled away by the wind and lost into greyness.

As if he could read her mind his hand reached out and clamped across her own, pulling her with him towards the horses, who were decidedly jumpy.

His fingers skimmed across the head of the big grey nearest to him, and down the side to the leather trace, hardened by ice.

‘You take this one.’

He held his hand out as a step, and she quickly mounted, abandoning propriety to ride astride. Gathering the reins in tight, she stepped the horse away from the tree. Her hat was a godsend, the wide brim gathering flakes and giving her some respite from the storm. She watched as Taris Wellingham gained his seat and turned the horse towards her, his cloak once again in place and the hat of the younger man jammed in a strange manner down across his ears.

‘We’ll ride south.’

Away from the direction they had come, which was a sensible choice given the lack of any buildings seen for miles.

Please, God, let there be a house or a barn or travellers who knew the way well. Please, please let us find a warm and safe place and men who could rescue the others. Her litany to an everpresent and omnipotent deity turned over and over, the echoes of other unanswered prayers she had offered up over the years slightly disturbing.

No, she should not think such thoughts, for only grateful vassals of the Lord would be listened to. Had not Frankwell told her that? Squinting her eyes against the driving snow, she lay low across the horse, the warmth of its skin giving her some respite from the cold and she kept her mind very carefully blank.

Quarter of an hour later she knew she could go no further. Everything was numb. Taris Wellingham on the horse beside her looked a lot less uncomfortable, though she knew him to have on fewer clothes than she did. A man used to the elements and its excesses, she supposed. A man who strode through his life with the certainty that only came with innate self-assurance. So unlike her!

When the shapes of two travellers on horses loomed out of the swirling whiteness she could barely believe them to be real.

‘There…in front of us…’ she shouted, pointing at them and amazed that Taris Wellingham had as not yet reacted to the sighting. The shout of the newcomers was heard and they waited in silence as the men came abreast.

‘The coach from Colchester is late. We have been sent to find it. Are you some of that party?’

‘We are, but it is a good fifteen minutes back,’ Taris shouted. ‘The wheel sheared away…’

‘And the passengers?’

‘One dead and two more lie inside with the driver, who is badly injured.’

The other man swore.

‘Fifteen minutes back, you say. We will have to take them over to Bob Winter’s place for the night, then, but that’s another twenty or so minutes from here and you look as if you may not be able to stand the journey.’

‘What of the old Smith barn?’ the other yelled. ‘The hay is in and the walls are sturdy.’

‘Where is it?’ Taris Wellingham sounded tired, the gash on his head still seeping and new worry filled her.

‘Five minutes on from here is a path to the left marked with a white stone. Turn there and wait for help. We will send it when we can.’

When we can? The very thought had Bea’s ire running.

‘I cannot…’

But the others were gone, spurred on by the wind and by need and by the thick white blankets of snow.

‘It’s our only chance,’ Taris shouted, a peal of thunder underlining his reason. The next flash of lightning had her horse rearing up and though she managed to remain seated, the jolt worsened the ache of her lip. Tears pooled in her eyes, scalding hot down her cheeks, the only warmth in the frozen waste of the world.

‘I’m sorry.’ She saw him looking, his expression so unchanged she knew instantly that he was one of those men who loathed histrionics.

‘Look for the pathway, Mrs Bassingstoke. We just need to find the damn barn.’

Prickly. High-handed. Disdainful.

Dashing her tears away with the wet velvet of her cloak, she hated the fact that she had shown any man such weakness. Again.

The path was nowhere. No stone to mark it, no indent where feet might have travelled, no telltale breakage in the hedges to form a track or furrows in the road where carts might have often travelled.

‘Are you looking?’

Lord, this was the fifth time he had asked her that very question and she was running out of patience. She wondered why he had dismounted and was leading his steed, his feet almost in the left-hand ditch on the road. Feeling with his feet. For what? What did he search for? Why did he not just ride, fast in the direction they had been shown?

She knew the answer even as she mulled it over. It was past five minutes and if they had missed the trail…?

Suddenly an avenue of trees loomed up.

‘Here! It is here!’

He turned into the wind and waited.

‘Where? What do you see?’

‘Trees. In a row. Ten yards to the left.’

The stone was where the travellers had said it would be, but covered in snow it was barely visible, a marker that blended in with its background, alerting no one to the trail it guarded.

When Taris Wellingham’s feet came against it she saw the way he leant over, brushing the snow from the top in a strangely guarded motion, the tips of his fingers purple with the extreme and bitter cold. The stillness in him was dramatic, caught against the blowing trees and the moving landscape and the billowing swirls of his cloak. A man frozen in just this second of time, the hard planes of his face angled to the heavens as though in prayer.

Thank the Lord they had found the barn, Taris thought, and squinted against the cold, trying to see the vestige of a pathway, his eyes watering with the effort.

Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke’s teeth behind him chattered with an alarming loudness, though she had not spoken to him for the last few moments.

‘Are you able to make it to the barn?’ he asked, the concern in his voice mounting.

‘O…of c…c…course I c…c…can.’

‘If you need any help…?’

‘I sh…shan’t.’ Tears were close.

‘Are you always so prickly, Mrs Bassingstoke?’ Anger was easier to deal with than distress and with experience Taris had come to the realisation that a bit of annoyance gave women strength.

But this one was different, her silence punctuated now with sniffs, hidden he supposed by the muffled sound behind the thick velvet of her cloak.

A woman at the very end of her tether and who could blame her? She had not sat in the coach expecting others to save her or bemoaned the cold or the accident. She had not complained about the deceased passenger or made a fuss when she had had to vacate her seat to allow the driver some space. No, this woman was a lady who had risen to each difficulty with the fortitude of one well able to cope. Until now. Until an end was in sight, a warm barn with the hope of safety.

He had seen such things before in the war years in Europe, when soldiers after a battle had simply gone to pieces, the fact that they had remained unscathed whilst so many others had perished around them pushing them over the edge.

A place where Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke seemed to have reached.

He wished he could have scanned her face for a clue as to her state of well-being, but with only the near-silent sniffles he had little to go on.

How much further to go, he wondered, the snow deepening in the trail with every passing step, though an eddy in the wind against his face told him that a building must be near, the breeze passing over an edifice and rising.

His own awareness of the proximity of objects kicked in too, his cursed lack of sight honing other senses. Placing his hand against the solidness of wood, he thanked God for their deliverance and reached out for the bridle of his companion’s horse.

‘I will help you down.’

‘Th…thank y…you.’

Her hand came to his shoulder as he lifted his arms, fitting them around a waist that was worryingly thin. When he had her down she held on to him still, her fingers entwined in the cloth of his cape.

‘I c…can’t feel my f…feet,’ she explained when he tilted his head in question.

‘Then I’ll carry you.’ Hoisting her against him, he walked a few paces around the edge of the building, finding it open on the southern side, the horses following them in.

The smell of hay and silage was strong and another smell too. Chickens, he thought, listening for the tell-tale sound of scratching. Perhaps there might be eggs or grain here.

Taris liked the feeling of Beatrice-Maude’s breath against his collarbone, the warm shallowness of it a caress that surprised him. How old was this lady? When her hand rested against the smoothness of his skin, he felt a band of gold on the third finger of her left hand.

Worry engulfed him. Would her husband be mad with worry somewhere?

‘I c…can s…see that th…there are bl…blankets in the f…far corner, I th…think. Perhaps we c…could w…warm ourselves.’

Which corner? In the gloom of his vision Taris could detect nothing save the walls enclosing this space. Another thought heartened him. Perhaps if he let her down she might lead him to them.

When her feet touched the dirt floor Beatrice winced, the numbness now replaced by a pins-and-needles pain that made contact with anything unbearable. She could never in her whole life remember feeling this cold, the sheer pain of it seeping into her bones and making her heavy and sluggish. She almost crawled to the corner, glad to finally be off her feet; removing her boots, she burrowed into the warmth of a scratchy grey horse blanket.

But her clothes were wet and stiff and the cold that she thought might disappear suddenly increased with the change in circumstance.

Taris Wellingham at her side was peeling off his cloak, and the wet steamy shirt he had on followed it.

She looked away, her breath indrawn by the tone of muscle, the shaped contours attesting to the fact that he must spend much of his life out of doors.

‘Take your cloak off too,’ he said as he jumped under her blanket and heaped his cloak on top.

‘Wh…what are you d…doing?’ Panic lent a screeching sound to the query.

‘One can die of the cold in a matter of moments. Skin to skin we can warm each other.’

‘Sk…in to skin?’ Lord, that he should even suggest such a thing.

‘Feel this,’ he returned and placed her hand across her throat. A clammy coldness emanated from her, the beat of her heart beneath shallow and fast.

‘And then feel this.’

Now her fingers lay against his chest, the hair tickling her palm. But it was his heat that got to her, a blazing hotness that seemed to cover each and every part of him.

She could not pull away, could not make herself remember manners and propriety and comportment. All she wanted was to be closer and when he helped her take the cloak from her shoulders she did nothing to dissuade him.

‘How old are you?’ he said above the silence.

‘Tw…twenty-eight.’

‘And your husband?’

‘Is d…dead.’

‘Then I have no need to be concerned that an avenging swain will appear and challenge me to a duel.’

‘No, sir. It is only your w…warmth that I w…want.’

‘Good.’ His response was measured and brisk, her worries about anything more between them singularly ridiculous in the whole situation.

Of course he would not want more from her! She bent her head so that he might not see her blush. Lord, the thinness of her arms against his healthy shape was unattractive and her dress with the long sleeves was as wet as his shirt.

‘Take this off, too.’

‘I will n…not.’

In response he simply sat her up and unbuttoned the gown before slipping it from her. In the darkness she saw that the livid red scar near her elbow was difficult to make out. Still when his fingers touched the skin they lingered, his question of how this had happened almost a physical thing in the gloom.

‘I f…fell against a f…fence.’

‘And it was not tended?’

‘The doctor tried his hardest…’

A sharp bark of laughter confused her. Not humorous in any way. Just harsh. Critical.

Her stays and chemise and petticoat beneath were a little damp and she was pleased he did not insist she take them off too. She noticed after removing his boots he left his own trousers on, the wet fabric catching on the skin of her legs as they laid themselves down.

Together. Spooned. His back against her face. She could not help her hands wandering to the warmth.

‘Will the h…horses b…be s…safe?’

‘They will keep warm together if they have any sense.’

‘You h…have d…done this before? B…been caught in the s…snow, I mean?’ Lord, the clumsiness of her question made her stiffen. Of course he would have lain with a woman. Many women probably, with his fine face and his courage!

He did not seem to notice her faltering as he answered her question. ‘I fought in Europe in the Second Peninsular campaign and it often was colder there than in England. The men were not as soft as you are, though, when we lay down at night.’ A smile was audible in his voice.

A personal compliment! Bea left the edge of awkwardness alone and thought about other things: the sound of the horses nuzzling in, the snow outside, and a wind that howled through the rafters of the roof. All things to keep her mind off a growing realisation that the warmth was no longer concentrated solely in him.

To lie with a man in a snow-filled night, safe after adversity, a man who was neither sickly nor mean. A man with a man’s body, a man’s tastes, the smell of his skin woody and strong, his muscles even in the dimness defined and substantive.

So unlike Frankwell.

Years of celibacy suddenly weighed against opportunity; the widow Bassingstoke was presented with a fine handsome man and a night that would hold no questions.

The ghost of a smile played around her lips before sense reined it in. Of course she could not take advantage of the situation. She was a lady and a widow. Besides, already she thought his body had relaxed into sleep, the even cadence of his breath confirming it. To him she was nothing more than a warm skin to survive against. When the tip of her finger reached out to the ridge of his shoulder blade and traced the muscle in air, she wished that she might have been braver and truly touched him.

So unwise, another voice cautioned, the knowledge of her plainness leading only to a rejection that would be embarrassing to them both.

He came awake with a start. Where the hell was he? A leg lay across his stomach. A shapely leg by the feel of it, fully exposed almost up to the groin.

His groan took him by surprise, his manhood rising without any help from his mind.

Lord. Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke had a sensuality about her that was elemental. He had not felt it before with his tiredness and his worry, but here with the first slam of awareness he was knocked for six. It lay in her smell and the breath of trust against his chest. It lingered in the hair uncoiled from the tight knot he had felt before finding sleep and which now curtained across him, thick and curly. The line of her breasts too was surprising. The thinness of her waist and of her arms was not mirrored here, her fat abundance of soft womanhood moulded against him, her nipples through thin lawn grazing his own with a surprising result.

God. His erection had grown again, filling the space of his trousers with warmth and promise. God, he muttered once more as she moved in sleep, this time all but crawling on top of him in her quest for warmth. His sex nudged at her thighs and he did not stop it, the very sensation tightly bound up in the forbiddenness of the situation.

A quandary he had no former experience of. A stranger who seduced him even in her sleep, the smell of her wafting beneath his nose. Flowers and woman.

And trust. A powerful aphrodisiac in a man who had forgotten the emotion, forgotten the very promise of intimate closeness!

He opened his eyes as widely as he could, trying to catch in them a reflection of light. Any light. But the darkness was complete, the snow and wind blocking moonbeams with the time, by his reckoning, being not much past the hour of two.

The witching hour. The hour he usually prowled the confines of his house away from the stares of others, darkness overcoming disability and all of the lights turned down.

Here, however, he did not wish to rise. Here he wanted to stay still, and just feel. The incline of her chest, the tremor in her hands as if a dream might have crept into her slumber, the feel of her hair wound around his fingers, clamping him to her.

His!

This thin and sensible lass, with her twenty-eight years and her widowhood.

Was it recent? Had her husband just died, the ring she wore a reminder of all the happy years she now would never enjoy? Were there children? Did she rule a domain of offspring and servants with her sense and sensibility? A woman at the centre of her world and with no need for any other? Certainly not for a man with fading sight and the quickening promise of complete blindness!

His arousal flagged slightly, but regained ground when her fingers clamped on his own, anchoring her to him. A ship in a storm, and any port welcomed.

He could not care. The rush of desire and need was unlike any he had ever experienced. He needed to take her, to possess her, to feel the softness of her flesh as he pushed inside to be lost in warmth.

He rocked slightly, guilt buried beneath want. And then he rocked again.

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