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Now, wrapped in her old, woollen bedgown—something else Yvette was keen to burn—Juliet read her letters.
The first one was from an old school friend who now lived in Yorkshire. She smiled as she read about her days as a wife and mother to five boys. It seemed as if her friend never had a moment to herself, and Juliet envied her. Her own life, apart from the hospital, was quiet and isolated since last year when her husband had died. She had moved back to her childhood home while she was in mourning, although she was no longer officially so.
All the same, she couldn’t say the invitations were coming thick and fast. This was the house in which she had been born, but Juliet had never fitted into the local social scene. The scandal involving her and Lord Linholm had been eight years ago but it appeared no-one had forgotten it. And then there was her mother’s own disastrous decision. Was life here really so tedious that such a thing was still news? It frustrated her that people hadn’t moved on.
After their wedd
ing, Juliet’s husband had preferred to live in the Somerset county town of Taunton, and she had been more than happy to agree. She would have stayed there, but upon her husband’s death she’d been obliged to return to her childhood home. The house belonged to her—her father was dead—and although Juliet had had no real desire to move home, she’d had no choice. Her husband had spent almost all of his money—on her, if she was being honest—and now Juliet must live quietly if she was to live at all.
At first she had attempted to be happy with her quiet life, trying to reconnect with the village, and ignoring the sideways glances she attracted. Doctor Knowles was a kind man and valued her contributions to the hospital, and she felt needed. But lately things had changed. Not with Crevitch village, that never changed, but with Juliet herself. She had become restless.
It was an inner restlessness, and it seemed to stem from her meeting with Simon Linholm. Lady Linholm had brought him to the hospital after a particularly bad night with his injured leg, and Juliet happened to be there. Doctor Knowles soon ascertained there was an infection and dealt with it in his usual no nonsense manner. Simon was asked to stay at the hospital overnight so that he could be watched, and it was Juliet who had sat by his bedside.
Simon had soon recovered from his slight fever, and they had spent most of the night in friendly conversation about all manner of things. He had told her about his brother, whom he seemed to idolise, never realising that Juliet had once known Ash very well.
“He was a hero when he was with the army,” Simon had said proudly. “The troop he was with needed to clear a valley which lay between them and the main British army. The valley was manned by renegade French soldiers who would ride out at night, attack swiftly, and then retreat to their hideaway. They had been causing havoc. No one was brave enough to take this particular band on, until Ash came along. They were asking for volunteers, and everyone knew it was likely to be a mission with no survivors. It was my brother, young as he was, who put up his hand. He led his fellows through that valley and they swept the renegades before them. Against all odds, they were victorious.”
Juliet remembered reading about Ash’s heroic act in the newspapers. At the time she had known she would be heartbroken if he died—luckily he recovered from his injuries. She’d thought of writing to him, but by then she was married to another man and it seemed dangerous and foolish to stir things up again. Dangerous because of her aching heart, and foolish because she must learn to live without him. And yet she’d hoped that maybe he would come to her despite her marriage. He hadn’t. That was when she truly knew it was over between them.
“I suppose I was trying to emulate him.” Simon had grimaced down at his leg. “Not particularly well it seems.”
Juliet had replied with a smile. “I am always a little suspicious of heroic behaviour. I think it smacks of uncaring recklessness, if you really want to know.”
Simon had laughed, sounding almost shocked. However, later, she thought he appeared deep in thought, as if he was seeing a parallel between his brother and the characteristics she had mentioned. Perhaps it had been wrong of her to plant that seed in his head, but it was the truth, surely? Ash had been reckless with her, too. And uncaring.
When Simon left the next morning he had asked if there was anything he could do to repay her kindness, and she had told him he could persuade his mother to donate to the hospital. With such a fine reputation in the county they had attracted patients from near and far. Now they were in desperate need of funds, and Doctor Knowles, diligent as he was, could not work long enough hours to help everyone. They needed another physician to ease his burden.
He’d promised he would, but so far there had been nothing but silence from Crevitch Castle. Which was the reason Juliet had been sending out polite begging letters to those with whom she shared even the most tenuous acquaintance.
She picked up the next bundle of letters.
Begging and being refused, by the look of it.
With a sigh she laid aside the note from the Duchess of Durham, who had once been a girlhood friend of her mother, Claudia. If she had hoped to spark some happy memories, then she was mistaken. The Duchess sympathized but could not help. It seemed to Juliet, reading between the lines, that her mother’s old friend preferred to distance herself.
When Claudia had married Mr Montgomery, it had been a shock to her friends. He was several rungs below her on the social ladder. The problem was that Claudia’s family had lost what money they had when the elder brother fell in with a bad crowd and gambled away his inheritance. Mr Montgomery was sympathetic, had prospects, and had made his appearance at just the right time, and so Claudia chose to escape her family’s bad fortune by marrying him.
She’d hoped to be happy, but it was not to be, and once again Claudia chose to make her escape, this time by running off with the Italian count. Juliet’s young life had been blighted by her mother’s action. It was the last time she had seen Claudia—all ties had been cut by her father—and although Juliet barely remembered her, she often wondered about her. For instance, was she happy or miserable, and did she miss her daughter? As far as she knew her mother was still alive and in Italy.
The scandal was twenty years old but it had never been forgotten. She rather suspected that her father was to blame for that. He had liked nothing better than to repeat his tale of marital woe to everyone he met. After Claudia had bolted, he wanted Juliet to live a blameless life. As if to make up for her mother’s behaviour.
“Bad blood,” he would say, when he wasn’t happy with her, which was often. Of course, by ‘bad blood’, he meant her mother’s blood. That his strict and insensitive treatment of her might be making her utterly miserable never occurred to him, or if it did then he ignored it. He’d told himself, she was sure, that he was doing what was best for her, and perhaps he’d truly believed that.
Anyway, it hadn’t made any difference, because just like her mother Juliet had let him down by plunging them into another family scandal.
Abruptly she stood up and walked to the window. She had a view of the woods, the leaves on the trees were bright green, and the sky was blue. On days like this she had run wild through these same woods with Ashley Linholm. They hadn’t been children; Ashley had been nineteen and Juliet seventeen.
Mr Montgomery might have noticed what he called their ‘inexcusable behaviour’ earlier, but he was away much of the time on business. His prospects—the promise of which had led Claudia to marry him—never seemed to eventuate. That, and his wife’s abrupt departure, had combined to embitter him.
Later he put his daughter’s conduct down to bad blood, and the idea had been taken up by neighbours and friends, as well as those who weren’t friends. Juliet didn’t agree. When she thought about those heady days, she knew she had fallen deeply and precariously in love. She hadn’t told her father because she knew what he would think and say, but she had never felt as if she was doing anything wrong.
Now she accepted she had been a fool, putting her heart before all other considerations. In that respect she was just like her mother. She should have looked beyond her overwhelming passion and thought of her future. Ash hadn’t offered her any future at all.
From this window, Juliet could glimpse the summer house at the edge of the woods. These days it was looking very sorry for itself and desperately in need of a coat of paint. The shutters were kept closed over the windows and it was as if the place was sleeping. Rather like something in a fairy tale. When was the last time she had been inside? She couldn’t remember. The summer house had been her mother’s favourite place, which was possibly why her father had allowed it to fall into ruin.
But there were other reasons why Juliet kept away.
The summerhouse had been the scene of her disgrace eight years ago. Perhaps, seeing it now, after her recent time with Simon Linholm, was the reason that all of a sudden she felt so angry and upset. Memories that she hadn’t revisited for many years crowded her mind.
