Hope - Lesley Pearse [167]
As William reached the open-fronted woodshed, Albert stopped sawing logs. Despite the cold he was glistening with perspiration, and he had stripped off to his smock and breeches. He looked dirty and unkempt, his hair tangled and almost reaching his shoulders, his beard studded with traces of past meals, and the smell of stale sweat was overpowering.
‘Come to help me, Billie?’ he asked with a sly smirk. ‘The old girl’s company got too dull for you?’
William felt nauseous that he’d ever lain with this man, for he could see so clearly now that he was just a cold-blooded whore.
‘Lady Harvey is very good company,’ William said. ‘And I have come to tell you that you are dismissed. You will vacate the gatehouse and leave Briargate for good by Friday.’
Albert sat himself down on a log, reaching in his pocket for his pipe and tobacco as if he hadn’t heard. ‘You can’t dismiss me,’ he grinned as he packed the tobacco into his pipe. ‘We’re bound together for ever, Billy boy!’
William was every bit as intimidated as Albert intended him to be. He tried not to look at the man’s rippling muscles that strained the sleeves of his shirt, or his powerful hands. He made himself picture Rufus’s face, and the smile he knew he’d see when he told him Albert was gone for good.
‘We are not bound together. You’ll go by Friday or I will have you thrown out.’
‘Now, come on.’ Albert forgot his pipe and rose from the log, his lips drawing back in a snarl. ‘You want me to go telling tales to Lady Harvey?’
‘You can if you wish, but she already knows everything.’
Albert made a snort of derision, clearly not believing this. ‘Don’t fucking well try to bluff me,’ he said, and he turned in the direction of the house.
William let him go on ahead a little way; then he walked just far enough across the lawn so Anne could see him from the dining-room window and beckoned her to come out.
Albert was almost at the back door when it opened and Anne stood there.
‘Come on out, Anne,’ William called. ‘I’m having trouble convincing Albert that we have no secrets from each other.’
For the first time in all the years he’d known Albert, William sawhim look uncertain. His eyes narrowed and darted between William and Anne, like a cornered rat’s.
William felt proud of Anne. She had flung a purple shawl around her shoulders and its regal colour, with her eyes like flint and her poised stance, gave her a queenly and composed appearance.
‘I take it Sir William has given you the order to leave?’ she said, her voice as crisp and cold as the morning. ‘We are willing to give you a character; you have after all tended the garden very well.’
‘Captain Pettigrew tended your garden well too,’ Albert replied.
William sucked in his breath at that sly retort, knowing it was intended to make his wife scuttle inside in fright. But she just smiled, and walked straight over to William and took his arm.
‘My husband is very well aware of my past relationship with Captain Pettigrew,’ she said. ‘You cannot hurt us, Albert.’
Albert’s face grew dark with anger and he started to bluster and swear, threatening to go down to the village and tell everyone all he knew about both of them.
‘How can you do that without incriminating yourself?’ Anne retorted. ‘Country folk don’t like “nancy boys”. We have only to tell the Renton men that you are trying to slander us and they’ll willingly tear you limb from limb. You have no friends in the village, but we have many.’
‘Master Rufus won’t like what I have to say,’ he said, and William could sense he was desperate now, completely thrown by the news that they had admitted their past sins to each other.
Anne laughed humourlessly. ‘Really, Albert! What a silly goose you are! Do you really think he’d believe a word you’d say? He loathes you, and has always blamed you for