The Wanton Fires

by Meriol Trevor

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Historical Romance

Synopsis

Georgia Allison, a tradesman's daughter, has always had her pretty head filled with romantic notions. When she recieves an unexpected proposal of marriage from Sir Myles Dynham of Brentland, it can hardly be refused. But the marriage turns out rather differently from her expectations. When she meets other the other members of the family she is quickly caught up in their loves and quarrels, first in North Devon then in the London of 1815.

Release date: September 5, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 192

Sample

IT was a cold afternoon in November 1814; the grey skies, moving fast above but rarely lightening, made it seem later than it was. Georgie, as she sat in the parlour upstairs putting new frills into one of her dresses, heard the grandfather clock in the hall below chime and then, with a slight hiccup, strike two. Surely it must be more than two o’clock. Nothing would happen till dinner, which on weekdays they ate between four and five, when Mr. Abbott closed his office. He was the principal lawyer of this small north Cornish town of Monkhampton, having taken over from his uncle, Mr. Ridgway, whose name still appeared on the brass plate outside, though he had been dead for several years.

Mr. Abbott himself seemed to Georgie, who was just eighteen, very old; it had been a great surprise when her Aunt Prudence had married him, a month or two ago. But then Aunt Prudence herself had been a widow so long as to seem old to her niece and she had been a teacher in a school at Exeter for many years, which had given her an authoritative manner. Mr. Abbott, a childless widower, had been slightly taken aback at having to include a young niece in his marriage proposals, but Georgiana Allison had no other known relatives besides her aunt. Until a year ago she had lived with her grandfather, a bookseller in the little cathedral town of Wells in Somerset, and when he died she had to join her aunt in Exeter.

“I hope we shall soon find a respectable match for her,” Prudence had told Mr. Abbott, during their staid courtship, conducted during the Assizes at Exeter. “She is pretty enough but I fear sadly unpractical. Her head is full of poetry and romance and she has not a notion of housekeeping. My father was just the same and left everything to the good woman who did the cooking but could not even write her own name. I have tried to put some sense into little Georgie while I have had her at the school with me but …” and she shook her head expressively.

Georgie herself had been delighted to leave the school, where she had “helped out” by teaching the little ones to read while she puzzled over the mysteries of long division, shedding hot tears on the exercise book. But she knew more poetry than anyone else and had read more romances too.

Exeter had seemed a great bustling place to her after quiet Wells, and the idea of Cornwall had appealed—the idea of the sea, which she had never seen, though it had swallowed up the father she could not remember, Prudence’s young sailor brother. Yet now Georgie had been over a month in Monkhampton and had not even seen the sea.

Monkhampton was a small market town some miles inland, within the narrow enclave of Cornwall which pushes up into North Devon. Many of Mr. Abbott’s clients actually lived in Devon, though Lord Caynnes, the principal person for whom he managed local affairs, had his seat at Rosewell Abbey, a few miles to the north but still in Cornwall. Lord Caynnes did not appear to live there but in London; Georgie imagined him as keeping great state, attending the House of Lords in his baronial robes. She always imagined the people she heard of, what they looked like and all their surroundings, but her notions of the aristocracy were derived more from romances than from history.

“My lord, your carriage awaits,” she murmured to herself, picturing a large, splendid figure, like the Prince Regent, only not so fat as the cartoons made him appear, descending marble steps to a coach drawn by at least four, probably six, horses.

Alas, there was no one as interesting as this in Monkhampton. Mr. Abbott’s friends were the surgeon, the schoolmaster and the principal shopkeepers; they seemed to Georgie decidedly dull people, without even the interest of the clergy in Wells who, though mostly old and virtuous, were men of education who would chat to her grandfather on all sorts of subjects, scarcely aware of the small person sitting on her stool by the fire, listening with dark eyes like shadows in her eager face.

Georgie had a pretty figure and a creamy skin which gave some distinction to features which were not definite enough for beauty but were certainly very charming, especially the soft lips, so often slightly parted with breathless eagerness. Her hair was brown, silky and thick and so very curly that she could do little with it but follow the fashion of pushing it through a bandeau. The curls clustered on her neck, waved round her head, outlining and emphasising that warm rounded face.

But just now Georgie’s expression was not eager, it was pathetic, for she was thinking how very dull, how very dry, life had become with the Abbotts, and how likely it was to continue so for years and years to come. In Exeter, some girls at the school had taken her to an assembly and for the first time she had actually danced with a few men—all her steps had been practised with other girls. She never saw her partners again afterwards and none of them had been like the heroes of the books she had read, though there was one young midshipman whom she thought might almost be a hero if he had been a little older and had not given such very loud laughs. But here in Monkhampton there would be no dancing, for there were no rooms of any kind. In any case, there was no one to dance with.

Georgie poked the smouldering fire in the vain hope of making it blaze. A small quivering thin yellow flame appeared and half-heartedly licked at the edge of the rock-like coal. Aunt Prudence had many economies and one was to save the best coals for the evening when Mr. Abbott desired to sit by his own fireside. To do him justice, Mr. Abbott was not parsimonious, but his new wife certainly was; after a lifetime’s pinching and scraping, she could not conduct her affairs any other way. So Georgie poked the fire but did not get much out of it.

Suddenly the door of Mr. Abbott’s room down the passage opened and she heard him calling, in some agitation, for his wife. His private office was on the first floor opposite the parlour where Georgie was sitting and only special clients were admitted there.

Georgie went to the door. “My aunt is out, sir,” she said, “returning calls.”

“Dear me, how unfortunate!” said Mr. Abbott. He was a prim, pink-faced man, with one remaining lick of front hair combed carefully across his forehead. It was a sign of his present agitation that this was now slipping slightly out of place.

“Can I do anything?” Georgie asked.

“No, no—why, yes, I suppose you could, my dear,” said Mr. Abbott, who was not yet used to having a pretty girl in his household and tried to ease things for himself by treating her like a child. “You could get me some brandy from the dining-room cupboard.” He took out his keys. “Poor Sir Miles is feeling faint.”

He had left the door of his office open and Georgie saw someone sitting on a chair, doubled up with his head on his knees—in fact, almost all she could see of him was a lot of flopping light brown hair.

A husky voice from under the hair said, “Not brandy—water, please.”

“Both, Georgie, my dear, both,” whispered Mr. Abbott, handing over the keys.

Georgie ran downstairs and soon returned with a tumbler of water and the brandy decanter. Mr. Abbott was fussing round but his visitor had sat up and was leaning his elbow on the desk and his head on his hand. He was quite a young man and Georgie noticed chiefly his pallor, just now extreme. He thanked her for the water and drank some and then allowed Mr. Abbott to mix a little brandy with the rest.

“I’m so sorry, Abbott,” he said at last. “I took a toss coming over the moor—maybe this is the belated result.”

Mr. Abbott said, with a shake of the head, “You should not have come across the moor, Sir Miles. It’s very rough going and you don’t know whom you may meet nowadays, with all these wild fellows about, the navigators for the sand canal.”

The young man smiled, and the smile immediately put more life and meaning into his pale face. “Oh, as to that—I am quite good friends with the navigators,” he said. “I meet the Pats at mass on Sunday.”

Mr. Abbott looked respectfully disapproving but Georgie was interested to think that this young Sir Miles was a papist. It seemed to her romantic, though nothing could be less romantic than this awkward figure hunched over his brandy and water, with his hair flopping forward over his eyes. It was that very fine soft hair which will never stay in place. He pushed it back impatiently and looked straight at Georgie; his eyes were a light cloudy blue. It was rather a long look.

“I did not know you had a daughter, Mr. Abbott,” he said at last, still gazing at her.

“Niece, Sir Miles—my wife’s niece, you understand,” said the lawyer. “Miss Georgiana Allison. Georgie, this is Sir Miles Dynham of Brentland. He has come on business for Lord Caynnes, who is his cousin.”

Georgie thought a real live baronet second only to a lord in interest, though his appearance was somewhat disappointing, especially when he picked up a pair of metal-framed spectacles and tried to put them on.

Fiddling with the side-piece he remarked sadly, “I’m afraid they are too twisted to wear. I shall have to take them to Trewin’s shop.”

Mr. Abbott immediately insisted on sending one of his clerks to the watchmaker’s with the damaged spectacles and pressed Sir Miles Dynham to wait for them in the parlour across the landing.

“Well, certainly I cannot easily read documents without them,” said Sir Miles, getting up. “If it doesn’t disturb Miss Allison?”

Miss Allison, far from being disturbed, was delighted to have a visitor of any kind, let alone a young baronet, even if neither handsome nor dashing. Mr. Abbott wished to offer refreshment, but it was an awkward time of day. However, it turned out that Sir Miles would be glad of a cup of coffee, so Georgie busied herself in calling the maid to bring the tray and made coffee for him herself. It was something she did well, for her grandfather had often called her to make coffee for visiting bookbuyers. If they were after rare books, they would be offered a glass of sherry wine.

Mr. Abbott was presently called back to his office and Georgie was left alone to entertain Sir Miles Dynham. This did not turn out as difficult as she had supposed, for though he was shy, he seemed very much interested in her and asked a lot of questions in a friendly way. He was soon acquainted with her childhood in the Wells bookshop.

“An ideal place to live, I should think,” he said. “I was mewed up in London far too much of the time. I am an orphan too, Miss Allison, and I was brought up by my uncles. I have an idea that uncles may be less benign than grandfathers.” He stirred his coffee. “However, when I was fourteen Bonaparte was kind enough to intern my most despotic uncle at Verdun and so I was turned over to the other. I liked those cousins much better than the others, too.”

“You are fortunate in having so many relations, Sir Miles,” said Georgie, with a sigh of envy.

“Too many, I sometimes think,” he answered with a smile. “Especially when they quarrel about what I ought or ought not to do, which they seem to have done ever since I can remember.”

Then, just as they seemed to be getting on so well, Aunt Prudence returned and began to fuss that not enough was being done to look after Sir Miles Dynham. He became shy and awkward again, rising so quickly when the clerk came with his spectacles that he tipped the small table at his elbow and only just caught the coffee cup as it began to slide off. Apologising too much for this piece of clumsiness, he got out of the room and went to the office. But as both doors were open Georgie could hear him saying that if he was to get home before dark he must start now, and that he would call again to see the documents.

“But allow me to bring them over to Brentland, Sir Miles,” said Mr. Abbott. “It is no trouble, I assure you.”

“Well, that is very kind.” Sir Miles’s voice, at first hesitant, became suddenly animated. “Why don’t you bring your wife and Miss Allison? Would it not make an excursion for them to see Brentland? Do that, Mr. Abbott—I will send the carriage for you, if you will fix a day.”

Georgie listened anxiously, afraid that this exciting offer would be rejected, but instead heard Mr. Abbott agreeing, with appreciative thanks. In great delight she sidled to the window to watch Sir Miles leaving. Clumsy as he seemed to be in his movements, once on horseback he was more at ease and rode away into the grey afternoon, unaware that the charming curly-headed Miss Allison was watching him, though she was thinking, regretfully, that he could only be taken for a hero from behind, and riding, not on his own two feet.

Mr. Abbott came upstairs rubbing his hands with pleasure.

“Perhaps Sir Miles will transfer his affairs to me,” he said. “Bideford is much farther from Brentland than we are, though both are in Devon and we in Cornwall.”

“Is it an old mansion?” Georgie asked eagerly.

“Well, it is certainly old, but it is not a fine place—not like Rosewell Abbey, or the Vyners’ house at Hartleigh Court. The Dynhams indeed were an old Norman family—de Dinan—but the principal branch died out at the end of the Middle Ages, and these have never been of great importance—soldiers, most of them, for their few farms do not bring in much of a living. However this young Sir Miles has money coming to him from his mother’s side, when he is twenty-five. She was a banker’s daughter in London—Warstowe is the name, Warstowe and Treddell.” He rubbed his hands thoughtfully. “Yes, I reckon that Sir Miles will be better off than any other Dynham has been, if he lives to enjoy his inheritance, for he’s always been sickly—never expected to grow up. His father was killed in the Low Countries, during the first revolutionary war, and his mother never recovered her health after his birth. But here he is, still alive, and in his family home at Brentland, which his uncle used to manage for him. Mr. Rowland Dynham, that is—Colonel Dynham till he left the army. I dare say he would not sorrow overmuch if this young man died, for then Brentland would be his and the title too and they say he has always been an ambitious man.”

“Don’t you know him, Mr. Abbott?” asked his wife, putting the cups together on the tray.

“Only by sight, my dear,” said the lawyer. “Fine looking man too, but hard and proud, not like Sir Miles at all.”

Georgie’s head was full of this family history as they drove out to Brentland on the day appointed and she was rather disappointed to hear that Sir Miles had only recently converted to Rome. It was romantic to be descended from a long line of secret papists, but hardly to have turned one in these tolerant days. Mr. Abbott said he believed all Sir Miles Dynham’s family had been furious, except for one of his uncles, Joscelin Dynham, who had done the very same thing in his youth.

“Dare say he influenced Sir Miles,” said Mr. Abbott. “Very eccentric, he is. Great bear of a fellow but thinks of nothing but music—married a foreigner, very odd.”

The road from Monkhampton ran inland for about nine miles to the large village of Ashworthy, just over the border in Devon. At the crossroads they took the way north, towards Bideford on the estuary of the river Torridge, which opened into the Bristol Channel. But Brentland was only a few miles up this road, which first ran over open rough country. Mr. Abbott called it the moor.

“Why, but where are the tors, the great stones?” said Georgie in disappointment, looking out at the bleak undulating land, the acres of tough wiry grass, with stringy bushes of gorse and ling scattered about and many marshy places of short reeds.

“You are thinking of Dartmoor, my dear,” said Mr. Abbott with a smile. “This is not one of the great moors but just wasteland, sour ground. But it is higher than you may realise, for two Devonshire rivers rise here and flow in opposite directions—the Torridge northwards and the Tamar going south.”

In spite of this information Georgie was disappointed that a moor could look so dull. True, it was another grey November day, but with occasional fitful gleams of thin sunshine.

Brentland House, originally an ancient farmstead, crouched at the edge of the moor, farm buildings behind it and a scrub of bent trees leaning away from the seawinds. There was no proper approach; the carriage rounded a bend and they found themselves in front of the house, a stone front with small mullioned windows and some timbered eaves above—a sixteenth-century manor altered in the seventeenth, with an added porch.

Sir Miles came out into the porch to meet them, looking to Georgie even less like a baronet because he was wearing loose, light-coloured trousers and shoes. A large white dog with brown patches on his ears came blundering cheerfully out with him and had to be called to order.

“Down, Sport! Bad dog! I am sorry, Mrs. Abbott. Did he paw your dress, Miss Allison? He’s not meant to come indoors but somehow he always manages to get in.”

“I can see how he does, with that expression of injured innocence,” said Georgie. “‘What, me? Leave me outside?’”

Sir Miles laughed, but he shut the dog outside when they entered the house.

He took them first into a morning-room where refreshments were set out for them; to Georgie’s surprise it was in the classic style, with plasterwork on the ceiling and tall sash windows.

“Why, I thought the house was much older than this,” she said, in disappointment.

“You like the antique?” said Sir Miles, smiling. “So do I, but I must confess I prefer these rooms to live in. You see, Miss Allison, my family never had the means entirely to rebuild. But when my great-grandfather gave up the Stuart cause and conformed to the Church of England he celebrated his respectability by building a new addition in the new style. It would probably annoy him to know that I had gone back to our older tradition.”

One sign of his change was made known to them in the person of an old French priest who was living in the house. Dressed in an old-fashioned black suit with knee-breeches, he was a courteous, elegant little man, scholarly and well-born. He was much exercised in mind as to whether to return to France, now that Napoleon Bonaparte had been exiled to Elba.

“France will be so changed,” he said. “And so many of my family perished in the Revolution. One sister is alive but I tremble at the thought of seeing her once more, after nearly a quarter of a century. Imagine it, Mademoiselle!”

He raised small white blue-veined hands in a. . .