by Laura Martin
The carriage halted in front of a large shopfront and Robert watched as Louisa’s eyes widened in amazement.
He quickly hopped down from the carriage and once again held out his hand to help Louisa down. This time he didn’t let go, but tucked her hand into his elbow and escorted her inside.
They were met by a smiling woman who bobbed into a curtsy as soon as they walked inside. She looked from Robert to Louisa and back again, the confusion showing on her face. She had obviously seen the grand carriage stop outside the shop but was puzzled she did not know the mismatched couple who descended from it.
‘Welcome, sir, madam,’ she said.
‘I’m Lord Fleetwood,’ Robert said, watching as the woman’s eyes widened in recognition of the name, ‘and this is my ward, Miss Louisa Turnhill.’
‘It’s an honour to meet you both.’
‘Miss Turnhill has come to stay with me, but unfortunately all her clothes were destroyed in a fire.’
‘All of them?’ the modiste asked in disbelief.
‘All of them,’ Robert confirmed.
‘My name is Mrs Willow, this here is Lucy,’ the woman said as a young shopgirl stepped forward. ‘And this is Prudence,’ she added as another girl bobbed a curtsy. ‘We would be delighted to be of assistance.’
Robert stepped back as the three women crowded around Louisa and bustled her farther into the shop. He found a comfortable chair, placed so that he had a good view of the proceedings but was tucked out of the way.
‘How many items would you like to order for today?’ Mrs Willow asked.
Louisa glanced back over her shoulder at Robert.
‘Oh, just the one,’ she said.
‘She means one to wear away today,’ Robert corrected her from his position in the corner, ‘and six more to order.’
All four women looked at him in shock.
‘Of course, sir,’ Mrs Willow said. ‘And would these all be daytime dresses?’
Again Louisa looked at him for guidance.
‘For now, yes, let’s focus on the daytime,’ he said. ‘But if you keep her measurements, then we can order evening gowns at some point in the future.’
‘And what colours do you favour, Miss Turnhill?’
‘Anything but grey,’ Louisa said, smiling. ‘The brighter the better.’
Robert watched as Louisa was led round the shop and roll after roll of material was presented to her. She seemed to come alive with every minute as she discussed the luxury of one material and compared it to the comfort of another. He could hardly believe this was the same scared young woman he’d found in a cell in Lewisham Asylum just yesterday.
Every so often Louisa would glance his way, uncertain about a decision, and Robert would give her an encouraging smile. He liked that a small gesture from him was enough to give her the confidence she needed to prosper in such an unfamiliar setting.
‘So we have decided on materials and colours,’ Mrs Willow said. ‘Now we have to decide on style.’
Louisa was led behind a curtain by the two young shopgirls. Every few minutes Mrs Willow would carry another dress behind the curtain.
‘What do you think?’ Louisa asked shyly.
Robert looked up and felt his breath catch in his chest.
Louisa looked at him nervously, biting her bottom lip. Robert knew he had to say something, but suddenly his words had deserted him.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said eventually.
Beautiful didn’t even begin to cover it. She looked stunning. He hadn’t been able to even begin to imagine what had lain under the shapeless sacks he’d seen her in before. Now it was laid out for everyone to see. The dress nipped in at her slender waist and skimmed over her hips and the upper half accentuated her cleavage to maximum effect. Robert felt a sudden and unexpected stab of jealousy. He didn’t want anyone else seeing her like this.
He told himself to stop being so ridiculous. She wasn’t his to covet. She was his ward and he should be pleased she was so delighted with her new appearance.
‘I feel like a different person,’ Louisa said quietly.
As she smiled Robert knew it was a smile just for him and he felt the first stirrings of desire wake inside him. When she was happy, genuinely happy, she glowed.
The four women looked at him expectantly and Robert realised he’d cleared his throat in an effort to take control of himself. They were expecting him to say something.
‘The colour suits you,’ he ventured. He wasn’t an expert on fashion or materials, but no one could deny the emerald-green complemented Louisa’s chestnut hair and deep brown eyes exquisitely.
‘We’ll take it,’ Robert said to Mrs Willow. ‘That’s if you would like it.’
He turned back to Louisa and saw the hope burn in her eyes, but something was holding her back.
Discreetly Mrs Willow ushered the two shopgirls away so Robert and Louisa could converse in private.
‘What’s wrong?’ Robert asked. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I love the dress,’ Louisa answered. ‘And I love how it makes me feel. It’s just...’ She trailed off.
Robert smiled at her encouragingly.
‘It’s just I don’t know if I can afford it.’
Robert frowned.
‘I think Mr Craven spent most of my inheritance and I haven’t exactly been able to earn a living this last year.’
‘You’re my ward, Miss Turnhill,’ Robert said slowly. ‘It is my legal obligation to provide you with clothes and food and shelter.’
He saw her face drop at being called his ‘legal obligation’.
‘What’s more, it is my pleasure to buy this dress for you.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
She said it with such sincerity he knew she appreciated him not treating her as solely his duty.
Louisa took a step closer to him and for a second Robert thought she was about to embrace him. He felt a rush of pleasure surge through his body. Every single part of him knew touching Louisa would be a bad idea, but still he desired it.
The disappointment he felt when Louisa merely smiled at him was acute, but he forced himself to smile back.
‘We’ll take this dress as it is,’ Robert called to Mrs Willow. ‘It seems to fit her well. I’ll send someone to pick up the others in a couple of days.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Robert did not want to examine his reaction to Louisa in detail. He knew his newfound attraction towards her was wrong on so many levels. Maybe it was natural, he told himself. She was a good-looking woman who had been transformed into a beautiful butterfly in front of his eyes. And he was a man who had denied himself any sort of female companionship for so long. Perhaps his attraction towards her was to be expected. After all, she was the first woman he’d spent any sort of time with in the last two years.
Robert could only hope that was all it was. The last thing he needed was to desire any woman, let alone the one he was legally bound to until she came of age.
Chapter Seven
Louisa felt transformed. It was amazing how something as insignificant as a dress could make her feel like a real woman, not some crazy orphan who had been stuck in an asylum for the last year.
She glanced at Robert. He hadn’t said a word whilst the last few adjustments were being made to her dress, but she’d felt his eyes on her.
She couldn’t quite work out what his motivations were. He’d just spent rather a lot of money on making her look respectable and, more importantly, making her happy.
Louisa had been well loved by her parents. She had fond memories of shopping trips with her mother and indulgent presents from her father, but since their deaths she hadn’t received a single gift. Christmas had been a spartan affair with Mr Craven and she hadn’t even known what day it w
as to celebrate her birthday whilst she was locked in the asylum. Now here was Robert, a man she’d known for only a day, willing to spend money on making her happy.
‘Thank you,’ she said again as they left the shop, Louisa feeling like a new woman in her emerald-green dress.
Her gratitude was genuine, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something. She didn’t understand why Robert was being so kind to her.
‘Why are you being so nice?’ she asked as they reached the carriage.
He paused before he turned to face her. ‘Nice?’ he asked, as if confused by her choice of word.
‘Yes, nice. How else would you describe how you’ve acted towards me?’
‘I’ve done what any man in my position would.’
Louisa shook her head. ‘My last guardian kept me prisoner in his house and stole all my inheritance.’ She shuddered. He’d done more than that, worse things, things she didn’t want to remember.
‘It’s what any decent man in my position would do.’
Maybe that was it, Louisa thought. Maybe he was a decent man. She hadn’t known many in her life.
‘You’ve taken me into your home, welcomed me into your life,’ she said. ‘That’s above the call of duty.’
‘After everything you’ve been through I could hardly send you off to live with some dreary relative in the country,’ Robert said.
‘I must have disrupted your entire life.’
He didn’t say anything. Once again Louisa wondered about his past. He hadn’t really told her anything about himself. Not that he had to, Louisa was just curious.
‘I’m sure I can take a few days out of my normal schedule until we get you settled.’
Louisa nodded. She hadn’t really thought much about the future. Only a few hours ago she’d been determined to set out on her own, disappear into the anonymous streets of London. After their talk Louisa had decided to give Robert and the life he was offering her a chance. If something went wrong, he’d promised he would let her leave and even help her with her independence. She hadn’t thought much past that.
The problem was Louisa still couldn’t quite believe she wouldn’t soon wake up from a dream and find herself back in the asylum. Her life had changed so much in such a short time.
‘Can we go for a stroll?’ Louisa asked.
Robert looked from her to the carriage, then nodded in agreement.
They set off down the street arm in arm and Louisa felt like a normal young woman out for a walk with her guardian. She wanted this moment to last for ever.
‘I know we have a lot to discuss,’ she said, ‘but can we pretend to be normal just for a little while?’
‘You don’t need to pretend, Louisa,’ he said. ‘Where would you like to go?’
She contemplated for a couple of seconds. ‘It’s a beautiful day—maybe a walk in the park? If there’s anywhere suitable nearby.’
Robert took his pocket watch from his jacket and glanced at the time. Louisa wondered if he had somewhere else to be and almost told him she didn’t mind going back to the house, not if he had other engagements.
‘How about a stroll through Hyde Park?’ Robert asked.
Louisa smiled. She couldn’t think of anything more appealing.
‘I’ve never been to a park in London before,’ she said as they walked arm in arm down the wide pavement. ‘I’ve never really been anywhere in London before, apart from the asylum.’
‘Your parents didn’t bring you here when you were young?’
Louisa shrugged. ‘I suppose we must have visited once or twice, but I don’t really remember.’ She felt the pang of sadness she always did when thinking of her parents. ‘You don’t realise at the time that every moment is to be treasured, do you?’ she said quietly. ‘Otherwise you’d make an effort to remember more.’
Robert stayed silent, but she felt the empathy emanating from him.
‘What do you recall about them?’ he asked after a couple of minutes.
Louisa hadn’t talked about her parents for so long. No one had been interested for so many years and if someone did bring up the subject she normally felt too upset to say much. Today, however, she wanted to talk. She wanted to tell Robert how she remembered her mother’s laugh and her father’s compassion. How her mother used to read to her before tucking her into bed and her father would whisk her up in front of him and teach her to ride on the back of his trusty horse.
‘They were happy,’ Louisa said. ‘Every day was filled with laughter and sunshine and smiles.’
‘It must have been a wonderful childhood.’
‘It was.’ Louisa knew she’d been lucky in her early years. Too many of her peers had absent fathers and downtrodden mothers. But Louisa had seen what true love could bring to a marriage. ‘I can’t ever remember being unhappy whilst my parents were alive.’
Robert remained quiet, allowing her to remember the happiness she’d felt for just a few moments longer.
‘It was some mysterious illness that killed them,’ Louisa said, surprising herself at how easy it was to open up to Robert. ‘The doctors didn’t know how they’d caught it or what it was, but one day they were both happy, healthy people in the prime of their lives and the next they were fighting a deadly illness.’
‘You didn’t get it?’ Robert asked.
Louisa shook her head and felt the tears welling in her eyes. ‘My father fell ill first of all, but when my mother succumbed she forbade my nanny from taking me to see her, knowing I would be in danger if I spent even a few moments in her room.’
‘So you didn’t see them before they passed away?’
Louisa paused. She’d seen them, and sometimes she saw them still in those quiet moments just before she dropped off to sleep.
‘I sneaked into their bedroom in the middle of the night. I couldn’t understand why they’d kept me away.’ To this day Louisa could still remember the hideously sweet smell of the sickroom. ‘My father was quiet, I think he was very close to the end, but my mother was writhing and moaning.’
Louisa had screamed, thinking someone was torturing her mother, not understanding she was in the grip of a fever making her delirious.
‘I was bundled out, but I screamed and screamed until they let me back in the room. By that time my mother had settled and was sleeping fitfully.’
‘That was the last time you saw them?’ Robert asked softly.
Louisa nodded. ‘I kissed them both on the cheek and told them I would see them at breakfast. They were dead by the next morning.’
‘It must have been the end of your world.’
Louisa nodded. Robert seemed to understand her distress. She didn’t know what it was about him that made him so easy to talk to. She hadn’t told anyone about the last time she’d seen her parents before. Partly because no one had been interested, but also because she didn’t want anyone to see her so vulnerable. Even though she’d only known Robert for a short while Louisa had known he wouldn’t belittle her memory of her parents or the last time she’d seen them. He’d understand why it had been quite so harrowing.
‘When you lose someone you’re close to it leaves a gulf,’ he said slowly, ‘that never heals. In time we learn to bury that gulf, but it’s always there, under the surface.’
He said it with such compassion Louisa knew he was talking from personal experience.
She hoped he might elaborate. She desperately wanted to know more about this man who had saved her from a lifetime of misery, but at the moment she didn’t feel as though she could just come out and ask him. She knew he had been in the army, and that he’d lost a friend in the war, that much he’d let slip earlier on in the carriage, but other than that Louisa was pretty much in the dark as to Robert’s past.
‘So how did Thomas Craven become your guardian?
’ he asked.
Louisa grimaced as she thought back to the first time her old guardian had shown up in her life.
‘I didn’t have any other relatives,’ Louisa said, trying not to think about how different her life would have been if she’d had a kindly aunt or grandparent left alive. ‘Mr Craven was my father’s business partner.’
Robert nodded, encouraging her to go on.
‘I hardly knew him. He came into our lives about six months before my parents died and convinced my father to invest in some scheme or another.’
‘But why did your parents make this man they hardly knew your guardian?’
Louisa shrugged. In truth she didn’t really know. She’d been so young at the time.
‘In the few months before my parents died he was around the house a lot. He stayed with us on numerous occasions. And he always made a show of fussing over me.’
‘Your parents trusted him?’
She nodded. ‘From what Mr Craven let slip over the years when he was inebriated, he’d worked hard to gain their trust. He thought they would leave him money in their will. He never even considered they would put me into his care.’
‘But your parents were so young, much younger than Craven. He shouldn’t even have thought about inheriting from them.’
Tears sprung to Louisa’s eyes. It was something she’d not been able to ignore over the years, but a question she knew she would never know the answer to.
‘Sometimes, when I’ve been particularly low, I’ve wondered how much of a role Mr Craven played in my parents’ deaths,’ she said slowly, wondering if Robert would think her crazy.
He didn’t laugh or roll his eyes. Instead he seemed to consider the idea carefully.
‘It does seem suspicious,’ he agreed. ‘It sounds as though Thomas Craven ingratiated himself with your parents, but with his death we’ll probably never know whether that was purely to get money out of them whilst they were alive or whether he had a more sinister motive.’
Louisa found herself nodding in agreement. It felt reassuring to have Robert beside her, supporting her and agreeing with her. For years she’d wondered what exactly had transpired between her parents and Mr Craven. She’d known she had no other relatives, but Mr Craven must have been a good actor to convince her parents he was a suitable guardian for their only child.
