Lord Hunter's Cinderella Heiress

by Lara Temple

  She frowned at his back as he took the tinderbox from the mantel and bent down to the grate. She nearly answered that she was quite capable of lighting her own fire, but that seemed the wrong response to his words. Instead, she unfastened her damp cloak and hung it from a peg by the wardrobe. When he rose from the burgeoning fire she stepped back.

  ‘Thank you. Now...’

  He took her hand and sat her down on a chair by the fire.

  ‘Now we thaw you out. You’re turned to ice. Little fool.’

  He sank down on one knee and cupped her clenched right hand. Reality swirled and for a moment she thought of a knight presenting a precious offering to his sovereign. He took off her glove and gently rubbed and chafed her hand until it tingled and pulsed.

  ‘Here, I think we’ve thawed this one out. Let me see.’ He touched his mouth to the back of her hand, turned it over and gently smoothed out her clenched fingers before pressing the same light kiss to her palm.

  ‘Now let’s have the other hand,’ he said, placing her warmed hand in her lap and holding out his own hand, his eyes on hers.

  She gave it to him and just sat as he continued his ministering. Except that it wasn’t the same. When he had propelled her into the room she had felt embarrassed and foolish and he had been in full imperious mode and she had hardly noticed when he had taken off her glove.

  Now something had shifted. The fabric of her glove caught and pulled and slithered over her cold skin, and when he cupped her fist and very gently blew upon it, like a mother warming her child’s hands, the heat was too intense, like hot water poured on a limb recovering from frostbite. She tried to draw it away, but he held it without force and it stayed there. After a moment he began the same calming ritual as before. His thumb moved gently over the bones of her wrist, the back of her hand and the sweep between her finger and thumb.

  She watched his long elegant fingers move between hers, darker and more powerful and so gentle. She watched him, the dark chestnut gleams in his hair, the black lashes shielding the gold in his eyes. She wanted so much to touch that hair, the sharp ridge of his cheekbone. There was a little white scar there, a slightly tipsy letter L, hardly visible, and she remembered the way he had touched the scar by her mouth and she wondered she hadn’t seen it before. He was slowly coming into focus for her. Element by element.

  ‘What is this from?’ She touched her finger to the scar and his hands stilled, his eyes glinting like a cat ready to spring.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The scar, the little L. Here.’ She touched it again. She wanted to do more than that, place her now-warm palm to it, bend down to brush it with her mouth.

  ‘I don’t remember.’ His voice was already closing down and she felt it in his hands, too, as they gently placed her left hand in her lap, but she turned it and caught his wrist and he didn’t immediately draw it away. She was walking the edge of his pain and any moment now he would repel her, either with mockery or teasing or anger.

  ‘I was trying to rescue my brother’s cat. It wasn’t grateful,’ he said after a moment and she thought of that sweet boy’s face in his ensign’s uniform and of Hunter as the fierce little warrior protecting his domain and subjects.

  ‘Your brother probably was.’

  His eyes flicked to hers again, the danger more evident now. Even his breathing had changed. Her insides started to grate with the inevitable reaction to anger, but she wouldn’t stand down. Hunter wouldn’t hurt her. Not like this, anyway.

  ‘It’s unusual for a boy to have a cat,’ she said into the silence. ‘Did he like animals?’

  He pushed up from his knees and turned towards the door, but then walked towards the dresser.

  ‘He was often ill and bedridden as a boy, so I brought him the kitten to keep him company when I went away to school. Why he ever went into the army I’ll never know. I told him he was a fool. I should have stopped him.’

  ‘Maybe he had something to prove.’ It must have been hard having an older brother who was so very good at everything male.

  ‘He had nothing to prove. Everyone that mattered loved him. It was my fault for thinking it was a good idea he be sent to school. It took me months to realise he was miserable there and I only found out by chance because one of the boys there was the younger brother of a friend of mine. He never complained. The fool even apologised for making me come all the way there to bring him home. He was just like that. He gave back a hell of a lot more than I could manage to give him. He was the last person on earth who should have had to prove anything to anyone.’

  Nell watched him pace the room.

  ‘He sounds as stubborn as you in his own way. You probably couldn’t have stopped him.’

  ‘I should have found a way. I knew it was wrong for him, but I never thought... I should have stopped him.’

  ‘He was a grown man by then. Even if you considered yourself responsible for him, you couldn’t live his life for him.’

  ‘I didn’t want to live his life, just try to prevent his death! I failed him when I let him join and I failed him when I couldn’t stop him from taking his own life. Don’t you understand? When he came to me saying he wanted to join up, I actually encouraged him. I thought it would finally force him into the world. I never thought they would send someone like him to the Peninsula, let alone put him on Wellington’s staff. I knew it was wrong, but he was so damn proud of himself I allowed myself to believe he was finally ready to stand on his own two feet. That’s the worst. I was so damn relieved he was finally growing up, that... What a selfish fool I was...’

  * * *

  The room itself was thudding with the restless energy of his pacing and she held herself very still, wondering how to keep him talking.

  ‘How long was he in the war?’

  She wasn’t certain he would answer, but she waited.

  ‘Just under a year. Six months before he was captured and then five months in that hell. He was so broken they had to move him to a monastery because the gaolers couldn’t stand his screaming every night. The abbot was so horrified he actually helped us... He woke up screaming to the end.’

  Her mind worked away at the pieces even though her heart was wholly caught in Hunter’s agony and guilt and loss. She could feel them as palpably as if each was a living, beating organ on its own. But it was her mind that spoke, too shocked to hold back the words, because the threat to Hunter felt real and present.

  ‘Helped you? You went to rescue him yourself? During the war?’

  It was a mistake. He turned back to her and she could see him gathering in and carefully shutting down. Pain and guilt were returned to their drawers and the door firmly closed on her.

  ‘It’s already past six. You should dress. I will see you downstairs.’

  She stood, trying to think of something to bring him back.

  ‘Gabriel, you aren’t to blame for what happened to him...’

  ‘I will see you downstairs.’

  He reached the door and turned to her and she had never heard him speak with such a bite of ice in his voice.

  ‘I am not one of your homesick little schoolgirls to be soothed and mollified. You don’t know me and you certainly didn’t know Tim, so I would appreciate if you would refrain altogether from discussing the subject. I don’t like meddlers.’

  Chapter Ten

  Hunter watched Charles bend over Nell’s shoulder as he leaned to turn the page of the Illustrated Collection of Thoroughbreds balanced on Nell’s lap, his hand so close to a flaxen curve of hair resting on her nape that if she breathed in deeply the man’s fingers would tangle in it. From the easy intimacy of Charles’s posture it was obvious Nell’s scold after Griffin’s attack had shifted the balance between them and for once Welbeck’s eagerness in her presence didn’t appear at all forced.

  His own absence
today had probably helped as well. He hadn’t joined her or the Welbecks the previous evening and had spent the morning down in Wilton, but he had known he had to show his face eventually, if only to tell her he had decided to return to London. She was safe enough with the Welbecks until her father came for her. Safer than she was with him. It hadn’t taken the recurrence of his nightmare that night to remind him that he was still paying the price of allowing himself to care for people who were too weak to care for themselves. It was only getting worse. This time she had also been at the centre of his dream, walking blithely towards a rearing, raging black beast while he tried to stop her, weighed down by Tim’s pain-racked body. He had saved neither of them and had awoken shivering, his nightshirt soaked in sweat.

  He should have left right away, but he had gone to Wilton instead and now it was too late to drive to London today. Besides, he had to face her and tell her he was leaving. The problem was he had no idea what to say to her after his outburst the previous evening. He had never lost his calm like that, not even when the pain and guilt at failing the one person in the world he needed to protect above all had still been so raw he had thought it would submerge him. He still didn’t understand why he had lashed out. So what if she had seen through him and shown him a little compassion? That was her nature, the same impulse that drove her need to worry about Daisy or her schoolgirls. Nothing more. There was no reason for it to have felt like danger. Not from her, but from something inside himself. Something dark and sluggish had stirred in response to her warmth and the invitation to share, something he knew very well was not to be set loose.

  He shouldn’t have gone into her room in the first place. He was already raw when he reached the paddock, worrying that she might have gone to see that devil Griffin, or perhaps been accosted by someone. She was far too trusting when around horses and someone might misread her warmth as an invitation. The relief of finding her safe by the paddock had been overtaken by something else as he stopped to watch the peculiar courtship between her and the filly. He had been mesmerised by her stillness, the calm and calming presence that drew the nervous filly towards her, closer with each circuit, the young horse’s whole body easing until it had finally come to a stop. When the filly had nuzzled Nell’s hand on the fence, a thunderclap of lust so powerful had struck him and he had almost moved after her as well when she began walking. But he kept still, waiting for it to pass like the first shock of a bee sting before it settled into a persistent ache and itch. By the time she and the filly completed the calm, companionable circuit and climbed out of the paddock, he thought he had regained some control. But he had been wrong. The sting had subsided, but the ache had only deepened.

  He watched her and Welbeck’s golden heads bent close together. He might not think much of Welbeck, but there was no denying the man was a damn sight more respectable than him and it was beginning to look like her dream of having her prince fall in love with her might not be so far-fetched. All the more reason to step back. The only problem with this resolution was the heat that was even now simmering in him as he watched her; his attention kept snagging on elements of her—on the shadows and lines marking the winged perfection of her collarbone, on her elegant fingers as they turned the pages, on the slope of her shoulder that Welbeck kept hovering over, adding the burn of anger to the mix of snapping desire. It must be because he was unused to dealing with innocents, but just sliding his fingers over the ridge of her wrist bone, into the soft valleys between her fingers, had packed a greater erotic punch than a full naked display. By the time he had moved to her second hand he had been harder than he had ever been with Kate and that was without Nell even touching him. Then she had touched his cheek, her finger as soft as a raindrop on his skin, falling on painfully fertile ground—it had taken all his will not to accept that invitation and make use of the bed behind him.

  It was just Nell being Nell, he told himself. There was nothing to read into it, certainly less than the shocked panic she had exhibited running towards Charles in the paddock. He could forgive her for her unintended seductiveness, but it was harder to forgive her for the way she had made him reveal things about Tim—treacherous things, showing Tim in his weakness and his dependency and raising the edge of the cover on Hunter’s lifelong frustration with his younger brother. He could never have explained to anyone why he had always been envious of Tim. He had told her that Tim had never asked for anything and it was true, but from the day his brother was born he had received a full measure of love and a cocooning care that no one had ever thought to offer Hunter.

  His mother had told him that he had come out ready to fight and had taken whatever he wanted without waiting to be offered. She had actually been proud that he had never needed shielding, not even from his drunken libertine of a father. Far from it, he had become her champion at the tender age of six and it had been as natural as breathing to extend that shield to Tim, who had always been dreamy and fragile and who had looked up to Hunter as a demigod at least. He hadn’t even known there was something wrong with his mother’s and Tim’s dependency on him until he had brought Tim back all broken and had to come to terms with their weakness. In the end he had shattered along with Tim and he hated being reminded of it. Nell had blindsided him in there, taking advantage of that moment of weakness to make him betray Tim and his own perfidy. He was losing control of the situation to an inexperienced virgin.

  It was a stark reminder it was time he returned to London. She was safe enough here with the Welbecks. Depending on one’s definition of ‘safe’, he thought, as he watched Welbeck laugh at something she said and lightly brush the curve of her shoulder as he turned the page. Hunter saw her shoulder hitch just a little and his fists closed reflexively. He might not want to marry her, but he was damned if he was going to let them paint him a cuckold while he stood just two yards away.

  ‘Do let the girl have some fun, Hunter.’ Lady Melkinson glided into his path as he began to move towards Nell, her childish blue eyes raised to his in the sweetest of smiles. ‘She’s been aching for it for soooo long, apparently.’

  ‘Phyllida. Engaged in procuring now? Aren’t you concerned your swain might stray?’

  ‘Darling Hunter, always so distressingly direct. You cannot seriously think I find that long meg a rival? I am fond of Charles and he has his heart set on expanding his stables. If it’s the land you want, I am certain some agreement can be reached without you having to abandon your hedonistic lifestyle. He has no interest in Hampshire and you can more than afford it.’

  ‘I’m curious—has he sent you to negotiate or is this your own initiative? In any case, it is rather late in the day for that. She is, after all, engaged to me.’

  ‘Well, precisely, my dear. To you. Had it been a love match naturally Charles would concede defeat. But apparently Tilney in his cups was quite revealing. Charles knows this engagement is mercenary on your part and everyone at Welbeck knows the chit has held a candle for him half her life, and though you are admittedly a very handsome and charming rake likely to appeal to women of more...mature tastes, Charles is the epitome of any girl’s dreams, isn’t he?’

  ‘Apparently not just girls.’

  Lady Melkinson laughed and tapped his arm with her fan.

  ‘I do admit there is something scintillating about waking next to a man quite as beautiful as I. I simply knew I must have him when I saw him.’

  ‘All those mirrors in your rooms no longer satisfying, Phyl?’

  ‘The pleasure is thus doubled,’ she replied with a mock-innocent fluttering of her lashes.

  ‘I’m not sure I can stomach the image. Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and relieve your pretty prince of his chivalric duties. I wouldn’t be quite as certain as you that he is not enjoying himself far more than you would care to admit, Phyl. There is a saying—be careful what you wish for.’

  He walked around her, barely refraining from walking through her. Not even h
er quick frown of doubt gave him satisfaction. Nell and Charles looked up as his shadow fell across the illustrated plate of the stallion they were examining, and though Charles straightened, he didn’t relinquish his position by her side. Nell’s gaze flicked past him towards Lady Melkinson.

  ‘Lord Hunter.’

  He had been wrong that she was angry at him, he realised. Just wary. He had begun to forget how sensitive she was to anger. Another mark against him and another reminder of why he should stay away from her.

  ‘Shopping for new inmates for Bascombe’s stables?’ he enquired. ‘I don’t think Tiresias is for sale. Portland is quite attached to him. But he might be willing to part with Bull Dog.’

  ‘I was just looking,’ she said wistfully, her shoulders releasing some tension. ‘He is quite beautiful. And look at this lovely brood mare, Lady Grey. Her stallion Gustavus won the July Stakes. I heard he’s a perfect grey. Did you see him?’

  ‘It was a wonderful run,’ Charles interposed. ‘I wish you would come to the races, Nell. Newmarket and Epsom are quite respectable and it is a great pity your father never brought you. Perhaps once you are married you will attend.’

  His tones were both teasing and caressing and Hunter’s jaw tightened.

  ‘That’s an excellent idea. If we forgo the banns and can track down a handy bishop we can make it to the Newmarket Meeting, Nell,’ he offered.

  ‘Attending the races is not a sufficient reason to rush into wedlock, Lord Hunter,’ Nell replied primly, but the laughter had returned to her eyes.

  ‘Certainly not. There are many better reasons, both sufficient and necessary. Excuse me, Welbeck. My betrothed apparently needs my help listing them.’

  Hunter sat down by Nell and Welbeck was forced to retreat. Once he was gone Hunter turned to Nell.

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday.’

  Her mouth parted in surprise and she shook her head.

  ‘No, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have pried. You had every right to warn me off. I just... You have nothing to apologise for.’