by Norma Darcy
Louisa pushed away her half eaten cake. “Oh Lord no, of course not. He will say that he will not put up with another of his daughters throwing themselves away for a mere Mister―and you know how he says it Emmy, with that look on his face, looking down his nose with the air that you’re such a disappointment to him.”
“None better than I,” Emma muttered with a short laugh, thinking of her parent’s reaction when she had refused Lord Allenby all those years ago.
“He proses on about all the money spent on my come out and the clothes he was forced to buy and on and on all leading up to the fact that Malvern is the only match he will countenance. For a Duke, you know, Malvern is perfectly charming besides being quite handsome and not at all puffed up with his position. I’m sure he would make any woman a creditable husband…but…but not me. Does that make me so very bad?”
Emma smiled. “No, dearest. I am very fond of Malvern, for a more sensible, gentleman-like man I have yet to meet. But I could not love him.”
Louisa flung a piece of mauled plum cake back onto her plate. “But what am I to do, Emmy? Papa wants a title. Sophie married a mere mister. You have broken off with Lord Yarlett. Papa says that I am his only hope of happiness.”
“And what has Nicholas to say about it?” asked Emma.
Louisa plucked a currant from her cake and nibbled it thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen him since Vauxhall.”
“I see.”
“He…he is a gentleman of means, Emmy.”
“To be sure he is,” her sister agreed, “but rather limited means, my love.”
“Yes, but I should not care a rush for that! Mama thinks all I crave is a new pretty bonnet and I shall be happy. But I want more than that. I want what she and Papa have. I should be happy living in a cottage somewhere if I could be with him.”
Emma, knowing her sister’s love of shopping, rather doubted this pronouncement but prudently kept her reservations to herself. “Is it agreed between you then?” she asked. “Are you engaged?”
“Oh yes! He asked me at Vauxhall, you know. Nicholas was in the box next to ours with his friends. We stole away into one of the walks, when the fireworks were going off. There was a stone arbour amongst the roses. It was a little early for roses, but it was very romantic just the same.” Louisa picked up a knife and began to ruthlessly stab the remains of her plumb cake with it. “But then Malvern came upon us,” she added darkly.
“Malvern?”
“Yes,” said Louisa, brutally stabbing a raisin, remembering. "Almost as if he had followed us from the box.”
“And?”
Louisa raised her eyes from her plate and threw down her knife. “Oh never mind that now. It has nothing to say to anything.”
“Doesn’t it?” Emma prompted, burning with curiosity.
“Oh the mortification!” cried Louisa, burying her head in her hands. “I don’t think I shall ever be able to look him in the face again. Which is why I must leave London. I cannot endure it!”
“Endure what, my love?”
“But oh you don’t know,” said Louisa in agonised tones, “you cannot know what happened! He was so very angry and…oh why can I never think of anything to say to the purpose until it is too late? I blush, I stammer and I make a fool of myself. I wish I were clever and witty like you Emma, you always know exactly what to say.”
“Me?” said her sister, taken aback.
“Why yes. You know just how to set one down.”
“Do I? What a very curious skill that is to be sure. I haven’t decided yet if you have paid me a compliment or not!”
“What am I to do, Emmy? I cannot face Malvern again; it is too humiliating. And I cannot go home for Papa will be so angry with me.”
“Then let us go to Devon.”
“To Foxhill?” asked Louisa, her face brightening at the thought.
“I will write directly to Uncle Ned.”
“Oh yes do! I would like it above all things.”
Emma then watched in some amusement as her sister took to stirring her hot chocolate, seemingly unaware that the cup was empty.
Chapter 5
The kitten was adorable; all grey fur with a white splodge on his nose, as if he had been caught drinking from a saucer of cream and the wind had changed and forever stained him.
He was mewling from the bough of the tree somewhere up above her, a plaintive sound that spoke to her maternal instincts. Louisa had been looking everywhere for him; his curiosity had already had him trapped under the floorboards in the kitchen of Foxhill Manor for a week. She spoke softly to him as she climbed, hampered by her skirts as she struggled to find a foothold on the trunk of the tree.
“Come little one,” she cooed as her head drew level with the kitten. His green eyes looked hopefully up at her and he meowed again, showing a very serviceable set of teeth, his paws neatly set together with his tail wrapped around them like a stole.
Louisa pulled herself a little higher; the rough bark scratched the soft white skin of her hands as she hauled herself up onto the branch beside the tiny cat. She pulled the creature into her lap and it meowed contentedly as she stroked his ears. They sat there a while in the cool shade of the tree, watching the parkland shimmer in the heat, the deer sleeping lazily in a distant lake of shadow, the cat happy to relinquish the knotty problem of how to get down from the tree into the hands of his companion.
She and her sister had been in Devon for a week, staying with their Uncle King and his daughter Eliza at their home at Foxhill Manor, a beautiful Tudor manor house set in small but delightful grounds. It was a favourite haunt of both girls and the good, amiable nature of their uncle and the friendly society of the neighbourhood made them often wish that Foxhill was their home rather than the larger, greyer building of their father’s seat at Haymarsh. Mr Marcus Ashworth’s home of Stoneacre was not three miles from Foxhill, which meant the owners of the two estates were firm friends and often in each other’s company. Mr Ashworth was often to be found at Foxhill even if his younger brother still preferred to reside in Town. Devon was, by Nicholas Ashworth’s standards, a trifle flat―excepting when the Lady Louisa came to visit.
“Well now, fair rescuer,” said a voice behind her. “And how do you propose to get your little friend there safely back to earth?”
“Nicholas!” she cried, jumping so violently that she almost toppled backwards off the branch. “You startled me! What on earth are you doing here?”
“Marcus has business at Stoneacre so I thought I’d come along and surprise you. Are you not pleased to see me?” asked he, grinning as he ducked under a branch of the tree and came to stand in front of her. “Is this not a nice surprise?”
She made no answer but turned her head away, blushing faintly. The kitten rubbed its soft cheek against Louisa’s hand.
“Louisa? Are you not pleased to see me?” he demanded again.
She shrugged.
His smile slipped a notch. “What? And is this the welcome I am to have? Have your forgotten me so soon?”
“I am always pleased to see any of my old London acquaintance.”
He leaned an arm against the tree trunk. “Any of your London acquaintance?”
She looked down at the kitten. “Yes.”
“Well, I had hoped for a warmer welcome than this, I must confess.” He folded his arms and leaned his shoulders against the tree. “Egad, I hoped I had a place somewhere in your heart. You have not missed me and I have come all this way just to see you.”
“Just to see me?”
“Well, there is the trifling matter of a tailor’s bill…but that doesn’t signify.”
It never does, thought Louisa, remembering a rumour she had heard about him but she said instead, “And your brother is to …er…stump up the ready?”
Nicholas looked a little irritated. “Well I…I have an allowance of my own, you know; Marcus is the trustee and never begrudges me so much as a groat; but never mind all that now. Am I to understand that all is at an
end between us? I thought that we had come to an arrangement.”
“Did you?” she answered, smoothing the fur of the kitten.
He stiffened and his jaw tensed. “You have had a change of heart then?” he asked.
“My heart is true,” she replied quietly. “My heart does not bend with the wind.”
“Neither does mine.” He flung up his hands in exasperation. “I have been to your father’s estate and back to London to look for you. Are they the actions of a fickle heart?” he demanded.
“I don’t know what is in your heart,” she replied miserably. “You tell Malvern we are engaged and then I hear stories…”
“What stories?”
“Caroline Hinchcliff.”
“Who the devil is Caroline Hinchcliff?” Nicholas asked.
“You tell me.”
“Never heard of the chit.”
“You danced with her twice at the Almacks or so they say,” said Louisa, her eyes sparkling with tears.
“Did I? It seems unlikely, I don’t recognise the name…and twice is a bit particular, you know…blow me if I can remember…Hinchcliff…what did you say her first name was? Catherine? No, Caroline wasn’t it? Yes Caroline Hinchcliff. Oh I know whom you mean! Oh Lord, don’t tell me you’re bent out of shape over Caroline Hinchcliff? She’s Tom Hinchcliff’s widow! She’s only just put off her widow’s weeds. I knew Tom very well up at Oxford. Capital fellow, got his leg shot off in the war. Dreadful business. Bled to death on the battlefield, but enough of that! Almacks…yes, I wore my new evening coat. Dreadful squeeze. Almacks, you understand, not my new coat. I daresay I was the only friend she had in the room and so danced with her as a favour. You wouldn’t want me to be uncivil, would you? You wouldn’t have wanted me to ignore her? She was agreeable enough, reasonably pretty, I suppose, although not a beauty and a dreadful whinnying laugh like a horse.”
“She…she was your friend’s widow?” asked Louisa, unable to keep the hopeful note from her voice.
“Yes! I cannot believe you have been jealous of Caroline Hinchcliff. Louisa, you goose. As if I could have eyes for anyone but you.”
She coloured, feeling suddenly very foolish. How could she have let such a trifling rumour so overset her happiness? Did she not trust him?
“Is that why you left London so suddenly?” he demanded. “And without telling anyone where you were going? Do you not think that I, as your fiancée, might have been told?”
She hung her head. “I needed to be alone…to think…”
“What was there to think about?”
“You know…after what happened at Vauxhall…when Malvern found us,” she replied uncomfortably.
Nicholas flung away from the tree. “Malvern! I swear you care more for his good opinion than you do for mine.”
“That’s not true!”
“Then why did you look so mortified when I told him we were betrothed?” he demanded. “Are you so ashamed of me?”
“No, of course not! Nicky…you know I never could be.”
“Then why?”
“I…I…I don’t know. You took me by surprise, that’s all. I didn’t know how to answer.”
“Don’t you want to marry me?” he asked, looking as forlorn as the kitten in her lap.
“Of course I do, what a thing to ask your fiancée!”
“Well…just thought I’d be sure, in case you changed your mind. You haven’t, have you?”
“Nicky! How can you ask?”
He looked surprisingly gloomy at this declaration of devotion from his lover. “God, what a coil!” he said suddenly. “And only Malvern knows it beside you and I and Marcus of course―now don’t fly up into the boughs! Marcus won’t breathe a word to anyone. But I must say I wish it was out in the open instead of all this sneaking around behind everyone’s back. Then at least I would not have had to put up with Malvern’s cursed interference. He rang such a peal over my head, I can tell you! It was all I could do not to land him a facer. Prosing on and on like an old woman! And what right has he to tell me what to do? What business is it of his if you and I wish to meet in private? He is not your father and he certainly isn’t mine!”
“No indeed,” she agreed quietly.
“What was he so angry about anyway? What did we do that was so very bad? I have never seen him so furious in all my life! He was white with it. I thought it would carry him off and he’d keel over in the rose bushes at any moment.”
Louisa lowered her eyes to her lap and kept them there. “Perhaps…perhaps he’s very old fashioned in his views?”
Nicholas burst out laughing. “Malvern? Hardly! He’s not exactly lily white when it comes to associations with the fairer sex, you know.”
She raised wide, innocent eyes at that. “Isn’t he?”
“God, no! Did you never hear about―?” he broke off suddenly. “No, I don’t suppose you did. Well, never mind…it is not the subject for genteel young ladies.”
“No,” she agreed, now burning with curiosity.
“But if you hadn’t sworn me to silence I would have announced the whole in The Times and to hell with what your father says.”
“Oh, Nicky, no!”
“Yes, I tell you! He is going to know soon enough anyway, so why not tell him now? At least that would stop him trying to foist a match you don’t want upon you. And it might stop Malvern sniffing around you all the time.”
“He doesn’t,” she replied crossly. “Don’t say such vulgar things.”
“He does. The man cannot keep away. It’s disgusting. He’s old enough to be your father.”
Louisa’s eyes flashed. “He is not!”
“Nearly,” replied Nicholas bitingly. “Ten years older.”
“Then that is not old enough, is it?”
He laughed scornfully. “Right.”
She glared at him for a moment and then bizarrely, perhaps at the shocking thought of Malvern as a father at the tender age of ten, began to laugh.
He looked contritely up at her. “Oh Louisa, darling, don’t let us argue. I have missed you so…”
She sniffed. “Caroline Hinchcliff made me so unhappy.”
“Goose,” he said lovingly.
“Take the kitten, will you? I’m beginning to lose feeling in my legs. But do be careful, he does wriggle so.”
“Louisa? Am I forgiven?”
“Yes, but do take the kitten before he puts his claws through my skirts.”
He smiled and held out his hands. “Never fear, my lady, he shall be safe enough. Now if you will hand him down to me…can you reach down a little further? That’s the ticket. There. And as soon as he is out of your hands he jumps to the ground and all over my new coat. What an ungrateful little wretch he is! No, do not dig your claws in, you vile creature.”
“Oh he is not a vile creature, Nicholas; you cannot say that he is. Look at his face. Isn’t he adorable?”
The gentleman looked up at the lady, a smile on his lips. “Adorable…yes.”
Louisa looked away, blushing profusely.
“And how will you get down from that tree, my lady?” he asked softly.
“I shall climb down when you turn your back,” she replied, raising her chin.
“But I am not going to turn my back.”
“Ungallant of you sir!” she cried.
He laughed. “Is it?”
“Yes, for I shall be forced to stay up here all day and already my legs are numb.”
“Then it is just as well that I have a better notion. Ease yourself forward off the branch and I will lift you down.”
The thought of being caught in his arms brought the colour flooding into her face. “No sir. If you will be so kind as to turn your back for a moment, I shall jump down and then we will all be comfortable. It is not so very far after all.”
“Far enough to turn an ankle. Better to do it my way. Never fear, I shall catch you.”
“I do not doubt you, but what if someone was to see us?”
“No-o
ne will see us,” he replied smiling. “What are you so afraid of?”
Louisa’s heart seemed to skip over itself. She remembered when Malvern had caught them at Vauxhall Gardens and her mouth went dry. But Malvern was not here. “Nothing,” she said.
“Then come down to me,” he said holding out his arms. “I promise I shan’t let you fall.”
Louisa looked around for a means of escape and saw none but the gentleman smiling gently up at her. The warm breeze tugged at his shirt, laying the material flat against the muscles of his arms, ruffling the hair on his head, pulling at the rose he had hooked through the top button-hole of his waistcoat.
“Louisa,” he said. “Will you not trust me?”
She looked down at him and saw a mixture of humour and entreaty and frank admiration in his gaze. Throwing caution to the wind she eased herself forward, the bark grazing the backs of her thighs as she slid off the branch. His hands grasped her waist and he lightly swung her down until her feet almost touched the ground. Almost. He held her a moment, her toes in mid air, her breast against his, her heart hammering so hard she thought that he must feel it through their clothes. Her gaze seemed caught in his. She could not free it no matter how hard she tried to pull it away.
“Louisa,” he whispered. “Have you any notion how beautiful you are?”
She blushed in riotous confusion. The kitten mewled from his nest in Mr Ashworth’s coat.
“The kitten, sir, I think he must be hungry.”
“I am sure he is,” Nicholas murmured.
“I should return him to his mother.”
“All in good time.”
“Your poor coat, sir, I fear it is ruined.”
“And yet, strangely I do not care. What else will you think of, I wonder, to stall the inevitable?”
“I think you should let me go, sir.”
“And why would I do a silly thing like that?”
“Because it is improper to hold me so.”
“Even though you like it?” he asked.
“What makes you think that I like it?” she returned loftily, her eyes almost meeting his.
“Because you are trembling. And I think that if I kissed you…”
