* * *
Sir Thomas tossed his riding crop on to the cluttered desk, raising a cloud of snuff.
‘How could you, Hester?’ He turned to stare out of the window, his hands clasped behind his back as she slunk into the room and softly closed the door. ‘I was prepared to let it go yesterday, especially when I learned his lordship saw you. I did not want to add insult to injury by reminding you what a foolish risk you took. However did you think you would get away with sneaking off like that?’
Hester sighed wearily and lowered herself into the chair that faced his desk. ‘I didn’t think anyone would miss me with all the excitement his lordship’s arrival had stirred up. I thought the servants would assume I was above stairs with the family, and that the family would assume I was below stairs tending to household matters. Indeed, if his lordship had kept his mouth shut, nobody would have been any the wiser.’
‘Then I am glad he did.’ He turned, bracing himself upon the desk, his fingers splayed. ‘I knew the temptation would be great. As soon as Baines came and told me the gypsies were camping on your land, I knew how much you would want to go down there and see Lena. And before we get into that old argument about whether or not they poach game from my coverts while they denude yours, I must insist you consider the possible repercussions of your clandestine visits to Jye’s caravan.’
‘I was careful—both times.’
‘Yet the marquis almost discovered what you were about both times,’ her uncle snapped. ‘Yesterday, as I said, your visit was understandable, given that they have been away a full year, and your heart is so deeply involved. But to go down there again this morning…And there is no point in denying the gypsy camp is where you have been. I can tell from the artwork adorning your hat.’
She fingered the paper flowers ruefully. How ironic it was that a gift given with affection had betrayed her.
She sighed. ‘Truly, Uncle, I never dreamed Lord Lensborough would be up and in the stable yard so early.’
‘No…he is not what your aunt led me to believe he would be at all. In fact, the more I learn about him, the more I think…’ He shook his head. ‘Did you know he breeds racehorses? But we are straying from the point again. The point is, if anyone should see you hobnobbing with gypsies, the fat will be well and truly in the fire.’
‘But nobody will see me. And even if they did, what could they possibly suspect, other than that I am a bit eccentric for wanting to help children that most would shun. They will only see me teaching a group of children to read and write.’
‘Hester, anyone with eyes in his head will take one look at Lena’s pale, freckled skin and see that she is not a pure-blood Romany. Then they will look at you beside her, and wonder why her hair and eyes are exactly the same colour as your own.’
Hester wound a tendril of burnished chestnut round her gloved finger guiltily.
‘How do you know how closely she has grown to resemble me?’
‘Because,’ he admitted with a rueful smile, ‘I went down there myself yesterday to take a look at her too.’
Hester’s eyes filled with tears. For all Sir Thomas’s anger when he found out about the liaison of gentry with gypsy, for all his refusal to allow the offspring of that illicit coupling to be reared in his home as Hester had once begged him to do, he could not quite quench all feelings for the little girl, Lena, his great-niece.
‘Well, then…’ Hope flared, only to be abruptly extinguished by her uncle’s next words.
‘Hester, we cannot undo the past, but I will not permit another’s sins to threaten the welfare of my own daughters. Julia and Phoebe are both insistent they want a match with their marquis, and believe me, a man of his stamp will not take kindly to the scandal we have sitting—literally, as it happens this week—on our doorstep.’
He added briskly, after Hester had brooded over his words in silence for some minutes, ‘Besides, consider the sensibilities of your aunts, Lady Susan and Lady Moulton. You must see how upset finding out about Lena would make them? So far we have managed to keep her existence secret from all but our two selves. I would like it to stay that way. I particularly do not wish any scandal to break this week, while my own girls’ futures hang in the balance.’
Hester sighed. ‘You are right, Uncle Thomas. I have been abominably selfish. It is just that the few hours I can snatch with her are so precious. And I want so much for her to be able to read and write, to have at least a rudimentary education. She has already been denied so much.’
‘I know, I know. But, do you think it wise, now that she is older, and more noticing, to put her in the way of guessing she is different from the other gypsy children? It would not be fair to raise her expectations, or make her dissatisfied with her lot.’
‘Oh, you need not worry on that score.’ Hester gave a wry laugh. ‘Jye will never permit me access to her alone, or give her any special treatment. If I want her to read, it will be because she is one of a class with all the others. In fact…’ she frowned ‘…she is quite a poor scholar. She sits in class with the others, but does not pay much attention. I suppose you have already guessed it was she who made me this garland.’ She sighed. ‘From the paper she was supposed to be practising her letters on.’ The little imp had given her such a cheeky grin when she tacked the crown round the brim of her hat at the end of the lesson, that she had not had the heart to scold her. But if she were not permitted to even try to teach her…
Her uncle came round the desk with a handkerchief in his hand as silent tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
‘It is better she never knows about her origins. Jye was wise to insist on that when he agreed to raise her himself.’
‘It is so hard, Uncle—’ her breath caught ‘—for her to be only a few fields away and not go to her.’ She drew in another ragged breath. ‘Not to be able to sit her on my knee and hold her while she tells me what adventures have befallen her since last we met.’
Her uncle pounced on her statement. ‘Then you do agree. Until our guests have left, you will stay away?’
‘Yes.’ The single word was an admission of complete surrender. ‘I know you are right. I have no wish to upset anyone else with what is, after all, purely my own affair.’
She blew her nose and rose shakily to her feet. ‘I should be about my work. I have wasted enough time.’
Sir Thomas heaved a great sigh. ‘Oh, Hester, my girl, no female should have to bear the burdens you have borne. Especially not at the age you were when…’
Hester stood with her hand poised on the doorknob, her head averted, bracing herself for what he would say next. She was immensely relieved when he only cleared his throat noisily, before turning abruptly to glare at the frost-ravaged shrubs that huddled round the lawn outside his window.
Chapter Five
By the time Lord Lensborough had eaten his breakfast, he had begun to have second thoughts. Out on the moors, with the cold wind whipping his cheeks, and his horse pounding the frozen ground beneath him, the idea of considering marriage to a shrew had possessed a certain kind of logic to it. A crazy, defiant sort of logic.
Determined to put her from his mind, he spent a pleasant afternoon strolling through the shrubbery with the two blond beauties, and Stephen to act as chaperon. It was only when he went to change for dinner that he realised he could not remember a single thing either one of them had said. Discarding his ruined neckcloth, he frowned at his reflection in the mirror. He had no trouble remembering every scathing word Lady Hester had ever flung at him, nor every minute expression that flitted across her sharp-featured little face.
* * *
It was galling in the extreme when he was aware of the very second she entered the saloon where they gathered before dinner. Though there were no children to herald her arrival, all his senses went on the alert. He did not need to watch her progress round the edges of the room. He could feel her determination not to come within forty feet of him. Her relief, when she gained the sofa on which her cousin Henrie
tta was sitting, was just as palpable. And just as irritating.
In one swift, penetrating glance, he absorbed the fact that the dress she wore was as outmoded as the greenish thing she had donned the night before, being long sleeved, high necked and made for somebody several sizes larger than she. At least the bronze colour toned in with the lighter shades in her hair. It was a great pity she did not dress that hair in a more becoming style. With a little effort, it could become her crowning glory. The shade was truly unique. Only an unimaginative fool would dismiss it as merely red. It was elemental flame. A man could warm his hands on it on a cold night.
He gave up. There were many highly sensible reasons why he should not marry her. And he might not, in the end. But she was as eligible, in many ways, as his host’s daughters, and he could not deny that he was becoming increasingly intrigued by her.
And so, as soon as was possible after he had finished a very excellent dinner, the menu of which, the butler confirmed, Lady Hester had devised, he made a point of seeking out her company in the withdrawing room. As he paused on the threshold, her cousin Henrietta happened to make a comment that made her throw back her head and laugh.
The result was astonishing. It was as if the rough outer shell of an oyster had been prised open to reveal the pearl glistening within. With her head tilted slightly back, her eyes half-closed and her lips parted, revealing evenly spaced white teeth, Lord Lensborough saw that Lady Hester had the potential to be a quite remarkably attractive woman. If she would only laugh more often, displaying just that mischievous tilt to her head, even the freckles that sprinkled her little tip-tilted nose were not such a disadvantage as all that—they showed character, that she was a woman who would pursue activities out of doors whether they spoiled her complexion or not.
Or if she would only wear the sort of clothes that flattered her willowy frame, he smiled to himself. It was not as if the other two girls would impress the ton without the benefit of his mother’s tuition. All three needed to learn how to dress. She could as well make Lady Hester presentable as Julia or Phoebe. On that score they were all even.
While he was musing, she made her way to a quiet corner and took out some knitting. He pursued her.
‘May I join you?’ he inquired, pulling a chair up to the table on which her work bag lay open.
She started, though her eyes never left the work that was growing visibly as her nimble fingers made the needles fly. She was fashioning a tiny garment out of wool, a sock or a glove, he could not tell which. It seemed typical of what he had gleaned of her character so far, that she spent her evenings making something that was going to be of use to someone, rather than waste it on some decorative embroidery.
‘I don’t suppose I can stop you,’ she murmured.
‘No…’ he leaned back and crossed one leg indolently over the other ‘…nor can anyone else.’
She shot him a mutinous look at that, just one, but it heartened him.
‘Not completely cowed, then,’ he drawled. ‘I am glad that whatever punishment your uncle decreed this morning has not managed to quench your indomitable spirit altogether.’
Bewildered, she frowned. He did not like her, nothing about her, least of all what he drily referred to as her spirit. She cast about as to what he might mean, and after a moment could only suppose that he took delight in tormenting her. That contrary to what he said, he was glad to think her uncle might have punished her, since it was what he was itching to do himself. Anger swept her confusion away. Before she could stop herself, she snapped, ‘What possible concern is it of yours? What do you want?’
‘Why, to get to know you better, of course. I have already discovered that you like riding, that you are as competent in that as you appear to be at everything else you attempt.’
If she had felt confused before, this last statement sent her mind reeling. Why would he want to get to know her better? He was here to decide whether he was going to marry Phoebe or Julia. She was nothing to him. Less than nothing—he had made that all too clear when he had driven away leaving her soaked and freezing. His sneering, scowling looks spoke more clearly than his words did. She darted a look at him from under her sooty eyelashes. A faint smile hovered about his lips.
He was enjoying this, like a cat playing with a mouse; he would toy with her for a while, before swatting her with one of his great paws. She looked down at the hand that lay in his lap, relaxed now, resting on the silk fabric that clothed a muscular thigh. Resentment swept through her.
‘Well, thanks to you I will not be doing any more riding while you are staying at The Holme.’ She glared at him. ‘I suppose that makes you glad.’
Amusement faded from his face. So. Her uncle had withdrawn the use of a horse, because he feared that their mutual love of riding might throw them together. His breathing quickened. No wonder she was looking daggers at him. She had few enough pleasures in her life, and unwittingly he had been the cause of her losing one—and what it must have cost her. He could not imagine what it must feel like to be unable to get out on horseback whenever the fancy took him. At least when she was his wife, she would have access to some of the finest mounts in the country—aye, and she would probably be able to manage a fair proportion of them too. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he thought of how her face would light up when he showed her round the stables at Ely.
‘Yes,’ Hester hissed as she saw, and misinterpreted, his slow smile of anticipation, ‘I thought you would be pleased to know you can now go to the stables without fear of running into me. I would so hate for you to be put out…bother.’ She sighed, returning her attention to her knitting. ‘Now you have made me drop a stitch. I will have to start this row all over again.’
Lord Lensborough was disconcerted that she had misconstrued his smile so badly. Of course, she could not have known what direction his thoughts were taking. He would have to make sure there were no more misunderstandings of that nature. The poor girl was upset enough about losing her riding privileges without thinking he was gloating. Her fingers were shaking quite badly.
‘Leave off that knitting and talk to me instead,’ he urged her, leaning forward and laying one hand over her trembling ones.
She jerked them away, her whole body rigid. Yes, she was right, he must move with extreme caution lest her uncle suspect he had begun to consider her in earnest, and contrive to remove her from his sphere altogether. He withdrew his hand, picking up instead a stray hank of wool that lay on the table between them.
‘Talk…’ Her voice had become quite husky. A tide of red swept from her cheeks, down her neck, to disappear into the tantalisingly concealing folds of her voluminous gown. ‘What about? What can we possibly have to talk about? Please go back to Julia and Phoebe and leave me be.’
‘No. Not yet.’ The tone of his voice was implacable. ‘I have a fancy to discuss politics, and I don’t think either of them have any political views one way or another.’
‘Well, neither do I,’ she exclaimed. ‘At least, none that a man like you would respect.’
Her eyes sought out her aunt, and her expression was such a speaking mixture of fear and guilt that he shifted his chair slightly, blocking the woman from Hester’s view.
‘I shouldn’t be the least bit surprised if I found your views novel, though. They might amuse me. Come, tell me what you thought about Wellington’s crushing defeat of Napoleon.’
Hester didn’t even pause to take a breath. To speak of amusement, and war, in the same sentence! She had known he was callous, but not to the extent of regarding men suffering and dying as a topic for amusing conversation.
Her wool fell to the ground and rolled unheeded across the polished parquet as she struggled to find words that were adequate to express the depth of her disdain for such a man.
‘I suppose you regarded Waterloo as a glorious victory,’ she hissed. ‘I suppose you admired Wellington’s determination to stop Napoleon at any cost.’
‘And you didn’t?’ He leaned for
ward, suddenly arrested by the notion that if her feelings ran counter to his own on this, he was going to be bitterly disappointed.
‘I think it was wicked of him to send so many men to their deaths. I don’t think there was anything glorious about the grief of the widows and orphans left behind. Nothing noble about the conditions those who survived were forced to endure when they returned home, crippled fighting for their country, unable to work. And I think it monstrous that the government does nothing to help them.’
By God, Captain Fawley could do with meeting Lady Hester Cuerden. She was the perfect antidote to all the shrinking society damsels that had done the man’s self-esteem so much damage. She would see beneath the scars, to the man, and whether she liked him or no, it would have nothing to do with the way he looked.
‘And you think the government should…?’
She turned her face to his, puzzled by something in his voice that sounded like genuine interest. ‘Provide relief, of course. Those men died, or were wounded, fighting for their country. Their country should now help them in return. Men like you…’
Her voice died away in her throat. His face was less than two feet from hers, his eyes fixed on hers with an expression that was so like admiration that for a moment she forgot what she had been about to say. His eyes, she noted, were not black at all, but dark brown, flecked with amber. Almost exactly like the patterns on the tiger’s-eye pin he was wearing in his neckcloth again.
‘Men like me…what?’ he prompted in a voice so gentle that suddenly he did not seem like the Marquis of Lensborough at all.
She swallowed, but found it impossible to break eye contact. And she resented that. What business had she noticing that his eyes were a fascinatingly unusual colour? His heart was still black.
‘You should pass a law. It’s no good saying such men are a menace and try to sweep them off the streets. If they are menacing, it is only because they were trained to be menacing by their drill sergeants. It was their ferocity that ensured our freedoms, wasn’t it?’
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