So here he was, having set out to leave The Holme and escape Hester, now having to drive her back there through a snow storm.
‘You were quite correct about the snow,’ he observed as he brushed another layer of it from his coat. ‘It is not sticking to the road.’
‘I’m just as cold as you are, my lord, but I have not been complaining.’
‘That is because you want to go back to The Holme. I had hoped I would never have to set foot in the wretched place again.’
Hester hunched her shoulders against his anger, finding it hard to believe that less than an hour ago he had gently held her in his strong embrace, all the while crooning meaningless words of comfort.
Had she only dreamed the whole episode? She had been dizzy and frightened, and desperate for comfort. He had made some remark about how providential it was that he had been there, she had recalled the magnificent moment when his fist had connected with her tormentor’s jaw, and then her fuddled brain had supplied the rest.
He had certainly reverted to type as soon as her brain had cleared. He had done nothing but snap and snarl at her ever since.
Not that she could blame him altogether. Her arrival had overset all his plans. And he must be furious that his pampered horses should be out in such foul weather. She felt sorry for the poor beasts herself, but she would have walked if he had not made her fear that Lionel might still be lurking somewhere in the vicinity.
She glanced up at his glowering profile, considering that for all his blustering and cursing, he had comprehensively rescued her, ensuring by his own escort that nobody need ever know what had happened to her today. He would never do anything to intentionally cause her harm, no matter how angry she made him. Deep down, in the heart of him, he was…he was…
She forced herself to stop staring at him, and searched the lane for landmarks instead. He was going to make one of her cousins a sterling husband, was what he was.
Unless seeing her with the gypsies had given him such a disgust of her that he had gone off the match altogether? Was that why he had left so abruptly? Was that what he had meant when he’d said he never wished to set foot in The Holme again?
Oh, she couldn’t be responsible for that.
She recognised the bend in the lane where they had first met, and they passed through the lodge gates just as the day dwindled to dusk.
‘Stop here.’ Hester tugged at his coat sleeve. ‘Just by the shrubbery.’ Lord Lensborough obediently reined in his team. ‘You won’t be leaving until I have had a chance to speak with you again, will you? Please? It’s very important. There’s something I must explain.’
‘You need to get out of this weather, madam,’ he replied icily.
‘I can cut across the park from here and get into the house through the kitchen gardens. Nobody will question where I have been. I told them I was going to the vicarage this morning, so they will assume I have been involved in charitable work with Em.’
At his frown, she defended herself. ‘It was not exactly a lie. I truly believed I was going to the vicarage. Lionel wrote and asked me to meet him there, but he was waiting for me in the lane. He knows I always go that way.’
She shivered. Lord Lensborough had lent her his muffler to wrap round her head on the drive home but she bitterly regretted losing her bonnet to rage in the tap room, and her shawl to the floor of Lionel’s hired coach. Her ears and parts of her scalp and neck had long since gone completely numb.
But she was home. She searched Lord Lensborough’s granite features for several seconds, for the first time in her life understanding why a woman might sometimes feel she wanted to kiss a man’s cheek.
‘Get indoors,’ he gruffly repeated. He looked at her hand where it clung to his sleeve, then at the pleading expression in her eyes, and felt all resistance melt away. He could refuse her nothing.
‘I will not leave again without speaking to you first.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ she breathed, turning to clamber down from the curricle. ‘For everything.’ He thought he heard her call over her shoulder as she disappeared into the swirling snow.
Two grooms came running when Lord Lensborough pulled into the stable yard. He stayed with them until he was sure his team had all the care the absent Pattison would have given them, so that news of his return reached the house before he did.
Lady Gregory and her daughters fluttered into the hall, plying him with offers of a hot bath, mulled wine and assurances that dinner would be held back until he was ready.
‘No problems about laying an extra cover either,’ Lady Gregory twittered, ‘since Hester will not be dining with us tonight.’
‘Why not?’ he snapped. A hot meal was exactly what she needed. And a bath, and the mulled wine, and all the cosseting he was getting.
‘She sent a message to say she is not well, my lord,’ Julia replied as her mother backed away from Lord Lensborough’s evident displeasure. ‘I expect she will have a tray in her room.’
‘You expect?’ Did nobody care about her enough to go and help her? She would have been better off staying in the inn. At least there he could have looked after her. Here, he could not even alert anyone to her need. She was utterly alone. ‘A tray in her room,’ he growled.
‘I am sure she intends no disrespect to you, my lord.’ To his surprise, it was meek little Phoebe speaking up, not for herself, but for her cousin. ‘If she says she is not well, then she is not well.’
That was exactly what he was afraid of. He had been chilled to the marrow by the drive back—Lord knew what effect it must have had on her, on top of everything else she had been through.
He could only hope she had the sense to get herself warm and dry. He glared round at the Gregory family and his lip curled. On second thoughts, maybe he could understand why she was avoiding them. How could she sit at table, and endure their inane chatter, when every nerve in her body would be strung as tight as a bowstring? He shrugged. ‘I dare say you are right.’
He hardly noticed what was set before him at dinner. While he had bathed and changed he had come to a decision. He had been right to think that yielding to emotions, especially where women were concerned, would end in disaster. But for a quirk of fate, he would have taken Hester as his mistress, when the world knew he was as good as engaged to one of her cousins. But he was not going to deal with the emotions he had by running away. On the contrary, for the sake of his pride, he must crucify them. She’d made him promise to stay and listen to what she had to say. Very well, then, let her hear something from him too.
The minute she put in an appearance, he would defy the insidious hold she had over him by going down on one knee, while she watched, and proposing to Julia.
Then, if he could only steer clear of her, and perhaps replace his current mistress with a slender red-head, he might stand a chance of getting this ridiculous infatuation into its proper perspective before his wedding.
* * *
Hester knew she had to get warm, so she lit a fire in her sitting room. For some time, it did her precious little good, since she couldn’t stop scurrying from one room to another, checking and rechecking the locks on her door and skylights, and weeping with the pain that returning circulation brought to her ears.
Once the pain had abated to a bearable level, she considered eating the soup that Mary had left on a tray outside her door. She’d had nothing but coffee since breakfast, so she supposed she ought to be feeling hungry. Her stomach revolted after she had forced down only a few mouthfuls.
She thrust the chamberpot away from her, rubbing at her forehead, which felt as though someone was pulling a steel band tightly round it. Bone weary, she rested her pounding head against her mattress, her heavy eyelids drooping.
The feel of Lionel’s hand sliding up beneath her skirts jolted her awake, and she stumbled to her feet, gasping for breath. She’d had no choice! She’d had to allow his hands, and his mouth, to roam freely without uttering a single protest. She’d had to convince him she was drugged
and utterly helpless.
She fell to her knees before the sitting room fire, pounding her thighs with her fists. She’d thought she was being so clever, outwitting him by pretending to sleep right through his leisurely assault. But now hot waves of shame engulfed her.
Worse almost than what he had actually done was the violation of her mind. His whispered words swirled round and round her brain till she could almost feel herself naked, bound and helpless beneath the weight of his body.
She heaped another shovelful of coal on to the fire and pulled her eiderdown round her shoulders. She had felt safe, so safe, when Lord Lensborough had held her in his arms, she thought bitterly. It had been an illusion. Lionel was in her head, and she would never feel clean again. Because she had let him…She should have fought.
She must cling to the memory that Lord Lensborough had fought for her. That he had knocked Lionel down with one mighty blow. He had rescued her. Brought her home.
Had she remembered to lock the door after bringing her tray in? It didn’t matter, Lionel could not reach her here, she had to believe that.
But there was a noise of splintering wood, booted feet pounding up the stairs, somebody was trying the door to her bedroom…a man’s voice…he was coming in. How had he found her? How had he got in? Well, she would not be so compliant this time. She seized the poker. And though she knew nobody would hear her, that there was nobody to rescue her this time, she threw back her head, drew a deep breath, and screamed.
* * *
Lord Lensborough’s mood the next morning had not been improved by a sleepless night.
‘Is Lady Hester not coming down to breakfast today?’ he barked as the meal drew to a close. ‘Has anyone any idea what her plans are?’
Sir Thomas leaned back in his chair and regarded his lordship thoughtfully.
‘If she is not feeling well, she will probably keep to her rooms,’ Julia said.
He flung his napkin on to the table and stalked out of the room, seething with impotent impatience. Damn the woman. Perhaps he should just get the proposal over with and leave.
How could he leave without knowing she was recovering? Besides, he had given her his word.
When Emily Dean came to call he followed her into the morning room and was immensely grateful to her when, in spite of Lady Gregory’s insistence that Hester was unlikely to receive visitors, the indomitable girl went up just the same. It was scarce ten minutes before she returned.
‘Lady Gregory, I fear that Hester may be quite unwell.’
‘You must send for a doctor at once,’ Lord Lensborough said.
Julia laughed. ‘Nobody sends for a doctor on Hester’s behalf unless she specifically requests it.’
‘She would simply refuse to see him,’ Phoebe added. ‘She would lock her door and refuse to come out. She has done it before.’
‘Her door is locked,’ Em said. ‘And she hasn’t touched the tray Mary took up this morning. I knocked and shouted, but she did not answer.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Lady Gregory twisted her handkerchief into a knot. ‘I do hope she has not got anything serious. What is to become of Harry if she has brought influenza into the house? Thomas, I have said it and said it, you should not allow her to go visiting the poor so often. The poor are always so unhealthy.’
Lord Lensborough’s frayed temper finally snapped.
‘Miss Dean, I should appreciate it if you would take me up to Lady Hester’s rooms at once. I will soon find out if she needs to see a doctor, and believe me, if she does, I will not take no for an answer.’
‘Oh, no, my lord.’ Lady Gregory’s hands flew to her pink cheeks. ‘That would be most improper—besides, she will not allow you in. She allows none of us in.’
‘If necessary, I will break down her door.’
Lady Gregory shrieked in alarm, then began to plead with Sir Thomas to do something.
Sir Thomas shrugged, muttering, ‘I’d leave the girl be, if that is what she wants.’
It was the last straw. ‘When she may be in such need of help that she is unable to ask for it?’ Lord Lensborough rounded on Miss Dean. ‘Enough time has already been wasted. Take me to her this instant.’
Em hurried from the room with his lordship hard on her heels. The stunned silence that fell was only broken by Sir Thomas, chuckling from behind his newspaper.
The way to Hester’s rooms lay through the servants’ hall, up the back stairs, through the servants’ sleeping quarters and then up another narrow stairway. Em knocked firmly on the door at the top of this stairway, but there was no answer.
‘You have already established she isn’t answering the door,’ Lord Lensborough said grimly. ‘Stand aside.’
It took him only a few well-aimed kicks to sever the wood from its hinges.
Lord Lensborough followed Em into a tiny hallway furnished with an umbrella stand, a marble-topped table holding a lantern and a row of pegs on which a couple of coats hung. Above the table, what had initially looked like a window framed with curtains turned out to be a mirror on which a woodland scene had been painted.
Em explained, ‘There are no windows up here, my lord. That is one of the reasons nobody else wanted these rooms. Hester put mirrors in to increase light and create the illusion of a view.’
By the slope of the ceiling he guessed they must be directly under the roof leads. His muttered curse frosted in the air even as it left his mouth. How could her family house her in conditions like this? Without windows, it must be unbearably stuffy up here in summer. Winter or summer, Hester knew nothing but discomfort.
Em darted back from the doorway she had disappeared through while he stood still, fists clenched at his sides.
‘It looks as though her bed has not been slept in.’ Beckoning him to follow, she pushed open a second door that led off the narrow hall. Within he could see the embers of a dying fire. At least she had the means to keep warm. He stepped forward into the room, then froze as a bloodcurdling scream emanated from a shape that was huddled before the fire.
Hester was terrified. He eyed the poker she was brandishing wildly, and dropped to his knees.
‘Hester…Hester, don’t…’ he murmured over and over as he inched forward. ‘Hush, now…it’s me…it’s only me…’
Her wild eyes began to focus on him at last and the poker fell from her hands with a clatter. ‘You…how did you…why did you..?’
He was almost within reach. ‘Miss Dean brought me up here. We were all worried when you did not come down to breakfast.’
‘Breakfast?’ She looked beyond him to where Em hovered uncertainly in the doorway. ‘Is it day already?’
He reached out and laid his hand on her forehead. She closed her eyes and leaned into his palm. ‘You are burning up. You must see a doctor.’
‘No.’ She backed away, tugging the quilt up to her chin. ‘No doctor. I just need to be left alone. Please, leave me alone.’ She reached into the coal scuttle and a puzzled look flitted across her face. ‘I seem to have run out of coal.’
‘There is a warm fire in my room. You insisted on it being kept going all the time. Do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember. Do you think I’m an idiot?’
Lord Lensborough smiled. ‘Forgive me, but you do seem a trifle confused.’
She passed a shaky hand across her face, smearing a sooty trail through the perspiration.
‘Have you eaten anything since you came home?’ He kept his voice low, so that Em could not overhear. ‘At least tell me you changed out of your wet clothes.’
Hester peered down at herself under the eiderdown, as if unsure. Lord Lensborough saw she still had her coat on.
‘That does it,’ he snapped, hefting her into his arms and getting to his feet. ‘You are coming downstairs to get warm, and out of those wet clothes.’
‘I am?’ Her hands fluttered across his chest, her restless fingers tangling in the lapels of his coat.
‘You are,’ he replied firmly as she closed her eyes
and burrowed her face into his shoulder.
‘Miss Dean,’ he barked over his shoulder, ‘be so good as to procure a change of clothes for her, and bring it down to my room. Then find someone in this benighted place who can come and tend to her.’
Em obeyed without demur.
‘Well, somebody needs to keep an eye on you,’ he bit out before Hester could voice any protest. ‘Good God, woman, don’t you realise you could have caught a severe chill after driving through that snow yesterday?’
He stepped over the wreckage of her front door and strode down towards the main body of the house. ‘Hell, woman, I have no notion of how you should be nursed, or what lingering effects that drug may have on you, let alone whatever other horrors that cur put you through.’
She lifted her head and looked up at him reproachfully. ‘You promised nobody need know. You promised you would not tell. I couldn’t bear it.’ She scrabbled frantically at his waistcoat as he strode resolutely along the maze of upstairs landings. ‘Please, I don’t want a doctor prodding at me…asking questions.’
Lord Lensborough cursed himself for being so insensitive. Of course she could not cope with a man handling her against her wishes yet, even for the best of reasons.
‘Then you must make some effort to take care of yourself,’ he bit out savagely. He kicked open the door to his own room and marched across to his bed. ‘For God’s sake, have you no pride?’ He lowered her to sit on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you going to let that blackguard win by sliding down into some sort of decline?’
Hester clung to his neck while he deftly unwrapped her eiderdown and set to work on the buttons of her coat. When he knelt down to unlace her boots, she ventured, ‘C…could you just say then…if anyone should ask…that I got caught in the snow yesterday and have developed a chill? It is the truth…part of it.’
He tugged off her boots, then looked up at her militantly. ‘If I tell them that, do you promise to get well?’
‘I will promise to do my best,’ she conceded.
His Cinderella Bride Page 15
