by Louise Allen
‘She had a very comfortable journey, I thank you. During the course of it she sprung the news upon me that her husband has gone north to County Durham to visit a very sick great- uncle of his, leaving her to amuse herself as best she can over the festive season. Being Georgy she has decided that descending upon me and causing me to celebrate Christmas in style would entertain her best.
‘By this I imagine she expects me to decorate that hideous house with evergreens, dispense mince pies and punch to tuneless wassailers, issue invitations to the local society and generally behave in a manner that is best calculated to drive me back to London to shut myself up in one of my clubs until it is all over.’
He could not suppress the grin that Hester’s gurgle of amusement provoked. ‘Oh, poor Guy! And you such a curmudgeonly recluse-entertaining will obviously go right against the grain with you. Is Lady Broome explaining all this to Parrott at the moment?’
‘No, fortunately she decided she would call upon her very dear friend Lady Redbourn who lives in Watford, so I was able to drop her off for a couple of days of exhausting gossip and character assassination before she comes on here.’
He saw Hester was looking dubious in the face of such a frank description. ‘I adore my sister, and at a distance of twenty miles we get on excellently well. I think about a sennight will be delightful, after that I will not vouch for the Christmas spirit enduring.’ He regarded Hester who was looking somewhat relieved. ‘I think she will like you. At least, should we manage to keep you from looking like a chimney sweep. Here, stand in the light.’
The smudge on the end of her nose was irresistible. Guy proffered one corner of his pocket handkerchief and Hester obediently licked it. The pink, pointed tongue darting from between her lips was so erotic he almost dropped the handkerchief. Instead he dabbed carefully at the end of her nose. ‘There. Now the one on your forehead.’ She was standing very still, looking at him solemnly with those great brown eyes. Guy could feel his heart thudding. His hand shook slightly; was it the effort not to snatch her into his arms or was there something in her gaze that was making him vulnerable?
Another glimpse of that tongue would undo him. Guy dipped the cloth in a bowl of water standing in the sink. He dabbed at the line of dirt on Hester’s cheekbone and stopped, his hand upraised, his eyes locked with hers. ‘Those gold flecks are back again. Are you angry or happy?’
She blinked at him and then said tartly, ‘Chilly, my lord. There is cold water dribbling down my cheek.’ The dimple at the corner of her mouth showed she was feigning anger, but Guy knew he was close to overstepping whatever invisible boundary she had set between them.
‘I am sorry. Here.’ He handed her the towel, which hung on the back of the door, making no attempt to wipe the water away himself. Suddenly he could not trust himself to touch her.
Hester knew she was making rather a business of drying her face. It was ridiculous, if Guy had the slightest idea of the effect he could have on her with such a simple gesture as washing away a trace of dirt, he would imagine she was fevered. In an effort to control her hectic imagination, which had him taking her masterfully in his arms and heeding not the slightest her maidenly pleas to desist, she dragged her mind back to the last sensible thing they had spoken of.
‘You did not tell me how you intended examining the box of documents in the library at Winterbourne Hall.’
‘Let us just say that the Nugents do not have the monopoly on breaking and entering around here.’
His expression spoke of nothing but a thoroughly masculine delight in doing something dangerous, reckless and foolhardy. Hester found her anxiety surfacing in a rush of anger. ‘Are you all about in the head? Housebreaking? Breaking into a magistrate’s house at that? No one would think the worse of him if he took a shotgun to an intruder. And what if he doesn’t shoot you? What is the penalty for breaking and entering? Hanging? Of all the stupid, ill thought out…male things to be contemplating-’
She broke off, panting, as Guy held up both hands placatingly and leaned against the edge of the kitchen table. ‘It is not ill thought out. I know exactly how and where to do it and have not the slightest intention of being caught.’ He held up his hand again as she opened her mouth to disabuse him of any delusion that this was a comforting assurance. ‘And as for being a male thing to do, well, I am a man.’
‘I had noticed,’ Hester snapped.
‘I am gratified,’ he responded smoothly, apparently intent on provoking her into reaching for the skillet, which stood temptingly to hand. ‘Now, I will send over a footman again tonight at about ten o’clock. I imagine your people will be in and out of the kitchen until then. We do not want to show our hand yet by securing the secret door. In fact, tonight is the night when six roses are due, is it not? That should keep the Nugents suitably distracted, trying to find a way to deposit them. Do you not like the idea of paying them back in their own coin, sweetheart?’
Hester was too cross for the endearment to register. She was also, she realised, very chilly. ‘It is freezing in here. The front door must be open. Susan!’
The front door was indeed open. Hester pushed it to. ‘You must have left it open when you came in. Oh, no, I was forgetting, you came round the side because we were all at the back. Where are they all? They must have gone out and not pulled it shut.’
‘I can hear voices in the kitchen.’ Guy put his hand on the door handle. ‘I must be off, but before I go, how is young Ackland’s shoulder?’
‘Much better. It seemed to heal all of a sudden, although he still favours it a little and I will not let him lift anything heavy.’
‘Ah, the benefits of youth. Goodbye, my dear.’ And he was gone, leaving Hester prey to a very mixed bag of emotions indeed.
She mulled them over as she closed the door behind him and walked back to the kitchen. Anxiety over his plan to break into Winterbourne Hall warred with a warm, selfish glow of happiness that his sister was not staying with him yet and she had a few more days of his company.
The three members of her household were busying themselves with an air that Hester could not help but find suspicious. It was not until Susan said casually, ‘His lordship’s gone, then?’ that the penny dropped. They had gone off, leaving her alone with him quite intentionally.
‘Yes, he has,’ she responded robustly. ‘And where did you all vanish to, might I ask? Maria, you are supposed to be chaperoning me-did you think you were matchmaking?’
That reduced Miss Prudhome to blushing incoherence and Jethro simply to blushes. Susan, however, stood up for herself. ‘And what if we were? He’s a fine gentleman and he likes you very well indeed.’
‘And you know-and Jethro knows-exactly why I cannot think about marrying a gentleman, ever. Do you not?’
‘What do you mean, Hester dear?’ Maria emerged from behind her hands where she had retreated in guilty confusion. ‘An earl would be a very splendid match, hut not out of the question for a gentlewoman and the daughter of a distinguished officer.’
Hester sank down at the table, her legs suddenly too weary to support her. It was time to tell Maria the truth and if she decided she could no longer act as companion to someone with Hester’s reputation, then that was simply a judgment upon her for not being frank at the outset.
‘Let us go into the sitting room, Maria.’ Somehow this warm kitchen was too informal for the confession she was about to make, ‘Susan and Jethro know what I am going to tell you: I can only reproach myself for not having been frank with you from the outset.’
Bemused, Miss Prudhome followed her employer and sat in the chair opposite Hester’s, her hands clasped anxiously in her lap, the flickering firelight sparking off the jet brooch she wore.
‘When my father died I came back to England,’ Hester began painfully. She had never had to tell this story to anyone and it felt as though it were being wrenched from her now. ‘He was not able to leave me well endowed, and I had no surviving relatives, but he had left me instructions to go to
an old army friend of his, Colonel Sir John Norton, in London. I went, hoping he would be able to recommend me to a suitable employer so I could become a companion.’
She told the story, seeing her own emotions reflected in Maria’s face: pity and shock at the realisation of the colonel’s condition; amazement, then rejection of his proposal and finally approval of the compromise they had reached together.
‘John only had a few relatives, and they had neglected him for many years, obviously feeling that a dying man, however gallant, was no concern of theirs. With no other heirs, they had no reason to fear he would leave his money elsewhere.
‘But after my arrival, it took only days for those distant relatives to scent my presence and descend upon Mount Street. The ensuing row was an epic and Sir John’s cousin, her husband, her two sons and their wives swept out of the house, having convinced themselves that he had fallen prey to a fortune-hunting hussy and that I had settled into the house as his mistress with an eye to his money.’
She sighed, wondering yet again if there was anything that could have been done at the time to stop the damage. But she had been too proud, and John too furious, to beg their understanding.
‘If they had taken themselves back to the country it might not have mattered so very much, but instead they settled in their town house and proceeded to spread the news of the colonel’s shocking liaison.’
‘I found myself pointed out in the lending library and the few callers Sir John had been used to fell away abruptly. At the fashionable milliner’s where I had begun to take my custom I found they had too much work on to oblige me and the ladies of households where I called to take up letters of introduction from my father’s commanding officer were never at home to me.’
Maria gasped in outrage. ‘How bigoted, how unjustified!’
Hester shrugged. ‘Can I blame them? I do not know. Reputation is such a fragile thing. My world closed in to the Mount Street house and my companionship with Sir John. I tried not to think about what I would do when he died, for my portion was small and the scandal had put paid to any hopes of becoming companion to anyone else.’
‘But I should have known better. He left me a legacy in his will. Not a fortune, for most of his wealth was entailed on his cousin’s son, but a very respectable competence, which, with what my father had left me, means I am able to support the appearance of a gentlewoman.’ She broke off and smiled. ‘Where, that is, no one knows of my reputation.’
‘And because of that reputation, even if it is quite undeserved, you cannot accept an offer from a gentleman,’ Maria stated sadly.
‘Not an honourable offer, that is for sure,’ Hester added wryly. ‘But I should have told you at the beginning, Maria; it was wrong of me not to. You might well have decided you did not wish to be associated with me-you may still feel that way.’
‘Never!’ Miss Prudhome leapt to her feet and hastened to hug her startled employer. ‘You are a gentlewoman, but even if these unkind rumours were true, I hope I can recognise true kindness and quality when I meet it.’ She sat down with a decided thump and blew her nose briskly.
Hester found she could not speak and contented herself with leaning over and squeezing Maria’s hand gratefully. The little spinster was so kind. If only she thought Guy would be as understanding if she told him frankly of her past. But, of course, that was asking too much. He was a leading member of society, a man with a reputation and a standing. He might take someone with a besmirched reputation as a mistress, but never as a wi- as a friend, Hester corrected herself hastily.
What am I thinking of? She turned and gazed into the flames, her eyes unfocused. Because I love him, because he has been a good friend to me and has shown he is attracted to me physically, that does not mean he would have any thoughts of marriage. When this puzzle was wound up she felt certain in her heart that he would cease to try and buy the Moon House for whatever mysterious reason motivated him. And then he would go, back to London, back to society, out of her life.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
H ester had enough self-perception to know when she was thoroughly blue devilled and likely to spend the rest of the day moping by the fire. And she knew that only some brisk activity or something else to concentrate upon would snap her out of the megrims. A walk was out of the question; a chill mist had descended, bringing with it a promise of frost later according to Jethro, summoning up the knowledge from the rural upbringing Hester suspected he had experienced.
After luncheon she cleaned the pane of glass rescued from the shed, mixed herself up a bowl of flour paste, cut the canvas free of its frame and with camel hair brushes set to reconstruct it. She dusted the tattered fragments of the picture and carefully laid each strip on to the glass, securing them with the paste.
Gradually the picture took shape as the portrait of a lady shown from the waist up. Her hair tumbled in unpowdered blonde curls around her bare shoulders, her gown was of leaf green satin in the elaborate style of perhaps fifty years before and around her neck was a long rope of exquisitely graded pearls matching the drops in her ears.
As the first of the pearls appeared under the gentle brush strokes Hester stopped wondering why the lady was not en poudre as the fashion of the time dictated and stared instead at the necklace. Could it be the same one that now lay unstrung on her dressing table? The lustre of the pearls gleamed with a glow that matched the satin, catching the green reflection of the fabric. The quality was certainly as good.
She realised her hands were trembling and took a hold on herself. This portrait was as much a focus of the blind hatred that had invaded this lovely house as the dressing room had been; of course the pearls were the same ones.
The picture built up slowly, for it was difficult to coax the fragile, brittle pieces to lie flat and to ease slashed edges devoid of paint under their neighbouring strips.
The light was fading fast as she smoothed a soft cloth over the last piece; as she did it, Susan entered, lamp in hand, ready to set a taper to the candles.
‘Why, who would have thought you could have done anything with that dirty old thing, Miss Hester?’ she remarked comfortably, bustling round the room. The candles lit, she came to peer over Hester’s shoulder.
‘Oh, my Gawd!’
‘Indeed,’ Hester agreed shakily, too startled by the effect of the candlelight on the completed image to reprove Susan’s language.
‘It’s his sister, surely?’ Hester could see the resemblance too plainly to enquire whose sister her maid meant. The hair colour, the modelling of the face, an indefinable something in the smile that played about the lady’s lips-all spoke of a relationship to Guy. A close relationship.
‘It cannot be his sister, Lady Broome. See how dated the gown is. I doubt it could be his mother either.’ Hester tried to do calculations in her head. ‘If Guy is about thirty, it means he was born in ‘84. This was painted when? About 1750, perhaps-and the lady is in her early twenties, which means she was born in about 1726 or ‘27 which would make her-’ She broke off, her brow furrowed. ‘In her late fifties when he was born.’
‘His grandmother, then?’
‘That is more likely. But see how green her eyes are, not blue like Lord Buckland’s.’
‘They look familiar.’ It was Susan’s turn to wrinkle her brow. ‘No, I give up. Will you show him?’
‘No.’ The negative emerged with more vehemence than Hester had intended. ‘Take it up to my dressing room, please, Susan, and set it up on that shelf next to the dressing table. It will be safe there. No, on second thoughts, ask Jethro to carry it, it is too unwieldy and you’ll need to open doors.’
Hester hardly noticed Jethro’s exclamation of surprise as he came in and carried the picture away, and certainly did not register Susan’s murmured explanations and speculations as she led the way up the stairs. The portrait had affected her deeply, she realised. ‘Guy,’ she murmured out loud, running her fingers along the frayed edge of the empty frame as though touching his hair.
Susan’s shriek tore through her thoughts and she was on her feet and running for the foot of the stairs before a low- voiced stream of swear words from Jethro and Susan’s furious exclamations reassured her that the two of them were safe.
‘What is it?’ Then she saw without having to wait for their reply. Propped up carefully against the door of her bedchamber was another bunch of dead roses, only this time their stems were caught together with a trailing bow of black satin.
‘Six, of course.’ She edged past Jethro, who was standing in the middle of the landing taking up a considerable amount of room with his hands spread wide to carry the portrait, scooped up the bunch and pushed open the door. All within was exactly as she had left it.
‘I do not think they came in here.’ Hester opened the dressing-room door for Jethro to set his burden on the shelf.
‘But how did they get into the house?’ Susan demanded, checking the windows as though the ‘ghost’ could have scaled the front of the house in broad daylight.
‘Through the front door, I suspect,’ Hester said. ‘I found it open when I showed Lord Buckland out. I assumed you had left it ajar when you all tactfully removed yourselves.’
Susan had the grace to blush, but Jethro protested, ‘I know I shut it behind us-it is too cold to leave doors open.’
‘Well, if this is the Nugents, no doubt they have a key and would have no trouble with an unbolted door.’ Hester went to the window and looked out. It was dark now and the cold panes gave her back only her own reflection.
Then the stable-yard gate opposite opened, letting light flood out, and a rider on a black horse emerged. Hester stared. Who on earth would be riding out on this dark, freezing night? The mist had cleared and the moon was not yet up. Then the horse backed and fidgeted and was brought under immediate control as the rider, a shadow in black, bent to speak to the groom who had opened the gate. Guy, of course. His style was somehow unmistakable. But why-and where?
