Two, if you counted the passionate affair he had begun with her, when he was still not quite sure who she was.
And at least she could be sure she ranked higher in his esteem than poor Miss Winters.
He was quite determined not to marry Miss Winters, no matter what stratagems she might employ to snare him.
And equally determined he would marry her. For whatever reason.
And she was going to accept him.
Cora had been devastated by witnessing her fiancé kissing a half-naked woman. But Mary had learned a lot about the nature of men from listening to her work mates talking about their lives. A man could see nothing wrong with marrying one woman, and keeping another as a mistress. They did not seem to think fidelity was an essential ingredient of being a husband.
And that one glimpse she’d had, of what her life without him would be like, had been too bleak to contemplate.
As she waited for the maid to answer her summons, she went to the little ormolu clock that sat on the mantel. It showed almost eleven o’clock. Not too late for a woman who was about to become Lady Matthison to be ringing for some breakfast! That was what fine ladies did. Lounged in bed half the day, taking their meals on a tray.
She had a sudden vision of the former Lady Matthison doing exactly that. Wallowing in self-pity! She pressed her lips together, disgusted with herself for even contemplating going down that road. She would be nothing like her predecessor!
She marched herself to the dressing room and poured the last of the water from the jug into the basin. The night before, she had, out of long years of habit, emptied the wash water into the enamel bucket under the stand, for the maid to remove this morning.
She expected Mrs Paulding would frown on her saving her staff so much work. The thought rather cheered her as she finished her brisk wash, and pulled her wrap back round her just as she heard a knock on the outer door to her chamber.
His lordship and her brother, the girl informed her when she asked, had breakfasted earlier, and then gone out riding together.
‘Of course they have,’Cora replied with a tight smile. Healing the breach that had grown between them would be extremely important to him. Kit had never had many friends, and none so close as Robbie. When she had disappeared, he had lost what he held most dear. Oh, she did not flatter herself that it was her, so much! But his best friend, and his reputation. All gone, at a stroke. He would regain it all by marrying her.
She had it within her power, to grant him his heart’s desire. Of course she would not deny him that!
She trailed over to the window, gazing out over the park where they had gone riding, just as they had done each day when she had last been here. How left out she had felt.
How much more would she hurt from now on, knowing she would have his name, but not his heart? But she would get used to it. It would not be anywhere near as painful as leaving Kingsmede, perhaps never to see him again.
She ate her scrambled eggs, and drank her tea slowly, wondering how she would fill her days as Lady Matthison. If the place had been as dilapidated as it had been seven years ago, she would have enjoyed setting it all to rights.
But Lord Matthison had done it all on his own.
Feeling restless and disgruntled, she decided to take a tour of the house, and see what other improvements he had made, apart from the ones she had already noticed. She did not ring for the housekeeper, whose task it should have been to escort her new mistress over her domain. She had enough on her mind already, without having to deal with her open hostility.
It was not long before she found herself in the portrait gallery, gazing up at the canvas that Kit’s grandparents had commissioned on the occasion of his parents’ betrothal.
The former Lady Matthison had been pretty as a girl. She was shown sitting on an armchair out on the front lawn, with the façade of Kingsmede angled behind her to reveal a stylised version of the surrounding lands spread out beyond. She looked very young, and very happy as she smiled down at the enormous ruby ring that adorned her finger. Kit’s father lounged languidly against the bole of a tree looking down at her. Cora had never met the man, but she could just see that bored young fop turning into the rackety gamester Kit had described.
Twenty years of being married to him had reduced the happy, smiling girl in the portrait into the fretful woman who had been desperate for her only son to marry an heiress.
But she would not end up like her! Kit had promised, in the coach on the way here, that they would never suffer from the financial constrictions that had driven a wedge between his own parents. And that he would not neglect her, or make her unhappy.
And whatever happened, she would never, ever treat any child of hers the way those two had treated poor Kit. They had been so wrapped up in their own problems, they had completely neglected him. And turned their backs on him when he had most needed their support.
Her breath hitched in her throat. Last night, all she had been able to think about had been seeing Kit with that half-naked woman. She had not spared one thought for what he had been through, in the seven years since she had lost her memory.
He had suffered a great deal. Whatever that incident in the hut had been about, it did not alter the fact that he had never stopped wanting Cora. Missing her so much that he had even invented a ghost to haunt him. He had been half out of his mind when she had met up with him again. She could not forget the look of anguish in his eyes when he had grabbed her in the Flash of Lightning, and asked why she had run away from him.
She felt quite indignant on his behalf. Surely somebody could have stood by him, no matter what he’d done? But nobody had. Not Robbie. Not his parents…
She pressed her hands to her mouth to stifle a sob. Not her, either. She had been as self-absorbed as his parents. She had been so focused on her own problems last night, she had turned her back on him. Left him all night to wonder if she was going to leave him all over again, which was his greatest fear.
‘Oh, Kit!’ she moaned.
Being unfaithful was not such a heinous crime that he deserved to suffer complete ostracism for seven years. Especially not when she took into consideration the fact that he had been coerced into proposing to her.
She felt thoroughly ashamed of herself for joining the ranks of people who had let him down.
She went to the window, and looked over towards the woods where her love for him had undergone its greatest trial. If she had not met with that accident, would she have had the courage to have fought for his love? To have marched up to him, and demanded an explanation? To insist he give up that woman if he wanted to marry her…oh, dear, she feared not! She had been so sure by that time that she was unworthy of his hand, that…
She remembered the way he had held her hand, all the while he had been introducing her to his mother. And the defiance in his voice. And his insistence that Lady Matthison hand over the betrothal ring that had been in his family for generations.
Her heart began to beat very fast. She had been quite wrong to let others persuade her he did not love her at all. She only had to consider the wreck he had been when she met him again, and the way he had subsequently treated her, to know he cared for her to some degree. More than his father seemed to have cared for his mother.
If she really loved him, would she not prove it by standing by him, no matter what he did or how he felt? And she did love him. As Cora, she had fallen in love with the sombre, cultured boy who had offered to make her a lady. As Mary, her heart had gone out to the hardened, bitter gambler who had sworn he would always take care of her.
And now…she loved him still. Through all the changes that suffering had wrought on him, he was still her Kit. The only man for her, no matter what he had done or who she was.
She had to find him, and tell him! She whirled round to make her way downstairs, only to almost jump out of her skin to find the butler standing right behind her.
‘Excuse me, Miss Montague,’ he said. ‘You have a visitor. Miss Farrell,�
��the butler continued, ‘walked over as usual this morning to visit Mrs Paulding, and when she heard of your return, asked if she might have the privilege of being the first of your neighbours to welcome you back.’
‘Did she, indeed?’ Cora supposed she had to admire the woman’s sheer nerve. She had temporarily pushed the Frances Farrell issue to the back of her mind, while she had wrestled with the more important question of how she was going to cope with marrying Kit.
‘I did say you had been unwell last night, and that his lordship had said you were not to be disturbed this morning.’
Had he? Oh, see! He did care for her! It might not be the all-consuming love she felt for him, but…
‘But Mrs Paulding told her you were up and had breakfasted, and Miss Farrell was most insistent that I enquire as to whether you are receiving.’
She had the perfect excuse to avoid dealing with Frances.
But had she not decided to grit her teeth and get on with her new life? No hiding from reality by blotting out painful memories, or fuzzing her perception with alcohol, nor, she stood a little straighter, hiding in her room like the last Lady Matthison. Or using butlers to avoid unpleasant scenes.
‘Thank you. That was thoughtful of you, but I shall see her.’
Frances had all but destroyed Cora, by making her believe she was not a fit bride for Kit Brereton.
But since then, she had spent seven years working for a living. She had learned to stand on her own two feet. She had established a position for herself, in that workroom above Madame Pichot’s shop.
It struck her that once separated from her domineering male relatives, and with no preconceptions about how she ought to behave, she had been set free to become herself.
She had finally learned who she really was.
And now, armed with the knowledge of Cora’s social position, bolstered by Mary’s hard-won sense of self-worth, she was more than ready to go downstairs and tell Frances Farrell that she no longer had the power to scare her!
‘Miss Farrell is in the morning room,’said the butler. ‘Do you wish me to escort you down?’
‘No, thank you. I know the way. Tell her I shall be down presently.’
The butler glided away, while Cora turned back to the painting and regarded Kit’s mother one last time.
The ring she was wearing in the portrait was unmistakably the one Kit had slipped on to her finger in spite of his mother’s protests. The same one she had seen Frances trying on, during the nights she had lain, drenched with fever, imprisoned in the attics at the vicarage.
Suddenly she was glad Kit and Robbie had gone out. This was something she had to deal with for herself. She had not had the courage or the self-confidence to fight for Kit’s love last time she had been here. She had ended up cowering under the blankets while Frances flaunted her victory.
But the ring belonged to Lord Matthison’s betrothed! She whirled round and marched down the corridor, fists clenched at her sides.
And it was up to her to insist that the thieving witch gave it back!
Chapter Twelve
Frances Farrell was sitting on what Cora had once, long ago, thought of as Lady Matthison’s sofa. Lady Matthison had sometimes come downstairs, when Frances had come to call, and received her there in state. ‘Such an obliging girl,’ she would say to Mrs Paulding, in Cora’s hearing. And then it would be, ‘Frances dear, I know you won’t mind me asking…so fatiguing for me…’ and they would put their heads together and discuss people and places she had never heard of. And then Frances would go off on whatever errand Lady Matthison had given her. Once or twice, on her way out, seeing Cora’s crestfallen expression, Frances had paused and patted her hand and promised that one day, perhaps once she had settled in a little better, she could go with her and meet the tenants she was visiting on behalf of the lady of the manor. And Lady Matthison would sniff, and turn on her heel, and float back up the stairs trailing shawls and scarves behind her.
Cora blinked away the slights heaped upon her in the past, and advanced on Frances Farrell with her shoulders squared.
Frances looked up at her and smiled. The open, friendly smile she had once upon a time employed to such devastating effect.
‘Would you care for some tea?’she asked pleasantly.
In front of Lady Matthison’s sofa was a low table that held cups, saucers, a sugar bowl and a plate of freshly baked biscuits. All the paraphernalia associated with the ritual of receiving morning callers.
Cora halted in her tracks as Frances lifted the teapot.
It all looked so civilised, so normal.
Except that she was presiding over the teapot as though she were the hostess and Cora was the one who was visiting!
‘How dare you stroll in here, and sit on that sofa—’ Cora jabbed her forefinger at the floral-patterned upholstery of the bow-legged, claw-footed chaise longue on which Lady Matthison had loved to recline ‘—and offer me tea, as though…as though butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth!’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Frances, putting down the teapot and eyeing Cora with disdain. ‘I see your manners have not improved since last we met.A lady who aspires to become mistress of Kingsmede,’ she went on witheringly, ‘really should know how to receive morning callers.’
At one time Cora had stood in awe of Miss Farrell’s vast store of knowledge about the running of Kingsmede, gleaned not only from her kinship with Mrs Paulding, but also her relationship with Lady Matthison. Frances had always been dropping ‘hints’ about how the future mistress of Kingsmede ought to behave. And Cora had drunk it all in, assuming Frances was trying to help her. But now she knew that all those hints had been dripped into her ears like so much poison, causing what little self-esteem she’d had to shrivel until she felt she was not even worthy to visit the place, never mind marry the man who would one day inherit it!
‘That tone won’t work on me any more,’ said Cora defiantly. ‘Because I know what you are now. I have remembered what you did. You should be in prison, not wandering about freely—’ she sucked in a deep breath, her sense of outrage growing by the second ‘—offering people tea!’
Frances rose gracefully to her feet, her greater height making it all the easier to look down her nose at Cora. ‘Perhaps we should take a stroll in the gardens,’she said, going over to the French windows that led out on to the terrace. ‘So that the stridency of your voice may not reach the ears of the servants. We would not want them thinking his lordship has brought home a fishwife, now would we?’
With a supercilious smile, Frances unbolted the doors, and went outside. For a moment, Cora stood stock still in the middle of the floor, stunned by the way Frances was treating the place as if it were her own. And, most annoyingly of all, forcing Cora to trot along behind her, like some kind of supplicant if she wished to continue with the conversation.
Which of course she did.
‘You mean you don’t want to risk anyone overhearing what I have to say to you,’ she retorted, plunging through the French doors in pursuit.
Frances had gone down the terrace steps, and was crossing the velvet-smooth lawn towards one of the rose borders.
‘I trusted you!’ Cora panted, catching up with Frances, who was examining the bushes with a critical eye.
‘You made me believe you were my friend. But all the time, you were looking for ways to hurt me!’
‘Not at all,’ Frances replied mildly. ‘I only wanted you to go back where you had come from. I had hoped,’ she said with a doleful shake of her head, ‘that seeing him with his paramour would have made you realise there was nothing for you here. My purpose was not to hurt you, but to open your eyes. You do remember,’ she said with apparent concern, ‘seeing him with that woman? You did just say your memory has returned.’
‘Of course I remember seeing him with her, but…’
Frances frowned quizzically. ‘Then why have you come back? Have you not learned what he is like yet? Or are you still claiming to be infatuated with him,
so that you can pretend to be blind to his faults?’
The dart struck home. Was that not exactly what she had just been doing? Deciding to turn a blind eye to his infidelities, because she could not bear to contemplate living without him?
‘You…you are twisting everything!’ she cried. ‘Besides, it is not his faults I came out here to discuss with you…’
‘Good. Then we may discuss yours.’
‘Mine?’ gasped Cora, as Frances frowned, then stooped to snap a withered bloom from its stalk.
‘You have no education, no fortune—’she tossed the spent bloom into the hedge at the back of the border with a grimace ‘—and no connections. You have never been a suitable partner for his lordship. And now—’ she shook her head reprovingly ‘—I cannot think what has made you believe you can push your way back into his life.’
‘It is not like that! It was his decision to bring me here. Besides, what right have you to say I am not suitable?’
‘I only say what everyone thinks.’ Frances turned away abruptly, her skirts releasing a cloud of fragrance into the air as they brushed against one of the low-growing lavender bushes.
‘Nobody approved of his choice. Especially not his parents! None of his tenants would ever have accepted you, either. For we all knew how you and that brother of yours trapped him into making a proposal of marriage. Robbie,’ she said, smiling maliciously over her shoulder, ‘told me all about it.’
So that was where Mrs Paulding had got the story of the fight by the boat-house from. She felt slightly sick. Robbie had confided in Frances about how he had made Kit propose to her. How could he?
She watched Frances progress along the border, stopping to sniff at a full-blown rose here, snapping off a spent one there…Frances, who had tricked her into believing she was friendly, when all the time she had been looking for ways to get rid of her. She had duped Robbie too. He had thought the world of her. He had spent a great deal of time going over to the vicarage. At one point, she had wondered if the two of them would make a match of it. She shuddered at the thought.
Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss Page 20
