‘I have to. I have to do this. I have to see if I can find him. Until I see for myself if he is alive or dead, this will never be over.’ Tying a rope around his waist, he handed it to a stevedore. ‘Haul me out if I’m down there too long.’ His face was closed when he looked at Rosa for a moment, then he turned and plunged into the water. A gasp went up from those gathered around and people struggled with one another to see what was happening in the water.
With silent horror, Rosa fixed her eyes on the spot where William had disappeared, unaware that she was holding her breath while she willed him to reappear. Ahmet came up beside her and took her hand in a firm grip in an attempt to allay her fears.
‘He’ll be all right. He’ll come out. Wait and see.’
Rosa couldn’t bear the waiting. William was in great danger. He had been under the water a long time. Why didn’t he come back up? And then the sight of his dark head surfacing revived her spirits.
Shaking his head and gulping in air, he disappeared once more. The longer he remained under the water the more Rosa felt as if she were dying. Her soul, her very life, was concentrated in her eyes, fixed on the place where he had gone under. A boat had pulled up alongside and then, miraculously, William surfaced, his hand clasping Kapoor’s coat. Immediately they were both hauled into the boat and rowed to the edge of the dock. It was plain that Kapoor was dead. Having hit his head on something sharp when he had fallen, Kapoor had a deep gash that marred his forehead. William climbed up, his body shivering with cold. Their driver appeared with a travelling rug and draped it about him. Gratefully he wrapped it around his body.
‘Best get you home, sir, before a chill sets in.’
William looked at Rosa. Her face was drawn and ashen. He went to her, water dripping from his wet hair.
‘I’m all right, Rosa. Don’t worry.’
‘What will happen to Kapoor?’ she asked, looking at the Indian’s lifeless body being lifted out of the boat.
‘The constables will take him away. There will be questions asked, which I will deal with. Come, let’s see Ahmet back onto the ship. There’s nothing else we can do and I must get out of these wet clothes.’ He turned to Ahmet. ‘Now you can return Dhanu to his father without the threat Kapoor posed hanging over you. He would have known that you would be leaving some time and must have been watching the dock for some time.’
‘Yes—and now it is over. Thank you, Lord Ashurst, for what you have done and for the kind hospitality you have shown me. The Rajah owes you a great debt.’
‘The Rajah has already given me a great deal, Ahmet. I am in his debt.’
With nothing else to be said, Ahmet bowed his head and, turning from them, boarded the ship.
* * *
One week after Dhanu had departed for India and after Rosa and William had spent an enjoyable evening at the theatre with Aunt Clara and Uncle Michael, later, sated and content, in the huge four-poster bed, William drew Rosa towards him.
‘Ever since we returned from the theatre you have been preoccupied, my love. I know you have something on your mind. Would you like to tell me about it?’
Sighing, Rosa rolled onto her stomach, resting her arms on his chest and looking down at his face. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking.’
‘Oh? What about?’
‘My wealth. Since you don’t want it—’
‘And I no longer need it.’
‘Quite. Well, you know how I want to put it to good use—to use for the good of others. I would like to know more about the work of abolitionists of the slave trade. I know there are numerous committees working hard. There are tracts and petitions to organise and it all costs money. I would like to make a considerable contribution. Tell me what you think?’
‘I commend your actions, Rosa. Since coming to London and taking my seat at Westminster, I have listened to and spoken to leading activists and given them my full support. I intend to do my best to campaign for abolition. The work has been ongoing for decades—gathering pace all the time, and it will not stop until there is emancipation of all slaves.’
‘It will be a great day when it comes—I hope in my lifetime. There is also something else I would like to do. It’s something I’ve given careful consideration to for some time now and I hope you will approve.’
Liking the feel of his wife’s naked body pressed to his own, settling himself into a more comfortable position William wrapped an arm about her slender waist. ‘Pray continue. I am all ears.’
‘I would like to have a large fund made available to Aunt Clara so she can open an orphanage for all the children in her care. The institutes are by no means adequate, although they are better than nothing at all, but I know it is her dream to one day open an orphanage and even a school where the children can be educated and properly taken care of. Along with her associates she works hard to raise funds, but it is never enough.’ She fell silent, looking at her husband, waiting for his reaction. When he was not forthcoming, she prompted, ‘Well, tell me what you think—and please understand that this is important to me.’
‘I can see it is—and I am not surprised, knowing how much you enjoy working with your aunt. I have no objections. The money is yours to do with as you please and I cannot think of a more useful or deserving cause. I will help in any way I can—and,’ he murmured, his slumberous gaze becoming fixated on her lips, ‘you might also find ways to coax some of my own newfound wealth out of me. I’m open to persuasion.’
Rosa laughed, lightly placing a kiss on his lips. ‘I’m sure you are, but please behave and keep your lascivious thoughts to yourself and be serious for a moment. Before we leave for Berkshire I would like you to accompany me to my lawyer to set things in motion. Perhaps he will oversee the proper distribution of the funds. Aunt Clara has been so good me and I know she will be so happy to see her dream achieve fruition.’
Laughing softly, William rolled her onto her back. ‘I, too, would be happy to see my wishes achieve fruition,’ he said, cupping her face in his hands and proceeding to plant tantalising kisses on her cheeks, her lips, ‘if I can just stop you talking for long enough.’
‘But you will come with me—to see the lawyer,’ Rosa murmured, almost losing the will to think clearly as his fiery tongue began to play havoc with her ear.
‘Anything you ask, my love,’ he murmured, claiming her lips at last.
* * *
Approaching Ashurst Park for the first time as the Countess of Ashurst, Rosa could not believe her good fortune. Today it was blanketed in snow, the sky an unbroken blue above, whereas in summer it would be surrounded by a riot of flowers, the lawns mown, and beyond the surrounding trees, well-tilled fields stretched time out of mind into the distance.
When she had first set eyes on the house with its eye-catching façade, she had fallen in love with it and had dreamed of one day entering as its mistress. And then she had found a way when she knew Lord Ashurst was in need of a rich wife. When he had agreed to her terms she had thought all her hopes were about to come true—his rejection had been a bitter blow.
But now, she thought, her eyes straying from the approaching house to the man by her side, how things had changed. And how very lucky she was. As he surveyed his ancestral home his eyes held a sadness as he reflected on the past. His sadness transmitted itself to Rosa and she took his hand.
‘What is it, William? Why the sadness?’
‘When I arrived from India and entered the house, knowing what had befallen my cousin—his death—I felt that the house had lost its soul. It was full of ghosts—of old sins—of grief. Remembering the happy times when I came here as a youth—the house was always filled with laughter—I wondered if it was possible for those times to come again. Could I bring it back?’
‘Oh, William, I am sure you can. We will do it together. It will be a long climb back, but it will come. The children we have in the future will bring happiness—
and never forget that we have each other.’
He looked down at her, loving her. Already he could hear the children’s laughter coming to him over the snow from the house. He glanced ahead and felt the tension ease. His face relaxed and he smiled.
* * *
If you enjoyed this story
don’t miss these other great reads
by Helen Dickson:
Lord Lansbury’s Christmas Wedding
Royalist on the Run
The Foundling Bride
Carrying the Gentleman’s Secret
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The Uncompromising Lord Flint
by Virginia Heath
Chapter One
Late May 1820
‘English pigs!’
The wrought-iron bars rattled again as another hailstorm of stale breadcrumbs hit him squarely in the face. She might well be a traitor and a termagant, but Lady Jessamine Fane’s aim was reliably accurate.
‘I’m sorry, my lord. Had we known she was stockpiling her rations to use as weapons we would have relieved her of them.’
Lord Peter Flint dusted the latest baked embellishments from his lapels and smiled tightly. ‘Pay it no mind, Captain. This is an unusual situation for all of us.’ It wasn’t every day that a Royal Navy frigate became a floating prison for one inmate and a female one at that. Nor did he, in the usual run of things, find himself the reluctant gaoler of one, tasked with dragging her foul-mouthed and fiery carcass back to London. A job that he was now prepared to concede might not be as simple as he had first thought. Lady Jessamine did not strike him as one who would go meekly. Or even quietly. The blasted woman had been hurling abuse at them for the better part of half an hour. Hell, she’d been yelling from the moment he boarded the ship and they had set sail an hour ago. A constant tirade of pithy, imaginative and noisy invective issued alongside the flying food from her nest in the shadows.
‘Can we bring some more lanterns down here?’
The brig was unnecessarily dark and forbidding, the heavy, windowless timbers of the hull creaking as they rocked on the tide. Her collection of missiles would be more easily avoided with the addition of some light and he wanted to know exactly what and whom he was dealing with and, no matter what she had done, it seemed a tad cruel to keep her in the dark.
Flint was yet to see her face properly. It was buried in a ratty tangle of dark curls. All he could properly ascertain was despite her strength she was small, judging from the petite size of the grubby hands which gesticulated wildly in a Gallic fashion. Yet her surprisingly sultry French-accented voice and impressive repertoire of insults suggested she was no girl. Not much of a lady either, but then what had he expected?
Lady Jessamine might have once been the daughter of an English earl, but a decade had passed since she had been ripped out of her British life by her traitorous French mother. A mother who had fled England to live openly in sin with her French lover. The Comte de Saint-Aubin-de-Scellon had been one of Napoleon’s biggest supporters. He was still one of his most loyal supporters, if their intelligence was to be believed, and the lynchpin of the French side of the smuggling ring they were yet to destroy. In view of her bohemian and scandalous upbringing, her lack of morals hardly came as a shock. Nor did the treason. As the Comte had had more of a hand in Lady Jessamine’s upbringing than her own father, it was hardly a surprise that her allegiance was staunchly with the enemy.
Like mother, like daughter.
Except the loud-mouthed Jessamine had done more than share a bed with the enemy. If the mounting evidence was to be believed, she had committed all manner of atrocities which had seen good men die. Men he considered friends as well as comrades in arms. Once she had served her purpose and spilled her secrets she would likely hang. And rightly so. All Flint had to do was deliver her to Lord Fennimore, the courts and the lawyer Hadleigh and then he would be shot of her and her foul temper.
Above him, he listened to the sounds of the huge canvas sails snapping in the wind and knew the next few days would not be pleasant despite their fast speed. Aside from this ocean journey, he would then have to spend days stuck in a coach with her. It couldn’t be helped. He was between missions and the rest of the King’s Elite were either in the thick of it or on honeymoon. His friend and fellow spy Jake Warriner had been the first to fall into the parson’s trap, something which still came as a shock considering Jake had always been a committed and cheerful rake determinedly averse to settling down. He had been closely followed by Seb Leatham, who had gone and married an effervescent incomparable despite his painful shyness around women. As both friends had been working on the same mission to catch exactly the same smugglers as Flint, their sudden and unexpected plummet into marital bliss was a worry. Two good men down. A state Flint wanted no part of.
Not this side of fifty at least. Perhaps when he was older and beginning to creak he might welcome the presence of a wife. And then again perhaps not. Merely considering it made him frown.
It wasn’t so much the institution of marriage he took issue with, rather the inevitable tribulations which came along with it. As the youngest of six children, five of whom were female, he’d had quite enough feminine machinations, hysterics and interfering nosiness to last a lifetime. He’d been hen-pecked, mollycoddled and driven to the furthest limits of his sanity for his first twenty years. Those scars still ran deep. Too deep to plunge headlong into marriage any time soon. Women were born conditioned to find ways to control and confound the men they cohabited with. A fact he understood only too well.
He loved all his high-strung sisters dearly, was hugely proud and protective of them in equal measure, but also spent a great deal of time wanting to strangle the lot of them. Despite all now happily settled with good husbands and families of their own, they still devoted a huge and wholly unnecessary amount of time meddling in his life.
In the last two years that meddling had become considerably more unbearable than it had been in his youth—before he had discovered the sweet taste of freedom—because now they had collectively decided their little brother was in dire need of settling, too. In their minds, seven and twenty was precisely the right age for a man to marry. He couldn’t return home without an attractive and eligible female being unsubtly wafted under his nose.
Last month, when another mission necessitated a protracted visit to his estate, his troublesome sisters had conspired to procure three potenti
al brides who just happened to be invited to every dinner he was home to eat. And he had been purposely non-committal about his possible attendance at all meals—yet those eligible girls were there regardless. One of whom was so enthusiastic Flint had had to keep his wits about him for a whole week to avoid being caught in a compromising situation. That chit had been hellbent on being ruined and his sisters, and his own beloved mother, had encouraged her ardent pursuit! It was a sad state of affairs when a man’s house wasn’t a safe haven.
Thank goodness the wandering and unpredictable life of a spy had given him a convenient excuse to avoid his siblings for months out of every year. They lived in Cornwall, miles away from anywhere, and he cheerfully resided in London in bachelor lodgings, blissfully female-free. A situation which suited him perfectly. As he knew to his cost, all women—family or otherwise—really couldn’t be trusted.
A hard chunk of well-baked crust caught him on the temple. ‘Do not dare try to ignore me, English pig! Let me out of here! You do not know what you have got into. They will come and they will kill you. Every one of you!’ He dodged the next doughy projectile and rolled his eyes. All this combustible feminine emotion was tiresome. She saw it and became most fervent, her small hands curling around the bars and her dark eyes wide beneath the tangle of curls.
‘Do you seriously think they will let me set one foot on English soil and not be there waiting?’
Something he and his superiors were counting on and the real reason why she had been held tantalisingly on this huge ship, conveniently anchored within plain sight of the beach at Cherbourg for almost six days.
Lady Jessamine was bait.
A tasty morsel to lure her fellow traitors out of the woodwork. ‘You are overreacting, madam. Before you know it, you will be stood firmly back on English soil, in the dock and found reassuringly guilty and we’ll all be much happier for it.’
A Vow for an Heiress Page 24