An Ideal Companion

by Anne Ashley

  If he was aware of this fact he certainly gave no indication as he remarked almost casually, ‘Occasionally my sister displays an amazing degree of sensitivity, my angel, as now, by allowing us these few precious moments alone together.’

  Ruth smiled. Since her arrival in London she had more than once heard him make some derogatory remark about his sister. Yet, it must have been obvious to anyone with a ha’p’orth of intelligence that, even though he made few outward displays, he held Sarah in great affection.

  ‘How did you know it was I and not Sarah?’ she asked, when he continued to stare resolutely out of the window.

  ‘Because I recognised your footfall. You have a much lighter tread, besides having far daintier hands.’

  He did no more than capture the other in order to hold them both imprisoned against his chest, as he turned to look down at her for the first time. Ruth returned his gaze, instantly noting the unmistakable gentleness in his eyes, while wishing fervently that she was more adept at reading his expressions.

  As Lady Beatrice had remarked all those many months before, Hugo Prentiss gave little of himself away. He was just too skilled at concealment, only ever revealing what he wanted people to see. Oh, yes, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was fond of her... No, she amended silently, he was deeply, deeply fond of her. She didn’t doubt either that he sincerely wished her to be his wife. Sadly, it did not automatically follow that he had, finally, fallen in love with her. After all, that taunting little voice in her head was only too quick to remind her, he had never once admitted as much, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been granted numerous opportunities to do so had he so desired. Was it simply that he was too honourable a man to tell her a barefaced lie?

  She was given scant opportunity to ponder this most poignant issue, for a moment later he had slipped his hands possessively about her, drawing her ever closer as he claimed her mouth.

  So unexpected, the embrace had taken her completely by surprise. His displays of affection thus far had been tempered by gentlemanly restraint, limited to mere reassuring or protective grasps of her hand, or a chaste salute on her wrist. But there was nothing restrained in this demonstration of masculine desire.

  Betraying remarkable dexterity, he succeeded in moulding her mouth to his, parting her lips with a gently demanding pressure, while his hands worked a heated, arousing course down the length of her spine and round to grasp her hips in that possessive hold he was increasingly adopting.

  She was powerless to break free, even had she wished to do so. Yet there was nothing remotely intimidating in his touch; nothing that made her fear placing her future in this man’s hands. Quite the contrary! She sensed his capacity for loving tenderness; instinctively felt he would own, guide and protect by love, not force, by gentle persuasion, not brutal intimidation. Yes, any woman could safely place her future well-being in this man’s hands.

  The conviction acted like a palliative, and in those wonderfully reassuring moments, before the sound of Sarah’s tactfully raised voice in the hall reached their ears, all doubts about a future together were blessedly forgotten. Freed from lingering anxieties Ruth was conscious only of a sensual, persuasive touch that instantly evoked sensations in her, and she found it so very easy to believe that she had miraculously become the centre of this man’s world; that his heart now truly belonged to her, unconditionally.

  * * *

  It was only later as she stood staring down from her bedchamber window at the very spot from where the Lansdowns’ light travelling carriage had departed a mere thirty minutes before that those heartrending misgivings returned with a vengeance to torment her.

  While she had been held very willingly captive, she’d been oblivious to everything save that gently awakening contact that had promised so much pleasurable shared satisfaction in a future bound together. Any lingering doubts of how deeply fond of her he was had been vanquished completely. Any slight concerns about the type of husband he would make had been eradicated, too. In her heart of hearts she knew that Hugo would be the antithesis of the late Lady Lindley’s choice of mate. No, she had never doubted that for a moment. What continued to torment her was that heartbreaking fear that in his mind’s eye Hugo might have been imagining quite a different girl in his arms when he had kissed and caressed her, and that he always would. Was she doomed always to be the understudy, good enough to take on the part of leading lady in his life, but not his first choice for that privileged role?

  An involuntary sigh escaped her. The truth of the matter was that, even after these weeks in London, she still lacked the experience to judge. Maybe, too, she was a coward, afraid of knowing the truth. Doing her level best to avoid stark reality by having her worst fears confirmed, she had steadfastly avoided even mentioning Alicia’s name within his hearing, for how could she go through life knowing that in Hugo’s eyes she would always continue to figure as just the best replacement for the one with whom he had truly wanted to share his life, no matter how faithful a wife or how good a mother she turned out to be. She shook her head, accepting that her choice was woefully limited. Either from somewhere she found the courage to face those twin demons by conquering both jealousy and pride, and accept what affection Hugo was capable of offering, or risk losing perhaps the only man she would ever truly love.

  ‘Don’t know why you didn’t accompany Lady Lansdown out to pay some morning calls, miss, instead of staying up here all by yourself, moping.’

  So wrapped up in her own private misery had she been that Ruth had completely forgotten she hadn’t been alone in the room; that Agatha had been busily putting away freshly laundered clothes.

  ‘I’ll have you know I haven’t been moping,’ she countered as convincingly as she could. ‘I’ve been considering something Colonel Prentiss revealed over breakfast earlier.’

  She salved her conscience by reminding herself that at least part of the response had been truthful. Hugo had, the night before at his club, discovered that it was indeed none other than Dr Samuel Dent who had been in attendance when the youngest of Sir George Hilliard’s children had died.

  Which, of course, gave the doctor a strong motive for murder, as Hilliard had taken revenge by ruining the doctor’s reputation, Ruth reminded herself, desperately striving to turn her thoughts away from her own painful concerns and concentrate on something else.

  Furthermore, Dr Dent had seemed most eager to quit Dunsterford Hall that morning. But then, she recalled quite clearly, so had all the others. And Hugo was right, of course—why go to all the trouble of killing Hilliard on a coastal pathway, when it would have been so much simpler to lie in wait for him somewhere here in the capital?

  Unable to come up with any obvious explanation, and quickly accepting that, in her present mood of heartfelt despondency over her own troubles, she was unlikely to come up with any plausible reasons for the cliff-walk murder, she decided it might be advisable to get away from the house for a while in the hope it would clear her head.

  ‘If you must know, I didn’t accompany Lady Lansdown out simply because I didn’t relish spending the next couple of hours or so listening to the latest tittle-tattle going round the capital. All the same, I could do with some fresh air, so I think I’ll pay a visit to Julia Adams. You remember—that nice woman who stayed at Dunsterford Hall last October,’ Ruth reminded her maid. ‘I rather liked her. And she’s the only one Colonel Prentiss and I haven’t yet seen.’

  * * *

  An hour later Ruth stepped down from a hackney carriage before a large redbrick house. The street wasn’t so very dissimilar to the one in which Dr Dent and his sister resided, both being lined with trees, now majestically in full leaf and looking their best. The area, though, was generally thought to be very respectable, if not on a par with the fashionable thoroughfares further west. Moreover, Mrs Adams’s property was much larger than the Dents’, not to mention a great deal better
maintained.

  A girl of about fifteen or, maybe, sixteen came in response to the summons. Ruth was instantly struck by a similarity she bore to someone she’d met quite recently, certainly since her arrival in London. Yet, for the life of her she couldn’t immediately bring to mind who it might possibly have been as she asked to see the mistress of the house.

  ‘I’m afraid Mama is not home at present. She’s out doing the marketing, but she shouldn’t be too much longer, should you care to step inside and wait?’

  After requesting Agatha to pay off the jarvey, Ruth crossed the threshold into a small and spotlessly clean hall and introduced herself. ‘Your mama and I met last autumn when she was obliged to seek refuge at my home during a snowstorm,’ she went on to explain. ‘She might possibly have told you all about it.’

  Ruth could tell at a glance from the girl’s expression that she had known nothing about the incident, even before she admitted as much. It momentarily crossed her mind as being slightly odd that Julia Adams hadn’t confided in her daughter. Even so, she put it from her thoughts as she was shown into a charmingly furnished, sunny front parlour.

  ‘What a delightful room!’ Ruth announced, echoing her thoughts, as she accepted the offer of a seat.

  ‘Oh, Mama likes this room, and likes it kept “just so” as it is her private sitting room,’ the girl revealed ingenuously. ‘She believes no respectable person would wish to rent rooms in a property where standards are allowed to fall.’ She looked Ruth over from head to toe, possibly in an attempt to assess her station in life. ‘Was it perhaps rooms you were wishing to rent, Miss Harrington? We do have two vacant on the first floor, facing front.’

  ‘No, not at the moment, Miss Adams. This is merely a social call.’

  It was at this point the door opened and Ruth turned to see a middle-aged woman, dressed in sombre black, and with her greying locks neatly confined in a chignon, enter the room. The slight resemblance she instantly perceived to the younger and far more attractive owner of the house gave her a pretty shrewd idea of who the woman must surely be.

  ‘I thought I heard the door-knocker and discovered a maidservant sitting on the chair in the hall. You should have informed me at once, Alice, that we had a visitor. Your mama would consider it very remiss of me if I didn’t welcome possible future boarders to the house on her behalf.’

  Although it had clearly been a reprimand, it had been gently delivered by the older woman, who gave every appearance of suffering from a surfeit of nerves. Furthermore, Alice didn’t seem unduly troubled by the mild rebuke as she revealed that Ruth had called to see her mother.

  ‘It’s a social call, Aunt Ship. Miss Harrington very kindly offered Mama shelter last year when there was a snowstorm. It must have happened after Mama had visited you in Devon and had remained for Grandpapa’s funeral.’

  ‘No doubt you recall that most unseasonably early cold snap we suffered at the beginning of October, ma’am,’ Ruth reminded her, when the aunt, too, appeared slightly puzzled. ‘Fortunately it didn’t linger very long. A mere twenty-four-hour wonder, one might have described it. Your sister was able to be on her way the following day.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do now recall,’ she at last responded. ‘Thankfully, over Lynmouth way we had only a fine dusting, hardly anything to speak of at all. I do remember hearing that it was far worse to the east, over the moor.’ She frowned. ‘But I never knew poor Julia had been stranded in it. She never said anything to me...merely wrote to say the journey had been quite tedious.

  ‘And I must say, I found the journey to London very tiring myself earlier this year, when I removed here,’ she went on to reveal in the next breath. ‘But, then, I’ve never been accustomed to travelling, unlike dear Julia.’

  Memory stirred and Ruth recalled Mrs Adams mentioning something about her sister remaining in the country to keep house for their father, whilst she had been obliged to seek employment away from home.

  The spinster sister readily confirmed this. ‘Yes, Julia was always far more outgoing. I was always a timid little mouse in comparison. Naturally, dear Papa didn’t like her moving away. But, as things turned out, she did very well for herself, so perhaps it was all for the best.’

  ‘Would I be correct in thinking she moved away from home to take up a position as governess?’ Ruth asked, as memory stirred once again, and received an immediate nod in confirmation.

  ‘Yes, she was very young, but she was always so capable. She attained a position with a good family and lived in Hampshire for a while. A few weeks later she wrote to say that she was travelling with the family to London. Then the next thing we knew she had upped and married Mr Adams and had moved away from the capital.’

  Ruth was suddenly reminded of how a tall gentleman had entered her world and how it had changed overnight, but for a rather different reason. ‘One can never be sure what life holds in store. One can continue doing the same things week in, week out; year in, year out. Then, quite suddenly, a chance meeting with someone can alter one’s life so swiftly.’

  ‘How very true! It certainly happened that way for Julia,’ the sister confirmed, before releasing her breath in a sigh. ‘Sadly, though, my brother-in-law, some few years older than her, did not enjoy good health and was destined not to live very long after the marriage had taken place. He wasn’t even strong enough to make the journey to meet Papa and me, and died even before dear little Alice was born.’

  Ruth’s gaze strayed towards the girl sitting quietly beside her aunt on the sofa. She didn’t seem in the least disturbed by the topic of conversation. But then why should she? Ruth reflected. Like herself, the girl had never known her father.

  ‘You and I have something in common, Miss Adams,’ she revealed softly. ‘I never knew my father. Naturally, I wish I had. But it’s hard to grieve for a parent one has never known. Of course, when I lost my mother I was about your age and it was an entirely different matter.’

  The girl’s expression changed dramatically. She appeared to lose every vestige of colour in a matter of seconds. ‘Oh, I couldn’t bear to lose Mama! No one could ever take her place! She’s always been there to take care of me.’

  ‘And has done so very well,’ Ruth returned, after staring about her. A further memory then stirred. ‘But I believe I’m right in thinking that you haven’t always lived here, Miss Adams,’ she added in an attempt to turn the girl’s thoughts in a new direction and restore that youthful bloom.

  ‘No, for several years we lived in a much smaller house, Papa’s own house, where he grew up, about a mile or so from here.’

  ‘But you were born by the sea,’ her aunt reminded her, ‘not that you’d remember anything about that. You were still a babe in arms when your mother brought you back to live in the capital.’

  ‘No, I don’t remember, Aunt Ship,’ the girl confirmed. ‘Mama never talks about it, either.’ She shrugged. ‘But then it’s perhaps understandable why she chooses not to do so. She and Papa were married for such a short time.’

  ‘Ship...?’ Ruth echoed, gazing questioningly at the aunt. ‘Would I be correct in thinking that is a pet name your niece has for you, ma’am?’

  ‘Indeed, it is. Naughty puss! My name is Shipley...Cecily Shipley.’

  Ruth could feel herself growing colder as those names, Ship...Shippie...Shipley, echoed over and over in her head, until she had finally recalled just where she had first heard the surname and precisely who had uttered it. She then studied the girl seated opposite more closely, noting the dark hair and eyes, and the faintly aquiline nose. As far as she could remember she bore little resemblance to her mother, who was blonde haired and blue eyed. But she certainly bore a keen resemblance to someone she had met quite recently—a half-brother, perhaps, by name of Sir Philip Hilliard.

  Oh God! Ruth inwardly groaned. That poor, poor girl!

  Suddenly conscious that she was
guilty of rudely staring, she said, ‘Forgive me, Miss Adams, for looking at you so keenly. From memory, I do not think you resemble your mother overmuch.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t resemble my sister Julia in the least,’ Miss Shipley agreed, thereby denying her niece the opportunity to answer. ‘Julia assures me that dear Alice is the very image of her late father.’

  And I, for one, do not doubt the truth of it! Ruth mused. She didn’t doubt either who had been the girl’s natural father. ‘Did I infer correctly, ma’am, that you were never acquainted with your brother-in-law?’

  ‘No, sadly, neither Papa nor I ever met John Adams,’ she readily confirmed. ‘We never realised that Julia had given up her position as governess, and had moved away from London, until after she had written from her new home by the sea to inform us of her marriage to Mr Adams.’

  She drew her wispy brows together in a frown. ‘Papa and I did consider the marriage had taken place in unseemly haste. Julia never so much as mentioned his name in any of her previous letters. But when we learned that he had sadly died a matter of weeks only after their wedding, Papa and I quite understood. Poor Julia must have known how very ill he was and didn’t wish to delay. Then little Alice was born several weeks before her time.’ The frown was vanquished by a rather simpering smile. ‘But blessedly she survived and Julia returned to London to reside in the home her late husband had left her, here, in the capital.’

  Ruth listened to all this with increasing interest, placing her own interpretation on certain salient points. ‘No doubt the sea air was beneficial and aided your survival, Alice,’ she suggested, striving desperately not to reveal the scepticism she was experiencing concerning the girl’s birth.

  ‘I have always felt it must have been so, Miss Harrington,’ the aunt agreed. ‘Alice wasn’t born in a fashionable place like Brighton, of course, but in a little town situated not too far distant, I believe. I just cannot recall the name of it now, but no matter. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it, in any case.’