The gate opened silently to her touch for it was well oiled. She would expect that from Lowell Lister for he kept his farm running smoothly and efficiently. Flora found that she was tiptoeing toward the door, trying to avoid making any sound, and that struck her as amusing for in a moment she would knock—assuming that her hands did not shake too much—and would alert Lowell to the fact that she was there, and then she would have to explain…The nervousness pressed on her chest again, making her catch her breath.
He would think her mad.
He would think her desperate, which she was.
Several dogs barked loudly inside the house and suddenly the door was thrown wide and they streaked out into the yard, circling and barking aggressively. Flora gave a little scream. She did not like dogs. They frightened her.
“Meg, Rowan, here to me!” Lowell’s sharp command subdued them and they slunk back to his side with a wary eye still on the interloper. For that was what she was, Flora thought. She did not belong here.
“Miss Minchin?” There was incredulity in Lowell’s voice as he held up the lantern and the light fell on her face and pooled around her. “What the devil are you doing here at this hour?” His tone quickened. “Has there been an accident? Is something wrong?”
“No,” Flora’s teeth were chattering. “I needed to see you.”
Lowell looked exasperated. “Miss Minchin…Flora, this is ridiculous. I told you last time. You must not come here.”
“Well, I am here,” Flora said, with more bravado than she was feeling, “and I am not going until you hear me out.”
They stared at one another for a long moment whilst the dogs circled and growled and then Lowell gave a frustrated sigh and stood aside to permit her to precede him into the house. He did not invite her to sit down. The dogs slunk off back to their box.
Flora wrapped her arms about her as she stood in the neat little kitchen. There were the remnants of a meal of bread and cheese on the table and a pitcher of ale. She wondered how much Lowell had drunk. Not enough to make him receptive to her suggestions, she thought. He looked all too sober, standing there with a mixture of anger and resignation in his eyes, running one hand impatiently over his tawny fair hair as he waited for her to speak.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said suddenly. “You think that I am here because I have developed a tendre for you and now I am following you around in a most embarrassing way.”
“Haven’t you?” Lowell said abruptly. “Aren’t you? Just because I was foolish enough to take pity on you that morning of your wedding.” He sounded savagely annoyed with himself.
Pity. Flora felt shaken, naive, but she was not going to waver now.
“That is neither here nor there,” she said. “What I am here for is to make you a proposal. I need someone to marry me and I want it to be you.”
She was aware that the words had come out all wrong, but it was difficult for her to keep calm under the scrutiny of Lowell’s cool blue gaze. He is going to refuse me, she thought, and the panic welled up in her throat.
“Why?” Lowell said after a moment. He paced across the kitchen, his boots sounding loud on the red tiled floor. He shot her a look. “Are you pregnant?”
“No, of course not.” Flora could feel her whole body blushing. She knew perfectly well how such a situation might occur; she had simply not done it herself. “I haven’t…I don’t…I’ve never…”
“I didn’t think so,” Lowell said. There was a half smile on his lips that made Flora think that he, on the other hand might have a great deal of experience.
“Then why suggest it?” she snapped, pride overcoming her embarrassment. She turned away from him. This was all going wrong already. She might have known it would never work. She did not even know why she had thought to propose marriage to him. She barely knew Lowell Lister and now it seemed that pity had been his overriding emotion toward her. She clenched her fists tightly at her side, wanting to leave—preferably through a large hole in the floor that could just open up and swallow her—but Lowell was between her and the door.
“So if you are not pregnant, Flora—” Lowell’s drawl seemed to have become even more pronounced, sending hot shivers along her skin “—then why would you urgently require a husband?”
“Because in six weeks’ time I will lose half of my dowry to Tom Fortune,” Flora said, glaring at him, “and since I am to lose control of my money one way or the other I would rather it be to a man I chose rather than to a blackguard like that.”
Lowell inclined his head. “Sound logic.”
“Thank you,” Flora said huffily.
“So any man would do?” Lowell pursued.
Flora could see another trap yawning. Her temper tightened. “No, of course not! I chose you.” She shot him another look. “Do you need me to flatter you and say why?”
Again that half smile twitched at Lowell’s lips. “I think I do,” he said, “for believe me, you would make the worst farmer’s wife in the world, Flora.” He looked at her and under his appraising glance Flora felt her body prickle with mortification.
“How do you know I would be bad at it?” she challenged. “I haven’t tried yet.”
“You are completely unaccustomed to living under straitened circumstances,” Lowell said. “You have no idea how to work.”
“Circumstances would not be straitened if we had my fifty thousand pounds,” Flora said. “Neither of us would need to work.”
“I don’t want to play at farming like a gentleman,” Lowell said, the contempt dripping from his voice. “I need to work hard, Flora. I want to.” He came close to her and she could smell the summer scent of cut grass on him, mingled with something else more primal that seemed to cause a hollow ache in her stomach.
“You’re a lady,” Lowell went on. “You know nothing of rising at five in the morning, winter as well as summer, to light the fires and clean the house and milk the cows and make the cheese. You know nothing of working in the fields until your bones ache or riding to market to sell the fresh produce or of plucking a chicken for the pot.” He turned away. “You are no use to me as a wife, Flora.”
“Very well, then,” Flora said. “I am not going to beg.” She certainly was not going to stay to hear any more. She had evidently made a grave miscalculation in thinking that Lowell would want to marry her for her money if for nothing else. No one she knew had ever turned down a fortune of fifty thousand pounds. It was extraordinary.
She walked toward the door, but when she got there she stopped and turned back. Lowell was watching her, his face quite expressionless, his jaw set hard.
“You asked why I chose you,” Flora said. “I chose you because I thought you were lonely.” She gestured toward the box where the dogs lay curled around each other now, snoring peacefully. “What self-respecting farmer allows his working dogs to sleep in the house?” she said. “You must need the company.” She put her hand on the latch, preparing to leave.
“They are a damn sight less trouble than taking a lady to wife,” Lowell said.
Flora turned back and looked at him. He sighed, and ran a hand over his hair again, then pushed a chair out from the table with his foot. Flora accepted the unspoken invitation to sit and Lowell poured her a beaker of ale, taking the seat next to her. After a moment she tried the ale. It tasted vile. She almost spat it out.
“I don’t make fruit juices,” Lowell said, “elder-flower and blackcurrant and the like. My mother did.” He looked at Flora. “Perhaps she could give you some hints. Or perhaps not.” He sighed. “She has just taken the journey you want to do in reverse. She’s a lady now, thanks to my sister’s money and her grand marriage. She would never in a thousand years understand why a lady would want to be a farmer’s wife.”
“I’m not a lady,” Flora said. “My father made his money in trade and my grandfather was a walking-stick maker. Ladies look down on me.”
Lowell laughed. “Now that I do understand.” He sobered. “Even so, you have neve
r had to work for a living.”
“It’s true that I have never had to work,” Flora said, “but I am willing to try.” Her heart was pounding, absolutely thundering in her ears, at the thought that Lowell might even be considering her proposition. It made her wonder whether she had assumed he would reject her and so she had never really been prepared for the shock of his acceptance.
Lowell took her hand and turned it over, his work-roughened fingers abrasive against the softness of her palm. “I can see that you’ve never worked,” he said as his fingers traced gentle circles over her skin.
Flora had a sudden overwhelming image of what his hands would feel like on the rest of her soft, pampered body and almost fainted. She took a gulp of ale to steady herself. It tasted slightly less vile this time.
“Is there someone else that you would rather wed?” she blurted out. “Lizzie Scarlet used to flirt with you, though she is married now. Today,” she added, in some surprise, for she had only just remembered that Lady Elizabeth and Nat Waterhouse had wed that very morning in the private chapel at Scarlet Park.
“Lizzie flirted with everyone,” Lowell said. “It meant nothing.” His tight expression eased a little. “I thought that might have been why you came to find me tonight,” he added. He glanced at her with his blue, blue eyes and Flora felt the cool shivers ripple over her skin again. Outside there was a sudden flash of lightning, livid against the hills. The crockery on the dresser rattled at the crash of thunder and the dogs woke up and barked until Lowell hushed them.
“Why…? What?” Flora had jumped, too, at the cacophony of noise. She felt confused. “What did you think I came here for?”
“For consolation,” Lowell said. He was still holding her hand. “Because Nat Waterhouse is married.”
“Oh,” Flora said, looking at their linked hands. “No.”
“Just no?” Lowell sounded amused. His thumb was rubbing gently over Flora’s palm in distracting strokes.
“I…um…” Flora blinked. A hot, heavy feeling was beating through her blood. “I like Lord Waterhouse,” she said, “but I didn’t choose to marry him the way I chose you.”
There was a moment’s stillness broken by another huge crash of thunder and a sudden engulfing downpour of rain, hammering on the roof of the farmhouse. Flora met Lowell’s eyes and saw that the amusement was still there, but behind it was something bright and intense and breathtaking. Flora found she was shaking. She withdrew her hand from Lowell’s rather quickly and took refuge in the beaker of ale.
“I am glad,” Lowell said. “It made me angry to think that you only sought me out for comfort.”
“I told you,” Flora said, “I want to marry you so that I don’t have to give Tom Fortune half my fifty thousand pounds.”
“Oh, yes.” Lowell was smiling. He stretched, muscles rippling, hands behind his head. “I remember.”
For some reason the panic that had filled Flora earlier now came back with a vengeance and she jumped to her feet. “I must go,” she said. “It is late and my parents think me abed and I cannot afford to be seen out alone at night.”
“You cannot go yet,” Lowell said. “You will be soaked before you go five paces. Wait until the rain stops,” he added, “and I will escort you back.”
“You can’t,” Flora said. “If someone saw us together—”
Lowell stood up. He was so close to her, his presence so strong and powerful, that Flora tried to take a step back and bumped into the dresser.
“You are not walking back on your own at night,” he said. He cupped her face between his hands. There was an expression in his eyes of tenderness and exasperation and it made Flora go weak at the knees.
“You could marry anyone you wanted,” Lowell whispered. “You are beautiful and rich and sweet and brave…” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Why me, Flora?”
Flora braced herself against the dresser and looked up into his face. No more prevarication, she thought, no more pride, no more excuses.
“When you found me that day,” she said, “the day I canceled my wedding, I felt as though I had been given a second chance. Up until then I had not really lived. Oh, I had gone to balls and parties and gone shopping and paid visits and given the servants orders and done a hundred and one things that ladies—” she emphasized the word “—of my age and class have done before me, but I had not done a single thing that had made me glad to be alive.” She swallowed hard. “I do not wish to sound ungrateful,” she said. “The possession of money is an enormous blessing, but I do not wish to live off my fortune forever, doing something and nothing, sitting in my drawing room, entertaining my friends and wondering when my life is going to start until I have the vapors out of sheer frustration.” She looked at Lowell. His eyes were moving over her face as though he was committing her to heart.
“And then I saw you,” she said. “The day that I was given a second chance.” She cleared her throat. “I had seen you before, of course, at the assemblies and in the village, but I thought…” She paused. She could hear her voice trembling and she knew she had humbled her pride and the rest of her words came out in a rush before she lost her nerve. “I thought you had so much life and vitality and passion and I wanted that. I wanted that passion so much I was prepared to come here today to pretend to buy you with my fifty thousand pounds—” She stopped. One look at Lowell’s face told her there was no point in continuing. And the strange thing was that she knew it was not because he pitied her, as he had claimed when she had first arrived. He wanted her. She could see it in his face and feel it, even though he was not touching her. But…
“I’m sorry, Flora,” he said, and his eyes were full of pain. “I cannot marry you. You think that you would be able to adapt to life as a farmer’s wife but you have no real idea of what that means. I know you would not be happy. It would be too different and in the end it would tear you—and us—apart.”
Flora drew back. She felt sick and tired to have tried and failed, but more than anything, she felt disappointed.
I will not cry, she thought. He does not deserve me.
“At least I was willing to try,” she said huskily. “I was wrong about you, Lowell Lister. I thought that you had courage as well as passion, but in the end you were not even prepared to take a risk.”
And she turned away and walked out of the house and into the storm without a backward glance.
LIZZIE SAT BY THE WINDOW and looked out at the rainswept street. It was late and the village was deserted, as silent as the grave. Lizzie had never lived in Fortune’s Folly itself and she had thought at first that she might enjoy having the bustle and activity of the village all around her but this silent night seemed dark and quelling. Nat had taken a short-term lease on a town house called Chevrons that was let by a lawyer who had gone to Bath for the winter and had decided to remain there. The Duke and Duchess of Cole had rented the property when they had been trying to find a suitor for Lydia the previous year. That had ended badly, Lizzie thought, and now her marriage had barely got off on a better footing.
Lizzie had no idea how long Nat planned to stay in Fortune’s Folly, because he had not discussed it with her. As she had sat alone that evening she had come to realize, slowly and a little painfully, that she and Nat had talked about nothing of significance at all and she had no idea about any of his thoughts and plans. In fact, Lizzie thought bitterly, they had barely seen each other during the two weeks of their formal betrothal. The morning after Tom’s orgy, Nat had taken her to Drum Castle to stay, most respectably, with Miles and Alice. Nat had also arranged Sir Montague’s funeral, which had been a miserable affair with very few mourners. Tom had failed to turn up and even the servants had had to be bribed.
And then Nat had left Fortune’s Folly for London, to make whatever arrangements were required for the wedding. Lizzie, left behind and fretting over all the uncertainties in her future, had spent the time exactly as she had spent the rest of her life up until that point: riding out on the hills, visi
ting her friends, shopping in Fortune’s Folly and avoiding Alice’s perceptive questions on how she felt about her impending nuptials. In some ways it had felt as though nothing had changed at all but in other ways it was a terrifying time as she had waited, her life seemingly suspended, for Nat to return.
She and Nat had married that morning in the chapel at Scarlet Park with her cousin Gregory, the Earl of Scarlet, as one witness and some official from the Chancery as the other. The match had been rushed through as a favor to Nat and to her cousin, who had considerable political influence, and Lizzie had felt completely ignored in the process. None of her friends had been invited to attend and when Lizzie had protested about this Nat had told her that her cousin the Earl had requested a private ceremony and, as they were trespassing on his hospitality, she could have no say in the arrangements. Lizzie had felt as though Gregory Scarlet had hushed the whole thing up because he was ashamed of her—as indeed he might well be.
After the ceremony there had been a cursory wedding breakfast hosted by the Countess of Scarlet, a bossy, sharp-natured woman who had given the impression that Lizzie was creating a vast amount of trouble for her long-suffering relatives. The countess’s gaze had repeatedly flickered over Lizzie’s stomach as though she was trying to assess whether she was enceinte or not. Lizzie had lost her temper and had said sweetly that dear Charlotte should not concern herself because she was sure she was not pregnant, and was that not a mercy since she had only been married for two hours? The countess had hustled her two young daughters away at that point, covering their ears and looking at Lizzie as though she was the source of a major contagion.
Lizzie had found it odd and nostalgic to be back in her old home and yet to feel it was no longer familiar to her, her father’s somewhat risqué paintings and sculptures gone from the walls and everything stifled in dark and somber colors. Nothing could have spelled out more clearly for her how her old life was closed to her once and for all. She had no place at Scarlet Park and now she no longer had a place at Fortune Hall, either, so where did she belong? She was not sure; nor did she know what sort of life she and Nat could forge together.
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