Married: The Virgin Widow

by Deborah Hale

  Laura tried to form a reply, only to come over as breathless as her mother had been a few moments ago. A tempest of contradictory emotions raged within her at the prospect of facing the man who had forsaken her after she’d naïvely given him her trust and love.

  If her family had not been dependent on her for their survival, she would have taken great pleasure in denouncing Ford Barrett for his past behaviour. But she did not have the luxury of venting her hurt and anger. For the sake of her mother and sisters, she would have to behave with as much civility as she could muster. A man with so few scruples surely would not hesitate to turn her family out of his house if she provoked him. But if he expected to find her the same helpless, gullible girl he had abandoned seven years ago, Lord Kingsfold would soon discover his mistake.

  What in blazes was going on?

  Ford wrenched open the heavy window curtains to let a little light into the drawing room. Its murky dimness made the linen-shrouded furniture look like a party of musty-smelling ghosts. Had the whole place been shut up for the winter while Laura gadded off to London or the Continent?

  If so, she must have returned recently. The moment he’d entered the house, the faint scent of orange blossoms had beguiled him with the most vivid awareness of her. She seemed to hang about him, no more than a breath or a kiss away.

  Even before he could demand to see her, Pryce had bustled off, saying he must fetch her ladyship to welcome the new master. At least that provided satisfactory answers to Ford’s most pressing questions. Laura was in residence and she had not yet found a new husband. During his voyage home, he’d been haunted by the possibility that remarriage might place her beyond his power. How could he have endured it, if she’d slipped through his fingers again to continue plaguing him for years to come?

  The soft patter of approaching footsteps made Ford feel like a volcano—his core of seething emotions encased in a shell of cold, hard selfcontrol. He dared not erupt, as he longed to do, spewing accusations and reproaches. Even a hint of his true feelings might make Laura flee. And that would spoil all his plans.

  So he steeled himself to withstand the sight of her and betray nothing of the fury that smouldered inside him. The years he’d spent struggling to make his fortune had given him plenty of practice. Indeed, he owed much of his commercial success to his skill at concealing his emotions. But nothing in the past seven years had tested his iron selfcontrol as severely as his first glimpse of Laura.

  She entered the room carrying a candle. Its light glinted over her fair hair, which had darkened to a shade that reminded Ford of sweet cider. Most of it was pinned up in soft ripples, but a few stray curls clustered around her face like the kisses of a gentle lover.

  The moment she crossed the threshold, she swept him a low, formal curtsy. “Welcome home, Lord Kingsfold. You look very prosperous. You must have made gainful use of your time in the Indies.”

  Nothing she could have said would have whipped Ford’s wrath up so quickly. It took all his selfcontrol to school his tone to one of cool irony. “You sound surprised. Did you expect me to return from the Indies in rags? I will have you know, I amassed a considerable fortune during the past seven years.”

  “I congratulate you.” Laura could not disguise the silvery glint of avarice in her eyes. “What made you leave all that behind and travel so far for the sake of a modest country estate?”

  Did she despise the place? Was that why she had not hesitated to deprive him of it? “Hawkesbourne and the family title have always been more important to me than any amount of money, Lady Kingsfold. That sounds awkward, doesn’t it? Perhaps you would prefer I call you something else?”

  He could think of a great many things he would like to call her, none of them flattering.

  His suggestion set Laura in motion. Or perhaps it was some menace in his stare that he could not fully conceal. She hurried about the room, lighting candles with the one she had brought. “We were once on friendly enough terms to call each other by our given names. Could we not continue?”

  She still moved with rhythmic grace, as if every step were part of some bewitching dance. Once she ran out of candles to light, Laura came to stand a few feet in front from him and fixed him with an inquiring look. Jolted out of his bemusement, Ford recalled her question. Did she mean they should take up again as if the past seven years had never happened? Though that would play perfectly into his plans, the heartless audacity of her suggestion infuriated him. He paused for a moment, weighing his reply.

  Meanwhile his gaze ranged greedily over Laura, comparing her present appearance with the golden ideal of his memory. He had once thought her eyes as clear and candid a blue as the summer sky. Now they were clouded with secrets, perhaps even capable of passionate storms. Her face was thinner than it had been, making her wide jaw look stronger. But her lips were as full and potently inviting as he remembered—like some succulent tropical fruit at the peak of ripeness.

  “I must confess, I never think of you as Lady Kingsfold…Laura.” He found it impossible to say her name without his tongue caressing it.

  Though her features betrayed no sign that she noticed or cared, the flame of the candle she held suddenly flickered out. “I must apologise for offering you such poor hospitality. If we had known you were coming, we would have contrived something better.”

  The gall of the woman! Welcoming him into his own house when it was clear she considered him as welcome as the plague. No doubt she’d hoped he would stay half a world away so she could continue to play the lady of the manor at his expense.

  “Perhaps you wish I had warned you of my arrival.” Ford spoke more sharply than he intended. “So you could have contrived to be elsewhere.”

  “No, indeed!” A flash of distant lightning blazed in the summer sky of her eyes. It must vex her that he saw through her mask of courtesy to the disdain she truly felt for him. “Though I will admit, that is partly because I have nowhere else to go.”

  “You cannot mean that.” Ford drew back abruptly and began to stalk around the room, circling her at a wary distance. “According to the solicitor’s letter, you inherited all my cousin’s personal assets, while the estate fell to me by entail. Surely a beautiful young widow possessed of such a fortune is at liberty to go wherever she wishes.”

  Damn! He had not meant to call her beautiful, even if it was truer now than ever. From there it was but a short, treacherous step to admitting her beauty affected him.

  Laura refused to acknowledge his compliment. “I assure you, what I inherited from your cousin was no fortune and now it is almost gone.”

  Her words stopped Ford in his tracks. If she was telling the truth, what had become of his cousin’s money?

  Chapter Two

  So Ford thought she’d been living in luxury on his cousin’s fortune. Had he cultivated that belief to assuage any bothersome twinges of conscience over his past behaviour toward her?

  Even from several feet away, Laura marked the sudden jump of his dark brows and the brief slackening of his tight-clenched jaw. This was not precisely the way she’d meant to surprise him. But it would do. Anything to jar him out of his frosty composure.

  Perhaps then she might not feel quite so vulnerable in her own unsettled feelings. Her first glimpse of Ford Barrett after seven long years had flustered her even more than she’d expected. Not that he was the same ardent, charming young man she remembered. Time had changed him in many ways.

  The pitiless Indian sun had darkened his skin to the color of a Barbary pirate’s. The wild black curls she had once loved to twine around her fingers had been cropped to short, severe stubble. His mouth, once so mobile, was now set in an unyielding line. The years had chiselled his features into a visage of stark, savage beauty. Eyes, once the warm, soft green of new moss, were now hard and cool as jade.

  Had all those changes been wrought by the passing years and his experiences in the Orient? Or had he always been such a forceful, ruthless man, while she’d been too naïve to see i
t?

  “My cousin’s fortune all gone?” Ford spoke in a bemused murmur. “How is that possible?”

  His tone of disbelief galled her. Did he suppose she would continue to live in this decaying old mansion, crammed to the rafters with painful memories, if she’d possessed the means to go elsewhere? Did he imagine she would have stayed to be subjected to his mocking condescension?

  Staring at him over the hump of a dustdraped chaise-longue, she refused to be cowed. “Losing money is a great deal easier than gaining it. Rising expenses. Bad investments. The years since the war have brought hardship to many in this country. Perhaps you were not aware of it, being so far away, in lands where luxuries are cheap and fortunes easily made.”

  Harsh laughter burst from Ford. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

  His scathing tone reminded Laura so much of his cousin’s, it made the flesh on the back of her neck prickle. The deep timbre of his voice, once a mellow caress upon her ears, now had a hoarse, raspy edge.

  “Those items you consider luxuries may be cheap in the East, on account of being so plentiful. If cinnamon came from the bark of elm trees or cloves from the buds of myrtle bushes, no one in England would think them such rare extravagances. In the Indies, items you might hold of little value—iron cooking pots, glassware, printed cotton—are the costly luxuries.”

  Every word struck Laura like a stinging blow, driven by contempt and sharpened with ridicule. That Ford was correct in everything he said did not lessen the insult. That his handsome, arrogant presence overwhelmed her with such intense awareness made it ten times worse! She did not dare reply for fear of saying something so offensive he might take out his anger on her mother and sisters. She’d been relieved to discover he was wealthy, only because it meant he might not grudge her family houseroom.

  Ford emerged from behind the draped chaise-longue and approached her with deliberate, intimidating steps. “As for my fortune being easily gained, you could not be more mistaken. There are opportunities in the East, but for a man to take full advantage of them, he must work hard, take risks and be ruthless when necessary.”

  As each word brought him closer, Laura stood her ground against his steady, menacing approach. On no account must she let Ford see how his nearness affected her. And how was that, exactly?

  It filled her with alarm, of course—a sensation no less distressing for being so familiar. Though her husband had been dead for more than two years, her throat still tightened and her insides knotted whenever a man came too close to her. The faint whiff of spices that hung about him made her mouth water, while his air of tightleashed power made her light-headed. When his glittering green gaze roved over her from head to toe, Laura’s flesh prickled as if responding to a feathery touch.

  She managed to stand firm. But that owed less to her resolve than to being caught between two contrary inclinations. Part of her itched to turn and flee from this formidable man while another part felt irresistibly drawn toward him.

  Willing her voice not to tremble, she replied, “No wonder you made such a success of your ventures. Two of the three necessary qualities come so naturally to you.”

  Once he came toe to toe with her, Ford stopped, unable to advance further without knocking her down. As Laura glared up at him, he loomed over her, his gaze fixed upon her lips. Was it her imagination, or was he leaning toward her?

  “Which two qualities might those be?” he demanded in a husky murmur.

  Ford was leaning closer, inch by inch, forcing her to tilt her head back. If the candle in her hand had still been burning, its flame would have scorched the breast of his coat.

  Her voice did not come out in the brisk snap she intended, but rather a breathless whisper. “Surely you can guess.”

  As his lips bore down on hers, Laura opened her mouth to protest. But before she could speak, a volley of girlish giggles erupted from the doorway.

  “Pray don’t let us interrupt!” cried her sister Belinda in a teasing voice.

  “I believe we must interrupt,” chimed Susannah, the younger of the two, “for the sake of Laura’s reputation.”

  As Ford jerked back from her and spun about to face her younger sisters, a wave of relief swamped Laura. But in its wake came a fleeting sting of frustration.

  The sound of high, twittering laughter broke over Ford like a cold sea wave upon scorching sand. Jolted back to his senses, he shook off the bewitchment Laura had cast upon him. He turned toward her sisters with a vexing mixture of gratitude and annoyance.

  “Who are you two snooping chits?” he demanded in a bantering tone. “And what have you done with the sweet little Penrose girls?”

  His question was not altogether in jest. The sight of Belinda and Susannah drove home the reality of how long he’d been away and how much had changed. He remembered a coltish girl of barely fifteen and a child of twelve with oversized front teeth that had made her look like a little brown rabbit. In his absence, they had blossomed into a pair of lovely young women who had not yet lost their childish impudence.

  “The Penrose girls?” A hint of turquoise mischief flickered in Susannah’s eyes. “Those silly green gooses? We locked them in the west attic until they learn to flirt properly with young gentlemen.”

  Ford felt his mouth stretch upwards in an unfamiliar way while a strange sound rumbled up from his chest, stiff and hoarse from disuse. He marvelled at the effortless way Laura’s sisters lightened his mood. While he bantered with them, the past seven years seemed to retreat like a bad dream from which he’d been relieved to waken. “I thought flirts were the ones who got locked away until they learned proper decorum.”

  Belinda shook her head, making her chestnut curls waggle. “I fear you are sadly behind the times, sir.”

  Both girls laughed, wrinkling up their pert little noses as their sister once had. It was a mannerism Ford had found particularly endearing. Now, as she brushed past him to stand behind her sisters, Laura looked as grim as any strait-laced spinster.

  “Mind your manners, you two,” she chided them with only the flimsiest veneer of jest, “or Lord Kingsfold may turn us out of his house. Is that not so, my lord?”

  Behind her pretence of wit, Ford sensed fear and desperation. But the proud tilt of her chin issued a challenge. He was not certain how to respond. Nothing at Hawkesbourne Hall was what he’d expected.

  “I said no such thing,” he replied. “Your sisters are welcome to visit for as long as they wish.”

  “Visit?” cried Susannah as she and Belinda swooped toward Ford, each taking hold of one of his arms. “You’re joking again, aren’t you? We live here, of course, and so does Mama. How pleased she will be to see you again.”

  Belinda let out another infectious giggle. “I hope you won’t turn us out before we’ve had a chance to hear about your adventures in the Indies. Did you ever see an elephant? Or a tiger? Did you eat lots of curry?”

  “Too much.” Ford strove to conceal his surprise at Susannah’s off-hand announcement. How long had the girls and their mother been living at Hawkesbourne and why? “But just now, I could eat a whole tiger or a haunch of roast elephant. Join me for dinner and I promise to fill your ears with tales of the Far East.”

  “Dinner?” Laura looked as if he had demanded her head on a platter. “Of course, you must be famished after your journey.”

  Casting a glance at her sisters, she nodded toward the drawing-room door. “Susannah go help Mr Pryce fetch in the master’s baggage. Belinda, come with me to help Cook prepare dinner. We have the rest of those trout dear Mr Crawford brought. I hope fish will suit you, Ford, since we are fresh out of elephant?”

  Her question made Ford grin before he could stop himself. It surprised him to discover she still possessed a spark of wit beneath her mask of cool restraint. A great number of things about her surprised or mystified him.

  One minor mystery provoked him to inquire. “Who is this Mr Crawford who furnishes food for my table?”

  “Onl
y a kind neighbour,” Laura replied as her sisters released Ford’s arms and headed away with obvious reluctance. “Without his generosity, we would have had a poor meal to welcome you home.”

  Now that he thought of it, Ford recalled a Crawford family who occupied one of the neighbouring estates. They had made quite a fortune in the brewing business. “I suppose I should be grateful to him, then.”

  He did not feel grateful, no matter if the fellow filled his whole larder. He did not care for the fond way Laura spoke of their kind neighbour. Might his cousin’s fortune-hunting widow have her eye on a fresh matrimonial victim?

  That would never do.

  What a disturbing encounter!

  Laura’s fingers fumbled as she tied on her apron. Prior to Ford’s return, a stubborn corner of her heart had nursed the foolish hope that she would find him still the same eager, amiable man she’d once known.

  But the cold, severe creature who’d confronted her seemed quite capable of turning his back on anyone who became an encumbrance or an obstacle. At first she’d questioned the flashes of hostility she glimpsed behind his mask of aloof restraint. After all, she’d never done anything but free him from an inconvenient obligation to her. Was he angry with her for marrying his cousin? What choice had he left her?

  And why on earth had he tried to kiss her?

  Laura wished she had some private time to puzzle it out, but at present she had her hands full trying to prevent Cook from having hysterics.

  The poor woman was well on her way. “Lackaday! How am I to put a fit meal on the table for the new master with the larder so bare? Why did he not send word he was coming so we could have prepared things decent?”

  Laura wondered that herself. Did Ford enjoy setting the household in an uproar and her life in turmoil?

  “Don’t fret.” She patted Cook on the arm and tried to reassure them both. “His lordship has been away for seven years and finally come to the end of a long journey. Little wonder he wanted to get home without delay. Besides, he says he’s very hungry, so he isn’t likely to care what we put in front of him as long as it fills his belly.”