Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Annie Burrows

  The depressing thought made him wish, not for the first time, that he hadn’t sold out. Especially since Boney had escaped from Elba and gone on the offensive again. But who could have foreseen that he’d have gained so much support as he advanced through France? And without having to fire a single shot? Or that Europe would be teetering once more on the brink of all-out war?

  He glanced around the study with loathing. He’d never been happy in this place. And he’d been a fool to think it might be different now that the Fourth Earl, and his older brothers were dead. None of them had wanted him to inherit. They’d even taken steps to ensure he wouldn’t. Which meant he had no training whatsoever that might have prepared him to manage estates that had come to him in such a poor state.

  He could almost feel the disdain the three of them had always shown him oozing from the walls. Urging him to go back to where he belonged. With the rest of the men Wellington had recently referred to as the scum of the earth.

  He bowed his head and took a deep breath. One of the things that every soldier learned was that sometimes the only sensible thing to do was to retreat in good order.

  And that time, he decided, had come.

  After breakfast, he was going to get hold of Daisy and make her listen to him, whether she wanted to or not.

  Just once.

  Before he left.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ben was looking particularly morose this morning, Marguerite noticed when he slouched into the kitchen for breakfast. He really must hate being married to her.

  Well, she was not going to let anyone know that she cared. In fact, she made more effort than ever to appear to be perfectly happy and looking forward to another day spent exploring the rooms, and the stores, and making lists of what needed doing and where she could start.

  As soon as she finished breakfast, she rose to her feet and made for the door, Marcie at her side.

  ‘One moment, my lady,’ said Ben darkly, getting to his feet as well. ‘I need to speak with you.’

  ‘Oh, can it not wait? I was planning to start work on the dining room this morning.’ She’d put on an old dress that she didn’t mind ruining, and she was going to tie a scarf over her hair, the way she’d seen housemaids do when tackling particularly dirty jobs. It was going to be rather fun. ‘I have found enough pieces to furnish it again, and with a bit of cleaning...’

  ‘No, it cannot wait,’ he said, stalking over to her and taking her by the arm. ‘Let us take a walk outside,’ he went on, gesturing to the kitchen door.

  How dared he grab her like that, in front of...everyone? And how dared he make her...walk so close to him, so that she could feel the heat coming off his body? A body that called to hers in a way that was so unladylike. So inappropriate. So...humiliating, since he was so completely immune to her?

  ‘Really,’ she said, shaking him off the moment they were outside, and far enough from the kitchen window that nobody could see. ‘Must you manhandle me in this...brutish fashion?’

  ‘Just this once, yes,’ he growled, opening the door to the walled garden, where the cook and little Sally had managed to keep an astonishing amount of vegetables growing, between them. ‘And then you will never have to suffer my odious presence again.’

  What? A cold hand seemed to clutch at her insides. It sounded as if he was leaving her. No, that couldn’t be true! It would be too humiliating to be left behind like some...well, not even like a worn-out shoe, since he hadn’t even bothered trying her on for size, as it were.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I am going to put this farce behind me.’

  Farce? He thought marriage to her was a farce? How dared he?

  ‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘that I am going to write to my commanding officer, asking to return to my regiment. Since you clearly dislike being my wife so much that you cannot even bring yourself to speak to me, I have decided that it would be best for both of us if I remove my odious presence from Bramhall Park and go back to doing what I do best. You will, I am sure, enjoy your position as Countess far more if you don’t have to endure the company of the Earl. I thought it only fair to warn you of my movements, even though you so clearly do not care about them.’

  She took a breath to object. But he didn’t give her the chance to say one single word.

  ‘Oh, you need not worry about how you will manage for funds once I’ve gone. I will write to my man of business before I go, instructing him to give you full access to your own wealth. Because I would rather walk naked into a snowstorm than touch one penny of it. Do you hear me?’

  Oh, yes, she’d heard him. He’d rather walk naked into a snowstorm than touch a penny of her dowry.

  ‘And should I get posted somewhere dangerous, which is very likely considering the state of affairs in France, I can also assure you that the settlements ensure you will become a very wealthy widow.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘That will no doubt suit you very well.’

  Marguerite stood still, watching him storm away, through a haze of tears. How could he think she would enjoy being a widow? How could he think so poorly of her? He must...really hate her to say such a thing. She hadn’t thought he disliked her that much. He’d given her no indication that he felt strongly at all. He was reserved, it was true, but then he always had been reserved. But to hear him accuse her of wishing him dead...

  He might as well have slapped her.

  In fact, she didn’t think it would have hurt as much. Oh, dear, and now she really was crying...

  She stumbled to the far end of the walled garden, where there was another gate that led, so she’d been told, to the gardens. She hadn’t explored the grounds before, thinking that it would be better to concentrate on the house itself to start with. But she had no intention of letting anyone, not even Marcie, catch her crying over Ben!

  The door was stiff and needed some persuasion before it would open. But that just suited her mood. She needed to kick at something. Shove at something that would yield, eventually. Because Ben himself was...

  Ah! The door gave way, and she half fell into what might once have been an orchard but which now resembled the kind of forest that ought to be in a fairy story. A fairy story with an evil witch at the centre, who’d put a curse on the fruit so that nobody dared eat it, otherwise why would it be lying, ankle deep and rotting in mounds beneath every gnarled tree? And why else would there be chairs, and little tables, and other odd bits of furniture strewn all over the place and resting at odd angles, as though there had been a battle between various factions that had ended in a Pyrrhic victory for the chairs?

  The moment the word battle popped into her head, she thought of what Ben might have to face if he went back to the army. He’d already been injured once. And must clearly expect something of that sort could happen again, or why would he have mentioned her widow’s jointure?

  She came to a halt next to an apple tree, thick with green fruit that nobody had bothered to thin out, and leaned against the trunk.

  How could Ben say such things? How could he? She’d been offended, yes, when he’d said he planned to leave. That had struck a blow to her pride. But to hear him say he’d rather risk dying than live with her any longer...ooh, that struck at something far deeper than pride. And it had hurt when he’d said, in that sarcastic way he had, that he hoped she’d enjoy being a widow.

  Of course she wouldn’t enjoy being a widow! What kind of person would experience a moment’s happiness, knowing she’d driven a man to his death? And not just any man but Ben?

  She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, but the first thing that came to her hand was the scarf she’d been going to tie over her head. Still, it was cotton, so it would do. So she pressed it to her face. To her eyes.

  She didn’t want Ben to die.

  She just wanted him to...to like her. To find her attractive. To...want her...just a tiny bit. En
ough to make her a real wife.

  Instead, she’d...she’d driven him away. Completely. Had turned what had started out as indifference to active dislike.

  And the worst of it was that she had nobody to blame but herself. She could have...tried to...

  But she’d never dreamed that...well, snubbing him would have had such a dramatic effect on him.

  But, then, nothing she’d ever done had ever had any effect on anyone else. She hadn’t thought anything she did could affect anyone else. Other people, that was to say, her brothers and their friends, always seemed so...certain of themselves. So invulnerable. It had never occurred to her that not speaking to one of them, of showing her anger with him, might have made him feel...well, anything!

  But it had.

  Oh, but she was wicked to drive a man from his own home. Especially a man who hadn’t done a thing to deserve it. Why, when she compared his behaviour to hers these last few days...

  He’d behaved like a perfect gentleman, that’s what he’d done. He’d given her no indication he hated being married to her. He’d been polite, if taciturn...but, then, Ben was taciturn, wasn’t he? And she’d felt free for the first time in her life to do whatever she wanted. There was no governess breathing down her neck, reminding her how she ought to behave. No anxiety about what she would find waiting for her in any room of the house, or at least nothing that had been put there deliberately to upset her, so that her brothers could laugh at her reaction. And no overbearing husband, telling her what he expected of her, the way she’d dreaded for so many years. He’d just let her do whatever she wanted.

  And in return for his forbearance she’d behaved like a spoiled child. She’d ignored him, refused to speak to him, whilst deliberately being as friendly as she could with everyone else. In front of him, too, so that he couldn’t escape her...spite. And it was no use making the excuse that she’d never expected him to feel anything much. She wouldn’t have behaved as badly as she had if she hadn’t wanted to provoke some sort of reaction, would she? And she’d succeeded.

  Oh, she groaned, bending over at the waist and pressing the scarf to her mouth to stifle the sound, so that nobody would overhear. She’d never been so ashamed of herself in her life.

  She was going to have to apologise. Tell him that the last thing she wanted was to be a widow. Not if it meant Ben would die. Which it would, since he was her husband.

  Surely he would listen? There was still hope, wasn’t there? Hope that he might stay and try again, if she promised to try harder. Or even at all. Because so far she hadn’t made a single attempt to behave like a wife, had she?

  She blew her nose. She didn’t relish the prospect of apologising. Explaining herself. It would be dreadful...but not as dreadful as letting him march off to war and then waiting for the letter to arrive, informing her she was a widow. Which would make her feel as if she’d murdered him.

  She’d have to go and find him. Right away. Before he did anything irrevocable. He’d said he was going to write to his commanding officer, hadn’t he? Not that he’d already done so.

  Right, then, she’d have to swallow her pride and go looking for him while there was still time.

  Surreptitiously, though. She didn’t want the staff to know that she was about to climb down off her high horse. But what to tell them?

  As she racked her brains for an excuse to cover her sudden interest in her husband’s whereabouts, her eyes snagged on a chair with its legs in the air like a dog waiting to have its tummy tickled. That was it! The furniture! She could tell them she’d found all this furniture in the orchard, and wanted to ask Ben about it in case he thought any of it might be worth salvaging, or whether she could just use it for firewood. That ought to do it. Or at least it was as good an excuse as she could conjure up on the spur of the moment, for why she was suddenly so determined to go and speak to Ben in the middle of the day.

  Blowing her nose one last time, she made her way back to the house.

  * * *

  Ben shut the door to his study firmly behind him, went to the desk, sat down, and buried his head in his hands.

  What had he done? He groaned. Burned his bridges, that was what. Said all the wrong things, rather than the things he’d meant to say. Because the moment she’d accused him of being a brute, all the feelings he’d kept dammed up for so many years had come bursting out on a wave of bitter anguish.

  He lifted his head and pushed his hair back off his face. All those years when he hadn’t been able to string two words together when he was within touching distance of her, and now, when he had finally made a speech he had said such wounding, despicable things that he’d alienated her for certain.

  It was over. His marriage. Before it had even got started. But wasn’t that just the story of his life? He’d always had the appearance of good things, but the reality of them always dangled just out of reach. The only place where his aspirations and his ability to make them happen had coincided was in the army.

  And the sooner he got back to his regiment, the sooner he could start recovering from marrying the only woman he’d ever loved, the only woman who could tie him up in knots and make a total fool of him. The woman he’d managed, once she’d been within his grasp, to alienate completely.

  He was just pulling a sheet of paper from the top drawer to write to his man of business about Daisy’s financial security when he heard someone tapping at the window. He whirled round, his heart pounding...hoping that it was Daisy, that she had come to...

  It plummeted to see Miss Fairfax, the daughter of the local squire, standing by the large double doors that gave onto a terrace that led to what had once been a fine lawn. It was the habitation of rabbits now. The Fourth Earl had, by all accounts, sat by the open doors on fine evenings taking pot shots at them, to judge from the craters in what was now a meadow, and the fact that his gun still stood propped by the window.

  Not now she’d seen him it looked as if nothing was going to get rid of her. For she was tapping on the doors again with increasing impatience, even though he’d turned his back on her in a clear indication he was in no mood for visitors.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, Miss Fairfax,’ he snarled as he unlocked the doors and opened them. And not just because he was in no mood for visitors. It wasn’t decent behaviour to come calling on him without her mother, or at the very least a maid, in tow.

  She pouted at him prettily as she brushed past him to step inside.

  ‘Now, Ben,’ she said, untying the ribbons of her bonnet, then tossing it aside. ‘Is that any way to greet me? When I have come to welcome you home?’ She stepped right up to him and smiled up into his face. ‘Have you missed me as much as I have missed you?’

  ‘I haven’t missed you at all,’ he said in some surprise.

  ‘Oh, how cruel of you to say so,’ she said, with a shake of her head.

  And then, to his utter shock, she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him full on the mouth.

  He was in the process of reaching up to yank her arms from his neck so he could push her away when there came the sound of a gasp from the vicinity of the door. He whipped his head round. And saw Daisy standing there, her eyes wide with shock in a face that was turning paper white.

  ‘I...’ She swallowed. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, stepping back into the corridor and shutting the door behind her.

  Hell! If his marriage hadn’t been pretty much ruined before, it was certainly over now. For her to find him in the arms of another woman, only a few minutes after he’d spoken to her that way...

  ‘Who was that?’ Miss Fairfax was still hanging off his neck.

  ‘My wife,’ he said bitterly, pushing her away.

  ‘Your wife?’ Now it was Miss Fairfax who looked shocked. ‘You cannot be married! There has been no notice in any of the papers.’

  ‘It was a private ceremony. On her family estate. Only last
week.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘So there was never any chance you would marry me, no matter what I did, was there?’ She sighed. ‘She’s not going to be very pleased with you now, is she?’

  That was putting it mildly. He had already shocked and disgusted her with his outburst earlier. And now that she’d seen him kissing, or at least appearing to kiss, another woman in the house she considered her own...

  ‘You couldn’t have done more damage if you’d been trying to wreck my marriage,’ he snarled at her. ‘Get out!’ He pointed at the open door.

  She drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t all that much.

  ‘My bonnet, if you please,’ she said haughtily, holding out her hand.

  He fetched it, thrust it at her then, the moment she’d stepped out onto the terrace, slammed and locked the terrace doors in her face.

  And then went to find Daisy, so he could explain...

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Marguerite reeled from the nauseating sight of Ben, her husband, in the arms of another woman and ran to the nearest door that would take her outside. She had to get out of the house into which her husband had brought another woman. A house where he was busy kissing another woman. When he’d never even looked as if he might ever consider kissing her.

  She ran blindly along weed-choked paths and through tangled shrubbery and then across an overgrown meadow, until she couldn’t run any further. And doubled over, gasping, pressing her hand to the sharp pain of the stitch in her side. Although she’d already felt as if someone had punched her, right in the gut, before she’d started running.