The Earl’s Intended Wife

by Louise Allen

A footstep behind her jerked her awake with a start and she half-fell, half-stumbled off the tree trunk, ending up with one foot in the stream. Alex jumped down beside her and lifted her on to the dry shingle, his face alight with amusement at her predicament.

  Hebe, thoroughly startled at finding herself in his arms, jerked away abruptly and made a pretence of holding on to a willow branch while she shook the water from her shoe. Alone with him in the evening light she was acutely aware of his masculinity, of his looks, which she had become so accustomed to and which now struck her with renewed force. The casual way he wore the loose linen shirt, the way the tight trousers followed the lines of his long legs and the dark stubble that he was shaving only every other day, all of these served to emphasise the strength and elegance of his body and the severe perfection of his face.

  She felt a wave of desire that startled her with its intensity and made her avoid his eyes lest he read her feelings in them.

  ‘Hebe? What is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing! I mean, you made me jump, I was sitting there daydreaming and I suddenly heard you and I was startled.’ She bent to put back her shoe, making too much of a business of lacing it.

  ‘I am sorry, I did not mean to scare you.’ Alex took a step towards her as she straightened up and, without thinking, she stepped round the fallen tree until it was between them. He was regarding her with a slight frown between his dark brows. ‘Hebe, have I done something to upset you? You seem to have been avoiding me these past few days.’

  ‘No, no, not at all.’ Stop twittering, she told herself fiercely. ‘It is probably better if we keep more of a distance, do you not think? I mean, we are almost back to Gibraltar now, and it will not do to give any impression that we have been intim…close.’

  Alex leaned his hip against the tree trunk and folded his arms, still watching her closely. ‘We can revert to society manners and distance the moment the gates of Gibraltar come into sight. I hardly think we need any practice.’

  ‘Umm…’ Hebe felt cornered. ‘Well, I still think it is better if we get used to it now. After all, you are engaged to be married and we have fallen into the habit of…’

  ‘Intimacy?’ he supplied drily.

  ‘Friendship,’ Hebe retorted, recovering her wits somewhat.

  ‘Very well, we will behave as though we have just been introduced at a dull evening reception, although if I was your mama I would find that considerably more suspicious than the natural degree of familiarity one might expect to develop between two people cast adrift on a foreign shore. However, you know her best.’

  Hebe opened her mouth to retort that she did not mean they should act as total strangers when he added, ‘And speaking of foreign shores, Anna is throwing herself into the role of duenna with some enthusiasm, is she not? What is the matter with her? Do the pair of you think I am about to leap upon you and ravish you?

  ‘I am sorry!’ He broke off at the sight of her rosy cheeks and wide-eyed shock. ‘I did not mean to put you to the blush. Really, Hebe, you know I find you damnably attractive, but I can promise you, I would never do anything to alarm or compromise you.’

  The first part of this was so near the knuckle that Hebe gasped, then his last sentence penetrated. ‘Did you say you find me “damnably attractive”?’ she demanded.

  ‘Oh, lord! I do recall saying I was going to give you one comprehensive apology for my language at the end of this adventure.’ He raked his hand through his hair and regarded her ruefully. ‘Yes, for my sins, I did say just that—but you knew it already.’

  ‘You said I was enchanting, not attractive,’ Hebe pointed out, throwing caution to the winds. This was dangerous ground, but she could not resist.

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘No, it is not. People say kittens are enchanting, or babies.’

  Alex pushed himself away from the tree trunk and regarded her with a look that made her heart beat hard in her chest. ‘I do not think of you as a kitten, Hebe. A small wildcat sometimes, but never a kitten. I will go back to England, and I will become a respectable married man, but I will never quite forget you, because you are an enchantress.’

  Hebe thought she had stopped breathing. She knew she should turn his words, make some light remark, start to stroll back to the house, but all she could do was stand there, her eyes locked with his, grey with blue. He took one step towards her and she found that her own feet, without any conscious decision on her part, were also moving. One more step and she would be in his arms.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Hebe!’ Anna’s voice broke the spell and Hebe turned aside, her face flaming. ‘Hebe! Where are you?’

  ‘Here, Anna,’ Hebe ran up the slight slope of the bank and waved. ‘Just talking to Alex.’

  Anna looked sharply from one to the other, then linked her arm through Hebe’s and began to walk back to her cousin’s house. ‘It is time you were in bed, tomorrow we cross the lines into English territory. We need all our wits about us.’ As they reached the door she ushered Hebe through and towards the stairs. ‘Goodnight, Major.’

  ‘Goodnight, Anna. Goodnight, Miss Carlton.’

  Anna raised interrogative eyebrows at Hebe as they turned up the wicks of the lanterns in the bedroom they were sharing. ‘Miss Carlton? Have you had an argument, you two?’

  Hebe unlaced her jacket wearily. ‘He thought I was being distant.’ Anna looked puzzled. ‘Formal, cold. He thought he had done something to alarm me and that was why you were such a strict duenna. I told him that it was only that I thought we had better seem to be less good friends before we got back to Gibraltar.’

  ‘Sì?’

  ‘And then he said something…that he thought I was attractive, and—oh, Anna, I do not know what happened, but suddenly we were looking at each other and…’

  ‘You find you are in love with him?’ the other woman said drily, as she folded her wide skirts and laid them on a chair.

  ‘I knew that already,’ Hebe said, equally drily. ‘I knew that on Malta, but thank goodness, the letter from Lady Clarissa came before I could do or say anything that might make him suspect I was doing more than flirting.’

  ‘And the Major?’

  ‘He loves Lady Clarissa. But, as you said the other day, I am here and she is not and he is a man. And one who appears to find me attractive, although no one else ever has.’

  ‘Qué?’ Anna said, looking amazed. ‘No one? Why not?’

  Hebe shrugged as she rolled off her stockings. ‘I was ordinary—I am ordinary, only Alex makes me feel special. I was the sort of girl who is a good friend, a nice girl. Nothing special, no charm, everyone tells me their problems but never thinks I might have an interesting secret of my own. Mama is always saying what a pity I have no looks.’

  Anna made a complicated, very Spanish, sound. ‘What nonsense. Me, I would like to box your mama’s ears, silly woman! I suppose she is one of those little white—no, blonde, is that the word?—blonde English women who get fat when they are forty. All giggles and no bones. Now you,’ she glared at Hebe, who was trying not to smile at this pungent description ‘—you listen to me! You have the bones and the charm and yes, you are a nice girl, but with a man who loves you, you will be a beautiful woman. Especially,’ she added with a wicked twinkle, ‘especially if he makes love to you.’

  ‘Yes, but he must not make love to me!’ Hebe said, scrambling into bed and pulling the covers up. ‘He is going to get married to someone else whom he loves. Just because a man wants to make love to you, it does not mean he is in love, does it?’

  ‘No, more is the pity.’ Anna sighed, climbing into bed beside her and blowing out the light. ‘The trouble with men is that they are all ruled by their—’ She suddenly seemed to realise to whom she was speaking and broke off. ‘Good night, Hebe, querida. You will be home with your mama tomorrow, if the good Lord allows.’

  The next day seemed so much like the ones before it that Hebe could not truly believe the end of their journey was almost over. But as
the morning wore on, Anna’s tenseness and Alex’s hawk-like watchfulness began to make her nervous, and when they rounded a corner to find themselves walking straight into a troop of British horsemen Hebe almost cried out with the shock of it.

  She stood by the cart, her hand tight in Anna’s, as Alex spoke to the young Lieutenant in command of the troop. The discussion was too quiet for Hebe to hear, but the officer glanced once or twice in her direction and she could see him nodding repeatedly as he listened to Alex.

  Then Alex came back to the cart, the first smile Hebe had seen on his face all day lightening his expression. ‘Audacious made harbour safely with no more loss of life. Your mother and Sir Richard are quite safe—but in deep mourning for you.’ He broke off as Hebe turned her face into Anna’s shoulder and burst into tears, waiting patiently until she managed to get her emotions under control and turned a watery smile on him. ‘Lieutenant Farthing is offering to send a messenger on ahead with the news. You know best how your mother would react—is it better for a stranger to give her the good news quickly, or do you want to wait and see her yourself?’

  ‘Send ahead, please.’ Hebe had no doubt what she would prefer if the position was reversed. She turned to the officer, who had ridden a little closer to hear her decision. ‘Please, Lieutenant Farthing, I would be so grateful.’

  He touched his hat to her and called over a trooper. ‘Find Sir Richard Latham and tell him that his stepdaughter Miss Carlton is quite safe and in good company and will be with him within two hours. Only approach Lady Latham if you cannot locate Sir Richard and make sure she has her woman with her before you break the news—good tidings can be as shocking as bad if they are unexpected.’ He made the man repeat his instructions and they watched as he spurred his horse away down the road.

  ‘I can send another trooper back with you, Major, but I regret I cannot spare the horses to mount all of you. The road ahead is quite safe. Peters! Escort the Major and his party back into the town. Ma’am, my congratulations on your safe return!’

  The short distance to safety seemed endless to Hebe now her anxieties about her mother were at rest. How soon would the trooper reach Sir Richard? How long would it take to find Mama? What state of health was she in after that nightmare sea voyage and the shock of her stepdaughter’s apparent death?

  She wanted to talk to Alex, to ask all these questions, none of which he would be able to answer, simply for the comfort of talking to him, but he seemed to be growing colder and more distant with every step. The monk she had at first compared him to was back in control and the Alex she had come to know over the past days seemed a distant figure.

  The trooper had done his work well, for they were expected at the gate and escorted efficiently to a carriage. Hebe understood vaguely that they were being taken to the Governor’s house where her parents were lodging, but she hardly took it in, nor was she at all conscious of the streets through which they were passing.

  She was vaguely aware of Alex starting to say something and Anna hushing him sharply. ‘Not now, she needs her madre.’ Then they arrived at the foot of some stone steps, the carriage door was opened and she was hardly out of the coach before Sara, sobbing, had run down and gathered her into a smothering embrace.

  How much later it was that she found herself sitting beside her stepmother in an elegant sitting room she had no idea. Sara, still clad in deep black, was alternately dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, kissing Hebe and clutching the hand of Sir Richard who stood beside her, beaming at the reunited pair.

  Hebe took a long sip of the glass of wine someone had pressed into her hand and looked around her. Of Alex and Anna there was no sign. ‘Where are A…the Major and Mrs Wilkins?’

  ‘Major Beresford is outside, he thought you would want to be alone with us. So considerate. But who is Mrs Wilkins?’

  ‘Mrs Anna Wilkins, the Spanish lady who helped us.’ Sara was looking puzzled, so Hebe continued, hoping she would say something that fitted with whatever story Alex and Anna would tell. ‘She is the widow of a sergeant who served with Major Beresford and she has connections with the Spanish partisans. After we were washed ashore she took us in: I stayed at her brother’s house until we could make our way back here.’

  Sara was watching her with painful intensity. ‘So she was with you, chaperoning you all the time?’

  ‘Why, yes, from the first day in Spain,’ Hebe replied, crossing her fingers. ‘It was such a mercy that we found ourselves in Spain where the Major has so many connections with the guerillas.’ Provided no one realised that they had not arrived in Spain from the outset, they might brush through this.

  ‘Thank heavens!’ Sara closed her eyes in relief. ‘It must have been a terrifying ordeal for you, Hebe darling. This Mrs Wilkins: she is a respectable woman? Not a…I mean, not a camp follower?’

  ‘Goodness, no!’ Hebe was, and sounded, outraged. ‘A most respectable lady. I suppose, in English terms, her brother would be a yeoman farmer: the family would never have agreed to anything at all irregular. Now she keeps house for her brother, but such is her regard for Major Beresford she offered to come with us. He was obviously extremely anxious that I was properly chaperoned,’ she added.

  She saw Sara exchange a rapid glance with her new husband and Sir Richard nodded and strolled towards the door. ‘Just leaving for a moment, dear.’ The faint sound of male voices reached them through the heavy panels, then faded as the men walked away. No doubt Sir Richard was having a frank man-to-man talk with Alex, who, thank goodness, would be able to answer him with a perfectly clear conscience in all matters except their exact point of landing.

  ‘And you are quite all right, Mama, other than your worry about me?’ Hebe asked anxiously. ‘You were so sick on the Audacious, and I was in terror of it having foundered in that storm.’

  ‘Quite all right, dearest,’ Sara reassured her. ‘Mercifully Sir Richard kept the news of your accident from me until the worst of the weather was over and I could at least think coherently. We tried to cling to the hope that you had been washed ashore—and, of course, the knowledge that Major Beresford had gone over with you gave us some hope.’

  ‘He was wonderful,’ Hebe said warmly. She did not care if she raised suspicions that she felt deeply for him, she just wanted everyone to know that he had saved her life. ‘I would have drowned at once if he had not been there.’

  Sara dabbed her eyes. ‘I know, dear, he is a truly admirable man and one can only be sorry that—’ She broke off. ‘Still, it is no good repining, I am sure Lady Clarissa is a highly suitable match for him.’

  ‘And Maria?’ Hebe asked, not wanting to discuss the excellent Lady Clarissa.

  ‘Wretched girl!’ Lady Latham said with exasperation. ‘She could not help being sick, of course, but now she is declaring herself homesick and demanding to be sent back, but the minute she sees a ship she bursts into tears. Sir Richard says that she is going on the next one back to Malta if he has to tie her to the mainmast.’

  Sir Richard came back into the room, looking relaxed and smiling. Hebe noted the reassuring look he sent his wife and knew that his interview with Alex had set his mind at rest.

  ‘Where is the Major?’ Sara asked. ‘I am sure I did not begin to thank him properly—not that one ever can give satisfactory thanks for such courage and care.’

  ‘Gone to report to the General, my dear. They’ll keep him busy and no mistake, with all the intelligence he will have gleaned, walking though Spain with the guerillas for days.’

  ‘And Anna?’ Hebe asked, fighting a ridiculous urge to burst into tears. She wanted to talk to Alex, be alone with him and now he was gone and they had never made up that stupid quarrel. ‘I would not want to neglect her, she has been the most wonderful friend to me.’

  ‘Indeed, yes,’ Sara said, getting to her feet. ‘Let us go and find her, Hebe. Do you know if she wishes to return home at once? Sir Richard—would we be able to help with that?—or could she stay a little? I would so like to show
my appreciation.’

  Remembering Anna’s frank interest in finding herself a handsome sergeant, Hebe was quite sure she would enjoy staying in Gibraltar for a while and said so. ‘I think she would like to stay, Mama. She wishes to improve her English, she tells me, although it is very good, and I do enjoy her company.’

  ‘Here she is!’ Sara let go of Hebe’s hand and held out her own to the Spanish woman who was standing by the window in the adjoining salon. ‘Mrs Wilkins, I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate what you have done for my daughter. The relief at knowing she was in the care of a respectable lady such as yourself was immense, and our feelings of obligation at the inconvenience, and perhaps danger, you put yourself to in order to escort her, are great.’

  Anna took the proffered hand and dropped a very neat curtsy. ‘Thank you my lady. I am very fond of Hebe and I have a great regard for the Major: I could do nothing else but help.’

  ‘We all hope you will stay with us for a few weeks, Mrs Wilkins,’ Sara continued, sweeping her towards the door. ‘Perhaps you will join us in my chamber: I was going to discuss clothes with Hebe, and put off my own blacks. We can discuss how long you can stay.’

  But by the time they had reached the chamber Hebe was already swaying on her feet. Anna caught her arm and pushed her gently into a chair. ‘She is exhausted, my lady. The sea, the fear, the long journey and her worries about you. Now she no longer has to be brave I think she will sleep for many hours.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I should have thought.’ Sara fluttered round. ‘I will call for a maid, dearest, and we must put you to bed.’

  ‘I will do it, my lady,’ Anna said firmly. ‘You too need to rest and Hebe is used to me: she does not need a strange maid at the moment. Show me her room, por favor, and I will look after her.’

  Hebe found herself in the merciful quiet and cool of a lofty room with shutters closed against the afternoon sun and the comfort of a soft bed to fall back on. ‘Not yet, querida.’ Anna stopped her sinking down. ‘You must take off those clothes and get into your nightgown. We do not want anyone else seeing those bruises, no?’