‘You didn’t give them much of a chance, dear.’
‘No, but why would they look at me anyway?’ She bit the inside of her cheek at the words. She hadn’t meant them to sound quite so self-pitying.
‘I can think of a lot of reasons, but I think what you need more than anything else at this moment is a rest. You look exhausted.’
‘Do I? I don’t feel tired. I usually do much more in a day.’
‘I didn’t say tired, I said exhausted. There’s a difference and you, my dear, are the latter. You work far too hard at the Foundation.’
‘I don’t mind. It’s too much for Mother to manage on her own.’
‘Perhaps, but she wants you to be happy more than she wants your help.’ Alexandra touched her chin gently. ‘Self-sacrifice is all very well, but not if it causes you to make foolish decisions.’
‘I’m not...’
‘In any case,’ Alexandra spoke over her, ‘you’re staying with me for a fortnight. There’ll be plenty of time to think about the future and make a decision after Christmas. In the meantime, I want you to rest.’
‘Yes, Cousin.’
Millie smiled half-heartedly as they put on their bonnets and capes and went out on to the front steps of the mansion into a world transformed. The moon was full and high, making the sky shimmer with snowflakes that danced and spun like falling stars all around them. It was hardly like night-time at all, Millie thought, catching her breath in wonderment. It was beautiful, as if a white cloak had been draped over the landscape. Even the air tasted different. Crisp and clean, utterly unlike that of London.
‘Here we are.’ Alexandra put an arm around her shoulders as three carriages rolled alongside the front steps. ‘You go ahead with the others. I’ll wait for your mother.’
‘No, you go.’ Millie looked at her pleadingly. ‘If you don’t mind, I don’t think I can bear any more conversation tonight. I’ll wait for Mama.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Yes...’ she smiled ruefully ‘...and I promise to go straight to bed when I get back.’
‘All right. If that’s what you want, then I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight, dear.’
Millie waved goodbye, waiting until the first two carriages had rattled away before turning back into the house. Her mother had made it as far as the hallway, though she seemed in no hurry to leave, still engrossed in conversation with the handsome gentleman. Something about the way they were standing made her avert her face again quickly, too, struck with the distinct impression that she was interrupting something private.
She looked up at the falling snow again, wondering what to do next. She could climb into the last carriage, she supposed, but she didn’t want to shut herself up inside just yet, not when the world looked so breathtaking. And surely a quick stroll through the gardens wouldn’t hurt?
She threw a swift glance over her shoulder and then hurried down the mansion steps, over the gravel drive and across the lawn. It was positively luminescent, she thought delightedly, the snow beneath her feet making soft crumpling sounds as she wandered into a small grove where a line of willow trees obscured any view of the house. It was like a fairy-tale grotto, secret and silent and peaceful, the trees all bedecked with sparkling crystalline pendants. A memory popped into her mind, of throwing snowballs in the park with Silas and Lottie as children. They’d charged around like hoydens while their parents had watched arm in arm from the path. It was a happy memory, but bittersweet, too. She’d been so much more carefree and adventurous back then, always running about and getting into scrapes. What had happened to her? As a woman, she obviously couldn’t expect the same freedom allowed to her brother, but Lottie still managed to be fun. Why—when?—had she become so dull?
She didn’t have time to think of an answer, whirling around at the muffled sound of wheels and hooves coming from the direction of the driveway. Catching up her skirts, she ran back out of the grotto just in time to see the last of the carriages roll away from the house.
‘Wait!’
She started to run and then stopped. Even without the snow slowing her down she doubted she’d be able to catch it. Obviously her mother had thought that she’d left with the others and taken the carriage by herself. Which was a reasonable assumption, given the weather and the fact that, foolishly, she hadn’t told anyone except Alexandra that she was waiting behind. It was her own fault for straying so far from the house, but surely once her mother got back to the village and discovered her mistake, she’d send the carriage back? Unless her mother assumed that she’d gone straight to bed...and if Alexandra assumed the same thing...and she’d told the maid not to wait up for her... Well, then there was a very real chance that no one would realise she was missing until morning.
Millie closed her eyes in mortification, weighing up the choices before her. The thought of throwing herself on the mercy of Lady Fentree and begging a room for the night made her shudder, as did that of admitting her mistake and asking for another carriage. No, those alternatives didn’t bear thinking about, which meant the only other thing she could do was walk. Which, since she was wearing practical boots, didn’t seem like too much of a hardship. It was only a couple of miles to the village, after all—three at most—and the snow wasn’t so heavy, nothing to worry about anyway.
She turned her feet in the direction of the gate and started purposely towards it. The more she thought about it, the more appealing the idea of a walk became. It wasn’t what sensible and boring Miss Amelia Fairclough would do, but it was right up the alley of her previous incarnation, Millie Fairclough, intrepid twin and plucky explorer.
She loosened the strings of her bonnet and tugged at the pins of her bun underneath, letting the auburn tresses unravel about her shoulders. There, she didn’t have to be so strait-laced all of the time. Alexandra was right, there was no need for her to think about the future just yet. Tonight, she wouldn’t think about the future at all. Tonight she would forget the rest of the world even existed, stick her tongue out at the Fentree mansion and be Millie again.
And a moonlit walk in the snow sounded like a perfectly wonderful idea.
Chapter Two
Cassius Whitlock, the thirteenth Marquess of Falconmore, stretched his legs out in front of the fire and refused to open his eyes. It was the only way to pretend that the knocking he could hear on his front door was a figment of his imagination and not what—or more precisely who—he suspected it was.
The blasted woman had followed him.
After half a minute or so the knocking stopped and he slid deeper into the comfort of his armchair, breathing a sigh of relief and ruthlessly suppressing any feeling of guilt. There was no need to feel guilty, after all. The chances of Sylvia walking any distance on foot were about equal to those of her flying. She could simply take the carriage she’d doubtless commandeered back to the hall. And who was to say that he hadn’t dreamed the knocking sound anyway? He’d been dozing beforehand so perhaps it really had been a figment of his imagination, although what that implied about his current mental state he didn’t want to consider, not tonight anyway. He’d already drunk far too much port to come up with anything coherent, let alone helpful. No, overall it was far better to leave thinking until tomorrow and then find another reason not to.
Delaying, deferring, dragging his heels—those were the things he’d become good at over the past year. Avoiding subjects he didn’t want to think about had become his speciality. Why else would he be hiding away like some frightened schoolboy in an empty property on the edge of his estate rather than confronting his problems face to face?
At least the gatehouse was warm and dry, two of the most important considerations on a foul night like this one. The temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees just in the half-hour it had taken him to walk up the drive. Now that he was firmly ensconced in his armchair with the aforementioned bottle of port, however, he fe
lt quite cosy. Frankly it was worth the effort just for the peace and privacy, both of which qualities were becoming signally elusive at Falconmore Hall. Given a choice, he might actually have opted to live here instead, but then he hadn’t been given a choice. Not about any of it.
He scowled as the knocking started again, even louder and more insistently than before. This time he definitely wasn’t imagining things and he could hardly pretend not to hear it either. A herd of cattle outside his front door would have made less commotion.
He surged to his feet, muttering a stream of the most obscene words he could think of. What in blazes was wrong with the woman? Didn’t she have any pride? It was bad enough hounding him out of his own house, but to pursue him here in his refuge was too much! This time she’d gone too far. This time he’d tell her exactly what he thought of her and her all-too-obvious intentions. Maybe he’d tell her what his cousin would have thought of her behaviour, too. That ought to be enough to send her and her daughters running away from Falconmore Hall once and for all. To the other end of England preferably!
He grabbed a candle, took one last fortifying swig of port and then strode out into the hallway, an inadvertent glimpse of his reflection in the hall mirror revealing a wild visage and untidy apparel. Which was hardly surprising really. He’d changed into some old clothes in order to clean out and rebuild the fireplace and hadn’t bothered to change back, even after he’d smeared coal across the front of his shirt. All the better, he thought sardonically, running a hand through the dust and then deliberately ruffling his hair to coat the thick, blond strands in black. He was through with behaving like a gentleman. Since Sylvia failed to appreciate subtlety, maybe she’d understand rugged and dishevelled instead!
‘What?’
He flung open the front door, bellowing the word before his port-addled senses had a chance to take in the woman before him. It was...not Sylvia, though as to who else it was... He blinked a few times, searching his memory and failing to find any answer... No, he had no idea who she was. Only she looked somewhat like a snowman. A pretty, red-cheeked and slightly desperate-looking snowman.
‘I apologise for d-disturbing y-you.’ Her teeth chattered as she spoke. ‘But I’m l-lost.’
He looked past her into the night, too surprised to answer. There was no horse, no trap, nobody else in sight, only a raging blizzard and what appeared to be a foot of snow. When had that happened? It had been cold earlier, but he hadn’t noticed any flakes, at least not before he’d drawn the curtains...
‘Would you m-mind letting me inside for a f-few minutes? Just to warm up? P-please?’
‘Yes... Of course.’ He remembered his manners at last, stepping aside to let her into the hallway.
‘Oh, dear.’ A flurry of snow fell from her skirts as she passed him. ‘I should have shaken myself off outside.’ She looked down at the rapidly swelling puddle in dismay. ‘If you have a mop, I’ll clean it up for you.’
‘There’s no need.’ He closed the front door against the freezing air. ‘I’ll deal with it later.’
‘Thank you. I’m s-sorry to barge in on you like th-this. I was on my way to the village, but I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.’
‘You mean Rayleigh?’
‘Yes.’ She rubbed her hands vigorously over her arms as if she were attempting to restore circulation. ‘Is it f-far?’
‘About a mile down the road. You turn left out of the gate.’
‘Oh.’ A look of chagrin crossed her face. ‘Well, at least I was going in the right direction. Only I didn’t think it was so far and the snow was lovely at first, but then it got so heavy I couldn’t see the carriage tracks any more.’
‘I see.’ He looked her up and down incredulously. ‘Do you mean to say that you were out walking in the dark on your own?’
‘Yes. Not intentionally, but there was a misunderstanding with the carriages and...well...’ she scrunched up her pink-tipped nose and lifted her shoulders, sending a fresh flurry of snow tumbling to the floor ‘...here I am.’
‘Indeed. Here you are.’
He set down his candle on the hall table, mentally reviewing the amount of port he’d consumed over the course of the evening. Surely not enough to make him hallucinate, although the whole situation seemed unlikely. Incredible. Downright unbelievable, in fact, but here she was, his very own damsel in distress, standing shivering in his hallway, asking for help. Which, as a gentleman, he ought to give her. Only, as a gentleman he really ought to have a chaperon, too.
‘Perhaps I might speak to your wife?’ The thought seemed to occur to her at the same moment. ‘So that I can explain to her?’
‘Unfortunately not.’ He folded his arms behind his back. ‘I don’t have a wife, or a maid for that matter. You find me all alone here.’
‘Completely alone?’ Her eyes flickered back to the door, though her expression was conflicted. ‘Then perhaps I should...’
‘Perhaps you should, but considering the weather it might be somewhat foolhardy.’
He tapped his foot on the tiled floor, considering what to do next. However extraordinary the situation, it was hard to be irritated with someone who looked quite so thoroughly bedraggled and he could hardly send her back out into the night. On the other hand, letting her stay didn’t seem like a particularly judicious idea either. She was a young and presumably unmarried lady, though he couldn’t see her ring finger, and he was a bachelor, and they were alone together in a house that contained a bed, at night. Not that society generally required the presence of an actual bed to think the worst, but still the situation could hardly have looked any more compromising. A suspicious man might have thought her arrival some kind of scheme to entrap him, but the way that she’d been shaking definitely hadn’t been play-acting and surely no one, not even Sylvia, would have put themselves into such a perilous situation deliberately. Besides, whoever she was, she had an honest as well as a pretty face and he had enough on his conscience without adding anything else, especially another dead body. Which meant that he had no choice but to let her stay.
Damn it. No choice. Again. The realisation made his voice gruffer than he’d intended.
‘You’d better give me your wet things and come into the parlour.’
‘Thank you.’ She looked somewhat taken aback by his tone, pulling off her gloves and cape to reveal a conspicuous absence of wedding band and a lithe, willowy figure dressed, somewhat incongruously, in an evening gown. Both of which details paled into insignificance as she removed her bonnet to reveal a cascade of long, lustrous and, more surprisingly, loose hair.
‘Oh, dear.’ She put one hand to her head self-consciously and then started to rifle in her reticule. ‘I must have dropped my pins somewhere.’
‘Under the circumstances, I believe unbound hair may be the least of our worries.’ He cleared his throat and then gestured for her to precede him into the parlour, trying not to stare at the way the auburn tresses seemed to shimmer in the candlelight. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of a painting by Titian. ‘Take the armchair.’
‘Oh, no, that’s yours.’ She sank down on to her haunches in front of the fire and held her hands out to warm them instead. ‘This is wonderful.’
‘I can’t just allow you to sit on the floor, Miss...?’
‘Millie. Just Millie and I’m more than happy here, honestly. I feel as if my insides have been frozen, Mr...?’
‘Whitlock.’ He paused in the act of draping her damp cloak across a straight-backed wooden chair in the corner, taken aback by the question. No one had asked who he was since he’d come back to England. Young ladies especially seemed to know his identity without introduction. It made a refreshing change to meet one who did not. Liberating even, as if her words had just freed him from the constraints of the past year. It made him feel oddly grateful.
‘Cassius Whitlock at your service, although I’m afraid I
ought to apologise for my reception. It’s not much of an excuse, but I thought you were someone else.’
‘I guessed.’ She peered up at him through her lashes, her gaze faintly ironic. ‘You looked quite ferocious.’
‘It was ill mannered of me.’
‘Perhaps, but it would be churlish of me not to forgive the man who just saved my life.’
‘I merely opened a door.’
‘Which probably saved my life. Please accept my gratitude. It was silly of me to even think of walking back to the village in this weather. You’ve no idea how relieved I was to see the smoke from your chimney. I don’t think I could have managed another step.’
He harrumphed and sat down on the edge of his armchair. ‘You’re not from this area, I take it?’
‘No, I live in London. My mother and I are staying here for Christmas with a relative.’
‘Won’t they be worried about you?’
‘Ye—es.’ Her expression turned anxious. ‘If they’ve realised I’m gone, that is. Only there’s a good chance they won’t notice until morning.’
‘Really?’
‘Not that I make a custom of wandering around in the dark on my own, but...it’s complicated.’
‘I see.’ He looked from her to the fireplace and back again. ‘Can I fetch you anything? Some soup, perhaps?’
‘Thank you, but I’ve already inconvenienced you enough.’ She pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘Are you a gamekeeper?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘A gamekeeper?’ She pointed towards the painting of a stag above the fireplace. ‘Or a gardener, perhaps? Only I notice you like pastoral scenes.’
‘Ah...yes.’
He threw a swift glance around the room. In all honesty, he hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to the decor before. The fact that the house was habitable had been enough for him, but on closer inspection he noticed a veritable profusion of stags and pheasants, somewhat at variance with the spartan furnishings. It was no wonder she assumed he was a gamekeeper, especially considering the somewhat weathered state of his attire. He certainly didn’t look much like a marquess.
Miss Amelia's Mistletoe Marquess Page 2