by Lara Temple
‘Bad news?’ a voice said next to him and he whirled around. Nell was standing just beside him, frowning at the paper. She had entered so quietly he had not even realised she was there. He held back on a childish urge to tuck the paper behind his back. Very casually he turned the page.
‘Good morning, Miss Tilney.’
‘Good morning, Lord Hunter. May I see that?’
Hell.
‘It’s just the usual nonsense. I ignore it. So should you.’
Nell didn’t look up from the paper, even though it now merely showed an advertisement for a cream to counter the ravages of the outdoors.
‘Lady F. That’s Lady Katherine Felton, isn’t it?’
Double hell. How would she know that?
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. Not that this is a newspaper, just a glorified gossip column. Aunt Seraphina lives on a diet of gossip and cocoa.’
The silvery eyes rose and he felt an uncharacteristic heat prickle in his cheeks, throwing him back to the experience of standing before Nurse and a broken window, desperately trying to hide a cricket bat behind his back. He drew himself up. This was ridiculous.
‘Shall we...?’
‘You needn’t be embarrassed you have a mistress. Mrs Sturges assures me most dandies in London have mistresses.’
‘I’m not a dandy!’
‘Aren’t you? Oh, right, she said you were a Corinthian, not a dandy. Though there doesn’t appear to be a great difference between them and I suppose they have mistresses, too.’
‘There is quite a gulf between a dandy and a Corinthian,’ he replied, annoyed at her dismissive tones and momentarily distracted from the fact that the last thing he should be discussing with his betrothed was mistresses.
‘I suppose so, but they both are rather profligate and slavishly obsessed with things that matter to no one but themselves. There isn’t anything in that column I didn’t already know. Mrs Sturges told me all about you and your exploits.’
‘My exploits!’
‘That’s what Mrs Sturges called them. She is very Gothic and talks in capital letters. I rather thought she had exaggerated, but the columnist obviously shares her opinion. She told me all about midnight races and something called the Wild Hunt Club, if I remember correctly. Strange—you don’t seem like a dissolute rake. You certainly didn’t take advantage of me yesterday, though I suppose that is not quite a criterion since I can’t imagine anyone, even if he was a rake, making advances to every woman he comes across, especially if she isn’t in the least pretty. It would be quite wearying, wouldn’t it? Particularly if he already has a mistress and Mrs Sturges said that Lady Felton is an accredited beauty. In fact, by that logic rakes would be less likely to make advances to all and sundry, wouldn’t they?’
Hunter struggled to find a reasonable response to this barrage, or even to manage his own response to her. Out of all the improper and thoroughly damning statements she had let loose with such insouciance, the one that caught his attention was her condemnation of her own looks. It was said with such matter-of-factness and with just a touch of wistfulness that he almost protested. But the need to contradict her statement was submerged by the same confusion he had experienced when facing her last night. In the light of day the difference between this woman and the girl he had thought he was engaged to was even more pronounced. The sun-kissed face looking at him in uncritical interest, though not beautiful, was remarkable in its way. Her wide grey eyes were slightly slanted and framed by the most amazing eyelashes he had ever seen, long and silky and definite and, like her brows, several shades darker than her hair. Her mouth, too, was remarkable—generous and lush and there was a faint white scar just below its right corner. Without thinking, he reached out and touched his finger to the line.
‘I don’t remember this when I saw you in Leicestershire. What happened?’
Her lips closed tightly and she stepped away from him and he could have kicked himself not only for his insensitivity but for his irrational reaction to that imperfection, a surge of concern and protectiveness that only arose with regard to the very few people he considered under his care. But if his intention had been to deflect her from her inquisition, it worked.
‘I was thrown from a horse. It was my fault. But Juniper—the horse—is fine. I know it’s ugly.’
‘What? No, it’s just—’ He broke off. There was nothing he could say to explain, to her or to himself, why he had reacted that way. Why he had wanted to touch it and the line of her lip as it curved in. He looked down at the newspaper, trying to find his footing. Then he turned back to her resolutely.
‘Why don’t we sit down, have something to eat and then talk this over sensibly?’
Her eyes glinted at him.
‘There is a pattern forming here. You appear to think I will be more amenable once fed.’
‘I certainly will be. I’m useless without my morning coffee.’
Her smile widened, but she nodded and went to the sideboard. He kept the conversation light as they ate, telling her about Petra’s and Pluck’s successes at the racing meets, a topic which she clearly was happy to explore until she had finished her last finger of toast.
‘I’m so happy they are content with you. I still miss Pluck, but I knew Father would never let me keep her, so I’m glad she is with Petra. Well, now that we’ve eaten I admit to being impatient to hear what you are planning.’
‘What makes you think I am planning anything?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m quite certain you are. You have a look.’
Hunter, who had a reputation for being unreadable at the piquet table, barely refrained from asking what this ‘look’ was, drummed his fingers on the table and wondered how to play his cards. This was not precisely how he had imagined his dealings with a near-schoolgirl would progress. For better or worse she was a bright young woman and he had better start treating her as such.
‘May I ask what you plan to do once you are freed of this engagement?’
She considered him, clearly debating whether or not to confide in him.
‘I will probably go to Bascombe, but first I will find someone respectable to act as companion or Father or...or my aunt will think they have a duty to come...’
Her voice faded and the haunted look he had seen at Tilney returned. The last time he had seen that expression before her had been on Tim’s face. Every day since he rescued him from that French hell and until the day he killed himself. Hunter uncurled his hand from the cup before it shattered. He was right to run. He didn’t need this.
‘Bar the gates, then,’ he said, a bit more roughly than he had intended. ‘Bascombe’s gates are flanked by two portly gargoyles which make the point quite vividly.’
Her eyes focused back on him and he relaxed as the edge of a smile returned as well.
‘Gargoyles?’
‘Your grandmother’s idea. At least if they were decent sculptures it might be forgivable, but they look like drunken gnomes about to fall off toadstools.’
The smile widened.
‘Then my first order of business shall be to remove them. I don’t think they would intimidate Aunt Hester anyway. She might even like them. She has the most awful taste.’
‘I remember she told me the horrific banquet room at Tilney Hall was her design. Send her the gargoyles as a gift, then.’
She half-laughed and covered her mouth to stop the sound.
‘I’d just as happily drop them on her,’ she said daringly and he smiled. ‘Meanwhile I shall write to a schoolmistress I know to come stay with me.’
‘And then?’
She smoothed the tablecloth with her finger.
‘I haven’t decided yet. But I do know I don’t want a marriage of convenience without affection or love.’
He manage
d to stop his expression from exhibiting what he thought about that last statement. Of course the girl would be dreaming of love. She came from a girls’ school, for heaven’s sake. The place must be a hotbed of silly novels and soulful sighs.
‘Those are two very different qualities. What people call romantic love is not much more than a glorified term for mundane physical passion and tends not to outlive it.’
She flushed, but met his gaze squarely. ‘I concede that passion is important, but love is an entity in itself. You are completely wrong to dismiss it so cavalierly.’
He raised a brow at her dismissive tones.
‘Of course I am, being so very green,’ he said quietly. There was a limit to the abuse he would take from this young woman.
‘No, you’re not green, just wrong. I may have had very little experience of the world, but I have also been very lucky. When I lost my mother I thought I would never find anyone else who would care for me as much, but now I have other people I love, really deeply love, like Mrs Petheridge and my best friend Anna, and it would be devastating to lose them. I may not expect to find that depth of feeling with a husband, but there must be elements of that for it to be worthwhile marrying. That is what I mean by love. Working in a girls’ school where children can’t help but mirror the joy or pain of their families is a fairly good arena to explore that particular topic. I have had excellent opportunities to observe the products of the kind of union this betrothal might lead to and I have excellent reasons for refusing. I grew up knowing what it is like to be insignificant and powerless and I will never put myself in that position again.’ She leaned back, her Nordic sea eyes narrowed and challenging. ‘But this discussion is pointless. Why don’t we discuss what you are really interested in—the Bascombe water rights. Well, I promise I won’t be in the least unreasonable. I don’t want to be at war with my neighbours. There is no reason why we cannot come to an agreement that is fair for all parties.’
Hunter shifted in his chair, battling the urge to give her as thorough a lecture in return. It would be cruel to take from her anything that had been so painfully won by pointing out that relations between men and women were substantially different than the kind of familial friendships she had thankfully developed away from Tilney. He knew the value of friendships all too well and he knew the pain of loss that came with loving someone who was brutally snatched out of reach, and those, thankfully, had nothing to do with the institution of marriage. To point this out would not only be churlish but counterproductive. He focused instead on her statement about the water rights.
‘Though I appreciate your good intentions, if you are indeed set on finding your perfect prince, once you wed it will be your husband who decides on such matters. I suggest you keep that in mind because once it becomes known you have inherited Bascombe Hall some very skilled fortune hunters will be lining up and professing precisely the kind of emotions you appear to value so highly.’
He winced at the harshness of his words, but she just stared coldly back at him.
‘I dare say I should be grateful you didn’t bother to do the same in your quest to secure Bascombe for yourself. I rather thought you had enough wealth already, or is it never enough?’
He supposed he deserved that.
‘I admit my concerns were practical. I never made any pretence that this alliance wasn’t primarily one of good sense. You might think me a profligate fellow, but I take my role as custodian of the Hunter estate seriously and of course I thought it made sense to ally our estates. But I have no intention of forcing you or your father to stand by your engagement, and though if I chose to be unpleasant I could have both of you before a court of law for breach of promise, I prefer to settle this peaceably. So I suggest we try to resolve this like adults. Is that reasonable?’
‘Quite. I’m not very happy about the implied threat, though. Are you one of those litigious individuals like Father, who are always suing people over imagined grievances? I find that very self-absorbed people are very quick to find offence at the most absurd things.’
‘It was not a threat, but an observation,’ Hunter replied, his composure beginning to wear thin. ‘And though I have never sued anyone in my life, I would be tempted to begin with you if you insist on continuing with your insults.’
She surprised him, the anger melting away from her eyes as she smothered a ripple of laughter.
‘But I didn’t insult you. Those were all general statements. You are far too sensitive.’
‘Unbelievable. I think I will retire from the lists before I suffer further damage. But before that I just want to make my position quite clear—I went to Tilney Hall to negotiate terms with your father and having met you I thought an alliance between Hunter and Bascombe Halls was a perfect solution. I wouldn’t have contemplated it if I hadn’t liked you.’
‘Don’t bother lying! There was nothing to like! I was pathetic!’ Her words were so fierce he physically drew breath. The ice kept getting thinner and thinner.
‘Your aunt was pathetic,’ he replied quietly. ‘Your father was almost as bad, and the worst is that they had no redeeming qualities. I don’t remember you being pathetic. I remember a girl who was pushed to the edge of her endurance, but who still managed to be the most fearless rider I have seen and who showed more courage that night standing up to her oppressor than many men who went into battle. Don’t let that harpy win by perpetuating her poison in your own mind.’
She brushed her fingertips over her eyelids and then rubbed her eyes like a tired child.
‘Thank you. I was right that you are kind. You’re clever, too. I won’t marry you, but I will talk to the lawyers and see if there is a way to sell you some of the riverfront, which is what you obviously are truly interested in, so you needn’t worry that my naïveté will land me with a fortune-hunting husband who will make you suffer like Grandmama did.’
He let this manna from heaven settle in the silence between them.
‘You would sell me part of the water rights?’ he asked cautiously.
She dropped her hands. Her eyes were red and her lashes stuck together like the spikes on the Bascombe gates, and she looked both very young and very adult.
‘None of the land is entailed or obviously I wouldn’t be able to inherit. I asked for the estate maps when Grandmama passed and I remember the river has a curve near your land before it branches off into the canal that feeds your fields, so if we split ownership of that portion of the river then you could build a canal from there instead. It would just be another, what, fifty yards? And then neither the Bascombes nor the Hunters would be able to control the flow and river traffic. So if I do marry a nasty fortune hunter, or if I don’t marry anyone and eventually my cousin or his children inherit, they wouldn’t be able to change anything. Correct?’
It was a perfect solution. Talk about keeping his cake and eating it, too. He would happily pay for such a concession. It wouldn’t even be taking advantage of her youth—it was actually a sensible solution. The ongoing squabbling over those rights cost both sides funds and unnecessary anxiety and acrimony.
‘That’s a very sensible solution,’ he said slowly and was rewarded by the same smile she had tossed at him last night after Biggs’s sandwich. A mix between satisfaction and the dispensing of well-being. ‘I will even happily concede Pluck to you to sweeten the deal. Meanwhile we go down to Wilton, sit down with your father and discuss how we are going to proceed. Agreed?’
‘Agreed. I’m very glad you are being so reasonable about this. If I had to become engaged to and unengaged from anyone, I’m glad it was you.’
Hunter burst out laughing and stood up.
‘That might be the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time, sweetheart, and I happily return the compliment. I will send word to your father and the Welbecks that we will drive down tomorrow.’
‘But I can’t stay here. Y
our aunts...’
‘Will be delighted. They aren’t very fond of society, but they love company. Do we have an accord?’ He held his hand out and after a moment’s hesitation she stood and held hers out as well.
‘Yes.’
Hunter took her hand. It was a little cold and he could feel the calluses at the base of her fingers. Clearly she still rode, even up in her rainy mountains. Her hand warmed in his, the stiffness seeping out of it, but the pliancy that did nothing to mask the strength in her long fingers brought a responsive surge of hunger and a curiosity to see if he could make the rest of her warm and pliant. There was fire here; he was certain of it. She might not be aware of it, but it was there, just waiting for someone to show her precisely what she was capable of.
Not that it was his concern any more, he told himself, holding still as his body rode out a wave of physical awareness. Then he let go of her hand before he spit in the eye of providence and succumbed to the need to do something foolish.
* * *
‘Come, Miss Tilney. There is something else we would like to show you,’ Amelia said with the tone of someone who had come to a decision.
It was already well into the afternoon and Nell was tired but glad the sisters had allowed her to join them on their rounds at Hope House. She had had no idea that so much suffering continued to linger so long after the wars. If it wasn’t the ravages of physical and mental damage it was the destitution and lack of employment that faced the men who had returned from the wars, having given their souls for King and Country, only to find that King and Country had made no provisions for their return. At least not alive.
Now Nell followed the sisters into one of the most peculiar rooms Nell had ever seen. It might once have been a library, because two walls were lined with shelves and the other two with framed paintings and drawings and there were chairs and two tables. But unlike the libraries at Mrs Petheridge’s schools, there were very few books and the objects on the shelves reminded Nell of the pawnshop in Keswick. There were figurines, mugs, pipes, rolled-up belts, small metal boxes that might have been for snuff, some tinderboxes and a multitude of other objects. She turned, puzzled, to the hanging pictures and there the confusion deepened. These weren’t family portraits or the tame landscapes and botanists’ prints she was used to either. They were sketches of men, some serious and some caricatures. The landscapes were raw with minimal colour, of mountains, of a village market with a man leaning over a stall piled with fruit, of soldiers by a campfire... She stopped in shock by a small portrait of a handsome young man in an ensign’s uniform looking directly at the painter with a smile that was surprisingly sweet. He might have been fifteen or sixteen and she recognised him. She shook her head. No. It looked incredibly like Lord Hunter, but not quite.