Lord Hunter's Cinderella Heiress

by Lara Temple

  Chapter Twelve

  The grounds of Welbeck Manor were so obviously constructed to accommodate equine matters that the modest ornamental gardens where Hunter had taken her the first night at Welbeck were of scant interest to anyone but Lady Welbeck during daylight hours, which was precisely why Nell made her way to them. She needed to calm down. She needed to think. She needed to understand what on earth was happening to her. She needed...

  She hugged her arms around her as she turned down the yew-hedged path. She was unravelling, just like her hair; every time she managed to pull herself back on course some other part of her took flight. She might want to blame Hunter’s seductive skill, or her treacherous body, but it felt larger than that. It wasn’t just her body that was waking and rushing beyond her control. Just a week ago she had thought she had known herself rather well, her strengths and her many weaknesses. She had felt quite content with the life she had built and the only thing she had felt was missing was love and she had actually been proud of the constancy of her adoration for Charles. She had thought it proved she possessed that precious gift the poets eulogised—true love for a perfect man.

  She shivered, though she wasn’t in the least chilly. No wonder Hunter had been so scornful. She had sat there lecturing him about love when she had had no idea what she was talking about. She deserved his scorn. Within mere days he had unintentionally undercut her foolish fantasies and worse—he had planted another more damaging fantasy in their stead.

  She leaned against the wooden frame of the bower. A few late autumn buds were still trying to push forth and their sweet scent lingered as she rubbed their soft cream petals, just tinged pink at the edges. She wanted to go home. Back to Mrs Petheridge and safety. She didn’t want to even think what had happened to her. If she did it might make it real, inescapable. No, she needed some space to think. Perhaps this upheaval was just the product of fear? Perhaps it was a reaction to the transition from the fantasy to the reality of Charles? He was a nice man and perhaps it was even a good thing he wasn’t unsettling like Hunter.

  Unsettling. She closed her eyes as her body was swamped by the sensations he had evoked. Unsettling wasn’t quite the right word. Dangerously cataclysmic was closer to the mark. She wanted to go back and stop him from stopping; she so wanted to find out where this was taking her. She felt like Odysseus’s sailors, about to cast herself onto the reefs for the price of a siren’s song.

  He wants you in his bed, not his life, Nell. He entered this engagement under the influence of grief and guilt and very misplaced chivalry. He doesn’t really want you. Why would he when he has his experienced Lady Felton? If you hadn’t all but thrown yourself at him, he probably wouldn’t have even touched you.

  She wished Anna was there; someone to tell her to be sensible. Odysseus had tied himself to the mast so he couldn’t follow his sailors to their destruction. Perhaps she should tie herself to sweet, pleasant Charles and eventually she would forget siren songs even exist. Or perhaps Charles’s kisses would excite her just as much. It was possible, though it didn’t feel very probable.

  You are a fool, Nell Tilney.

  She was so deep in her confusion and misery it took her a moment to react when a couple entered the garden. Charles didn’t see her, his attention wholly on his companion, but Lady Melkinson’s eyes met hers for a moment before Nell instinctively moved deeper into the bower.

  The fading leaves weren’t much of a barrier and she watched as the beauty raised her hand to stroke the fair-haired hero’s cheek, as she drew his head down to hers, as her eyes met Nell’s the moment before the kiss.

  Surely she should feel something? This was Charles, the man she had been in love with for as long as she could remember. How could she feel nothing but embarrassment at witnessing their embrace? Perhaps she, like Hunter, was only capable of physical passion? Perhaps her dreams of something deeper were just mawkish fictions as Hunter had said. Perhaps there was no answer to this deep loneliness, this need to share her life with someone...

  ‘You can come out now, little girl. I’ve sent him back to the house.’

  The contempt in the other woman’s voice on top of her confusion was like a blow to the stomach. She didn’t want to face that perfect, petite beauty who had taken part in the shattering of her dreams from the day she had arrived. She wanted to be spirited away until she could recover her balance.

  ‘I hope you learned something useful spying; if you mean to deal with men like Hunter you need to acquire some skills, my dear. Oh, I forgot. You’re in love with Charles. Such a pity his interest lies elsewhere. Still, he knows he cannot marry me, so he might make do with you. All that money and adoration make you quite tempting, you know...’

  Nell wanted more than anything to move away, but she wouldn’t run. She had come too far, hadn’t she? But holding her ground in the face of the avid enjoyment on Lady Melkinson’s perfect features was costing her. She had seen that look before. For years and years and years. Like the yellow-eyed focus of a wolf, intent and predatory.

  ‘I do admire you, my dear Miss Tilney. The undeniable charm of your oh-so-tempting inheritance wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to get them all hot and bothered, playing them off against each other. I started the week ready to applaud the masterly performance Hunter was giving of actually being attracted to a beanpole like you, but I must admit you rival him in bravura. Even Charles has started eyeing those long legs of yours. But do you think Hunter or Charles would even look at you without your acres and gold? I know what makes these men tick, believe me. I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve had to earn every privilege, every dress on my back, every ribbon, using the one gift God gave me. You’re as bad as any of the men who think they can buy me for the price of a necklace. You make me sick, you pathetic little girl. You’re no rival to me. You’re nothing but a scrawny, spoilt...’

  Somehow Nell started moving, but Lady Melkinson followed and the words kept coming, soft spoken and vicious, hardly above a whisper, making everything fade but the poison. Even her face shifted, the bloom of anger in her cheeks and the perfect teeth giving way to another face, older, uglier, leaning towards her just like that, spewing just like that. Nell’s own cheeks were icy, her hands sagged limp like two flaccid sacks filling with ground glass, and though she kept moving, her legs were beginning to shake. There was still a voice shouting inside her to fight back, to do something, but she had no defence. She had already realised the truth of Lady Melkinson’s accusations. Her childish dreams had no more substance to them than she had ever had in standing up to her aunt or father. She was no one and no one wanted her, not really.

  Her blood pulsed thickly in her head and whatever part of her searched desperately for a way to stop this assault was fumbling in the dark for a weapon that didn’t seem to exist. The words came like a litany, again and again. She was no one and no one wanted her. She was a child again, alone, abandoned without explanation, and now without even the comforting fantasy of her knight in shining armour.

  ‘What’s wrong? Nell?’

  She hardly noticed when Hunter approached. He said something to Lady Melkinson, but all Nell heard was the hammer blows of blood in her ears, like waves striking again and again. She was hiding inside her treacherous body, but it was no sanctuary, just a familiar prison. She had so wanted to believe these attacks were far behind her, that she had managed to become strong enough never to fall back like this, and yet here she was, no better than a kicked, cowering dog. Lady Melkinson was right; she was pathetic.

  His hands pressed into her arms and she could feel her muscles shaking against them. She didn’t want him here. She didn’t want anyone. She just wanted to be left utterly alone. Because that was the truth.

  ‘Nell.’

  His voice was gentle and she squeezed her eyes shut harder, like a child, as if that would prevent him from seeing just how weak she was. His arms went aroun
d her and the will went out of her, every inch of her body begging to lean into his warmth, his strength. Oh, she was spineless, useless. Pathetic.

  ‘No.’ She dragged enough strength to push away from him, but he still held her.

  ‘Phyllida said you saw her and Charles embracing.’

  Shame finally penetrated the fog.

  ‘She told you that?’

  Nell used a word she rarely even heard in the stables, but somehow had stowed away in a corner of her mind. She clung to the coat-tails of her rising fury as she would to a rope being tossed to her as she sank into a bog, the words exploding out of her.

  ‘I hate and loathe her!’

  ‘She isn’t really worth hating, Nell. A woman like Phyllida is all about her beauty and for the next forty years she will have to watch her very essence fade. It’s not an enviable fate. She has nothing to do with the fact that you’re not really in love with Welbeck. You’re not twelve and he isn’t a fairy-tale prince. Grow up.’

  The stain of anger that entered his voice did what his gentleness didn’t. The scrape and thud of her nerves and the flagellating anger of self-loathing gave way to anger at him. This was all his fault anyway.

  ‘I don’t need your lectures! As you said, I’m not twelve. My feelings for Charles aren’t so puerile!’

  ‘Aren’t they? Do you still think you’re in love with him?’

  It was humiliating to admit that for ten years now she had built her future around an emotion that didn’t exist. That in this, too, she was pathetic, weak.

  ‘He was all I had! Oh, damn you!’

  She squeezed her forehead with both hands.

  ‘I needed someone to love. He meant something to me. You don’t understand...’

  She laughed at the childish words, a strangled sound. That was just what her schoolgirls would say. You don’t understand.

  ‘I needed him.’

  That at least was true. He had always been there for her. His sweet teasing smile had guided her through many dark hours at Tilney.

  ‘Well, it isn’t him. You had no idea who he was and now you do. So tell me—do you still think you are in love with Charles Welbeck?’ It was a challenge, not a question.

  Her arms and legs were tingling now. She had no idea whether he had done this on purpose any more than she had known if he had four years ago, but he had somehow dragged her out of her little hell. Not that she felt very grateful at the moment. She was still shaky and, even more than that, ashamed, and she didn’t appreciate being pushed.

  He surprised her again, his hands cupping her face, very gentle, tilting it up. His thumbs brushed lightly over her cheekbones, his palms warm against her still-clammy skin.

  ‘You don’t need Charles any more, Nell. Not the one in your mind and definitely not the real one.’

  ‘I don’t need anyone.’

  His fingers stilled. There was such calm conviction in her words she was surprised by the truth in them. He had told her before that she didn’t need rescuing and he had been right. If she had really cared for Charles, she would be in pain. The after-effects of her attack were still there in the faint tingle in her hands, the over-awareness of her skin, but the thought of Charles was already fading, like mist clearing, revealing a very different landscape. Not a prettier one. It was still lonely and bare like the view across the tarn far above Keswick and now without that mystical promise of a rainbow to tempt her forward.

  Perhaps Hunter had been right all along. She was a naïve fool to be hankering after something beyond physical passion or companionable affection. It would be beyond foolish to transfer her fantasy of love from Charles to Hunter, wouldn’t it? But standing there, feeling utterly hollowed out and exhausted, she felt that question had already been answered and to her disadvantage. She shook her head. It felt stuffed with wool and she needed to think.

  ‘What I need is to pack.’

  He drew his hands away and, because she wanted to move towards him, she stepped away. It would be so easy to take his comfort, to sink into the drugging warmth of the physical excitement he offered, but Lady Melkinson’s words kept ringing in her ears. This man was clever and passionate, but he didn’t love her any more than Charles and, unlike him, she needed that. She might have been utterly wrong about Charles, about herself, but she wasn’t wrong about that.

  ‘I think it is best I leave tomorrow as well. My father can find me at Bascombe.’

  She looked at him as she spoke. He hadn’t moved and she couldn’t read his face. He looked very much as he had that night in London, cold and watchful. What was he thinking? Was he worried that she might not hold to her side of the bargain now that she was turning her back on Charles?

  Why can’t you love me?

  The words were so loud inside her, for one panicked moment she thought she had spoken them aloud. But he still hadn’t moved and so she did, hurrying towards the house, wishing she could leave her treacherous thoughts behind. This time she went straight to her room and locked the door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A band of musicians was beginning to play on a small dais by the inn, their sound just barely rising over the happy pandemonium of the fête. It was chilly, but the air was fuzzy with smoke and the scents of apple and clove and roast pork mixed with charcoal and pine. The excitement of the music and the crowd that filled the village green was infectious and she was glad she had decided to attend the fête with the other guests rather than hide in her room until her departure tomorrow. Not just her departure, Hunter’s as well.

  Once again the thought struck her hard, starting from her stomach and spreading out in a sick ache. Tomorrow she would be leaving—not Welbeck, but Hunter. She turned instinctively towards where Hunter stood next to Lord Welbeck and Lord Meecham, his mouth held tight and his gaze on the shifting raucous crowd of dancers. She looked down at the tips of her sandals under the dress and shivered, rubbing the rise of goosebumps along her arms.

  ‘Are you cold?’

  Her head jerked up. How had he moved so quickly? She shook her head, but changed it to a nod. It was better than the truth. Even if she had been cold, just having him standing so close was warming her from within and without.

  ‘A little.’

  He picked up the lapel of her cloak, fingering the pale fabric with absent concentration.

  ‘I’m not surprised—this isn’t very substantial. You should have worn your other cloak.’

  It was such a prosaic thing to say an edge of her tension relaxed. At least he didn’t appear angry with her any more. She didn’t want the last exchange between them to be acrimonious. She didn’t want there to be a last exchange between them. She searched desperately for something to say, but already he was turning away.

  ‘Wait here.’

  She watched as he disappeared into the crowd, resisting the urge to follow him, trying to shake off the tension that refused to release her from its grip. How was she going to do this?

  ‘Here, this will keep you warm.’

  She turned. Hunter had come behind her and was holding out a glass of cider, its coil of milky steam carrying all those smells upwards, as if he had somehow encompassed all the joys of the fête in a single receptacle. Most potently the joy that welled up in her just at seeing him. It was ridiculous to feel so happy just at another person’s presence, but she did. For a moment all the agony of unrequited love and impending loss fell away under the weight of the joy of the moment. For right now Hunter was with her, a smile beginning to form in his eyes as he looked down at her. She took the glass, breathing in the scent of the cider, and sighed.

  ‘It’s just cider,’ he said with a laugh, his expression losing the remainder of its uncharacteristic grimness. ‘You look like I am offering you the elixir of the gods.’

  She shook her head and tasted it. In all her years
attending the fête with her father she had never been permitted to taste this hedonistic brew and it had achieved mythical proportions in her mind. It didn’t disappoint. It slid down her throat, evoking a thoroughly sensual response like stepping into a warm spring swirling amber and amethyst and gold. She closed her eyes to let the taste spark the colours and surround her, fading away at the end, leaving just the fundaments of apple and cinnamon and a hint of clove. She opened her eyes with another sigh, letting it go.

  ‘That was my first time.’

  As the silence stretched and with the glow of the bonfires lighting the same colours in his eyes, she might have believed she had conjured Hunter from the same pagan spring in her mind. It took her a moment to even realise her words might be grossly misconstrued.

  ‘My first cup of Wilton cider,’ she explained.

  ‘You have an interesting way with firsts, Nell,’ he remarked and the spirits in the cider, which had been tumbling through her quite leisurely, chose that moment to expand in a rush of heat that spread through her like the birth of a sun.

  She turned to watch the dancing, waiting for the heat to fade, and when Hunter plucked the glass from her hand and took her arm, leading her towards the green, she protested.

  ‘I’m not finished yet.’

  ‘You’re already swaying like a willow in a stream.’

  ‘I was moving to the music.’

  ‘There’s more room for that here.’

  She glanced around the rowdy, swirling dancers. He was drawing her deeper and deeper into the mayhem, holding her close against the buffeting. She clung to his hand, raising her voice to be heard.

  ‘I don’t even know the steps.’

  ‘Neither do I. Can you waltz?’

  ‘Yes, but this isn’t...’