‘How do you know?’
‘Because I make it my business to know.’
‘Oh...’ The tangles smoothed out suddenly. ‘And if you were to marry him, you’d insist on him moving back to Amberton Castle?’
‘Of course. For his own good.’ Lydia gave a self-satisfied nod. ‘It’s the family home and he’s the Viscount.’
‘But if his brother and sister-in-law have spent their money on repairing it...?’
‘Then I’m sure they could afford to make alternative arrangements as well.’
‘Naturally. What a pity Arthur doesn’t want to renew your acquaintance, then.’
‘He just needs to see me!’ Lydia shot bolt upright, glaring as if the words themselves had stung her. ‘If I could be in the same room with him for ten minutes, then I could convince him to propose again, I’m sure of it.’
This time Frances didn’t even try to stop her eyes from rolling. The worst of it was that Lydia was probably right. She’d never had any problem convincing men to do what she wanted. Usually she only had to snap her fingers for them to come running. It was frankly amazing that Arthur Amberton had managed to resist her appeals for this long, but then people said that he’d changed during the nine months of his mysterious absence. No one knew where he’d been or why he’d been away for so long. There were rumours that he’d spent time on a fishing boat, though surely that was unlikely.
‘Well, I’m not going.’ She put her foot down obstinately. If Arthur didn’t want to see Lydia again, then she certainly wasn’t going to force him. ‘And I don’t know why you think I could persuade him anyway.’
‘Because he’s always liked you. He was forever wandering off to talk to you.’
‘Was he?’ Frances felt her cheeks flush guiltily. Sometimes it had seemed as if he’d deliberately sought out her company, but then she’d always assumed that had been wishful thinking on her part. ‘I’m sure he was just being kind.’
‘Of course he was just being kind,’ Lydia snapped, ‘but it was rude of the pair of you. I used to feel quite aggrieved.’
‘Then I’m sorry.’
‘You could still make it up to me.’
‘No!’
‘Think about poor Georgie. Don’t you think he deserves a stepfather?’
‘Of course he does.’ Frances narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Lydia had always been quick to recognise other people’s weaknesses and the three-year-old boy was definitely hers.
‘And don’t you think a viscount would make a worthy stepfather? Think of all the advantages. Not just to him, but to poor Mama and Papa as well.’
Poor Mama and Papa? She stiffened at the implication. ‘What about them?’
‘Well, they must have expected to have us both married off by now and yet here I am, back under the same roof, and it’s not as if you’re ever going to leave. It must be a lot to deal with at their age when they might have expected a bit of peace and quiet. If I married Arthur, then it would make life easier for everyone, don’t you think?’
Frances bit down hard on her lip. She couldn’t deny that. For everyone except Arthur himself, that was...
‘And you could come and live with us at Amberton Castle, too, if you wanted.’ Lydia’s voice took on a wheedling note. ‘Georgie much prefers you to his nurse and he’ll need a governess.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘If you’re not too busy playing with stones, that is.’
That did it. Frances put both her hands down on the table, pushing herself to her feet. ‘I am not playing with stones. I’m making jewellery. Which some people think I’m quite good at, incidentally. I made four pounds last week.’
‘Why, whatever do you mean?’
‘Just that I took a few of my best pieces to Mr Horsham and he bought them from me.’
‘The jeweller? You mean you’re in trade?’
Frances hesitated for a moment and then smiled. It hadn’t occurred to her to think of it that way before, but now that Lydia had said it, she supposed it was true. Carving beads and cameos out of the jet she collected on the beach was just one of her many artistic pursuits, but she enjoyed it. If she could make a reasonable amount of money from selling her pieces, then perhaps it could be a means of becoming independent, too, a way to live without feeling like a burden or embarrassment to others. Then she could be the artist Frances Webster instead of that poor, scarred girl...
‘Yes.’ She pulled her shoulders back, fuelled by a new sense of ambition. She was in trade. And pretty happy about it, too.
‘Do Mama and Papa know?’
The happy feeling vanished at once. Since the accident, her parents had allowed her far more freedom than most women her age, but when those activities involved trade, she had a feeling even they might not be quite so tolerant.
‘Perhaps I ought to tell them...’ Lydia’s rosebud mouth curved into a smug-looking smile. ‘After all, they have a right to know when you’re sullying the family name.’
‘I’m not sullying anything!’
‘That is unless you’re prepared to deliver one little message for me?’
‘All right, Lydia, you win.’ Frances dropped back, defeated, into her seat. ‘What do you want me to tell him?’
Chapter Two
Frances weaved a slow and reluctant path along the beach, stopping occasionally to pick up a pebble and skim it across the tops of the oncoming waves. She didn’t bother to count the bounces. Her record was fourteen in a row, but today the stones felt like lead weights. She was dragging her feet so heavily that if she didn’t hurry then the tide would be all the way up to the cliffs before she could make her escape back to Whitby, but at least she knew the tempestuous North Sea and its shoreline well enough to know exactly how much time she had.
Besides, she reassured herself, her errand wouldn’t take long, just a few minutes to deliver the message and get a response. For her sake, she hoped it was a yes, if only to prevent Lydia from sending her back again. For Arthur Amberton’s sake, however, she hoped it was a definitive no. Family loyalty aside, she couldn’t help but feel that he’d been the one who’d had a lucky escape six years before. He might have been head over heels in love with her sister, but he hadn’t known her at all.
Frances’s stomach had been performing a series of unwanted contortions at the prospect of seeing him again, her emotions torn between excitement and dread. After his surprise return, she’d hoped to catch a glimpse of him in Whitby, if only to reassure herself that he was truly alive and well, but to no avail. According to the local rumour mill, he rarely came to town, let alone attended social functions, and after a while she’d given up hope.
Which was, she’d eventually decided, for the best. As much as she’d wanted to see him, she’d had absolutely no desire for him to see her. If they’d met again, then she would have had to explain the veil that she habitually wore out of doors and then listen to the inevitable words of sympathy and reassurance. She was heartily sick of those words, shallow platitudes that meant nothing, especially from men, though perhaps not from Arthur...
Would he have behaved any differently from Leo if he’d been in the same situation? she wondered. She didn’t want to believe that Arthur would ever have been so fickle, but he was still a man, and men seemed to value beauty in women above all else. Lydia was living proof of that and Arthur had been smitten with Lydia... In which case, yes, he probably would have behaved like Leo after all!
She stopped short, shocked by the direction of her own thoughts. They sounded bitter in her own head and she didn’t want to be bitter, even if it was hard not to be sometimes. Besides, what did it matter how Arthur would have behaved? What did it matter what he thought of her veil? This visit had nothing to do with her. She was there to talk about Lydia, that was all.
She tossed her last pebble into the sea and then started up the sandy slope towards a gap in the cliffside. According to
Lydia, Arthur’s farm was located just before the small fishing port of Sandsend, half a mile from the shore and accessible along a gorse-lined path from the beach.
She made her way along it, skirting around the perimeter of the village to join a dirt track on the other side. It was steeper than she’d expected and rutted with holes that made walking difficult, so that she was panting by the time she reached the edge of the Moors, where lush green fields gave way to brown heathland. Breathless, she stopped at a wooden gate, taking a few moments to admire the view. From this vantage point, she could see the sea spreading out like a shimmering turquoise carpet all the way to the horizon beyond. It was a beautiful position for any dwelling, even a ‘woebegone, old farmhouse’, though as she trudged on through the gate and around the side of a small woodland copse, she could see that it was anything but.
Far from dilapidated, it was clearly a working farm, a scene of well-organised chaos with giant bales of hay stacked along one side of a three-storey stone house and what looked like a newly built log store on the other. It was hardly deserted either. On the contrary, there seemed to be animals everywhere: pigs in a sty, goats and sheep in two separate pens, at least two dozen chickens and five lazy-looking cats roaming wild, not to mention a pair of horses peering out from over the top of a stable door.
Frances stopped in the centre of the yard and turned around slowly, searching for any sign of a human in the midst of so many animals, but there seemed to be no one, just a brown-and-white speckled dog sitting by the front door of the farmhouse, its head tipped to one side as if it were the one in charge. Judging by its short coat and piercing blue eyes, she guessed it was a sheepdog, though fortunately it seemed to be friendly as well.
She bent down to ruffle its ears, struck anew by the impropriety of her situation. She was an unmarried, unchaperoned, uninvited lady, trespassing on behalf of her widowed sister in order to persuade a single gentleman—a viscount, no less!—to accept a request that he’d already refused! Only Lydia would ask such a thing. Only Lydia would expect it to work!
But she was there now and she might as well get the whole mortifying scene over with. Lydia was more than capable of carrying out her threat and telling their parents about her fledgling business if she didn’t do what she wanted and her work was too important for her to risk that. She’d tell them about it herself eventually, once she’d earned enough to stand on her own two feet if necessary, but not yet. She had her own plans for the future and she’d reveal them when she was good and ready.
Bolstered by that conviction, she lifted her hand to the front door and knocked. There was no answer, though the door swung open on its hinges with a loud creak.
‘Lord Scorborough?’
She called out his name, but there was still no answer. No sound at all, in fact. Tentatively, she took a few steps inside and along a darkened hallway, poking her head around another door into what looked like the kitchen. That was empty, too, though there was a large iron kettle steaming on the range. Perplexed, she lifted her veil and pulled it back over her bonnet for a clearer view. Clearly somebody was nearby, but why weren’t they answering?
She felt a tremor of unease, resolving to go back outside to search the yard again, when she heard the click of a door opening further down the hallway. Quickly, she turned around, ready to explain her intrusion, only to find herself face to face with a complete stranger wearing nothing more than a pair of short, cotton under-drawers.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed aloud, sucking in a breath of panic as the stranger came to an abrupt halt, uttering a series of vividly descriptive expletives whose meanings she could only imagine. His legs and upper body were completely exposed so that, in the time it took for her to recover her wits, she had a close-up view of powerful calves, a muscular chest and arms that looked to be around the same circumference as her waist.
‘Oh!’ She wasn’t sure why she repeated the exclamation, only that it seemed appropriate as she dragged her gaze to his face. His rugged appearance was almost as alarming as his lack of apparel. Close-cropped hair and dark stubble gave him the look of a convict. Was he a convict? His colourful language certainly wasn’t that of a gentleman. She felt her palms break into a cold sweat, panic mounting as her heartbeat started to hammer erratically. The wrong farm! She must have come to the wrong farm, she realised, berating herself for the mistake in the split second before their eyes met and she spun on her heel and fled...
* * *
Arthur Amberton, the Fourteenth Viscount Scorborough, had just finished bathing. He’d just stepped out of his bathtub, rubbed himself down with a sheet and pulled on a pair of under-breeches as an afterthought—an impulse for which he was now extremely grateful. Since he didn’t keep servants and rarely had any visitors, he generally had no qualms about wandering around his own house completely naked, especially during the hot summer months, so that to find a black-clad woman standing in the corridor in front of him had come as an equal, and in his case somewhat uncanny, surprise to both of them.
She’d run away at the sight of him. Fled for dear life, more like... Which at least proved she wasn’t a ghost, though now he supposed he’d have to go after her. Much as he resented any intrusion into his privacy, he really ought to find out who she was and what she was doing there, not to mention apologise for his less-than-enthusiastic greeting. Her end of the corridor had been dark, casting her face into shadow, but judging by the style of her clothes she was a lady.
He mounted the stairs to his bedchamber three at a time and pulled on the shirt and trousers he’d laid out earlier. He was supposed to be dining with his brother and sister-in-law that evening, though he would have preferred going to bed early instead. Working ten acres of land on his own meant he was usually exhausted by late afternoon, but at least it meant he was mostly too tired to think.
Dinner at Amberton Castle, however, was a standing weekly appointment, a compromise he’d made to stop Violet from worrying about him. His tiny sister-in-law’s refusal to accept that he wasn’t unhappy or lonely was more than a little irritating. He wasn’t depressed, he didn’t want or need companionship, and he especially didn’t care for intruders.
He ran back down the stairs, jamming his boots on at the front door before charging out into the farmyard. He’d only been gone a couple of minutes, but already there was no sign of his mysterious visitor.
‘Some guard dog you are.’ He glared at Meg, his sheepdog-in-training, but she only wagged her tail enthusiastically. ‘Which way did she go?’
It was a rhetorical question, of course. There was only way she could have gone, back along the track that led to the village, unless she’d decided to take refuge in the pigsty. Quickly, he made his way towards the path, splashing his newly polished boots in the process, though he’d barely rounded the corner of the copse before he found her again, sitting in a muddy patch on the ground and clutching her leg.
‘Are you hurt?’
She seemed to leap halfway into the air at the sound of his voice, twisting her head away to fiddle with something at the front of her straw bonnet. He slowed his pace, not wanting to alarm her any further, though she kept her face averted as if she were too embarrassed to look at him. Oddly enough, there was something familiar about that bonnet.
‘I slipped on the mud.’ Her voice sounded muffled.
‘Farms have mud. You shouldn’t have run away.’
‘You shouldn’t have scared me, walking around half-naked!’
‘You ought to be glad it was only half.’ He glowered at the back of her head, her refusal to look at him only increasing his irritation. ‘And I don’t believe there’s a law against it in the privacy of your own home. Unlike trespassing, I might add.’
‘Well, you should answer your door when somebody knocks!’
‘For the record, I didn’t hear you knock and that doesn’t excuse you just walking in. It’s my house!’
She s
wung back towards him at that, her face obscured by a black veil that appeared to be pinned to the hair beneath her bonnet. Was that what she’d been fiddling with? He grunted with exasperation. For pity’s sake, surely she couldn’t be so embarrassed. She hadn’t even seen that much of him and it was a lot less than she might have... Still, there was something familiar about the voice as well as the bonnet, something that prodded his memory.
‘I wish I hadn’t walked in!’ The eyes behind the veil flashed. ‘I think I’ve sprained my ankle. Isn’t that punishment enough?’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’ He crouched down beside her. This day was just getting better and better. ‘Are you certain that it’s sprained? Here, let me look.’
‘No!’ She tugged her ankle away as he reached for it, putting her weight on the other foot as she tried to stand up instead. ‘I can manage. Ahhh!’
‘Sit down, woman, or you’ll do even more damage.’ He reached for her waist as she tumbled downwards again, but she jerked even further away from his touch, landing with a fresh squelch in the mud.
‘I can’t sit down...’ Her voice was tinged with panic now. ‘I have to go or I’ll be late.’
‘You were eager enough to see me a few minutes ago.’
‘I was looking for somebody else, but it was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.’
Somebody else? His frown deepened at the words. Who had she expected to find there but him? ‘Who were you looking for?’
‘I...’ She started to speak and then stopped. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
He folded his arms, not bothering to conceal a sigh of irritation. ‘You know if you tell me, there’s a fair chance I might be able to help.’
‘Yes, but... Oh, very well.’ She threw her hands up as if conceding defeat. ‘I was told that Lord Scorborough lives here.’
‘He does.’
‘He does?’
The head twisted towards him again, but it was impossible to see past the veil. Who on earth was she? It was obvious she had no idea who he was, though he supposed he couldn’t blame her for that. He didn’t look much like a gentleman these days. He kept his hair cropped short for practicality’s sake, to keep it out of his face when working, and he preferred being clean shaven to the current fashion for long moustaches and beards, but he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days either. He’d intended doing so after his bath, had been boiling water for that very purpose when he’d found her in the corridor, so that he was probably looking more than a little weatherbeaten and bristly. It was no wonder she’d been so frightened. Still, he couldn’t just abandon her there, no matter how much they might both prefer it.
The Viscount's Veiled Lady Page 2