A Most Unconventional Courtship

by Louise Allen

  ‘The Earl of Blakeney; the Count of Kurateni.’ Both gentlemen bowed and Alessa dropped a small curtsy. Chance’s expression was one of polite interest, although she could read the approval and encouragement in his face. The Count was openly admiring.

  ‘And so, an English lady here among the Corfiots,’ he marvelled, obviously quite uninhibited about saying out loud what everyone else was wondering about. ‘And how have you lived? Are you married?’

  ‘After my father died, I lived with Kyria Agatha, an elderly widow who taught me about herbal medicines and remedies. When I was old enough I moved to Corfu Town and set up in business, selling my herbs and salves.’

  ‘All alone?’ Helena Trevick was wide-eyed.

  ‘With the two children I have adopted. The English wife of a sergeant in the garrison here lives with me also.’ Well, it was almost true: Kate was virtually Fred’s wife, and living on the floor above in the same house was, more or less, living together.

  ‘Let us all go out on to the terrace and leave Miss Meredith in peace with her aunt,’ Lady Trevick said firmly. ‘You must have much to talk about. And, of course, if you would like to stay here with Lady Blackstone, Miss Meredith, I would be only too delighted.’ Sweeping the girls and gentlemen in front of her, she cleared the room, shutting the doors behind her with a click.

  Alessa was left confronting her aunt. Lady Blackstone smiled. It was strained, perhaps, but it was certainly the most friendly gesture she had made yet. It seemed the intrusion of so many people had helped her overcome her shock.

  ‘Of course, you will stay here.’

  ‘But, ma’am—the children.’

  ‘They can stay for a few days with your companion and the old lady, can they not?’ Her aunt came over and took her hands. ‘How else can Frances and I get to know you better? Alexander’s child—it hardly seems possible,’ she added, almost to herself. ‘Do you take after your father, my dear?’

  ‘Am I wild, do you mean? No, I think not,’ Alessa replied with a smile. ‘When Papa was alive, I had to be the sensible one, and living in disguise on an enemy-occupied island teaches one caution and discretion. Since he died I have had to earn my own living.’

  ‘You certainly still speak like a lady, and carry yourself like one. ‘Lady Blackstone studied her. ‘Do you have other clothes?’

  ‘Only Corfiot dress, ma’am.’

  ‘I wish you to call me Aunt Honoria. The elder Miss Trevick is much of your size; perhaps she will lend you something until we can find a dressmaker. I will ask Lady Trevick while I am speaking to her about your room.’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Honoria. Should I come back tomorrow morning?’ Her aunt was right to expect her to stay, and surely the children would understand if she was only away a few days.

  ‘Certainly not! Why are you running off? Now you are here, you must stay.’

  ‘No, ma’am. I am sorry, but I borrowed the mule, and I cannot just walk off without letting everyone know where I am. I will return tomorrow.’ The older woman stared at her, obviously taken aback by this show of independence and Alessa felt a qualm about just what she was letting herself in for. ‘Good afternoon, Aunt, and thank you.’ She bent forward and kissed the smooth cheek, startling herself almost as much as Lady Blackstone by the gesture, then turned and was out of the door before any further objections could be made.

  In the hall she hesitated. What to do now? She had no idea how one went on in a big house with servants. Should she wait for someone to appear and ask for her mule to be brought round? Or leave by the front door and walk round to the back? Or perhaps she could slip out through the servants’ entrance, the way they had come in.

  ‘Alessa!’ It was Chance, beckoning her out on to the terrace. ‘It is all right: they have gone to look at the sailboat the Count has sent for. Lady Trevick cannot decide whether to approve it for a pleasure trip.’

  ‘Thank goodness, I was afraid they would all be out here talking about me.’ Her knees felt weak now and she sank gratefully on to a cushioned bench under the shade of an arbour.

  ‘I imagine they are talking of little else.’ Chance hitched one hip on to the balustrade and grinned at her. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Confused, overwhelmed, undecided.’ Alessa glanced along the broad sweep of the terrace, but all the doors were closed. ‘My aunt is not very pleased to see me. Relieved, perhaps, that she has found me, and that I am accounted for. But you know, if she had discovered that I had died as a child, or drowned in the boat with Papa, I believe she would have been—not pleased, but guiltily relieved about that too.’

  ‘I am sure that cannot be the case, and she is simply naturally reserved.’ Chance frowned. Suddenly he seemed distant and starchy, disapproving of her coolness about her aunt. But why should she be a hypocrite and pretend she did not notice Lady Blackstone’s lack of enthusiasm? Or did he expect her to be such a conventional little miss, so lacking in self-sufficiency that she would simply throw herself uncritically on her relatives’ protection? She had expected him to understand and offer some support after that difficult interview. ‘It is just that you are strangers and you do not know her yet,’ he added. Alessa was aware of a glow of anger overcoming her momentary weakness.

  ‘There is money, as you thought.’ She pushed her papers more securely into her leather pouch and secured the toggle. ‘My aunt suggested she would make arrangements for it to be paid to me here, so I could stay on the island—presumably so I would not be an embarrassment to the family in England. Then when everyone appeared she seemed to change her mind. She wants me to stay here at the villa for a few days at least.’ She hesitated, her gaze fixed on her clasped hands as she thought. ‘It is very awkward.’

  ‘I am sorry!’ Chance made a move to hold out his hand, then jerked it back. ‘I should never have kissed you like that. I had no wish to make things more complicated for you.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ she said flatly. Did men think that the entire world revolved around them? Probably, she thought irritably. ‘No, that was not what I meant. I mean it is awkward about the children.’ And it had been what she was thinking about, if only to prevent her mind dwelling on that hectic, crowded, insane minute in the dusty storeroom. Which made her a hypocrite for being angry with him for leaping to the conclusion that she had been thinking about it…Oh, damn and blast!

  ‘I see.’ Now she had wounded his pride. In some ways it was much easier to deal with Chance when she was cross with him and the desire to be in his arms was buried. Over-amorous, arrogant male aristocrat. Oh, but I love you. ‘I suppose you do not have any concerns about sleeping and living in the same house as me, after what happened?’

  ‘None at all.’ She got to her feet, smoothing down her skirt with a decisive sweep of her hand and managing to look at him without focusing on the tiny details that were beginning to obsess her: the arch of his brow when he was thinking, the tiny scar on his left temple, the whorl of his ear. ‘I will, after all, be very adequately chaperoned here.’

  She realised that she had done nothing to deal with the events in the bay yesterday—and look where that had led her. She should have said something at the time, made it quite clear that she was chaste and fully intended staying so.

  Yesterday. Yesterday they had probably done what any two people with a moderate degree of attraction to each other would have done if they found themselves without clothes, shaken by the shock and uninhibited by fear of discovery. And he had not, after all, pressed her once he had realised she was a virgin.

  ‘So you will be safe from me, you mean?’ His voice was suddenly harsh and Alessa glanced up to meet angry brown eyes. Her own smouldering temper and embarrassment flared up.

  ‘Yes. I believe it should be quite clear now that I am not going to accept being any man’s mistress. I would not have considered it before, and now, after all, I have the protection of my family, the Commission, my own money.’

  ‘Who said anything about mistresses?’ Chance demanded. They were both on thei
r feet now, facing each other, only some residual awareness that they could be overheard keeping their voices down to an angry hiss.

  ‘That was what you thought, was it not? Why you wanted to make love to me in the bay yesterday? You thought that I was a widow and that I might be willing.’

  ‘Damn it, you were willing, virgin or not. And the thought of making you my mistress never entered my head!’

  ‘Really? So if you came across Maria Trevick or Frances Blackstone swimming in the bay, you would make love to them?’

  ‘No, I would not!’ He was furious now, and so was she, even if she was dimly aware that it was herself she was most angry with. ‘But then I do not—’ Chance broke off, glaring at her, the colour high on his cheekbones, his eyes hard.

  ‘Do not what?’

  ‘Desire them, damn it.’ Was that really what he had been about to say? ‘Alessa, why are you so angry now? It was all right between us afterwards yesterday. It was all right an hour ago when you were kissing me. What has changed? The acquisition of some rich relatives and an inheritance? Do you expect a proposal of marriage now when you did not before? Well, you can join the house party here and learn the art of flirtation, and who knows what might happen. The Count is looking for an English wife, I believe.’

  ‘Why, you arrogant—’

  ‘Your mule, Miss Meredith.’ It was Wilkins the butler, face impassive. What had he heard? Alessa got to her feet, looking at Chance, but he appeared merely a trifle bored, lounging against the balustrade.

  ‘Thank you, Wilkins. Lady Trevick has invited me to stay here.’

  ‘So I understand, Miss Meredith.’

  ‘I shall be arriving tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Very well. To which address shall I direct the footman and the trap to collect you and your luggage?’

  ‘I am afraid the track is not suitable for wheeled vehicles. I will ask a neighbour to lend me mules and one of the boys will take them back, I am sure.’

  ‘It would be easier by sea.’ Chance stood up. ‘I shall bring a boat into the bay below the village at ten, if your friends will be able to transport your luggage down.’

  Oh, really? And just what did he expect would happen once they were alone again in a boat?

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ she said sweetly, with a smile for the benefit of the waiting butler. ‘But I am sure that would make me feel unwell—the action of the boat, you understand.’

  ‘I understand perfectly.’ Chance smiled too; Alessa only hoped the butler was deceived by it, for she was not. He was furious with her. Why had she been worried at the thought of the boat? He probably only wanted to spend the journey by sea quarrelling with her.

  With a tight smile she walked away from him, followed by Wilkins, and did not look back.

  ‘Hell and damnation! Double damnation.’ Chance flung himself on to the bench where Alessa had been sitting and dropped his head into his hands. He felt like tearing his hair out, but that was not going to get him anywhere. He leant back against the uprights of the arbour and tried to think. What had gone wrong just now?

  Alessa had been upset over her encounter with her aunt, which was to be expected. It must have been emotional for both of them, and, unused to society and the manners that prevailed in it, Alessa had not understood the reserve that must be habitual with her aunt. Lady Blackstone would have been trying to soothe Alessa’s fear of change with the offer to have her inheritance sent here to Corfu, but it was unthinkable that she could have meant it. Her plan would have been to wait until her niece was calmer and more used to her new family before explaining that, in reality, she had no choice but to take her back to England.

  To leave her, the granddaughter and niece of earls, to live unmarried and independent on a Greek island? Unthinkable. People would consider her no better than that outrageous Stanhope woman, gallivanting around the Mediterranean with her lover. And Lady Hester Stanhope was a good ten years older. Alessa would be ruined—and worse, the Lord High Commissioner, one of the most influential people in the entire area, would know of it, to the shame of her new-found family.

  But trying to explain that to Alessa, just at the moment, would be futile. She was too proud and too independent and it would take several weeks living in the company of English ladies before she realised that and changed her attitude.

  Chance got up and walked across the terrace, just in time to catch a glimpse of the white mule, Alessa sitting sideways on the big wooden saddle, vanishing up the track. That ridiculous hat! He could imagine it, decked with wild flowers on some village saint’s day.

  Her reaction to her aunt was one thing, and a problem that time would solve. But what had just gone so wrong between them? Had she truly believed he was intending to make her his mistress? But if so, why had she not said anything as they sat on the beach yesterday? Or today, when that tide of passion had washed over both of them in that musty little storeroom? Could it be that she had been expecting a carte blanche and would have accepted it—until she discovered that she had an inheritance that would make her independent? Did she believe now that she could catch other men, receive proposals of marriage?

  Certainly she could have that expectation. If her aunt was careful how she introduced her back into the polite world, and Alessa was discreet, then the well-connected Miss Meredith, daughter of a military hero and in possession of a respectable competence, could expect to have no difficulties on the Marriage Mart.

  And if he told her he loved her now, she would imagine that he was trying to excuse his behaviour in making love to her and perhaps that he had decided that she would be an proper connection as a wife. That there were many far more eligible than she Alessa would have no way of knowing with her complete ignorance of the society. Nor could she have any inkling of his wealth and his connections. The Earl of Blakeney might marry where he wished.

  ‘You arrogant…’ The echo of Alessa’s furious, unfinished insult cut across this complacent reflection. She was probably right, damn it. His family and friends would say he had every justification—not for arrogance, of course, but for proper pride and a sense of his own worth. But Alessa was the woman he wanted to marry, the woman he was in love with, and if she thought him arrogant, then he was just going to have to prove to her that she was wrong about him.

  ‘Benedict, my dear friend.’ It was Zagrede, strolling—or perhaps prowling was the better word—out on to the terrace. ‘Come for a sail with me in my skiff. The ladies can watch from the shore, admiring our manly ability to tame the treacherous ocean, and then perhaps Lady Trevick will soften and let us take the young ladies out tomorrow.’He lounged gracefully against the balustrade.

  Chance admired the showmanship, could appreciate the effect it must have on the ladies, but at the same time, he recognised something dangerous in the Count. This was not some charming mountebank, pretending to an exotic glamour. This man could use the knife in his belt and would kill to defend what was his with very little compunction. In fact, he thought, agreeing with a smile to Zagrede’s proposal, he would probably kill to acquire what he wanted. A powerful friend in this part of the world, and a very dangerous enemy.

  ‘And where is our new houseguest?’ the Count enquired, padding along at Chance’s elbow as he went inside to change. ‘She is a very unexpected and very lovely young lady; I look forward to getting to know her better.’

  ‘I’d wager you do,’ Chance said, realising the moment the words left his lips that they were not delivered in the light tone that should have convinced Zagrede that he was simply jesting. The Count sent him a penetrating look as he shouldered open his bedchamber door. Chance had too much sense than to make things worse by attempting to explain his abruptness. Furious with both the other man and himself, he caught himself before he could give in to his instinct to turn and snarl ‘You cannot have her—she is mine’ into the Count’s face.

  Lord, he is making me as much of a savage as he is! His sense of the ridiculous surfaced and, instead of snarling, Chance turn
ed and promised to be down at the beach in ten minutes.

  Tomorrow Alessa would be in this house. He must treat her no differently to any of the other three young ladies and she would learn to trust him again, just as she would learn to accept the inevitability of her return to England.

  ‘You are leaving us!’ Dora’s eyes were huge with welling tears. ‘You are going to go away and leave us.’

  Alessa pulled the child tight against her, her heart aching at the alarm in the little girl’s eyes. She had been abandoned once before and the insecurity ran deep. ‘No, I promise you, I will never leave you. I am going on a visit, that is all. I have found my aunt and she wants to get to know me better. Then, after a few days, she will get to know you and Demetri. But it is a big shock, finding me. I think she would like to take things a little bit slowly, and it is not her house, so inviting three people to stay is difficult.’

  She reached out her free hand and caught hold of Demetri. Too much the man to cry, she could read his emotion in the set of his jaw. Hugging both children to her, she went and sat on the bench under the olive tree. ‘It would be very difficult for me to go if you were not both so grown up and sensible.’

  ‘Why?’ Demetri sounded gruff.

  ‘Because who will be host to Aunt Kate? And who will keep Aunt Agatha company?’

  ‘I will be in charge?’ His eyes were bright with pride now, and she could have sworn he had puffed out his chest.

  ‘You will be in charge of security and the garden and the chickens and Dora will be in charge of the house and making Aunt Kate feel at home and visiting Aunt Agatha. What do you think? Can you do it?’

  They both nodded, faces solemn, all tears forgotten. ‘Good. I knew I could rely on you. And guess what—there is even more important news for us than just my new aunt. We can go to England.’

  ‘England? All of us?’ Demetri demanded.