The Gamekeeper's Lady

by Ann Lethbridge

  ‘Yes, miss. And I gather he’s lost his glasses.’

  She grinned. ‘Again. I’ll go to him the moment I am changed.’

  Snively shook his head and the wrinkles in his bulldog face seemed to deepen. ‘No point, miss, he knows you took Pippin.’

  Dash it all. One of the grooms must have reported her hasty departure. She sighed. ‘I’ll go right away. Thank you, Snively.’

  He looked inclined to speak, then pressed his lips together.

  ‘Is there s-something else?’

  ‘His lordship received a letter from a London lawyer yesterday. It seems to have put him in a bit of a fuss. Made him fidgety.’ Snively sounded worried. ‘I wondered if he said anything about it?’

  Uncle Mortimer was always fidgety. She stripped off her gloves and bonnet and handed them to him. ‘Perhaps Mr Simon Bracewell is in need of funds again. Or perhaps it is merely excitement over my p-pending nuptials.’

  Snively’s dropping jaw was more than satisfying. He looked as horrified as she felt. He recovered quickly, smoothing his face into its customary bland butler’s mask. But his flinty eyes told a different story. ‘Is it appropriate to offer my congratulations?’

  ‘N-not really.’ All the frustration she’d felt when Uncle Mortimer made the announcement swept over her. ‘I’m to m-marry my cousin S-Simon.’ After years of him indicating he wished she wasn’t part of his family at all.

  His eyes widened. His mouth grew grim. ‘Oh, no.’

  She took a huge breath. ‘Precisely.’ Unable to bring herself to attempt another word, she headed for the study to see what Great-Uncle Mortimer wanted. Steps dragging, she traversed the brown runner covering a strip of ancient flagstones. This part of Wynchwood Hall always struck a chill on her skin as if damp clung to the walls like slime on a stagnant pond.

  A quick breath, a light knock on the study door and she strode in.

  Great-Uncle Mortimer sat in a wing chair beside the fire, a shawl around his shoulders, his feet immersed in a white china bowl full of steaming water and a mustard plaster on his chest.

  In his old-fashioned wig, his nose pink from a cold and his short-sighted eyes peering over his spectacles at the letter in his hand, he looked more like a mole than usual.

  He glanced up and shoved the paper down the side of the chair. Was that the lawyer’s letter to which Sniv-ely referred? Or another letter from Simon begging for funds?

  ‘Shut the door, girl. Do you want me to perish of the ague?’

  She whisked the door shut and winced as the curtains at the windows rippled.

  ‘The draught,’ he moaned.

  ‘Sorry, Uncle.’

  ‘I don’t know what it is about you, girl. Dashing about the countryside, leaving doors open on ailing relatives. You are supposed to make yourself useful, not overset my nerves. Have you learned nothing?’

  He put a hand up to forestall her defence. ‘What sort of start sent you racing off this morning? I needed you here.’

  Of all her so-called relatives, she liked her uncle the best since he rarely had enough energy to notice her existence.

  ‘I d-don’t—’

  ‘Don’t know? You must know.’

  She gulped in a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to marry S-S—’

  ‘Simon. And that’s the reason you dashed off on Pippin?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Ridiculous.’ He leaned his head against the chair back and closed his eyes as if gathering strength. ‘I am old. I need to know that my affairs are in order. Simon has kindly offered to alleviate me of one of my worries. It is the perfect solution. You do not have to get along, you just have to do your duty and give him a son. Surely you would like a house and children of your own, would you not?’

  A dream for most normal women, the image sent a chill down her spine. ‘No.’

  ‘There is no alternative.’

  ‘I can s-support myself.’

  His bushy eyebrows shot up and he opened his eyes. ‘How? Good God, you can scarcely string two words together.’

  Heat rushed up to her hairline. Anger. ‘I d-draw. Art.’ Even as she said the words, she knew her mistake.

  His face darkened. He sat up straight. ‘What respectable woman earns money from daubing?’ He made it sound like she had proposed selling her body.

  ‘I’m not r-respectable.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘You have been brought up to be respectable. You will not bring shame on this family.’

  Like your mother. Like the Wynchwood Whore. He didn’t say it, but she could see he was thinking it by the tight set to his mouth and the jut of his jaw.

  Dare she tell him about the drawings she’d already sold? Prove she could manage by herself? The money she earned would give her an independence. Barely. What if he prevented her from completing the last pictures of the series? It would void her contract, a contract she’d signed pretending to be a man. She sealed the words behind her firmly closed lips. Not that he ever let her finish a sentence.

  ‘And another thing,’ he said. ‘No more excursions on Pippin. There is too much to do around this house.’

  She stared at him. ‘W-what things?’

  ‘Simon is bringing guests for the ball. There will be hunting, entertainments, things like that to arrange. I will need your help.’

  Horror rose up like a lump in her throat. ‘G-guests?’

  ‘Yes. The ball will also serve as your come out.’

  A rush of blood to her head made her feel dizzy. ‘A come out?’

  Mortimer tugged his shawl closer about his shoulders. ‘Don’t look surprised. Anyone would think this family treated you badly. It is high time you entered society if you are going to be Simon’s wife. We can hope no one remembers your mother any more.’

  ‘I d-d-d—’

  Mortimer thumped the arm of his chair with a clenched fist. ‘Enough,’ he yelled. He lowered his voice. ‘Damn it. Any other girl your age would be in alt at so generous an offer. Make an effort, girl. Why, you are practically on the shelf.’

  ‘I w-w-w—’

  ‘Will.’

  Breathe in. Breathe out. ‘Won’t. I don’t want a husband.’ A husband would ruin all her hopes for the future.

  The red in Mortimer’s face darkened to puce and his ears flushed vermilion. He reminded her of an angry sunset, the kind that heralded a storm. His bushy grey brows drew together over his pitted nose. ‘I am the head of this family and I say you will obey me or face the consequences.’

  Did he think she feared a diet of bread and water or isolation in her room? ‘I—’

  ‘No more arguments, Frederica. It is decided. I have only your best interests in mind. I have clearly allowed you far too much liberty if your head is full of such nonsense. Art, indeed. Where did you ever get such a notion?’

  ‘I…’ Oh, what was the point? She didn’t really know where the notion came from anyway.

  ‘What you need to do, girl, is learn to make yourself useful. Find my glasses. I know I had them here earlier.’ He poked around in the folds of his robe.

  Frederica stifled a sigh. ‘Uncle.’

  He looked up. She pointed to her nose and he put a hand up to his face. ‘Ah. There they are. Now run along and prepare for our guests. Hurry up before you add a headache to my ills.’

  Mortimer pressed one gnarled hand against his poultice and closed his eyes. ‘Ask Snively for more hot water on your way out.’

  Dismissed, Frederica lowered her gaze and dropped a respectful curtsy. ‘Yes, Uncle.’

  She turned and left swiftly, before he found some other task for her to do. It was no good fighting the stubborn man head on. And Snively was right, he was unusually crotchety. And this idea of his to marry her to Simon was strange to say the least. He’d never expressed a jot of interest in her future before. Perhaps age was catching up to him.

  As she headed for the butler’s pantry to deliver her message, her mind twisted and turned, seeking an escape. She would not marry a man she
despised as much as he scorned her.

  Simon was the key, she realised. He would never agree to this scheme.

  And to top it all off, she was to attend a ball? With strangers, people who might know of her mother. People who would expect her to make conversation. And dance. Never once had she danced in public. She’d probably fall flat on her face.

  For a moment, she wasn’t sure which was worse: the thought of marriage or the thought of a room full of strangers.

  A shudder ran down her spine. Of the two, it had to be Simon. Simon didn’t have a soul. He’d crush hers with his inanity.

  Robert shouldered his shotgun, the brace of hares dangling from its muzzle. Fresh meat for dinner. His mouth watered.

  He strode down Gallows Hill, mud heavy on his boots, the countryside unfolding in mist-draped valleys and leafless tree-crested hills. The late-afternoon air chilled the back of his throat and reached frigid fingers smelling of decayed vegetation into his lungs.

  On the hill behind him, the rooks were settling back among the treetops with harsh cries. He whistled blithely, unusually content at the prospect of stew instead of bread and cheese, or the rations of salt beef provided by his employer.

  Perhaps he’d request a recipe for dumplings from Wynchwood’s cook next time he arrived in her kitchen with a plump pheasant for his lordship’s dinner. A wry smile twisted his lips. How the mighty were fallen.

  A sudden sense of loss made his stomach fall away.

  The whistle died on his lips. Damn it. He would not sink into self-pity. Live for the moment and plan for the future must be his motto or he would go mad.

  He slogged on down the hill, unable to recapture his lighter mood. At the bottom, he took the overgrown track alongside the river, pushing aside brambles and scuffing through damp leaves. Without vegetables his stew would be a sorry affair. Perhaps instead of going up to the house in the morning for a list of the cook’s requirements from the local village, he’d go now. She might have some vegetables to spare.

  The trees thinned at the edge of the clearing. Stew. He could almost smell it.

  Robert stopped short at the sight of a hunched figure perched on an old stump a little way from his cottage, her brown bonnet and brown wool cloak blending into the carpet of withered beech leaves. He knew her at once, even though she had her back to him and her head bowed over something on her lap. Miss Bracewell.

  Hades. It seemed she’d taken him up on his invitation to return whenever she liked.

  He inhaled a slow breath. This time he would not scare her. This time he would be polite. Polite and, damn it, suitably humble, since no word had come back to him about yesterday’s disastrous encounter.

  He’d not had the courage to ask Weatherby about her either. If something had been said, he didn’t want to remind the old curmudgeon.

  He circled around, thinking to come at her head on. A twig cracked under his boot. He cursed under his breath.

  She leaped to her feet and whirled around. Sheets of paper fluttered around her, landing like snowflakes amid the dry leaves.

  Large and grey-green, her eyes mirrored shock. Another emotion flickered away before he could guess its import. Strange when he rarely had trouble reading a woman’s thoughts. It left him feeling on edge. Out of his element.

  He touched his hat. ‘Good day, Miss Bracewell.’

  An expression of revulsion crossed her face.

  It took him aback. Women usually looked at him with favour. Had he upset her so much? And if so, why was she back?

  The focus of her horrified gaze remained fixed above his right shoulder. On his dinner, not on him. Not that he wasn’t the stuff of nightmares, with his worn jacket and fustian trousers mired with the blood of his catch. He’d gutted them up on the hill, preferring leaving the offal for scavengers rather than bury it near his hut. He put the gun and its grisly pennant on the ground at his feet with an apologetic shrug.

  Her breast rose and fell in a deep breath. ‘Mr Deveril.’

  Recalling his mistakes of the day before, he snatched his cap off his head and lowered his gaze. ‘Yes, miss. I am sorry if I disturbed you.’ One of her fallen papers had landed near his foot. He retrieved it. His jaw slackened at a glimpse of a drawing of his own likeness, jacketless, shabby, unkempt, disreputable.

  Shock held him transfixed.

  She leaped forwards and snatched it from his hand. At a crouching run, she scuttled about picking up the rest of the sheets. Each time he reached for one, she plucked it from beneath his hand, allowing only fractured glimpses of squirrels in their natural setting.

  All the sheets picked up, she stood with the untidy bundle of papers clutched against her chest as if fearing he might make a grab for them, staring at him as if he had two heads and four eyes. Obviously she found his presence disturbing.

  Her wariness gnawed at his gut like a rat feeding on bone. He quelled the urge to deny meaning her harm. She should be afraid out here alone in the woods without a chaperon.

  Glancing down for his rifle, he saw scattered charcoal and the upturned wooden box beside the stump. He crouched, righted the box and scooped up the charcoals. He dropped them into the box. A glint caught his eye—a fine gold chain snaking amongst the leaves. He picked it up, dangled it from his fingers.

  ‘It’s mine,’ she said in her strangled breathy voice.

  Without looking at her, he felt heat rise from his neck to the roots of his hair. Did she think he would steal it? He let it fall into the box amongst the dusty broken black sticks.

  ‘I b-broke it,’ she said in the same forced rush of words.

  He glanced at her.

  She tucked the messy pile of paper between two board covers and tied the string. ‘I caught it on a branch on my way here.’ She offered him a conciliatory smile.

  He blinked, startled by the sudden change in her expression. She looked witchy, oddly alluring, almost beautiful in a vulnerable way. He pulled himself together. ‘What are you doing here?’ He sounded sullen, ungracious, when he’d meant to sound jocular. He half-expected her to take to her heels in terror.

  This woman had him all at sea.

  But she didn’t run, she merely tilted her head to one side as if thinking about what to say.

  ‘L-looking for squirrels.’ She tapped her portfolio.

  And she’d picked this clearing when hundreds of other places would do. What was she up to? He gestured to the stump. ‘Don’t let me disturb you.’

  ‘N-no. I was finished. The light is fading. Too many shadows.’

  A true artist would care about the quality of the light. And the drawings he’d seen were excellent. Most ladies liked to draw, but her pictures seemed different. The squirrels had life.

  Perhaps her artistic bent was what made her seem different. Awkward, with her utterance of short, sharp and direct sentences, yet likeable. A reason not to encourage her to return.

  ‘May I help you mount your horse?’ He glanced around for the gelding.

  She bit her lip. A faint, rosy hue tinted her pale, high cheekbones. ‘I w-walked.’

  Robert frowned. Riding in the woods was risky enough, but a young female walking alone in the forest with the sun going down he could not like.

  ‘I’ll drop my dinner off inside and walk you back to Wynchwood.’

  ‘P-please, don’t trouble. I know the way.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, miss. It’s my duty to my employer to see you home safe.’

  In his past life, he would have insisted on his honour and charmed the girl. His mouth twisted. As far as his new world knew, he had neither honour nor charm.

  A protest formed on her lips, but he continued as if he hadn’t noticed. ‘I have to go up to the house before supper to collect an order from Mrs Doncaster.’

  Her glance flicked to the pile of fur. A shudder shook her delicate frame. It reminded him of shudders of pleasure. Heated his blood. Stirred his body.

  Unwanted responses.

  Furious at himself, he glowered at
her. ‘Do you not eat meat, Miss Wynchwood?’ Damn, that was hardly conciliatory. Hardly servile. He wanted to curse. Instead, he bent, picked up his haul and strode for his front door.

  ‘Y-yes,’ she said.

  He swung around. ‘What?’

  ‘I eat m-m-m—’ she closed her eyes, a sweep of long brown lashes on fine cheekbones for a second ‘—eat meat—’ her serious gaze rested on his face ‘—but I prefer it cooked.’ She smiled. A curve of rosy lips and flash of small white teeth.

  Devastatingly lovely.

  What the deuce? Was he so pathetically lonely that a smile from a slip of a girl brought a ray of light to his dreary day? And she wasn’t as young as he’d thought the first time he saw her. She was one of those females who retained an aura of youth, like Caro Lamb. It was something in the way they observed the world with a child-like joy, he’d always thought, as if everything was new and wonderful.

  It made them seem terribly young. And vulnerable.

  Another reason for her to stay away from a man jaded by life.

  He glanced up at the pink-streaked sky between the black branches overhead. ‘I’ll be but a moment and we’ll be on our way.’ Shielding her view of the carcasses with his body, he dived inside his hut. He hung the hares from a nail by the hearth and stowed his shotgun under his cot out of sight. Swiftly, he stripped off his boots and soiled clothing, grabbing for his cleanest shirt and trousers. He had the sense that if he lingered a moment too long she’d be off like a startled fawn. Then he’d be forced to follow her home. She might not take kindly to being stalked.

  To his relief when he got outside, she was still standing where he left her, staring into the distance as if lost in some distant world, the battered portfolio still clutched to her chest.

  He picked up the box of charcoal from the stump. ‘Are you ready?’

  She jumped.

  Damn it. What made her so nervous?

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘After you, miss.’

  Then suddenly she turned and walked in front of him. The hem of her brown cloak rustled the dry brown leaves alongside the track. For the niece of a nobleman, her clothes were sadly lacking. Perhaps she chose them to blend with her surroundings when drawing from nature.