When he had pulled her into his arms she had forgotten all the reservations she’d had. The seven years of loneliness, hurt and longing that she had buried ruthlessly inside had bubbled too close to the surface and had steadfastly refused to return to the neat box in her mind where she kept them. At that moment she had needed to feel beautiful and desired. She had wanted to be in those strong, safe arms again and to hell with the consequences.
Thank goodness they had been interrupted. Hannah was certain she would not have stopped the kiss otherwise. She had been too emotional and too raw, desperate to banish those painful feelings in the hot heat of his kiss. Her heart was already a little too engaged, and it would have been lost completely if she had succumbed.
Ross Jameson was best kept at arm’s length going forward. He was nothing like any of the men she had known before. He was kind, generous, funny, self-effacing and quite noble. But also clever, ridiculously attractive, and so, so tempting. All in all, a very dangerous combination.
She caught a brief glimpse of her hands. Her finger tips had shrivelled up like prunes, and she realised that she had been languishing in the water for far too long. Reluctantly, she waded up the steep bank and collapsed onto the towel she had spread on the ground so that the heat of the early-evening sun could dry her skin.
Ross Jameson was a conundrum, and he had left her so confused that she really did not know what to make of him or her conflicting feelings towards him. But he was right about her former fiancé. It was grossly unfair that he had never had to answer for his appalling treatment of her all those years ago. She deserved the truth, if nothing else. Perhaps the lack of it was actually holding her back? Was she denying herself ‘possibilities’ because of what that man had done to her? Did Eldridge really deserve to wield that much power?
For the first time since that night in the ballroom Hannah decided that it was time to demand the answers that her brother had promised but failed to provide. Eldridge had accused her of all those terrible things. Had he made it all up to get out of his obligation or had somebody else deliberately sabotaged her chance at happiness? The very fact that the incident could still reduce her to a sobbing mess after seven long years made her want to draw a proper line under it. She needed to know. Hell—she had a right to know.
With a renewed sense of clarity she sat bolt-upright. Eldridge had robbed her of her place in society, her happiness, her future and her confidence. The very least he could do now was explain why that had happened. His house was less than an hour away. Why shouldn’t she just turn up there and demand the answers that had never been forthcoming? If she left early tomorrow she would be there and back well before lunch.
Hastily she towelled off the rest of the water. If she got up before dawn she could saddle a horse and slip away unnoticed. Cook would make a suitable excuse if anyone asked.
Hannah twisted her hair into a knot and secured it with a few pins and then dragged on her clothes.
What would she feel when she saw Eldridge again? She knew already that she would not look at him with doe eyes any longer—but would she be angry? Or indifferent? She hoped she would be indifferent. That would wound the bounder much more than tears or regret.
The image of Viscount Eldridge confused and alarmed cheered her immensely. The sight of her would likely terrify him.
* * *
Hannah arrived at Viscount Eldridge’s country home just before nine. She had only visited the house once before, and could not remember if she had considered it to be such a Gothic monstrosity then as she did now. The place did not hold a candle to Barchester Hall, and she was oddly thankful that she had been spared the ordeal of being its mistress.
As it did not seem proper simply to march up to the front door and demand entrance, she sat on a secluded bench that gave her a good view of the back of the house. Eldridge would likely refuse to see her if she was announced, she realised, and the element of surprise would keep her in control of the situation.
After an hour or so two young boys skipped out into the garden. From the genteel way they were dressed, they had to be his sons. Obviously he had married during the intervening years, and that made her angry. How typical that he should be allowed to blithely get on with his life while she had been left to suffer. A family had been denied her. Thanks to him.
Hannah was just contemplating sneaking in through the back door and confronting him when the man himself appeared through some French doors as if she had conjured him. Even from a distance she could tell that the years had taken their toll. His blond hair was much thinner than it had been, while the well-cut jacket could not completely disguise the beginnings of a paunch. The Viscount clasped his hands behind his back and began to stroll slowly around the lawn in what she assumed was his morning constitutional.
As luck would have it, he was inadvertently heading in her direction. She sat straighter on the bench as he turned the corner and inclined her head in greeting, ignoring the unmanly squeal that emanated from his thin lips the moment he set eyes on her.
‘Hello, Charles,’ she said casually, as if she had every right to be trespassing in his garden. ‘It has been a long time.’
The Viscount’s jaw hung slack as he blinked at her in confusion. ‘H-Hannah! I hope you are well.’
The inane platitude made her smile. After all he had done, the best thing he could think of to say was that?
‘Yes, Charles, I am well,’ she responded dully. ‘No thanks to you.’
Eldridge coloured immediately and stood rooted to the spot. It gave her an opportunity to look him over objectively. He was shorter than she remembered, and not even all the padding in his jacket could cover up his narrow, stooping shoulders.
The best adjective she could think of to describe his face accurately was aristocratic, and it was odd that she should consider such a word to be an insult—but it was. His pale eyes were too small; his nose was too long and prominent. It had a slight bump in it that added to his haughty demeanour, as did the fact that his chin was so nondescript that it was almost not a chin at all—merely an extension of his over-long neck.
Why had she never noticed that he appeared to be constantly looking down that nose at everyone? His eyes were humourless—she preferred eyes that sparkled with mischief—and his mouth was not the sort of mouth that she would ever consider kissing now.
‘What do you want?’ he asked furtively, his eyes flicking back and forth between her and the house. He clearly did not want his wife to find him in her company.
‘Try not to panic, Charles. I would prefer not to cause trouble.’
He visibly gulped at the implied threat and Hannah felt strangely empowered. This was therapeutic.
‘I came here for some answers, Charles, and I will not be leaving until I get them. Why don’t you come and sit down and then we can get it over with?’
Her voice dripped sarcasm, and for a moment she thought he might run away screaming, but after a few seconds of hesitation he did as she asked.
He sat primly on the furthest corner of the bench, with his knees pressed together like a maiden. Did he think that she was going to harm his male parts? His were the last male parts on the planet she would want anything to do with, but she smiled knowingly at him. Let him think that his jewels were in danger—it would serve him right.
‘I thought you were abroad,’ he muttered.
Large beads of perspiration had gathered unattractively on his top lip and prominent forehead.
‘Clearly I am not. But that is by the by. I came here to talk to you about the night you called off our engagement.’
She watched his Adam’s apple bob uncomfortably before he sighed. ‘I am sorry for the...the public nature of our argument that night,’ he said, not meeting her eyes. ‘I regret not doing it in private.’
The very fact that he did not regret calling their engagement off was duly noted, and she narrowed her eyes. ‘It was not your finest hour, but that does not concern me either. I am actually grateful that yo
u broke our engagement. I cannot imagine how awful my life would have been if I had been saddled with such a spineless man as you. What I am more interested in is why you told everyone that I was a whore and pregnant with another man’s child.’
All the colour had drained from his thin cheeks but he stared back at her indignantly. ‘That was the truth. You cannot deny it!’
Hannah shook her head slowly. ‘It was most certainly not the truth. I had taken no lover nor been impregnated by one. I was nineteen, for pity’s sake, and had been out for just a year. Why would you think such a thing?’
Eldridge glared at her down his haughty nose, but withered under her level gaze. ‘I was told it on good authority. I had no reason to doubt the source.’
Hannah felt a little queasy at the knowledge that another person had indeed deliberately destroyed her happiness so cruelly, but hid it. ‘And who was the source of that vile lie, Charles? Which person wished me so much ill that they would construct such a fable? I am curious.’
For a minute his expression closed and his shoulders stiffened, but then he turned a little green and deflated. ‘I promised to keep his identity a secret,’ he said finally, with a faint tremor in his voice. ‘But as he is dead I suppose that no longer matters. It was your brother who told me.’
The words slammed into her like a punch in the gut, and she gasped and clutched at the bench for support. ‘You are lying!’ she whispered, sure that it could not be true.
He regarded her with righteous indignation. ‘It is the truth. He had no reason to lie. He came to me during the ball and said that he could not in all good conscience allow me to be cuckolded by you. He told me about all your lovers.’
‘All?’ Hannah cried bitterly, still reeling from the betrayal. ‘Pray tell me, sir, how many men did he accuse me of having when surely just the one was enough?’
Her own brother had sabotaged her wedding and banished her to Yorkshire on purpose. As soon as she got home she was going to jump on his grave.
Viscount Eldridge stood and smoothed down his coat. ‘Your brother warned me that you would deny it,’ he said, staring down his nose at her in disgust, ‘But he said that he knew for certain that you had dallied with a number of your servants and that your own stable master was the father of your child.’
The only stable master they’d had had been eighty if he was a day. Hannah laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Her life had been ruined by her own selfish brother.
‘And you believed him?’
To her own ears she sounded a mite hysterical, and Eldridge was regarding her as if she were mad.
Hannah stood proudly. ‘My brother was an idiot, Charles. Everybody knew it. He could not stay away from the gaming tables and he drank whisky with his breakfast. To think that you put more stock in what a man like that said than the word of your own fiancée says a great deal about you. You did not even ask me for my version of events. What is it about men of breeding and title that makes them believe they have the right to ride roughshod over a woman’s feelings?’
The rhetorical question was meant more for her treacherous brother than Eldridge—but both men had wronged her. She could not help comparing them unfavourably to Ross.
‘I had no reason to doubt your brother,’ Viscount Eldridge said rather pompously. ‘I still don’t.’
At that, Hannah raised her eyes heavenward. Despite all the hurt he had caused, Hannah felt a wave of almost palpable relief. Her fool brother had actually done her a favour—not that she was inclined ever to forgive him for it. This could have been her life. This could have been her husband. She would have spent years being subservient to a man who was little more than an empty vessel.
There was no substance to Charles. He was a stuffed shirt with lead for brains and inherited opinions that were so rigid they formed a prison around him. She would have been truly miserable had she become his wife, she realised. Miserable and trapped with a man that she could never respect.
‘Then Ross is quite right,’ she said imperiously, ‘You are an idiot and you certainly never deserved me.’
She would never shed a tear over the past again. Nor would she let it hold her back. With a flounce, she turned and sauntered back towards her waiting horse, strangely grateful that she had been saved from marrying such a pathetic man.
Chapter Eighteen
By midday Ross was quite ready to climb the walls, and Carstairs was not helping his mood.
‘Why else would she have disappeared without warning?’ his friend argued logically. ‘She is obviously up to no good. Who knows what she could have stolen and given to the East India Company by now? You gave her carte blanche to go through all your documents yesterday and neither of us were here to keep watch last night. She waited until you let your guard down and then she pounced. I doubt you will ever see her again, old boy.’
The idea that his friend might well be right made him feel quite ill. It was not only the potential invasion of his privacy that bothered him, and the threat that placed on his shipping business, but imagining Prim going behind his back like that, when he had trusted her enough to let his guard down, felt like the worst sort of betrayal. He did not want to believe it of her.
Ross huffed and stalked out of the cheerful yellow morning room.
‘Cook!’ he bellowed as he rounded the kitchen door and spied his prey.
The older woman coloured guiltily and wrung the corners of her white apron in her hands.
‘Tell me again where Prim has gone to.’ He narrowed his eyes and glared down at her. ‘I know that you know.’
‘I told you, Ross—she has gone to do a bit of shopping, that’s all.’
Cook was an appalling liar and could not meet his eyes. Something was afoot and he did not like it at all. Yesterday, Prim had kissed him as if she had meant it. And now she was gone.
Dog started to yap excitedly outside.
‘Hello, boy,’ came Prim’s unmistakable tones. ‘Did you miss me?’
By the sounds of rapture coming from the canine she had clearly bent down to rub the animal’s ears. Then she sauntered through the back kitchen door—as if nothing at all was amiss and she had not left him climbing the walls with worry, fearing that John was right.
‘Oh, hello!’
She smiled, clearly a little startled at the sight of them. Two fetching spots of pink graced the apples of her cheeks and her hair was in windblown disarray. She looked so lovely that it took his breath away. Gone was the shapeless brown serge and severe bun. Prim was wearing a cheerful pale pink muslin gown that showed her trim figure off to perfection. Her hair had been dressed in matching pink ribbons but most of it was hanging loose around her face, mussed by the breeze. Instead of looking sheepish she grinned at him, her eyes twinkling.
‘Prim—could I have a word in my study?’ Ross muttered stiffly, and gestured towards the hallway.
‘Certainly,’ she said, breezing past him, wafting the seductive scent of flowers and fresh air in her wake.
Once inside the room, he slammed the door and rounded on her. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he shouted, not wanting to admit that he had been concerned.
‘Out,’ she replied saucily, and then she walked directly to where he stood glowering at her. She smiled and stood on her tiptoes and then reached up and pulled his face to hers. The kiss was as brief as it was unexpected. ‘Thank you,’ she said as she released his head.
Bewildered, and more than a little off-kilter at her bizarre response, Ross struggled to find the right words. None came, and he was forced simply to gape at her in complete confusion.
‘I took your advice and went to see him and I gave him a piece of my mind. It felt marvellous.’ She grinned giddily and spun a happy circle on the rug. ‘To be honest, I am not entirely sure what I ever saw in him. He is weedy and cowardly and totally dislikeable.’
‘I’m sorry...?’ Ross was having trouble following. ‘Who did you go and see?’
Prim wandered over to the abandoned c
hests and began to pull out handfuls of correspondence. ‘My former fiancé, of course.’
Instantly he felt a surge of pure, raw jealousy that thankfully she did not notice. He clenched his hands into angry fists at his sides and tried his best to look nonchalant.
‘I thought about what you said and knew you were right. I did deserve to know why he called our engagement off and I am glad that I went. The man is quite odious. To think that I could have been married to that for the last seven years makes me feel...’ She shuddered and screwed up her face. ‘Eww! He has beady eyes, no chin, and he pads out his jackets because he has absolutely no shoulders.’
She deposited a big pile of papers on the sideboard.
‘And he was pompous,’ she added for good measure. ‘He was totally unremorseful about the whole thing—but he was absolutely terrified to see me. It was quite exhilarating, actually. I enjoyed watching him squirm.’
‘I can see that.’
She positively radiated joy, and a new confidence he had not seen in her before. It was infectious, and his irrational jealousy faded away. ‘I was worried about you,’ he admitted, coming up next to her, ‘I thought you had run away.’
‘Why on earth would you think that?’ Now it was her turn to look confused as she finally turned and faced him. ‘I told Cook I would be back by lunchtime—and here I am.’
Ross did not bother fighting the urge to touch her hair and wound his finger around one fat curl. ‘I thought you might have been upset about what happened between us yesterday.’
She blushed prettily, glanced at his lips and then looked down at her feet. ‘Er...about that... I think we should forget that it happened.’
‘I don’t think I can do that. In fact I was rather looking forward to doing it again.’
She tried to dart away, but stopped short as soon as she felt the tug of her trapped hair in his fingertips. ‘Ross—it is not proper,’ she murmured half-heartedly.
He gently tugged her a little closer. ‘Why ever not? My eyes are not beady, I have an actual chin and I have quite broad shoulders, if I do say so myself. Those were the main objections you had about your former fiancé, were they not?’
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