Annie Burrows Read online

  Though she thought she knew why. The Colonel had told her that one never forgot one’s first love. He had probably been trying to reassure her that it was not her fault that he could not feel anything warmer than fondness for her. But it also helped to account for her own reactions to Lord Rothersthorpe, who had been her first love. And now she’d discovered she’d never really stopped loving him, no matter how hard she’d tried to put him out of her mind, she could understand why she’d been on fire for him after that kiss in the garden, even though what he’d assumed about her had been so insulting. Why she wanted him to understand her, even though he did not really merit any kind of explanation.

  She glanced at him. He was looking at her in a way he’d never done before—with open curiosity. The mockery, the flippancy of his youth, well, that had long gone. But now he’d lost that harsh, judgemental frown, too. He really did look as though he wanted to understand.

  And he’d finally admitted that he had liked her very much when they’d known each other before. No prevarication. No making excuses and backing away from the statement the moment he’d made it, either.

  She sighed. He’d told her, at breakfast, that he didn’t want their short time together spoiled by quarrels. And even though it had hurt to hear his reminder that he only saw her as a temporary diversion, it would ease pain somewhat, if she could at least prevent him sniping at her.

  ‘Firstly, I have to take issue with you referring to Robert as a gaoler. I know he can be rather autocratic, but he is his father’s son, after all. And I learned, through the course of my marriage, how to deal with men of his stamp. He can make me do nothing I do not wish.’

  ‘If you say so...’

  ‘I do say so. And what is more, I do not feel put upon by his sisters, either.’

  She paused, marshalling her thoughts into coherent, concise sentences which would not cause any trouble if anyone should overhear them. Although the din emanating from the enthusiastic spectators, as Lieutenant Smollet gamely swung at the next ball Cissy bowled for him, would have made it well nigh impossible anyway.

  ‘Perhaps, since you do not have sisters, you do not appreciate how fortunate I consider myself to have been brought into this family. As their stepmother, and being so very near their age to boot, they could have taken against me and made my life a misery. But they did not. I don’t say they welcomed me with open arms, not at first. It took time to earn their trust. But though I cannot dispute the fact they have rather forceful characters, they also have generous hearts.’

  ‘Very well, I stand corrected,’ he said. ‘On that point. But I still...dammit, it sticks in my craw to think of you marrying Colonel Morgan at all. I suppose...I mean...did Mrs Westerly pressure you into it? Was that what happened?’

  ‘Mrs Westerly was the one who first put the notion into Colonel Morgan’s head, that I cannot deny,’ she admitted sombrely. While she’d been lying there, trying to work out if she dare believe she could put her faith in a proposal that had clearly been made on a whim, Mrs Westerly had gone to work on the Colonel with a vengeance.

  ‘While she stayed here with me, she wasted no opportunity of pointing out all the advantages of taking on a wife to manage his household. He could never manage to keep a housekeeper for long, because of his temper, you see. She convinced him that a wife would relieve him of the tedious chore of having to think about domestic issues at all.’

  ‘He married you because he wanted you to keep house for him? And never have the freedom to escape his vile temper? Lydia, how could you have let the pair of them push you into such a distasteful union?’

  ‘Nobody pushed me into anything,’ she retorted. ‘I made very certain, before I accepted Colonel Morgan’s proposal, that he would give me exactly what I wanted out of the arrangement. And I drove a hard bargain, believe me.’

  ‘So it was his money you wanted.’ He sat back, crestfallen.

  If he hadn’t looked so upset, she might have let him carry on believing the worst of her. But it was that hint that he wished to believe well of her that made her willing to allow him just a glimpse of the truth.

  ‘You discussed my marriage with Robert, you said.’

  When he nodded, she continued, ‘He put ideas into your head which he could not possibly have verified, since we did not meet for months after I moved in here. So I forgive you for thinking it was money I wanted from marriage, when it was nothing of the kind.’

  Lieutenant Smollet had finally managed to hit one of Cissy’s rather wild attempts to bowl the ball in his direction. Lord Rothersthorpe watched it go sailing over the boundary hedge and into the region of the Persian Pools rather than look at her, as he grated, ‘If not money, then what?’

  With an excited bark, Slipper plunged straight through the hedge, while Lieutenant Tancred ran to an arched gap further along.

  ‘Run, Left on a Mullet!’ Robert darted forward, his attention wholly captured by the prospect of his team finally earning some points.

  ‘Security,’ she said simply, as the lieutenant set off round the pitch. It was as much as she was prepared to tell him, now she knew what he was really like.

  ‘Security?’ He turned to look searchingly at her. ‘I don’t understand...’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose you did. But did you never wonder why I suffered from so many headaches? It was the unbearable strain. The further into the Season I got, and the more impossible my situation grew, the less able I became to deal with it, physically. Even Mrs Westerly started to worry that my health would break down completely before she managed to get someone to give me a home.’

  A home? That was all she’d wanted?

  ‘I had no idea.’ He shook his head, his face grim and pale. ‘Though I feel now as though I should have done.’

  It explained so much. The first time he’d seen her, she’d been a picture of health. He’d almost forgotten. He had not taken much note of her, beyond admiring her silvery-blonde hair, and those enormous blue eyes, and thinking what a catch she would be for some marriage-minded man. She’d only really started to pique his interest when she hadn’t become the toast of the ton. When instead she’d started to fade away before his eyes.

  ‘You were shy, painfully shy, weren’t you?’ He recalled now how she’d looked as though she’d wanted to bolt when men had, in those first weeks, begun to flock round her. All that blushing and stammering hadn’t been an act at all. She really had hated putting herself forwards in order to snare a husband.

  And yet she’d kept right on doing it.

  Or at least...

  ‘That dreadful woman kept on pushing you at men, didn’t she? No wonder you grew desperate to escape her.’

  There was an immense splash from beyond the hedge. It sounded as though the dog had dived into one of the pools to retrieve the ball.

  She tapped the chalk on her slate, a frown pleating her brow as though she was choosing her words with the greatest of care.

  ‘It was not quite like that. I suppose it must have looked as though Mrs Westerly was pushing me at men in far too forceful a manner, but in truth she was doing her very best to help me, in the limited time available to us. My guardian had told us both that he was only prepared to frank me for one Season. He had told her that if she could not get us...I mean, of course, me,’ she amended swiftly, ‘off his hands then he would no longer support me. I would have had to find some form of genteel occupation. You see, my father had not left his affairs in good order. The estate itself was entailed, but I was given to understand there was not much else left but debts.’

  He recalled her saying she was going to be in trouble if she hadn’t brought some man up to scratch before the end of her Season, but he hadn’t thought she might actually have ended up with nowhere to live.

  ‘You really needed a home,’ he said, gazing down at his boots. After a moment or two he gave a harsh little laugh. ‘I...I see.’

  She was stronger now and more sure of herself, but back then, she had been a timid little thi
ng. The prospect of being at the beck and call of some querulous old woman, if she’d taken work as a paid companion, must have seemed terrifying. And with that face, it would have been downright dangerous to go out as a governess to any household which had a son of anything above adolescence, or an employer with a roving eye. She might have fared reasonably well as a schoolteacher, he supposed, given the boundless patience he’d seen she had with Morgan’s wilful girls.

  But what really stung was seeing that he could have been the man to give her the home and security she’d craved, if only he hadn’t taken such pains to make her think he was not on the marriage mart. Because that was what he’d done. Alarmed by the strength of the feelings he’d begun to develop for her, he’d attempted to counteract them by declaring to both her, and himself, that he was offering nothing but a light, inconsequential friendship. She could have had no idea he’d been struggling with himself when he blew hot and cold upon her.

  If it really had only been a home she wanted, then Hemingford Priory was as secure, in its own way, as Westdene. If he’d only not been so selfish, self-absorbed...such an utter idiot! If he’d spoken sooner, or even if he’d not made his views on marriage so plain, she might have waited for him. Or if he’d talked to her then, as they were talking now, instead of trying to amuse her with idiotic tales of his stupid pranks.

  Or if he’d stood his ground when Mrs Westerly had shoo’d him out of the drawing room he’d brought Lydia to after stammering that feeble excuse for a proposal. Laid his heart bare. And explained where he was going, and what he planned to do. Oh, she might have turned him down anyway. But on the other hand, she might not.

  He hadn’t really done all he could to convince her that he was, for the first time in his useless, frivolous existence, in deadly earnest.

  No. He’d been too busy protecting himself from the potential humiliation of a rejection.

  A chorus of shouts and laughter erupted from the lawn as Slipper wriggled back through the hedge, the ball in his mouth, Lieutenant Tancred hard on his heels.

  While guilt curdled his insides into a writhing mass of bitter regrets. He’d let her down by refusing to nail his colours to the mast. And made a monumental mess not only of his own life, but also of hers. He’d made her think she had no choice but to marry Colonel Morgan.

  She had not betrayed him at all.

  He had betrayed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Have you been happy? At least, tell me that becoming mistress of all this brought you some joy,’ he grated in anguish.

  ‘Happy?’ She gave a light shrug as though she did not consider his question relevant. ‘Happiness did not come into it. I have been secure. And...I have learned to be content with my lot.’

  Content? She could have been happy with him. They could both have been happy—and not just to begin with, either. Because, since he’d been down here, he’d discovered that she was exactly the kind of woman he’d come to town looking for. She was nothing like the mercenary harpy Robert had painted her—before he’d even met her, as it turned out. She’d entered a family riven with resentment and melded them all into...his gaze swept across the lawn, at all the happy smiling faces...into this.

  And if she could gentle such a strong-willed bunch of people, she could have helped him untangle the mess his father had bequeathed him, too.

  If he hadn’t been such a coward when it came to love, she could have been at his side all these years.

  And that boy, Michael—a pang of complete wretchedness curled the writhing mass of regrets into a knot—could have been their son.

  He got to his feet so abruptly his chair went skidding across the tiles.

  At the far end of the orangery, Marigold’s did the same. Though for an entirely different reason.

  ‘Keep running, Left on a Mullet!’ She need not have bothered screaming the encouragement. Lieutenant Smollet was running doggedly round and round the pitch, while Lieutenant Tancred struggled in vain to get Slipper to relinquish the ball. More and more members of the fielding team started chasing the dog, who appeared to think it was all part of the game to dodge them all, while Michael, who might have made the dog behave, was rolling on the ground with laughter.

  Lord Rothersthorpe couldn’t see how anyone could be laughing, nor even how the sun could still be shining, when he felt as though his whole world had come to a juddering halt.

  Eventually he heard Lydia’s chair scrape across the tiles as she, too, got to her feet. Would she come and lay a comforting arm on his back? Tell him she understood? And forgave him?

  No. Of course not. She had no idea of the blow she’d just dealt him.

  She was calling the dog and snapping her fingers in such a way that it knew the command was urgent.

  Slipper dodged between Lieutenant Tancred and Lord Abergele, smearing their breeches with green pond slime as he did so, ran to Lydia, dropped the ball at her feet, then sat down, looking up at her expectantly.

  It was Mr Bentley, who was supposed to be guarding third base, who grasped the fact that as umpire, she would not touch the ball herself. He ran over, snatched it up and threw it with deadly accuracy, knocking the bails from the wicket a split second before Lieutenant Smollet could touch the ground before it with his bat.

  ‘Out!’ the entire fielding team yelled in victory.

  Lieutenant Smollet paused as he came in, to ask Lydia how many runs he’d just scored.

  ‘Nine,’ replied Lydia promptly.

  She’d had the presence of mind to count. While he was standing there feeling as though someone had just hit him in the guts with a cricket bat, she’d been cool and detached enough to keep count of the score of that ridiculous, childish game.

  ‘I think it may be your turn next,’ said Lieutenant Smollet, holding out the bat, though his eyes were already darting past him, to see how Rose was reacting to his triumph on the playing field.

  He took it with a low growl.

  This might be only a childish game, but he had never felt more like hitting something a resounding blow with a wooden bat in his entire life.

  He was glad Lieutenant Tancred was the one bowling for him. He would not have wanted to face any of the children, or ladies, in the mood he was in. One exchange of glances told him Lieutenant Tancred understood. There was not going to be anything the least bit gentlemanly about the way he bowled. This was war.

  For a few minutes he let out his anger and frustration on the still-sodden tennis ball, slogging it as hard as he could.

  If he’d only talked about her background, instead of himself, he might have learned about her desperate plight during her Season. But it had never occurred to him that girls who went to balls dressed to the nines could have any experience of hardship. There had been sufficient clues to have alerted a man with any brains. But he just hadn’t wanted to look beneath the surface. No, he’d been content to drift along in a golden current, never stirring himself to imagine she might have lost parents, home and security at a stroke... He fumed as he set off at a run round the pitch. She’d told him she needed to get married. That she was only going to have one Season.

  But he hadn’t thought that if she couldn’t find a husband, she would have ended up turned out into the world to earn her living in some menial role.

  Apparently, each bowler only got three attempts to remove a batsman from his position. It was nowhere nearly long enough before Tancred handed the ball to the Hungry Baronet’s sister.

  She looked at the ball with distaste, looked at him with trepidation, lobbed the ball in his general direction, then shut her eyes and braced herself for impact.

  Because she hadn’t thrown with any great force, Lord Rothersthorpe had to step well away from his wicket to meet the ball. And his swing was therefore not as precise as it could have been. The ball sailed straight up into the air...

  As he leaned his head back to watch it, he thought of how he’d pushed and probed, thinking that getting to know her better would free him from her. I
nstead, he’d learned that the hatred he’d nursed this last eight years had arisen from what amounted to a lie. Lydia was everything he’d ever wanted. He knew, at a deep, instinctive level, that she’d spoken the truth about what had happened at the end of her Season.

  He knew, because he’d been unable to believe Robert’s account of her. He’d been sickened to think she could be so different from how she’d appeared to him. That she could have ignored what he’d clumsily tried to offer, because a wealthier man had proposed.

  But then she hadn’t, had she? Not really.

  All the pieces of the puzzle that was Lydia fell into place as neatly as the ball fell into Mr Bentley’s outstretched hand.

  And changed everything.

  She really was the girl he’d fallen in love with.

  The girl whose loss he’d mourned for eight long years.

  So unnecessarily.

  A shout went up from the fielding team. He was out.

  Out of this game, at least. But defending his wicket from the lieutenant’s determined efforts to demolish it, and glorying in every run he notched up while the fielders scurried in various directions to retrieve his hits, had helped him work off much of his frustration. Now that he’d calmed down, now that he’d turned to begin walking back to the house, he was relishing the prospect of starting up a whole new game.

  He was going to win Lydia back, even though he’d made a false start with her this time round by treating her as though she had no morals and by giving rein to the anger that had simmered steadily for eight long years.

  His manner might have given her pause for thought, but she hadn’t been able to help herself—she’d said so! And that wonderful encounter last night—it had meant a great deal to her. She’d let that slip, too.

  Striding back to the orangery, he felt as though he’d been reborn. The fog of bitterness had dissipated, he realised. The bitterness that had hung over him ever since he’d started to think Lydia had played him for a fool.