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Regency Mistletoe & Marriages: A Countess by Christmas / The Earl's Mistletoe Bride
Joanna Maitland

ANNIE BURROWS








Regency Mistletoe and Marriages

Annie Burrows

Joanna Maitland











www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)



A Countess by Christmas




About the Author


ANNIE BURROWS has been making up stories for her own amusement since she first went to school. As soon as she got the hang of using a pencil she began to write them down. Her love of books meant she had to do a degree in English literature. And her love of writing meant she could never take on a job where she didn’t have time to jot down notes when inspiration for a new plot struck her. She still wants the heroines of her stories to wear beautiful floaty dresses and triumph over all that life can throw at them. But when she got married she discovered that finding a hero is an essential ingredient to arriving at ‘happy ever after’.

Look out for Annie Burrows’s latest exciting novel, Captain Corcoran’s Hoyden Bride, available from Mills & Boon® Historical Romance in April 2011.


Dear Reader,



When I was writing this story, set during a Regency Christmas house party, I spent a lot of time considering what is most important to me about the season. If I’m not careful, I have to confess, I can get totally stressed out by all the extra shopping, baking and general organising that the celebrations can entail. But sitting down to really think about the themes of this story reminded me that Christmas, for me, is essentially about family. I want to spend time with them, see them enjoying the day, finding them that special gift that will make them happy.



The hero of the story, Lord Bridgemere, has, like me, very strong views about the importance of family. Even though he finds many of his own relatives hard to get along with, he is determined to do the right thing by them, at least at this time of year. Even if he has to do so with gritted teeth.



And a man who is so determined to do the right thing deserves to find a woman who can see past the outer, prickly shell. And love him for who he really is.



And so I wish you and your own family all the joys and blessings of this season.



Merry Christmas!



Annie Burrows


In this, the fifieth anniversary of the Romantic Novelists’

Association, I would like to dedicate this book to all those

writers I meet up with regularly at local chapters.



Since I have joined the RNA I have found your support,

enthusiasm, friendship and advice invaluable.



And, if not for you,

I might never have found out about PLR!




Chapter One


An Invitation is extended to Miss Isabella Forrest To attend the celebration of the Season at Alvanley Hall

Helen was tired and cold. The private chaise she had hired for the last stage of the journey across Bodmin Moor was the most uncomfortable and least weatherproof of all the many and varied coaches in which she had been travelling for the past three days.

She shot her Aunt Bella an anxious glance. For the past half-hour she had kept her eyes fixed tightly shut, but she was not asleep. Helen knew this because every time they bounced over a pothole she emitted a faint moan.

She had never thought of her aunt as old until quite recently. Aunt Bella had always looked the same to her, right from the very first moment they had met. A determined-looking but kind lady, with light brown hair shot through with silver. There was perhaps just a little more silver now than there had been twelve years ago, when she had taken Helen home with her. But in the months since their local bank had gone out of business, and all their money had disappeared into some kind of financial abyss neither of them fully understood, she had definitely aged rapidly.

And now, thought Helen with a pang of disquiet, she looked like a lady of advancing years who had been evicted from her home, endured a journey fraught with innumerable difficulties in the depths of winter, and was facing the humiliation of having to beg a man she detested to provide her daily bread.

The transition from independent, respected woman to pauper had been hard enough for Helen to contend with. But it looked as though it was destroying her aunt.

At that very moment a flare of light outside the coach briefly attracted Helen’s attention. They were slowing down to negotiate the turn from the main road onto a driveway, the wrought-iron gates of which stood open.

‘Almost there, Aunt Bella,’ said Helen. ‘See?’

She indicated the two stone pillars through which their driver was negotiating the chaise.

Aunt Bella’s eyes flicked open, and she attempted a tremulous smile which was so lacking in conviction it made Helen want to weep.

She averted her head. She did not want to upset her aunt any further by making her think she was going to break down. She had to be strong. Aunt Bella had taken her in when she had discovered nobody else wanted a virtually penniless orphan—product of a marriage neither her father’s nor her mother’s family had approved of. Aunt Bella had been there for her, looking after her, all these years. Now it was Helen’s turn.

Through the carriage window she could see, one crouching on top of each pillar, a pair of stone lions, mouths open in silent snarls. Since the wind which howled across the moors was making the lanterns swing, the flickering shadows made it look just as though they were licking their lips and preparing to pounce.

She gave an involuntary shiver, then roused herself to push aside such a fanciful notion. She had only imagined the lions looked menacing because she was tired, and anxious about her aunt’s health now, as well as already being convinced neither of them was truly welcome at Alvanley Hall. In spite of the Earl of Bridgemere sending that invitation.

He had sent one every year since Helen could remember. And every other year her aunt had tossed the gilt-edged piece of card straight into the fire with a contemptuous snort.

‘Spend Christmas with a pack of relations I cannot abide, in that draughty great barracks of a place, when I can really enjoy myself here, in my snug little cottage, amongst my true friends?’

Yet here they were, whilst the cottage and the friends, along with Aunt Bella’s independence, had all gone. Swept away in the aftermath of the collapse of the Middleton and Shropshire County Bank, to which all their capital had been entrusted.

Her feeling of being an unwelcome intruder into the Earl of Bridgemere’s domain only increased the further along the carriageway they drove. It had its foundation, Helen knew, in her aunt’s statement that the Earl was as loath to open up his home to his extended family as she was to attend the annual gathering.

‘It is about the only thing we have in common,’ she had grumbled as she wrote her acceptance letter. ‘A disinclination to go anywhere near any other member of this family. In fact, if it were not for his habit of going to Alvanley to preside over the Christmas festivities for the tenants at the family seat, nobody would know where to locate him from one year’s end to the next, so assiduously does he avoid us all. Which is why he issues these invitations, I dare say. We would run him to earth there whether he did so or not. And at least this way he knows how many of us to cater for.’

Though torches had been lit and set at frequent intervals along the winding driveway, ostensibly to help strangers find their way more easily through the rapidly falling winter dusk, the only effect upon Helen was to make her wonder what lurked beyond the pools of light they cast. What was waiting in the depths of the menacing shadows, poised to pounce on anyone foolish enough to stray beyond the boundaries the Earl had set for those he so grudgingly permitted thus far?

It seemed to take an inordinately long time before the carriage drew to a halt in the shelter of a generously proportioned porte-cochère. A footman in black and silver livery came to open the coach door and let down the steps. Her aunt slumped back into her seat. The light streaming from the porch lamps revealed that her face was grey, her eyes dulled with despair.

‘Aunt Bella, we have to get out now. We are here!’ Helen whispered in an urgent undertone.

‘No…’ the old lady moaned. ‘I cannot do this. I want to go home!’ Her eyes filled with tears. She shut them, and shook her head in a gesture of impatience, as though reminding herself she no longer had anywhere to call home.

Their landlord had visited promptly, as soon as the rumours began to spread that Aunt Bella had lost her entire fortune. To remind her that their lease expired in the New Year, and that if she had not the cash to meet the rent she would have to leave.

Leaving her eventually with no alternative but to apply to the Earl of Bridgemere—the head of the family—for aid.

‘That it has come to this,’ Aunt Bella had said three days ago, when they had climbed into the mail coach at Bridgenorth. ‘To be obliged to go cap in hand to that man of all men! But I have burned my bridges now. I can never go back. Never.’

She had sat ramrod-straight, refusing to look out of the window for miles lest she catch the eye of anyone who knew her. She had faced every challenge such a long journey had entailed with an air of dogged determination.

But it looked as though her redoubtable spirit had finally crumbled to dust.

Helen clambered over her, got out, and leaned back into the coach.

‘Come!’ she urged gently, putting her arms around her. ‘Let me help you out.’

Helen had to practically lift her aunt from the coach. And had to keep her arm about her waist once she had reached solid ground to keep her standing. It was a shock to feel her trembling all over, though whether from exhaustion, fear, or the cold that had pervaded their hired carriage, she could not tell.

A second footman materialised. He was a little older than the first flunkey, and dressed more soberly. Helen assumed he was the head footman, or possibly even the under-butler.

‘Welcome to Alvanley Hall, Miss Forrest—’ he began, in the bland, bored tone of an upper servant who had spent all day parroting the same words.

‘Never mind that now!’ Helen interrupted. ‘My aunt needs assistance, not meaningless platitudes!’

Both footmen goggled at her as though she had sprouted two heads.

She very nearly stamped her foot in irritation.

‘Can’t you see she can barely stand?’ Helen continued. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she snapped, when they just continued to stare at her as though in shock. ‘Make yourselves useful, can’t you? Get her a chair. Or…no…’ She immediately changed her mind as her aunt gave another convulsive shiver. ‘We must get her inside first. Into the warm.’

Her aunt blinked owlishly about her. ‘I do not think I shall ever feel warm again,’ she observed.

And fainted.

To do him justice, the head footman had very quick reflexes. And very deft, sure hands. He managed to disentangle Helen from her aunt before she lost the fight to keep her from slithering to the ground, and scooped her up into his arms with an insouciance that suggested catching fainting guests was a task he performed every day.

Then he strode into the house without a backward glance, leaving Helen to her own devices.

After tamping down a fresh wave of annoyance she trotted behind him, arriving in the hall just in time to hear him addressing a young housemaid, who had been scurrying across the hall with a pile of linen in her arms.

‘What room does Miss Forrest have?’

The maid’s eyes grew round at the sight of the unconscious woman in his arms.

‘Well, I just finished making up the drum room at the foot of the tower,’ she began, ‘but…’

‘Very well. I shall take her up there myself.’

‘B…but sir!’ stammered the first footman.

The head footman shot him one look, which was so withering it was enough to reduce him to red-faced silence.

‘Follow me, Miss…?’ He raised one eyebrow, as though expecting her to enlighten him as to her name.

But Helen was in no mood to waste time on introductions.

‘Hurry up, do! The sooner we make her comfortable the better!’

He nodded curtly, then demonstrated that he had caught on to the severity of her aunt’s condition by striding deeper into the house. He bypassed the rather ostentatious staircase which swept upwards from the main hall, going instead along a corridor to a plainer, more narrow stone staircase, with wooden handrails darkened and glossy with age.

Helen had to trot to keep up with his long-legged stride, and was quite out of breath by the time they came to a heavily studded oak door set into a small gothic arch that led into a perfectly circular room. With its unadorned ceiling, which contrasted starkly with the bright frieze running round the upper portion of the walls, it did indeed feel like being on the inside of a drum.

The footman laid Aunt Bella upon the bed, frowned down at her for a moment or two, then went across and tugged on a bell-pull beside the chimney breast.

‘Someone will come and see to Miss Forrest,’ he said curtly. ‘I really should not be up here.’ He stalked to the door, opened it, then turned to her. ‘I am sure you know what is best to do for her when she has one of these turns.’ He ran his eyes over her dismissively. ‘I shall leave her in your…capable hands.’

Helen opened her mouth to protest that this was not a turn but the result of exhaustion, brought on by the sufferings her aunt had endured over the preceding weeks, but the footman had already gone.

How dared he look at her like that? As though she was a dead pigeon the cat had brought in! And as for saying he should not be up here! She tugged the strings of her muff over her head and flung it at the door through which he had just gone.

Pompous toad! For all his quick reflexes, and the strength it must have taken to carry her aunt’s dead weight up all these stairs, he was clearly one of those men who thought that showing an ailing female any sort of compassion was beneath his dignity!

Unless he was just hiding a streak of venality beneath that cool, efficient demeanour? She had heard another carriage approaching just as they had been going into the house. It probably contained one of the Earl’s titled relatives. He had a score of them, her aunt had warned her as they had lain in bed the night before, neither of them quite able to do more than doze on and off because of the noise the other occupants of the coaching inn were making.

‘Each one more pompous than the last,’ she had said. ‘Lord Bridgemere’s two surviving sisters are the worst. Lady Thrapston and Lady Craddock are so starched up it is a wonder either of them can bend enough to sit down.’

Helen had giggled in the darkness, glad her aunt was still able to make a jest in light of all she was going through—and all she still had to face.

But she was beyond the stage of joking about anything now. With agitated fingers Helen untied the strings of her aunt’s bonnet, loosened the top buttons of her coat, and pulled off her boots. Aunt Bella’s eyes flickered open briefly as she tucked a quilt over her, but she did not really come properly awake.

Helen pulled a ladder-backed chair beside the bed, so that she could hold her hand while she waited for a maid to arrive.

Helen waited. And waited. But the promised help did not come.

She got up, crossed the room, and yanked on the bell-pull again. Then, in spite of the fact that the room was so cold she could see her breath steaming, she untied her own bonnet, shaking out her ebony curls and fluffing them over her ears, and peeled off her gloves before returning to her aunt’s bedside to chafe at her hands. Even though a fire was burning in the hearth it was making little impact upon the chill that pervaded this room. Her aunt’s hands remained cold, and her face still retained that horribly worrying grey tinge.

After waiting in mounting irritation for what must have been at least twenty minutes, she began to wonder if the bell-pull actually worked. They had not been quartered in the best part of the house. Even trotting behind the footman, with one eye kept firmly on her aunt, she had noticed that the corridors up here were uncarpeted, the wall hangings faded and worn with age.

This was clearly, she decided in mounting annoyance, all that an indigent, untitled lady who was the mere aunt of a cousin of the Earl warranted by way of comfort!

But then her aunt finally opened her eyes.

‘Helen?’ she croaked.

‘Yes, dear, I am here.’

‘What happened?’

‘You…had a little faint, I think,’ she said, smoothing a straggling greying lock from her aunt’s forehead.

‘How embarrassing.’

Her aunt might feel mortified, but the pink that now stole to her hollow cheeks came as a great relief to Helen.

‘You will feel better once you have had some tea,’ said Helen. ‘I have rung for some, but so far nobody has come.’

Lord, they must have been up here for the better part of an hour now! This really was not good enough.

‘Oh, yes,’ her aunt sighed. ‘A cup of tea is just what I need. Though even some water would be welcome,’ she finished weakly.

Helen leapt to her feet. Though the room was small, somebody had at least provided a decanter and glasses upon a little table under a curtained window. Once her aunt had drunk a few sips of the water Helen poured for her and held to her lips, she did seem to revive a little more.

‘Will you be all right if I leave you for a short while?’ Helen asked. ‘I think I had better go and see if I can find out what has happened to the maid who was supposed to be coming up here.’

‘Oh, Helen, thank you. I do not want to be any trouble, but…’

‘No trouble, Aunt Bella. No trouble at all!’ said Helen over her shoulder as she left the room.

But once she was outside in the corridor the reassuring smile faded from her lips. Her dark eyes flashed and her brows drew down in a furious scowl.

Clenching her fists, she stalked back along the tortuous route to the main hall, and then, finding it deserted, looked around for the green baize door that would take her to the servants’ quarters.

She did not know who was responsible, but somebody was going to be very sorry they had shoved her poor dear aunt up there, out of the way, and promptly forgotten all about her!



The scene that met her eyes in the servants’ hall was one of utter chaos.

Trunks and boxes cluttered the stone-flagged passageway. Coachmen and postilions lounged against the walls, drinking tankards of ale. Maids and footmen in overcoats clustered round the various piles of luggage, stoically awaiting their turn to be allotted their rooms.

Helen could see that there must have been a sudden influx of visitors. She could just, she supposed, understand how the needs of one of the less important ones had been overlooked. But that did not mean she was going to meekly walk away and let the situation continue!

She strode past the loitering servants and into the kitchen.

‘I need some tea for Miss Forrest,’ she declared.

A perspiring, red-faced kitchen maid looked up from where she was sawing away at a loaf of bread.

‘Have to wait your turn,’ she said, without pausing in her task. ‘I only got one pair of hands, see, and I got to do Lady Thrapston’s tray first.’

The problem with having a Frenchman for a father, her aunt had often observed, was that it left Helen with a very un-English tendency to lose her temper.

‘Is Lady Thrapston an elderly woman who absolutely needs that tea to help her recover from the rigours of her journey?’ asked Helen militantly. Even though a very small part of her suspected that, since she was the Earl’s oldest surviving sister, Lady Thrapston might well be quite elderly, she felt little sympathy for the unknown woman. She was almost certain that Lady Thrapston was getting preferential treatment because of her rank, not her need. ‘I don’t suppose she dropped down in a dead faint, did she?’

The maid opened her mouth to deny it, but Helen smiled grimly, and said, ‘No, I thought not!’ She seized the edge of the tray that already contained a pot, the necessary crockery, and what bread the kitchen maid had already buttered. ‘Miss Forrest has been lying upstairs, untended, for the best part of an hour. You will just have to start another tray for Lady Thrapston!’

‘’Ere! You can’t do that!’ another maid protested.

‘I have done it!’ replied Helen, swirling round and elbowing her way through the shifting mass of visiting servants milling about in the doorway.

‘I’ll be telling Mrs Dent what you done!’ came a shrill voice from behind her.

Mrs Dent must be the housekeeper. The one who by rights ought to have made sure Aunt Bella was properly looked after. It was past time the woman got involved.

‘Good!’ she tossed back airily over her shoulder. ‘I have a few things I should like to say to her myself!’

It was a far longer trek back up to the little round room with a heavy tray in her hands than it had been going down, fuelled by indignation. She set the tray down on a table just inside the door, feeling the teapot to see if it was still at a drinkable temperature.

‘My goodness,’ said Aunt Bella, easing herself up against the pillows. ‘You did well! Did you find out what was taking so long?’

‘It appears that several other guests have arrived today, and the servants’ hall is in uproar.’

Her aunt pursed her lips as Helen poured her a cup of tea which, she saw to her relief, was still emitting wisps of steam.

‘I should not be a bit surprised to learn that everybody has arrived today,’ she said, taking the cup from Helen’s hand. ‘Given the fact that we have only two weeks for all of us to make our petitions known, while Lord Bridgemere is observing Christmas with his tenants. And it is only to be expected,’ she added wryly, ‘that without a woman to see to the minutiae things are bound to descend into chaos.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only that he will not have either of his sisters acting as hostess,’ Aunt Bella explained. ‘Absolutely refuses to let them have so much as a toehold in any aspect of his life.’

‘He is not married, then?’

Her aunt sipped at her tea and sighed with pleasure. Then cocked an eyebrow at Helen. ‘Bridgemere? Marry? Perish the thought! Why would a man of his solitary disposition bother to saddle himself with a wife?’

‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ said Helen tartly.

Her aunt clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

‘Helen, you really ought not to know about such things. Besides, a man does not need a wife for that.’

Helen sat down, raised her cup to her lips, took a delicate sip, and widened her eyes.

‘I simply cannot imagine where I learned about…men’s…um…proclivities,’ she said. ‘Or why you should suppose that was what I was alluding to.’

‘Oh, yes, you can! And I do not know why you have suddenly decided to be so mealy-mouthed.’

‘Well, now that I am about to be a governess I thought I had better learn to keep a rein on my tongue.’ Once Helen had made sure the Earl would house her aunt, and provide some kind of pension for her, Helen was going to take up the post she had managed to secure as governess to the children of a family in Derbyshire.

Her aunt regarded her thoughtfully over the rim of her teacup. ‘Don’t know as how that will be doing your charges any favours. Girls need to know what kind of behaviour to expect from men. If they have not already learned it from their own menfolk.’

‘Oh, I quite agree,’ she said, leaning forward to relieve her aunt of her empty cup and depositing it on the tea tray. ‘But perhaps my employers would prefer me not to be too outspoken,’ she added, handing her a plate of bread and butter.

‘Humph,’ said her aunt, as she took a bite out of her bread.

‘Besides, I might not have been going to say what you thought I meant to say at all. Perhaps,’ she said mischievously, ‘I was only going to remark that a man of his station generally requires…an heir.’

Quick as a flash, her aunt replied, ‘He already has an heir. Lady Craddock’s oldest boy will inherit when he dies.’

‘So that only leaves his proclivities to discuss and disparage.’

‘Helen! How could you?’

‘What? Be so indelicate?’

‘No, make me almost choke on my bread and butter, you wretched girl!’

But her aunt was laughing, her cheeks pink with amusement, her eyes twinkling with mirth. And Helen knew it had been worth ruffling a few feathers in the servants’ hall to see her aunt smiling again. She would do anything for her dear Aunt Bella!

But Aunt Bella had still not got out of bed by the time they heard the faint echoes of the dinner gong sounding in the distance.

‘I am in no fit state to face them,’ she admitted wearily. ‘Just one more evening before I have to humble myself—is that too much to ask?’

Aunt Bella had prided herself on maintaining her independence from her family, in particular her overbearing brothers, for as long as Helen had known her.

‘All these years I have kept on telling everyone that I am quite capable of managing my own affairs,’ she had moaned when the invitation to the Christmas house party had arrived, ‘without the interference of any pompous, opinionated male, and now I am going to have to crawl to Lord Bridgemere himself and beg him for help!’

It was quite enough for today, Helen could see, that she was actually under Lord Bridgemere’s roof. It would be much better to put off laying out her dire situation before the cold and distant Earl until she had recovered from the journey.

‘Of course not!’ said Helen, stacking the empty cups and plates back on the tray. ‘I shall take these back down to the kitchen and arrange for something to be brought up.’

She had already asked the boy who had eventually dumped their luggage in the corridor outside their room if it was possible to have a supper tray brought up. He had shrugged, looking surly, from which she had deduced it would be highly unlikely.

So Helen once more descended to the kitchen, where she was informed by the same kitchen maid she had run up against before that they had enough to do getting a meal on the table without doing extra work for meddling so-and-sos who didn’t know their place. This argument was vociferously seconded by a stout cook.

‘Very well,’ said Helen, her eyes narrowing. ‘I can see you are all far too busy seeing to the guests who are well enough to go to the dining room.’ Once again she grabbed a tray, and began loading it with what she could find lying about, already half-prepared. ‘I shall save you the bother of having to go up all those stairs with a heavy tray,’ she finished acidly.

There were a few murmurs and dirty looks, but nobody actually tried to prevent her.

In the light of this inhospitality, however, she was seriously doubting the wisdom of her aunt’s scheme to apply to the Earl for help in her declining years. She had voiced these doubts previously, but her aunt had only sighed, and said, ‘He is not so lost to a sense of what is due to his family that he would leave an indigent elderly female to starve, Helen.’

But the fact that his staff cared so little about the weak and helpless must reflect his own attitude, Helen worried. Any help he gave to Aunt Bella would be grudging, at best. And her aunt had implied that had it not been Christmas it would have been a waste of time even writing to him!

Thank heaven she had come here with her. She shook her head as she climbed back up the stairs to the tower room, her generous mouth for once turned down at the corners. If she had not been here to wait on her she could just picture her poor aunt lying there, all alone and growing weaker by the hour, as the staff saw to all the grander, wealthier house guests. Helen was supposed to have taken up her governess duties at the beginning of December, but when she had seen how much her aunt was dreading visiting Alvanley Hall, and humbling herself before the head of the family, she had been on the verge of turning down the job altogether. She had longed to find something else nearby, something that would enable her to care for her aunt in her old age as she had cared for Helen as a child, but Aunt Bella had refused to let her.

‘No, Helen, do not be a fool,’ Aunt Bella had said firmly. ‘You must take this job as governess. Even if you do not stay there very long, your employers will be able to provide references which you can use to get something else. You must preserve your independence, Helen. I could not bear it if you had to resort to marrying some odious male!’

In the end Helen had agreed simply to postpone leaving her aunt until after Bridgemere’s Christmas party. After all, she was hardly in a position to turn down the job. It had come as something of a shock to discover just how hard it was for a young lady of good birth to secure paid employment. After all the weeks of scouring the advertisements and writing mostly unanswered applications, the Harcourts had been the only family willing to risk their children to a young woman who had no experience whatsoever.

‘I should think,’ her aunt had then pointed out astutely, ‘that if you were to tell them you mean to spend Christmas in the house of a belted Earl they will be only too glad to give you leave to do so. Think what it will mean to them to be able to boast that their new governess has such connections!’

‘There is that,’ Helen had mused. The Harcourts were newly wealthy, their fortune stemming from industry, and she had already gained the impression that in their eyes her background far outweighed her lack of experience. Mrs Harcourt’s eyes had lit up when Helen had informed her that not only had her mother come from an old and very noble English family, but her father had been a French count.

A virtually penniless French count—which was why her mother’s family, one of whom was married to the younger of Aunt Bella’s horrible brothers, had shown no interest in raising her themselves. But Helen hadn’t felt the need to explain that to Mrs Harcourt, who had indeed proved exceptionally amenable to her new governess attending such an illustrious Christmas party.

That night, though she was more tired than she could ever remember feeling in her whole life, Helen lay in the dark, gnawing on her fingernails, well after her aunt began to snore gently. She did not resent the fact they were having to share a bed yet again. It had been her decision to book only one bed between them on their journey south. It had saved so much money, and given both of them a much needed feeling of security in the strange rooms of the various coaching inns where they had broken their journey. And tonight the room was so cold that it was a blessing to have a body to help her keep warm. Besides, she would not have felt easy leaving Aunt Bella alone for one minute in such an inhospitable place!

If Lord Bridgemere could employ staff who would so casually ignore a guest who was far from well, it did not bode well for her aunt’s future. Not at all. What if, in spite of her assurance that he would not permit a female relative to suffer penury, Lord Bridgemere decided he could not be bothered with her? What would she do? Helen wished with all her heart she was in a position to look after her aunt. But the reality was that there were precious few jobs available to young ladies educated at home—especially educated with the rather eccentric methods her aunt had employed.

Aunt Bella had decried all the received wisdom regarding which subjects were appropriate for a girl to learn. Instead, if Helen had shown an interest in any particular topic she had bought her the relevant books or equipment, and hired people who could help her pursue her interest. So she could not teach pupils watercolour painting, or the use of the globe. And the post she had been able to obtain was so poorly paid she would not be able to survive herself were her meals and board not included.

Not that she minded for herself. She was young and strong and fit. But her aunt’s collapse today had shocked her. She had never thought of Aunt Bella as old and infirm, but the truth was that these last few months had taken their toll. And in a few more years she might well fall foul of some condition which would mean she needed constant care.

If her cousin’s nephew proved as cold-hearted as Aunt Bella had led her to believe, and as the treatment she had received since arriving appeared to confirm…

She rolled over and wrapped her arms about her waist.

Her aunt’s future did not bear thinking about.




Chapter Two


She woke with a jolt the next morning, feeling as though she had not slept for more than a few minutes.

But she must have done, because the fire had gone out and the insides of the lead paned windows were thick with frost feathers.

She got up, wrapped herself in her warmest shawl, raked out the grate and, discovering a few embers still glowing gently, coaxed them into life with some fresh kindling. Then she looked around for the means to wash the soot and ash from her fingers. There was no dressing room adjoining their tiny room, but there was a screen behind which stood a washstand containing a pitcher of ice-cold water and a basin.

Washing in that water certainly woke her up completely!

She did not want her aunt to suffer the same early-morning shock, though, so, having made sure the coals were beginning to burn nicely, she put the fire guard in place and nipped down to the kitchens to fetch a can of hot water.

By the time she returned she was pleased to find that the little room had reached a temperature at which her aunt might get out of bed.

‘You had better make the most of this while the water is still warm,’ she told her sleepy aunt. ‘And then I shall go and forage for some breakfast.’

‘My word, Helen,’ her aunt observed sleepily, ‘nothing daunts you, does it?’

Helen smiled at her. ‘Thank you, Aunt Bella. I try not to let it.’

She had discovered within herself a well of ingenuity over these past months, which she might never have known she possessed had they not been so dramatically plunged from affluence to poverty. Seeing her aunt so upset by their losses, she had vowed to do all she could to shield the older woman from the more beastly aspects of losing their wealth. She had been the one to visit the pawnbrokers, and to haggle with tradespeople for the bread to go on their table. Not that they had been in any immediate danger of starving. So many of the townspeople had banked with the Middleton and Shropshire that a brisk system of bartering had soon come into being, which had done away with the immediate need for cash amongst its former clients. The silver apostle spoons, for instance, had gone to settle an outstanding grocer’s bill, and the best table linen had turned out to be worth a dozen eggs and half a pound of sausages.

Once her aunt had finished her toilet, Helen tipped the wastewater into the enamel jug provided for the purpose and set out for the kitchens once more.

At least this morning there was an orderly queue of maids who had come down to fetch a breakfast tray. She took her place at the back of it, completely content to wait her turn. In fact she thoroughly approved of the way they all got attention on the basis of first come, first served. Regardless of whom they were fetching and carrying for. It was much more fair.

What a pity, she thought, her lips pursing, the same egalitarian system had not prevailed the evening before.

The kitchen maid scowled when it came to her turn.

‘I don’t suppose there are any eggs to be had?’ Helen asked politely.

‘You don’t suppose correct!’ her nemesis answered. ‘You can have a pot of chocolate and hot rolls for your lady. Eggs is only served in the dining room.’

Really, the hospitality in this place was…niggardly, she fumed, bumping open the kitchen door with her hip. But then what had she expected? From the sound of it the Earl of Bridgemere thoroughly disliked having his home invaded by indigent relatives. And his attitude had trickled down to infect his staff, she reflected, setting out once more on the by now familiar route back up to the tower, because their master was a recluse. What kind of man would only open his doors—and that reluctantly—to his family over the Christmas season? An elusive recluse. She smiled to herself, enjoying the play on words and half wondering if there was a rhyme to be made about the crusty old bachelor upon whose whim her aunt’s future depended.

Although what would rhyme with Bridgemere? Nothing.

Earl, though…There was curl, and churl, and…

She had just reached the second set of stairs when round the corner came the broad-shouldered footman who had carried her aunt so effortlessly up to her room the night before.

Instead of stepping to one side, to allow her room to pass, he took up position in the very centre of the corridor, his fisted hands on his hips.

‘I hear you have been setting the kitchen in a bustle,’ he said. ‘I hope you have permission to take that tray, and have not snatched it from its rightful recipient as you did last night?’

‘What business is it of yours?’ she snapped, thoroughly fed up with the attitude of the staff in Alvanley Hall. She knew they were not used to entertaining visitors, but really! ‘And how dare you speak to me like that?’

His light coffee-coloured eyes briefly widened, as though her retort had shocked him. But then he said icily, ‘Mrs Dent is most put out by your behaviour, miss. And I must say that I can quite see why. I do not appreciate servants from other houses coming here and thinking they know how to run things better…’

‘Well, first of all, I am nobody’s servant!’ she snapped. At least not yet, she corrected herself guiltily. ‘And if this place was run better, then I dare say visiting servants would abide by Mrs Dent’s regime. As it is, I deplore the way rank was placed above my aunt’s very real need last night.’

She had really got the bit between her teeth now. She advanced on the footman until she was almost prodding him in the stomach with her tray.

‘If I had not gone down to the kitchens myself, I dare say she would still be lying there, waiting for somebody to notice her! And as for situating a lady of her age up so many stairs—well, the least said about that the better! Whoever arranged to put her up in that room ought to be—’ She could not think of a suitable punishment for anyone who treated her beloved aunt with such lack of consideration. So she had to content herself with taking her temper out on the unfortunate footman, since he was the only member of His Lordship’s staff actually in range.

‘She is supposed to be a family member, yet Lord Bridgemere has had her stashed away up there as though he is ashamed of her! No wonder she has stayed away all these years! Now, get out of my way—before I…before I…’ She barely refrained from stamping her foot.

‘Do you mean to tell me you are a guest?’

Helen could not tell what it was about him that irritated her the most. The fact that he had ignored all her very real complaints to hone in on the one point she considered least relevant, or the way he was running his eyes insolently over her rather shabby attire, his mouth flattened in derision. If she had been less angry she might have admitted that the gown she was wearing was one she had kept precisely because it did make her look more like a servant than a lady of leisure. Her wardrobe would now have to reflect the position she was about to take up. Nobody would take a governess seriously if she went about in fashionable, frivolous clothes. She had ruthlessly culled her wardrobe of such items, knowing, too, that the more fashionable they were, the more money she would get for them from the second-hand clothing dealers. For, although the bartering system had worked up to a point, cash had been absolutely necessary to purchase tickets from their hometown to Alvanley Hall, and to pay for their overnight stops en route.

This morning Helen had also wrapped her thickest shawl round her shoulders, to keep her warm as she scuttled along the chilly corridors. She’d knotted it round her waist just before she’d left the kitchen, to leave her hands free to deal with the tray, and now she noticed that it was blotched with ash from when she had made up the fire.

But it was not this man’s place to judge or criticise her! Helen drew herself to her full height. Which was not easy to do when weighed down by a tray brimming with food, drink and crockery.

‘I mean to tell you nothing! You are an impertinent fellow, and—’

He raised one eyebrow in a way that was so supercilious that if she’d had a hand free she might have been tempted to slap him.

‘And my aunt is waiting for her breakfast! So stand aside!’

For a moment she thought he might refuse. But then something like amusement glinted in his eyes. His mouth tilted up at one corner in a smile full of mockery and he stepped to one side of the corridor, sweeping her an elaborate bow as she strode past with a toss of her head.

Well, really! What an abominable rogue he was! So full of himself!

And she could not believe he had goaded her into almost stamping her foot and actually tossing her head. Tossing her head! Like those village girls who loitered around the smithy in the hopes of glimpsing young Jeb Simpkins stripping off his shirt to duck his head under the pump. Who flounced off with a toss of their artfully arranged curls when he shot them a few pithy comments that left them in no doubt as to what he thought of their morals.

Not that she had been thinking about what the footman would look like with his shirt off!

Although he probably would have an impressive set of muscles, given the way he had so effortlessly carried her aunt up all these stairs last night…

She gave herself a mental shake. His physique had nothing to do with anything! He was a…a rogue! Yes, he was probably the type who snatched kisses from the kitchen maids and had stormy affairs with visiting ladies’ maids, she reflected darkly. Oh, she could well understand why they would elbow each other aside for the privilege of kissing that hard, arrogant mouth, and ruffling that neat light brown hair with their fingers. For he had that air about him she noticed foolish women often fell for. That air of arrogant disdain which drew silly girls like moths to a candle flame. An air she had observed more than once in men who thought themselves irresistible to women, and who therefore mocked the entire female sex for their gullibility.

Well, she was not silly or gullible! And she had never been the type to find a man exciting merely because he had a reputation as a ladies’ man. If she were ever to seriously consider marriage, she would want someone kind and dependable. Not a man who looked down his nose at women! And who was probably planning his next conquest before he had even buttoned up his breeches.

She drew herself up outside the door to her aunt’s chamber, out of breath and more than a little shocked at herself. She could not believe the way her mind had been wandering since that encounter with the footman. Picturing him with his shirt off, for heaven’s sake! Kissing kitchen maids and…and worse! Why, she could actually see the smug expression on his face as he buttoned up his breeches with those long, deft fingers…

It was just as well she was going to be a governess and not a ladies’ maid. She did not know how any girl was expected to cope with encounters with handsome, arrogant footmen as they nipped up and down the backstairs.

A rueful smile tugged at her lips as she turned round and bumped open the door with her hip.

She rather thought that any girl who was the least bit susceptible would start to look forward to running into that particular footman. It had been quite exhilarating to give him a sharp set-down. To knock him off his arrogant perch and make him look at her twice. And if all she had to look forward to was the dreary grind of service, then…

She shook her head.

She was going to work as a governess, for heaven’s sake! Flirting with the footmen on the backstairs was sure to result in instant dismissal.

Besides, the rogue worked here. It was unlikely there would be a man of such mettle working for a family like the Harcourts. Footmen of that calibre would not deign to work for anything less than a noble house. It would be very far beneath such a man’s dignity to serve a family from trade.

Which was a jolly good thing.



She did not set foot outside the drum room for the rest of the day. Her aunt dozed on and off, declaring every time she woke that she felt much better, though to Helen’s eye it did not look as though her spirits were reviving all that much.

Whenever Aunt Bella went back to sleep Helen sat by the window, making use of what pale winter sunlight filtered in through the tiny diamond-shaped panes to do some embroidery. There was little money to spare for Christmas gifts this year, and so she had decided to make her aunt a little keepsake, to remind her of their life together in Middleton whenever she used it. Fortunately needlework had been one of the subjects Helen had wanted to pursue. Largely because her mother had begun to teach her to sew, and her sampler had been one of the very few possessions she had managed to salvage from her childhood home.

She tucked her work hastily out of sight every time Aunt Bella began to stir, and occasionally broke off to watch the comings and goings of the other house guests. From up here in the tower she had an excellent view over the rear of the house, and the acres of grounds in which it was set. A party of gentlemen of varying ages went off in the direction of the woods with guns over their arms. A little later a bevy of females sauntered off towards the formal gardens which surrounded the house.

At one point she saw a group of children bundled up in hats and scarves, loaded up into a cart, and driven off in a different direction entirely from the way their parents had gone, their shouts and laughter inaudible from up here, but made visible by the little puffs of vapour that escaped from their mouths.

It looked as though the house party was now in full swing. She pursed her lips and bent her head over her embroidery. She had to admit that if, as her aunt surmised, all the guests had arrived on the same day, the servants might have some excuse for their attitude. They must have been rushed off their feet yesterday. Yet she could not quite rid herself of a simmering sense of injustice. She had only to look out of the window to see that His Lordship had organised entertainment for all the rest of his guests. Only she and Aunt Bella had been completely overlooked. Stuck up in a cold room in the tower and left to their own devices, she fumed, cutting off her thread with a vicious little snip.

Though later, as they prepared to go downstairs and mingle with the other guests for the first time, Helen knew that she must not let her poor opinion of him and his household show.

‘Time to face the music,’ Aunt Bella sighed, draping a silk shawl round her shoulders. ‘I still do not feel at my best, you know, but I cannot hide up here for ever. Besides, I need to collar Lord Bridgemere’s current secretary and arrange a private interview with him. The others will have already done so, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Because this was the only time of the year he made himself accessible to his relatives, they had to make the most of this brief opportunity to lay their problems before him.

‘I do hope it will not be too long before he can see me.’

Helen arranged her aunt’s shawl into more becoming folds around her shoulders, and took one last look at herself in the mirror. She had only kept one of her evening gowns. In a deep bronze silk, with very few ribbons or ruffles, she felt that it looked elegant enough to pass muster should her new employers ever invite her to dine with them, without being too eye-catching. Though naturally, since she had bought it in better times, the colour of the silk flattered her creamy complexion. And she had spent hours finding exactly the right shade of chocolate brown for the sash which tied just beneath her bosom to match the deep brown of her eyes.

But it was not vanity alone that had made her keep this dress. Its colouring gave her an excuse to wear the amber beads that had belonged to her mother. She had been quite unable to part with them when disposing of other items of jewellery. They might have fetched quite a tidy sum, but they were worth far more to her as a memento of her mother than any amount of coin.

Both her parents had died when she was only ten years old, of a fever she had barely survived herself. She had recovered to find their chambers full of creditors, stripping the rooms of anything that would settle their outstanding accounts. She had grabbed the beads from her mother’s dressing table and hidden them in her sewing case when she had seen what the adults all about her were doing. She ran her forefinger over them now, as she had been doing with increasing frequency over the past few months. They were a tangible reminder that she had been in dire straits before and come through them. Nothing could be worse than to find yourself an orphan, dependent on the whims of adults who saw you only as a problem they were reluctant to deal with. At least now she was able to provide for herself. And was not, like her aunt, reduced to turning to a wealthy relative for aid.

She whirled away from the mirror, reminding herself that the very least important aspect of tonight’s dinner was the way she looked! She must forget about her appearance and concentrate on keeping her tongue between her teeth. Though she still seethed with resentment at the way her aunt had been treated so far, she must do nothing that might jeopardise her aunt’s chances of getting into His Lordship’s good graces.

They were halfway down the first set of stairs when the dinner gong sounded.

A footman with all the silver lace—the one who had opened the carriage door for them the night before—was waiting at the foot of the second set of stairs to direct them to the blue saloon where, he told them, everyone gathered before processing in to dine.

Her aunt tensed as they crossed the threshold. And Helen could hardly blame her. The amount of jewellery on display was dazzling to the eye, flashing from the throats and wrists of the silken-clad females lounging upon sumptuous velvet sofas. She could not imagine what people who looked so affluent could possibly want from the Earl! Although both she and her aunt had taken care with their appearance, too. They had their pride. To look at them, nobody would know that they had not two brass farthings to rub together. Perhaps she ought not to judge on outward show.

But the boom of male voices definitely struck a jarring note. Aunt Bella rarely had men in her house. And to be confronted by so many of them at once set Helen’s senses reeling. She reached for her aunt’s arm and linked her own through it.

A slender young man with an earnest expression hastened to their side.

‘You must be Miss Forrest and…er…Miss Forrest,’ he said, bowing. ‘Permit me to introduce myself. I am His Lordship’s personal secretary, Mr Cadwallader.’

‘How do you do?’ said Helen.

Her aunt drew in a deep breath.

‘Young man,’ she said, ‘I would very much appreciate it if you could arrange for me to have a private word with His Lordship.’

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Though that may not be for a day or so,’ he added, with a smile Helen thought somewhat supercilious. ‘His Lordship has many demands upon his time at present.’

Lord Bridgemere did not participate in many of the festivities laid on for his guests, Aunt Bella had told her, since he was either hearing petitions or deciding what to do about them.

It could not be much fun, Helen thought. But then it served him right for reducing his entire family to such desperation! Besides, he sounded like the kind of person who did not know how to enjoy himself. Even if he were not busy he would still probably not join in with the country pursuits she had seen the others enjoying throughout the course of the day from her window.

Aunt Bella nodded, her air outwardly gracious, but beneath her hand Helen could feel her trembling.

‘I have seated you beside General Forrest this evening,’ said Mr Cadwallader to her aunt, ‘since I believe he is your brother.’ He consulted the sheet of paper he held in his hand at that moment, thus missing the look of utter horror that flitted across Aunt Bella’s face.

Helen gave her aunt’s arm a comforting squeeze. As if this whole situation was not painful enough, now it appeared that the most odious of her brothers was here to witness her humiliation. And from what she remembered of him, coupled with her aunt’s pithy observations over the years, he would be only too delighted to have the opportunity to crow over her downfall.

‘And he will be escorting you in to dine.’

‘He will?’ Aunt Bella gasped. ‘Does he know about this?’

For she had not spoken to either of her brothers for years. Twelve years, to be precise. And it was entirely because of this breach with her brothers that Aunt Bella had no recourse but to turn to the head of the extended family now she had lost all her money.

The secretary shot her a baffled look, before turning to Helen and saying hastily, ‘And I have placed you opposite your aunt, between Sir Mortimer Hawkshaw and Lord Cleobury. Sir Mortimer will escort you into the dining room…’ He trailed off, looking over their shoulders at the next person to arrive, and they felt obliged to move further into the room.

They had not advanced more than a couple of yards before Helen spotted the arrogant footman. One of the groups of gentlemen was breaking up, and he was moving from them towards the dining room doors, which the butler had just flung open. She supposed his duties would include circulating with drinks, and serving at the table.

Suddenly she became aware that the boat-shaped neckline of her gown was particularly flattering to her figure. And felt her cheeks heating at the realisation that he would have an exceptionally good view of her feminine attributes should he reach over her to pour wine.

What on earth had come over her? It had never occurred to her that a footman might look at her during the course of performing his duties. She did not think she was a complete snob, but never before had she thought of any servant as…well…as a man! What was more, she had never been the sort of girl who craved male attention. Her aunt was not of the opinion that it was every young lady’s duty to marry as soon as possible, so had not encouraged her to mix with the so-called eligible young men of their district. And what she had observed of masculine behaviour, from a decorous distance, had given her no reason to kick against her aunt’s prejudice against the entire sex.

Yet every time she saw this footman her thoughts began to wander into most improper territory!

Full of chagrin, she plucked up her shawl and settled it over her shoulders, making sure that it covered her bosom.

‘Cold, love?’ her aunt asked.

‘Um…a little,’ she said. Then, because she hated being untruthful, ‘Though I think it is mainly nerves that are making me shiver.’

‘I know what you mean,’ her aunt murmured.

She glanced once more at the footman, warily. He was standing in the doorway, tugging his wristbands into place as, wooden-faced, he watched the assembled ladies rise to their feet and begin to gravitate towards the dining room.

‘So, Bella, you have decided to show your face in society again, have you?’

The booming voice of the ruddy-faced man who stood glaring down at her aunt jerked Helen’s attention away from the fascinating footman. General Forrest was, naturally, older than Helen remembered him, though not a whit less intimidating.

He had not stopped shouting, so far as she could recall, from the moment she had arrived on his doorstep until the moment she’d left. ‘The girl’s mother has plenty of other sisters!’ was the first thing she could remember him bellowing at his wife, who had shivered like an aspen leaf under the force of his fury. ‘Pack her off to one of them!’

He had then slammed back into his study, where he’d carried on shouting at whoever was inside. When Isabella had eventually emerged, head high, lips pressed tightly together and a suspicious sheen in her eyes, the ten-year-old Helen had immediately felt a strong sense of kinship with her.

She had knelt down in the hall, looked the tearful Helen in the eye, and said, ‘Would you like to come home with me? I should love to have a little girl to call my own. Without—’ and she had glared darkly up at her glowering brother ‘—having to go through the horrid experience of having to marry some repulsive man to get one.’

Since the General had already made it perfectly clear he did not want to be saddled with a half-French brat, she had slipped her hand into that of the older woman.

‘If you insist on taking on my wife’s niece, on top of all the other outrageous things you have done, then you will have only yourself to blame if I cut you out of my life!’ he had bellowed.

They had not looked back. And, just before slamming the door shut on them, the last words he had uttered were, ‘That’s it! I wash my hands of you, Bella!’

As a child, General Forrest had seemed enormous to her. And, though Helen no longer had to crane her neck to look up at him, the years had added to his bulk, so that he still seemed like a very big man.

But he did not intimidate her aunt, who lifted her chin and glared straight back.

‘Needs must when the devil drives.’

‘Harrumph!’ he replied, holding out his arm for her to take.

He completely ignored Helen. She battened down her sense of affront. Not only was she going to have to inure herself to a lifetime of snubs once she became a governess, but General Forrest had never thought much of her in the first place.

Helen looked beyond the General’s bulk and saw, hovering in his shadow, the thin, anxious woman Helen dimly remembered as her real aunt.

A bored-looking man materialised at Helen’s side, led her into the dining room, and showed her to a seat about halfway along the table. She assumed he must be Sir Mortimer Hawkshaw, though he did not deign to introduce himself or attempt to make conversation. It was galling to think that even he looked down his nose at her, she reflected bitterly. Though they both occupied the lowest social position, so he could only be another of the Earl’s poor relations.

They all stood in silence behind their chairs, heads bowed, while an absurdly young clergyman said grace.

Helen could not help glancing down to the foot of the table, where an extremely haughty-looking woman who was dripping in diamonds and sapphires was taking her seat, and then turning to take her first look at her host, the head of her aunt’s extended family. The man who held her aunt’s entire future in his hands.

And felt her jaw drop.

Because, just being eased into the chair at the head of the table by the stately elderly butler who had earlier thrown open the doors to the dining room and declared dinner was served, was…

The man she had assumed from the first moment she had clapped eyes on him to be nothing more than a footman!




Chapter Three


How could he be so young?

When her aunt had spoken of her nephew, the head of her family, she had made him sound like a curmudgeonly old misanthrope of at least fifty years. Lord Bridgemere could not be a day over thirty.

And why did he not dress like an earl?

He was one of the wealthiest men in the country! She would have thought he’d be the most finely dressed man in the place. Whereas he was the most plainly, soberly attired of all the men at table. He did not so much as sport a signet ring.

Well, now she knew exactly what foreign visitors to England meant when they complained that it was hard to tell the difference between upper servants and their masters, because of the similarity of dress. Not that she was a foreigner. Just a stranger to the ways of grand houses like this.

And he did not act like an earl, either! What had he been about, carting her aunt upstairs, when there was a perfectly genuine footman on hand to perform that office? And as for loitering about on the backstairs…well, she simply could not account for it!

The Earl turned his head and looked directly at her. And she realised she was the only person still standing. And, what was more, staring at the Earl of Bridgemere with her mouth hanging open.

She sat down swiftly, her cheeks flushing hot. Oh, heavens, what must everyone think?

And what did he think? Did he find it amusing to masquerade as a servant and humiliate his guests? What an odious, unkind…If he was laughing at her, she did not care what anyone else thought of her, she would…she would…

She darted him an inimical glare. Only to find that he was talking to the lady on his left-hand side, a completely bland expression on his face, as though nothing untoward had occurred.

She felt deflated. And foolish.

But at least he had not exposed her to ridicule by any look, or word, or…

No, she groaned inwardly. She had managed to make herself look ridiculous all on her own!

Though it had been partly his fault. Why had he not introduced himself properly? Why had he let her rip up at him like that?

She tore her eyes from his and made an effort to calm herself while the real footmen bustled about with plates and tureens and chafing dishes.

Lord Bridgemere struggled to pretend that he was not painfully aware of Miss Forrest’s discomfiture. What the devil had come over him this morning that he had bowed and grinned and left her thinking he was merely one of his own servants? She had been so shocked just now, upon realising her error, that she had made a complete spectacle of herself. And no gentleman would willingly expose any lady to such public humiliation.

Though how could he have guessed she would just stand there, gaping at him like that? Or that she would then glare at him, making it obvious to all that he had somehow, at some point, offered her some form of insult? None of the other ladies of his acquaintance would ever be so transparent.

No, they all hid behind their painstakingly constructed masks. The only expression they ever showed in public was mild boredom.

He fixed his gaze on his dinner companion, his sister Lady Craddock, although his mind was very far from her interminable complaining. Instead he was remembering the way thoughts of Miss Forrest imperiously ordering him about had kept on bringing a frisson of amusement to his mind, briefly dispelling the tedium of his day. When he had discovered he had made an error of a similar nature to hers, it had struck him as so funny that he had wanted to prolong the joke. He had even pencilled her name into his diary to remind himself, as if he needed any reminder, to make his way down to his study at precisely the same time he had run into her that morning in the hopes of encountering her again.

Extraordinary.

Most people would say he had no sense of humour whatever.

But they might, with some justification, accuse him of wishing to revel in the novel experience of having a woman react to him as just a man, and not as the Earl of Bridgemere. The wealthy, eligible Earl of Bridgemere. And it had been a novel experience. Miss Forrest had not simpered and flattered. No, she had roundly berated him, her dark eyes flashing fire.

He had thought then what an expressive face she had. He had been able to see exactly what she was thinking. Not that he’d needed to guess. She had already been telling him!

Somewhere inside he felt the ghost of a smile trying to break free. Naturally he stifled it, swiftly. It would not do to smile whilst engaged in conversation with either of his sisters. The slightest outward sign that he might be interested in anything either of them had to say would rouse the other to a pitch of jealousy that would make the entire company so uncomfortable they would all be running for cover.

Even now, though, he could tell exactly what emotions Miss Forrest was grappling with. Chief amongst them was chagrin, now that her initial spurt of anger with him had simmered down.

She was quite unlike any of the other guests, all of whom wore the fashionable demeanour of boredom to cloak their dissatisfaction. And they were all of them dissatisfied with their lot, in one way or another. Which irked him beyond measure! They all had so much in comparison with the vast majority of the citizens of this country. Yet they still demanded more.

And Miss Forrest and her older namesake could not be so very different—not deep down, where it mattered. Or they would not be here. It would pay him to remember that.

Only once she felt more in control of herself did Helen raise her head and look about the table. There were at least forty people ranged along its length. For a while conversation was desultory, as the guests helped themselves to generous portions of the vast selection of delicacies on offer. Her aunt looked as uncomfortable as she felt, seated between her brother the General, who was applying himself to his plate with complete concentration, and a man who was conducting a very animated flirtation with the young lady seated on his other side.

It was during the second remove that the General remarked, ‘I am surprised at you for bringing that person here, Bella,’ motioning at Helen across the table with his fork.

Aunt Bella bristled, while Helen just froze. She had felt uncomfortable enough knowing that she had made such an error of judgement about the station of the man who had turned out to be her host. And in then betraying her consternation by standing there gaping at him like a nodcock. Now, since the General had one of those voices that carried, several other conversations at the table abruptly ceased, and she felt as though once again everyone was staring at her.

‘Are you?’ replied her aunt repressively. ‘I cannot imagine why.’

‘I suppose nothing you do ought to shock me any more, Bella,’ said the General witheringly. ‘You still enjoy courting scandal, do you not?’

‘Even if that were true,’ Aunt Bella replied with a tight smile, ‘which it most emphatically is not, no true gentleman would even touch upon such a topic in company.’

Helen had the satisfaction of seeing the General flush darkly and shift uncomfortably in his seat.

But it was outweighed by the fact that she could also see her aunt’s hands were trembling.

There was a moment of tense silence, punctuated only by the genteel clink of sterling silver cutlery on porcelain. Then the lady at the foot of the table drawled, ‘The mutton is exceptionally well presented this evening, Bridgemere. You must compliment your cook.’

‘I shall certainly do so, Lady Thrapston,’ said the Earl dryly, ‘since you request it.’

For some reason this comment, or perhaps the way it was delivered, made the haughty woman look quite put out.

Lady Thrapston, Helen noted with resentment as she recalled the way Aunt Bella had been neglected upon her arrival, could in no way be described as elderly. She was so stylish that if people did not look too closely, they might take her for a fairly young woman.

There was another uncomfortable pause in the conversation before a few of the younger men, led by a gaudily dressed youth who sat at Lady Thrapston’s right hand, began to discuss the day’s shooting.

Though the atmosphere had lightened to some extent, Helen was mightily relieved when the meal drew to an end and Lady Thrapston signalled to the other ladies that it was time to withdraw by the simple expedient of getting to her feet.

Helen hurried to the doorway, and waited for her aunt to catch up with her there.

‘I am in no condition to go to the drawing room and face any more of that,’ said her aunt in an undertone. ‘Not after the shock of discovering my odious brother is here!’

Thank heavens for that, thought Helen. But only said, ‘I shall help you up to bed, then.’

They left the room arm in arm, and were ascending the first set of stairs when Helen said, ‘Would you mind very much if I were to leave you for a little while?’

Aunt Bella’s brows rose. ‘You surely do not want to face that drawing room without me?’

‘No!’ She barely repressed a shudder. ‘I most certainly do not!’

She chewed on her lower lip, wondering how much to confess to her aunt. She did not want to add to her worries by admitting she had mistaken Lord Bridgemere for one of his footmen and called him an impudent fellow. She cringed as the scene flooded back to her in all its inglorious detail.

‘I have decided it would be a good idea if I had a word with that secretary fellow, that is all…’ she began. She wanted to see if she could arrange an interview of her own, through his secretary, and get in an apology to Lord Bridgemere before he spoke to Aunt Bella. She would hate to think that her behaviour might prejudice him against her aunt in any way.

‘Oh, Helen, what a good idea! I would be so relieved to learn exactly when I shall be able to speak with Lord Bridgemere. I do not think I shall rest easy until I have laid my case before him. And you are such a pretty girl. I am sure you could persuade the young man to arrange for me to see His Lordship before my brother has a chance to turn him against me. I could not believe he would be so unmannerly as to attack me like that over dinner! It shook me, I can tell you.’

Helen had never felt more uncomfortable than to hear the erroneous assumption her aunt had made.

Yet she did nothing to correct it. It would mean making too many explanations, which she was not sure would be helpful to anyone.

Fortunately it took quite some time to run Mr Cadwallader to ground, by which time Helen had managed to regain her composure.

Though he had dined with the guests, he had retreated almost immediately afterwards to a small book-lined room in the servants’ hall.

‘I am so sorry to bother you,’ she said, knocking upon the door and putting her head round without waiting for him to reply, ‘but I was wondering if it would be possible for me to have a private interview with His Lordship. As soon as possible. At least…before whatever time you have arranged for him to speak with my aunt.’

Mr Cadwallader looked up from the pile of papers he was working on and frowned.

‘Miss Forrest, is it not?’ He flipped open a leather-bound ledger and ran his finger down the page at which it opened. His brows shot up.

‘Miss Helen Forrest?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded.

‘It appears His Lordship has already anticipated your request. He has your name here for seven o clock tomorrow morning.’

‘He has?’ She swallowed nervously. What did that mean? And was it a coincidence that he had her name down for seven? The approximate time at which she had run into him on the backstairs that very morning?

Forcing a smile, she said, ‘Good. Wh…where shall I…?’

‘Oh, you had better come in here, if he wishes to speak with you that early,’ said the young man, snapping the book shut. ‘His Lordship always comes down first thing to see to business before—’ He pulled himself up, as though he had been on the point of committing an indiscretion, rose to his feet, and ushered her to the door.

Helen racked her brains as she returned to her room, but could not come up with any reason why he should have decided to arrange a meeting with her that boded anything but ill for her and her aunt. But at least she could see what he might have been doing on the backstairs. Those stairs were probably the most direct route from his secretary’s office to his own room. He had probably been on his way down to that office, to see to whatever business he needed to get out of the way before…whatever else it was he did all day when he had a houseful of guests. None of whom, to judge by the set of his face at table, were any more welcome to him than she was. Her aunt had hit the nail on the head when she had described him as a man of solitary disposition. It was not only the plainness of his clothing that set him apart from the rest of the persons gathered about that table. An air of complete insularity cloaked him like a mantle.

And all she had accomplished during the two altercations she’d had with him had been to put herself at the head of the list of people who annoyed him. Oh, bother! Why was she always letting her temper get the better of her? And why did she have to have lost it with him, of all men? It was her French blood, her aunt would have said. She always blamed her French blood whenever she got into mischief.

She spent another rather restless night, and was pitched even deeper into gloom when she studied her reflection in the mirror the next morning. Somehow she felt that she would have a better chance to make her case without those awful dark smudges beneath her eyes.

But there was nothing she could do about them. She would simply have to appeal to the Earl’s sense of fair play and hope that the General had not managed to turn him against her aunt at some time during the preceding evening.

If her own behaviour had not already done so.

She managed to find her way back down to Mr Cadwallader’s office without a hitch. As she summoned up all her courage to knock on the door, she reflected that at least her experiences here were good preparation for her new role in life. She was having plenty of practice at taking backstairs, and haunting servants’ quarters!

‘Come in,’ she heard the Earl say from behind the closed door.

She stepped into the room, turning and shutting the door behind her swiftly before anyone saw her. For some reason she did not want anyone to know she had arranged this interview. Not that there was any risk from the rest of the house guests, none of whom were early risers.

But one of the servants might have seen her, and…Oh, bother it all! She spun round, lifted her chin, and faced the Earl, who was sitting behind his desk, idly twirling a pen between his long, supple fingers. What did it matter who saw her come here? She had every right to speak to the man…

Besides, he had been the one to send for her, had he not? Or would have if she had not spoken to his secretary first.

Lord Bridgemere made a motion with his pen towards the chair which was placed in front of his desk, which she interpreted as a signal to sit on it. On rather shaky legs she walked to it, and sank onto it gratefully, placing the candle she had used to light her way down on the floor by her feet.

He could see she was nervous. As well she might be, sneaking down here to meet him unchaperoned. She had taken care to make sure nobody had seen her, though, so at least she was not intending to attempt to compromise him. Still, he was going to take great care that she did not suspect he found her attractive, lest it occur to her to try her luck with him. She would not be the first young female to inveigle her way into one of his house parties with the intention of tempting him to abandon his single state. Though usually it was Lady Thrapston who brought them.

A horrible suspicion struck him then. Might Lady Thrapston have dragged the older Miss Forrest into her matchmaking schemes? Was this lovely young woman the bait by which he was to be hooked? He must observe the interaction between the two ladies closely over the next few days, to see whether they were engaged in some form of conspiracy. His sister might have finally realised that he would strenuously resist any female introduced to him by her, no matter how fetching he found her, and switched to a more subtle approach.

Helen was glad she had draped her thickest shawl round her shoulders before setting out from the little tower room, having checked this time that there was no soot on it. She had known the corridors would strike chill at this time of day, and the fire in this room had barely got going. Nobody had been in to light the candles, either. There was just her own nightstick upon the floor, and one very similar on the desk between them. It made the setting somehow very intimate. To think of them sitting alone down here, before anyone else was stirring, just barely able to make out anything in the rest of the room…

She shifted self-consciously in her chair, drawing the shawl more tightly round her shoulders.

Lord Bridgemere made no comment, merely lifted one eyebrow as he regarded her rather tatty shawl in that supercilious way that had so incensed her when she had thought he was a footman.

Mutinously she lifted her chin, and ran her eyes over his own attire. He obviously intended going out riding. There was a whip and a pair of gloves lying on the table. But his jacket was of rough material, and the woollen scarf he had knotted loosely at his throat made him look more like a groom than the lord of the manor!

Their silent duel might have gone on indefinitely had not an odd, plaintive noise emanating from the direction of the fireplace drawn her attention. It appeared to be coming from a heap of mildewed sacking that somebody had carelessly tossed onto the hearthrug.

‘Oh,’ she said, instantly forgetting her own grievances as a wave of concern washed through her. ‘Has somebody left an injured animal in here?’

Before the Earl could make any reply, something like a huge paw emerged and began energetically scratching at another portion of the tangled mass. A great shaggy head filled with immense teeth rose up, yawned, and then the whole settled back down into an amorphous muddy-coloured mass.

‘It’s a dog!’ she said, then blushed at the absurdity of stating the obvious. Of course it was a dog. Not a heap of sacking. Why on earth would an earl have piles of mildewed sacks about the place?

‘Yes,’ he said icily. ‘Do you wish me to have him removed? Does he offend you?’

‘What?’ She frowned. ‘No, of course he does not offend me. He just took me by surprise, that is all.’

His mouth twisted into the same expression of distaste he had turned on the woman who had presided at the foot of his dinner table the night before.

‘You think it beneath my dignity to own an animal of such uncertain pedigree? Is that it?’

It was a complaint he was always hearing from Lady Thrapston. Why could he not live up to his consequence? Why would he not go to town and ride around Hyde Park in a smart equipage? So that she could bask in his reflected glory, naturally. As though she did not occupy an elevated enough sphere in her own right!

And if he must have a dog, why could it not be an animal of prime pedigree, a gundog, the kind every other man would have.

As if he cared about appearances these days.

Helen was determined to hold her temper in check, in spite of his provoking manner. She managed to return a placating smile to his frown, and say, ‘No, not at all.’

The smile and the soft answer did not placate him. Their only effect was to make his scowl deeper.

‘I preferred you when you thought I was one of my servants,’ he muttered.

At least when she’d thought he was a footman he’d had the truth from her. Now she knew he was the Earl of Bridgemere she was putting on a false face. Smiling when what she really wanted to do was take him down a peg or two.

His comment wiped the smile from her face. She barely managed to prevent herself from informing him that she did not like him in either persona! As a servant she had thought him impertinent, as well as resenting the improper thoughts his proximity had sent frolicking through her mind. As an earl…Well, she had already decided he was a cold, hard, unpleasant sort of man before she had even met him.

Now she had met him she could add eccentric and unprincipled to the list of faults she was tallying up against him. Stringing her along like that, when one word would have put her straight!

However, it would not do to tell him what she really thought. Forcing herself to adopt what she hoped was a suitably humble tone, she said instead, ‘For which I do most sincerely apologise. It was just that you dress so…’ She waved her hand at his attire, which was so ordinary that she defied anyone who did not know to guess that this man held the rank of Earl.

But her speech made no impact on the depth of his scowl.

‘And then again, the way you just picked up my aunt and carried her upstairs, as though…’

‘You expected me to stand back and watch as she fell to the ground? Is that it?’

He could not tolerate people who were too high in the instep to lend a hand to those less fortunate than themselves. It sickened him when he saw highly bred females hold scented handkerchiefs to their noses as they turned their faces away from beggars. And what kind of man would let a fainting lady drop to the stone flags rather than risk creasing the fabric of his coat?

‘You were struggling with her dead weight,’ he pointed out. ‘And Peters was just standing there gaping. Somebody had to do something.’ And from the way she had railed at him on the subject of rank and need he had thought she felt the same. ‘As you so forcefully pointed out,’ he reminded her.

His eyes had gone so cold and hard it made her want to shiver. She quailed at the reminder of exactly what she had said to him on that occasion. He was clearly still very annoyed with her for being so impertinent.

‘Yes, I know I was terribly rude to you, but I thought…’

‘That I was merely a servant, and so could be spoken to as though I were of no account. Yes.’ He pursed his lips. ‘It was a most edifying experience.’

Now she knew he was an earl she would modify her views, no doubt, as well as her manners!

‘It was not like that!’ Helen objected. ‘If you do not wish to be taken for a servant you should tell people who you are! And not loiter around the backstairs the way you do!’

She could have kicked herself. She had sworn she would not antagonise him, and what was she doing? Answering him in a manner that was exceptionally impertinent.

And yet now his scowl had vanished. He leaned back in his chair, eyeing her with frank surprise.

‘Do you have no control over your temper, Miss Forrest?’

It was intriguing. She knew who he was. He was certain she had some hidden agenda where he was concerned. And yet she could only play at being obsequious so long before something inside her rebelled.

‘Very little,’ she admitted guiltily. ‘I always mean to say what is proper. But usually I just end up telling the truth instead.’

She clapped her hands over her mouth, appalled at having just given him such a clear demonstration of her lack of restraint.

But, far from looking offended, he began to smile. Until now she had only seen a hint of amusement putting a glint into those eyes which were normally so stony, so cold. It was a surprise to see how very different that smile made him look.

Oh, if he were just a footman, and he turned that smile on any of the maids, they would swoon at his feet!

‘Let me assure you, Miss Forrest, that when the host of a gathering such as this appears on the doorstep to welcome his guests he generally assumes that they know exactly who he is.’

‘Oh, well, y…yes,’ she conceded. ‘I suppose they would…’

‘And as for loitering, as you put it, on the backstairs, I do no such thing. I never use the main staircase because—’ He pulled himself up short, astounded by the fact that she had almost made him speak of a matter he never talked about with anyone. Not that most people needed to ask why he avoided setting foot on that staircase.

‘I was simply taking the quickest route down to this room when I chanced upon you and ran foul of your temper,’ he said irritably.

‘Oh!’ She sat up straight, feeling as though he had slapped her. All the melting feelings his smile had engendered vanished at once. ‘Well, I think I had a right to be angry! My aunt had been treated abominably! And then, to add insult to injury, you accused me of setting the servants’ hall in a bustle…’

He held up his hand. ‘Unjust of me under the circumstances, I suppose.’ Unjust to tease her, too. Had he not realised last night that this kind of behaviour was not that of a gentleman?

It was time to stop this—whatever it was that afflicted him whenever he came into Miss Forrest’s orbit—and remember why he had wanted to speak with her privately.

‘I had not all the facts at my disposal. I did not know that you were not a servant—’

‘You see?’ she could not refrain from pointing out triumphantly. ‘It is an easy enough mistake to make…’

His lips twitched. Was it so surprising he could not remember who he was when she was around, when she clearly could not either? She was still talking to him as though she had the right to take him to task. As though they were equals.

‘Touché. Let us cry quits over that issue. Agreed?’

‘Oh, absolutely!’ She beamed at him. Really, thought Helen, he was being far less difficult to deal with than she had imagined he would be. He could be fair. She only hoped he would be as fair in his eventual treatment of her aunt.

Lord, but that smile packed quite a punch. Miss Forrest was not merely pretty, as he had first thought. She was dazzling.

And women who could dazzle a man, make him forget who he was, the very principles by which he lived his life, were dangerous. As he knew to his cost.

He pulled a sheet of paper across the desk and frowned down at it.

‘As for the question of your aunt’s accommodations,’ he said coldly, ‘it appears quite a string of errors have been made. About you both. I wondered at the time I took her up there exactly why my cousin’s aunt had been put in a room that should more correctly have been allotted to a visiting upper servant. And upon making enquiries I discovered it had not.’

‘Not?’ Helen felt puzzled. One moment he had been smiling and approachable. The next it was as though he had pulled up the drawbridge and retreated into his fortress. Shutting her out.

‘Ah, no. The room to which I took her is yours, Miss Forrest. And before you remind me yet again that you are not a servant, let me explain that until your arrival it was believed you were accompanying my aunt in the role of paid companion. I have checked the correspondence by means of which she informed Mrs Dent she was bringing along a young lady. She referred to you as her companion and, having read it myself, I am not the least surprised it created such confusion. We had no idea you are, in fact, a young relative of hers.’

Helen cast her mind back to the day her aunt had written that letter. Her nerves had been in shreds. When she had lost all her money certain people had begun to cut her in the street. And then their landlord, who had sometimes come in to take tea with them, had stood on the doorstep, coldly demanding cash and threatening her with eviction. She had known she could not apply to either of her brothers for aid. And then the annual invitation to Alvanley Hall had arrived, reminding her that there was still the head of the family, who might—just might—be able to solve her difficulties. Aunt Bella’s hand had been shaking as she had penned her acceptance letter. It was hardly surprising that she had not made Helen’s station clear.

When she nodded, he went on, ‘I shall have her moved to the room she should have been occupying today. You will be relieved to hear,’ he said dryly, ‘that it is not up so many flights of stairs.’

She felt her cheeks colouring, but lifted her chin and said, ‘Thank you.’

He regarded her wryly. ‘I can see that hurt. And it may hurt you even more when you are obliged to retract your accusation that my staff ignored the needs of an ailing untitled lady to see to a woman of rank. The simple fact of the matter is that the bell-pull in that room does not work.’

Helen wanted to curl up somewhere and hide. She had briefly suspected something of the sort. But then she had lost her temper and gone storming down to the kitchens, flinging accusations in all directions. She could not have made more of a fool of herself if…if…No, that was it. She could not have made more of a fool of herself!

‘I did wonder about that,’ she admitted. ‘But then I got so cross that I assumed the worst. I am sorry.’

The Earl cleared his throat, and for a moment he looked as uncomfortable as she felt. ‘The only reason nobody came to see to her was that nobody knew she was there. For which oversight I hold myself entirely to blame. I assumed that my staff would take care of her. But immediately after your arrival my older sister Lady Thrapston moved in, and promptly commandeered the services of my housekeeper.’ His voice dripped with disdain. ‘She seems to think she has the right to order my servants about simply because she once used to live here herself. In retrospect I admit I should have taken a firmer stance over the matter, and personally ensured that at least one maid was not engaged in running round after Lady Thrapston. For which I apologise.’

‘That is magnanimous of you,’ she said, in some surprise. An apology from a man of his rank was almost unheard of!

She bit back the temptation to point out that during the course of his explanation he had proved that her accusation had, in fact, been correct. Or partially. For his staff had been so busy seeing to Lady Thrapston’s demands that her aunt had been neglected. Only it had not been done deliberately. But after a brief struggle with herself she decided that it would not be wise to say so. She had more important things to consider than scoring points with this man. To start with she was going to have to go down to the kitchens and apologise in person to all the people she had offended down there. There was nothing worse than mistreating servants—simply because they could not answer back without risk of losing their employment.

And, for another thing, she had still not achieved her ultimate goal.

‘I do hope,’ she said, clasping her hands together tightly under cover of her shawl, ‘that our misunderstanding will not cause you to think any less of my aunt.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said, his face suddenly wiped of all expression. ‘Cadwallader informs me that she has requested an interview with me to discuss a matter of some urgency.’

In the end, no matter how attractive he found her, it came down to this. Both she and her aunt were here because they felt that he, as head of the family, owed them something.

His face closed up further. Gone was the footman who had teased her and argued with her. In his place sat that cold, hard, remote man who had presided over the dining table the night before. ‘Only slightly less urgent than your own request, I believe?’ he added sarcastically.

Helen sat forward on her chair. His abrupt changes of mood were unsettling, but she could not waste this opportunity, since the conversation had swung in the direction she’d wished it to go.

‘Yes, it was imperative I speak with you before she came to plead her case. I did not want you to be prejudiced against her on my account.’

‘You think I am the kind of man who would take some petty revenge on a third party in order to punish someone who has offended me? Is that it?’

Oh, Lord, how had she managed to make it sound so insulting?

‘N…no—no, of course not…’

‘And yet you insist it was imperative you see me first? What did you think this interview would achieve, Miss Forrest?’

Had she thought to seduce him into a more amenable frame of mind? Dear God, if that was her game…

‘I have told you. I wished to apologise for the way I spoke to you and ask that you hear my aunt out on her own account…’

‘Which brings us neatly to the matter about which I wanted to see you,’ he said. ‘A remark was made at table last night which gave me cause for concern. That you are not a person who ought to have been brought to Alvanley Hall at all. Would you care to explain what General Forrest meant?’




Chapter Four


‘Oh…’ She regarded him guiltily. ‘Well, I am not strictly speaking a family member. Only Aunt Bella said that it would not matter so long as she notified you. Other people, she said, would be bringing maids and valets and grooms, and heaven knew who else, and you would be making provision for all of them…’

It struck her again, that if Aunt Bella had been thinking along those lines when she had written her acceptance note it was no wonder the housekeeper had assumed she actually was a servant.

His eyes narrowed. ‘That is not the issue. What I wish to uncover is how your association with Isabella Forrest might affect any decision I make regarding the way I deal with her. General Forrest implied that there is some scandal regarding your connection with his sister.’

‘That is exactly what Aunt Bella was afraid of! But she has done nothing of which she need be ashamed. The General just cannot stand the fact that she will not bow to his wishes—that is what I think!’

‘From what I have so far heard, it is you, Miss Forrest, who has caused the most trouble between the two of them. I believe that her continued association with you—nay, her open acknowledgement of you—has in fact caused a complete breach between them.’

‘That is simply not true! Aunt Bella was already at loggerheads with both her brothers before she even knew I existed. You see, much to everyone’s surprise, she inherited a substantial fortune when she came of age.’ Helen did not think she was betraying a confidence by telling him this much. It was public knowledge. ‘She decided to use it to set up house on her own, even though both brothers fiercely opposed her bid for independence. If she no longer wished to live with either of them, they maintained, then she should regard it as a dowry and find herself a suitable husband. They insisted it was scandalous behaviour for an unmarried female to remove herself from their sphere of influence. Taking me in and declaring she would raise me as her own was just the last straw. I admit that neither of them have set foot in her house since the day she formally adopted me, but—’

‘She adopted you? You are not, then, her natural daughter?’

‘Good heavens, no! Who told you such a dreadful thing?’

He shook his head. ‘It was implied…’

General Forrest had sidled up to him in the withdrawing room after dinner the night before and begun to drop a series of vague hints. Which, when added together, had left him with the distinct impression that Isabella Forrest had been a wild, ungovernable girl, who had been forcibly evicted from his life because of the advent of Helen into it.

What kind of man deliberately blackened his own sister’s reputation? God knew, he had no great love for either of his, but even as General Forrest had been making those sly innuendoes he had felt revolted by the man’s attitude, knowing he would never disparage anyone so closely related to him to a third party even if what he had implied was true. But Miss Forrest was now telling him a completely different version of events.

‘If you maintain you are not Isabella Forrest’s natural daughter, who exactly are you?’

‘My father,’ she said, tight-lipped with anger, ‘was the Comte de Bois de St Pierre. A penniless French émigré when he met and married my mother, in spite of opposition from her family. They lived a simple but happy life together until their death. At which time I was ten years old. None of my father’s family were left alive to take me in. And none of my mother’s family wanted me. I was passed from one to another for several months before Aunt Bella came to my rescue. Though strictly speaking she is not really my aunt at all. We are only connected through General Forrest’s marriage to one of my mother’s sisters,’ she explained.

‘However, she declared she would be a better guardian to me than any of those more nearly related, since she would not resent my presence in her house. As I have already told you, she was already on poor terms with her brothers, on account of her lifestyle. Taking me in and legally adopting me was only the last straw. I admit they did break with her entirely after that…’

The Earl frowned. ‘I fail to understand why that should be. What business was it of anyone else’s if she chose to take in and raise a child nobody else wanted?’

‘Exactly!’

The Earl was still frowning. ‘What do you mean by “her lifestyle”? What was wrong with it?’

‘Nothing at all!’ Helen flashed. ‘Except for the fact that she refused to marry.’

Helen’s mouth twisted with wry amusement. When she had asked Aunt Bella, not long after first going to live with her, if she had really never wished to marry, she had given one of her contemptuous snorts and said, ‘I had a Season without getting one single proposal. If they did not want me without money, then I certainly was not about to hand it, and myself, over to any of them once I’d got it! Besides,’ she had pointed out astutely, ‘men always think they know best. If I’d had a husband he would never have permitted me to adopt you. And then where would we both be?’

Helen had gone quite cold inside. If Isabella Forrest had been more conventional, and had meekly married to please her family, Helen shuddered to think where she would be. From that moment on she had never questioned the older woman’s decision to remain single again. And as she had grown she had found that she too was rather strong-willed, and would likely find it just as difficult as Aunt Bella to have to defer to a man, whether he was right or wrong, simply because convention decreed it.

‘Aunt Bella said she saw no reason to hand her fortune over into the hands of some man who would fritter it away.’

Instead she had managed to lose it all on her own. Helen blinked and hung her head. Her poor aunt’s humiliation was complete. After a lifetime of striving for independence, she was reduced to begging a man—this man, the head of her extended family—for her daily bread.

‘Did she formally adopt you?’ Lord Bridgemere asked sharply.

Helen nodded.

‘Which is why you go by the name of Forrest now. Although you were born Helen de Bois de St Pierre?’

‘Helène, to be precise,’ she informed him. ‘But, since there is so much prejudice against the French on account of the war, my aunt thought it better to Anglicise me as much as possible.’

He nodded, as though accepting the wisdom of that, and then said casually, ‘Did she by any chance make you her sole heir as well?’

She nodded again.

Well, that explained the General’s antipathy to this young woman. He would still have had hope, whilst his sister remained unmarried, that some part of her fortune might revert to him upon her demise. Until she had adopted Helen and made her the sole beneficiary of her will.

It always came down to money in the end.

A cynical expression swept over his face as he clasped his hands together on the desktop, leaned forward and said, ‘Speaking of which, perhaps now you would be good enough to get to the real reason why you requested this private interview with me?’

Helen frowned. ‘I do not understand.’

He made a gesture of impatience. ‘Do not take me for a fool, Miss Forrest. You all come here each Christmas for one reason and one reason only.’ He got to his feet and strode to the window.

‘I came with my aunt because I felt she needed my support. That is all.’

‘You expect me to believe you want nothing from me?’ he sneered, whirling round.

‘Nothing at all. Except…’

‘Yes, now we come down to it,’ he said, his face a tight mask of fury. ‘Think very carefully before you make your petition known to me. Because once you leave this room you will not get another chance to speak to me in private! I grant each of you one interview and only one.’

It was imperative he put her back with the rest of them. He should never have singled her out for special treatment simply because she had not known who he was when she first came here, and had made the mistake of letting him see her true self.

‘My decision,’ he warned her, ‘whatever it may be, is irrevocable! Do not think you will be able to sway me from it!’

Helen got slowly to her feet. ‘I do not know what suspicions you harbour where I am concerned, but I repeat: the only reason I came to you today was to clear the air between us and beg you to put any animosity you may feel for me to one side when you consider Aunt Bella’s future. Neither of her brothers is likely to show her any mercy after the stand she took against them in her youth. She has nobody but you to depend on now. And if you will not take pity on her—’

‘Do you not want me to take pity on you, too? Is your need not as desperate as hers?’

‘No,’ she replied calmly. ‘My case is not at all desperate. I am young and strong and quite capable of looking after myself.’

‘You expect me to believe you want nothing from me?’

His implication that she was not only dishonest but also incapable of looking after herself was really beginning to grate. ‘Nor any man!’ she flashed. No wonder Aunt Bella had taken the almost unheard of decision never to marry. ‘I repeat: I am quite capable of looking after myself. And even if I were in need of help, why should I apply to you? I have no claim on you. We are not related.’

‘That would not stop most women…’

‘It would stop any woman with an ounce of pride!’ she retorted.

‘Of which I observe you have more than your fair share.’

Without her conscious decision, her hands curled into fists at her sides. At this very moment she wished she were a man, with the freedom to come to fisticuffs with him! Her only recourse as a female was to tell him exactly what she thought of his horrid opinions of women. But she could not do even that! She had come here to mend fences, to smooth the way for her aunt—not to start a completely new family feud.

He could see her battling with her temper. For one moment he had the impression she was about to fling herself at him bodily. He braced himself for the onslaught, imagining himself capturing her wrists as she tried to strike at him. Subduing her by twisting her arms behind her back. Showing her exactly who was in charge here by stopping that saucy mouth with a hard kiss.

He caught his breath. Took a step towards her.

‘Miss Forrest…’ His voice, he realised to his surprise, was hoarse.

She put up one hand, as though to ward him off.

‘Enough!’

‘But—’

‘No,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘I think I had better leave before one of us says something they will regret.’

It was not what he had been about to say she was saving herself from, he reflected grimly as she strode away to the door. But what he had been so sorely tempted to do.

‘I think for once—’ He flinched as she slammed the door shut behind her, sank into his chair, and finished softly, ‘I completely agree with you.’

He felt stunned. Yet strangely energised. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be struck by lightning. There had definitely been something elemental about that encounter.

Miss Forrest, he acknowledged with a hollow laugh, could truly be described as a force of nature.



After breakfast Mrs Dent herself came to the drum room, gushing apologies, and a veritable army of staff moved all their possessions to a new suite of rooms, down on the main floor where the other guests were staying.

‘Since we have discovered you are a guest, and not a servant, your things will be moved down here, too,’ the housekeeper said to Helen.

Adjoining her aunt’s bedchamber was a small but beautifully decorated room, which would afford Helen privacy whilst keeping her close enough to her aunt for peace of mind.

It took most of the rest of the day to organise things to their satisfaction, but as dusk began to fall her aunt remarked, ‘I think we had better go down for dinner a little earlier this evening. I do not want anyone to think I am hiding away, as though you or I have anything to be ashamed of.’

An image of the Earl circulating amongst his guests flashed into her mind. The prospect of perhaps speaking to him filled her with mixed feelings. So far their exchanges had been pithy, and strangely stimulating. But tonight, with other people present, they would both be obliged to limit themselves to polite commonplaces. Which would be most unsatisfactory.

Though in all honesty it was unlikely he would deign to speak to her in public. Why should he? He was the head of a large and wealthy family, with immense responsibilities. Whereas she, in another week or so, was to become a governess. What was more, their encounter this morning had hardly ended on…friendly terms.

‘Do not look so downcast,’ her aunt remarked. ‘You will be more than a match for any of them. You are far more clever, as well as having more spirit than any other woman present.’

Helen was loth to admit that it was the prospect of having to interact with one person in particular that had resulted in her looking a little wistful, so she answered, ‘Thank you for saying that. But I think I shall have to make an attempt to quench that spirit tonight. I would not wish to say something I ought not, and perhaps give His Lordship cause to think you have not brought me up to know how to behave.’

He had already indicated that his decision regarding Aunt Bella’s future hung in the balance. He was half inclined to believe she was Aunt Bella’s illegitimate daughter, and that they had both come here to wheedle something from him to which they were not entitled. Unless she could convince him that the General had lied…She shook her head. It was out of her hands now. She had told him the truth, and thank goodness she had, but it was up to him to make up his own mind.

As had become their custom since letting their maid go, they helped each other to get changed. On their way downstairs Helen decided that she would have to make some alterations to her gowns so that she would be able to dress and undress herself unaided in future. Fortunately she was clever with a needle.

The liveried footman was once again on duty at the foot of the stairs, to remind them of the way to the blue saloon. There were already several of the other house guests present, ranged in groups of twos and threes.

Her aunt took a seat on one of the sofas dotted about the room, and Helen sat beside her.

‘You have already met Lord Cleobury,’ she said in a low voice, cocking her head towards the gentleman who had sat next to Helen at dinner the night before. ‘And if I am not mistaken that clerical gentleman, the one who gave thanks for our meal last night, is none other than Barnaby Mullen. Another very distant connection of His Lordship’s. I should not be a bit surprised…’ she lowered her voice still further ‘…if he is not angling for a living. His Lordship has several in his gift.’

Helen took ruthless advantage of the fact that Lord Bridgemere happened to be engaged in an earnest-looking conversation with the young cleric to turn her head and look at him. It almost surprised her to see that he looked the way he always did. What had she expected? That their confrontation this morning, which had left her so shaken, would have made some kind of physical impression on him? He did not even turn his head and look back at her. It was as though he was completely unaware she had entered the room.

He probably was.

At that moment Lady Thrapston walked across her field of vision, severing her tenuous connection to Lord Bridgemere.

There was no need for her aunt to inform her who this woman was. She and her aunt watched in silence as Lord Bridgemere’s oldest sister sashayed across the room. Tonight she was wearing emeralds to complement the sumptuous outfit of green satin she was wearing.

Helen frowned. Lord Bridgemere had said they all came to Alvanley Hall at Christmas because they wanted something from him. What could a woman as obviously wealthy as this possibly need?

Then Aunt Bella gripped her hand, and said in a voice quivering with suppressed excitement, ‘And this boy just coming in now is the one I was telling you about. Bridgemere’s heir. The Honourable Nicholas Swaledale.’

Unlike His Lordship, the heir—who was not really a boy at all, although he was certainly not very much past twenty—was dressed in an extravagantly fashionable style. There were fobs and seals hanging from his cherry-striped satin waistcoat, jewels peeping from his cravat, and he wore his hair teased into a fantastic style with liberal use of pomade. Helen tried very hard not to dislike him just because of the way he looked. For he, she recollected, was the youth who had steered the dinner conversation away from her the night before, after General Forrest had been so rude.

‘And, oh,’ Aunt Bella continued wickedly, ‘how annoyed Lady Thrapston is that her younger sister produced him, when all she managed to have were girls!’

‘He does not look to me,’ Helen observed, ‘like a very happy young man.’

‘Money troubles,’ Aunt Bella explained darkly. ‘His father is not a wealthy man. But because of the title he expects to inherit once Bridgemere dies, he tends to live well beyond his means.’

An idiot, then, as well as a fop, thought Helen as she watched the youth saunter across the room and take a seat in between two damsels who blushed and simpered at him. One of them Helen recognised as the young lady who had been flirting with Aunt Bella’s dinner partner the night before.

‘I wonder if he is sitting with them on purpose, to annoy his aunt?’ mused Aunt Bella aloud. ‘Oh—I should perhaps explain that those are the two of Lady Thrapston’s daughters not still in the nursery. Octavia and Augustine.’

Even as he acknowledged the adulation of his female cousins, she could still detect a faint sneer hovering about the heir’s mouth, which unhappily put her very much in mind of his Aunt Thrapston.

‘Which are his parents?’ Helen whispered. ‘Are they here?’

Aunt Bella made a motion with her fan, to indicate a very ordinary-looking middle-aged couple perched on the edge of a pair of spindly-legged chairs. The lady had been sitting beside Lord Bridgemere at dinner the night before. Talking non-stop and irritating him, she saw on a flash of insight. As much as his other sister had managed to irritate him from the foot of the table, with her condescending remarks about the quality of the food.

What a family!

‘You know my brother the General, of course, and his charming wife,’ her aunt said sarcastically as the couple strolled into the room arm in arm.

When the General saw them, his brows lowered into a scowl.

‘I wonder why they have come this year?’ her aunt mused. ‘He usually goes to spend Christmas with Ambrose.’

It was a great pity he had not gone to spend this Christmas with Ambrose, Aunt Bella’s oldest brother, sighed Helen. His estate was just outside Chester. Which would have put him at the very other end of the country.

‘I can only assume his pockets are to let.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Oh, come! You know full well that none of us comes here without a very compelling reason. Had I no need, even I would have given my cousin’s nephew a wide berth. Indeed, I do not think I have seen him for over fifteen years.’

Helen shifted in her seat. ‘It sounds a very odd way of conducting family relations…’

But it helped to explain Lord Bridgemere’s conviction that she had come cap in hand, like everyone else. And when she had been so insistent upon speaking to him in private, to put her case, it could only have reinforced that impression.

She wished she had not been so quick to take offence. For suddenly she could see exactly why it had been so hard to convince him that she, personally, wanted nothing from him for herself.

‘Perhaps I am being a little harsh in regards to his sisters,’ Aunt Bella murmured. ‘Not that it is fondness for their brother that brings them here, either. It is just that neither of them can bear the thought that the other might somehow steal a march if they are not here to keep an eye on their dealings with Bridgemere.’

How awful! Did nobody ever come to see him merely because they liked him?

Although her aunt had said he actively discouraged visitors by being purposefully elusive. She could not help allowing her eyes to stray in his direction, her heart going out to a man she now saw as an island in the midst of a sea of greedy, grasping relatives. She wondered which had come first. His reclusive habits, or his family’s attitude towards him as nothing more than an ever-open purse?

She was startled out of her reverie by the General who, after standing stock still, glaring at them for a few seconds, marched right up to them and demanded, ‘I want to know why you have come here, Bella.’

‘I do not think that is any of your business,’ Aunt Bella retorted.

‘Still as argumentative as ever,’ he growled. ‘And just as prone to stirring up a hornets’ nest with your effrontery!’

‘I have no idea what you mean,’ she replied coldly.

‘Don’t you? Don’t you indeed?’ he said. ‘You have shunned your entire family for years, and then you march in here, bold as brass, with some devious scheme in your head involving this baggage, I don’t doubt…’

‘The reason I came here has absolutely nothing to do with Helen—’ Aunt Bella began.

‘Then why is she here? You have no business bringing that charity case to a family gathering.’

‘She is not a charity case. She is family,’ Aunt Bella protested. ‘My family.’

Oh, no! Saying such a thing was playing right into the General’s hands. Anyone who overheard Aunt Bella’s remark would be only too ready to believe she was her natural daughter!

‘Well, at least we have that out in the open. You think more of that chit than you do your own family, and that’s the truth! Years and years you’ve frittered your money away on her, and now, when I—’

His wife was tugging urgently on his sleeve.

‘Please…not here, not now…’ she begged him.

He shook her off as though she were a bothersome fly. ‘Well, let me tell you something, madam. I know my duty to family. And I have made it my business to keep in His Lordship’s good graces over the years. I have let him know what kind of person you are, and if you think you can persuade him otherwise you are very much mistaken.’ A nasty smile spread across his face before he turned and stalked across the room, his little wife trailing behind him.

Helen could hardly believe that he bore so much animosity towards both her and his own sister that he would stoop to such tactics. He was a blustering bully! No wonder Aunt Bella had been so determined to make a bid for independence as soon as she’d had the means to do so.

She could not help herself. She just had to see what impression this little scene had made upon Lord Bridgemere. Her eyes flew to his face. To her relief, he was watching the General stalk across the room, his anxious little wife in tow, with barely concealed distaste. As yet she had no way of knowing whether it was dislike for the creation of a scene or a complete rejection of his version of Aunt Bella’s past that was bringing that look of cold contempt to Lord Bridgemere’s eyes.

But at least he was wise to the kind of man the General was now.

‘Do not worry, Aunt Bella,’ she murmured, patting her aunt’s hand. ‘Lord Bridgemere is no fool. I do not think he will accept anything the General says or implies without checking the facts for himself.’

‘You seem to have formed a very high opinion of His Lordship, Helen. How on earth did you come by it?’

‘I can see it in his face,’ she hedged, unwilling to admit she had been to see him in private. Because then she might have to admit to her other encounters with him. ‘He did not like the way the General attempted to browbeat you like that in public.’

‘You may be right,’ Aunt Bella said, though she did not sound all that convinced.

Fortunately for Helen, at that moment another guest caught her aunt’s eye.

‘My goodness, can that be Sally Stellman? Lady Norton, I should say. I have not seen her since my own come-out. After she married we lost touch, but…’

The lady in question, who was just entering the room, clearly recognised Aunt Bella, too. She tugged upon her husband’s arm, steering him straight towards their sofa.

‘Bella!’ she cried, detaching herself from her husband and plumping herself down beside them. ‘It is you! I thought it was last night, but you retired so early I never had the chance to renew our acquaintance. How lovely to see you again after all these years!’

The chance for the two ladies to say any more than that was abruptly curtailed when the butler announced in sonorous tones that dinner was served.

Sir Mortimer came to escort Helen in to dine, as he had the night before. This time he did not look bored. No, he looked downright reluctant to associate with her. She had no idea whether it was because he might have heard the rumour the General had started about her being somebody’s love-child, or if it was because of the way she had made a fool of herself the night before, or…

Oh, she had never known a Christmas like it. Peace on earth? There was precious little peace here. Let alone goodwill towards men. Why, the whole place was a seething maelstrom of repressed resentments.

She was sorely tempted to remove herself from the field of combat by taking her meals up in her room from now on, if the atmosphere was always going to be as fraught as this in the public rooms. Since she had spent part of the afternoon apologising to the kitchen maid and the cook for her outburst on that first night, she was no longer in their black books. In fact, after they had all matched her apology with an explanation of their own errors, which had echoed what Lord Bridgemere had already told her, they had said she was a rare lady to come and make peace with them, when most of the gentry did not give two hoots for the feelings of those below stairs.

Only it did seem a little cowardly to hide away upstairs. And to desert her aunt in her hour of need. She lifted her chin as her reluctant dinner partner escorted her to table. She was as well born as any of them! Better than some. And if Lord Bridgemere did not object to her presence, then nobody else had a right to make her feel like an interloper.

She darted a glance in his direction.

His gaze swept round the assembled guests, his face closed entirely. Until it came to her. She thought for just an instant that he hesitated. That his features softened very slightly.

Her spirits rose. He believed her! Just that slight thaw in her direction, coupled with the utter contempt with which he had regarded the General, was enough to remove the burden of worry that had so weighed her down.

She smiled at him.

His face closed up. He bowed his head.

For the young clergyman was clearing his throat before saying grace.

A stillness gradually descended over them all as they followed the Earl’s lead in giving thanks for the food they were about to receive.

Helen clasped her hands at her waist and bowed her own head, truly thankful that it looked as though Lord Bridgemere was not going to believe the General’s lies.

She did not notice Lady Thrapston’s beady eyes going from her radiant face to her brother’s bowed head.

And, since she swiftly bowed her own head, in respect to the convention, absolutely nobody saw the speculative expression that came over Lady Thrapston’s face.




Chapter Five


The meal turned out to be every bit as delicious, and the atmosphere quite as poisonous, as it had been the previous night. Only this time when Lady Thrapston got to her feet and the ladies withdrew, Aunt Bella whispered, ‘I’m blowed if I’m going to let my brother make me feel as though we have no right to be here. Especially since I have not seen Lady Norton for such a long time. I am looking forward to catching up with her news. Will you come with me?’

‘Of course,’ Helen replied. She had already decided that nobody was going to make her creep away and hang her head as though she had no right to be here herself. Lifting her chin, she took her aunt’s arm and joined the procession of ladies making their way to the winter drawing room. It was the room, her aunt explained, that guests always used in the evenings when they came for Christmas, since it boasted two fireplaces—one at either end of the room.

Lady Thrapston’s daughters made straight for the pianoforte as soon as they entered the drawing room. They played and sang competently, but the way they commandeered the instrument put Helen’s back up. Acting as if they owned the place! It reminded her very forcibly of the way their mother had swanned in on the day of their arrival, and been so full of her own importance that poor Aunt Bella had been completely overlooked.

‘Be very careful where you choose to sit,’ whispered Lady Norton, who had come in just behind them. ‘If you are too close to Lady Craddock’s camp then Lady Thrapston will take you for her mortal enemy.’

Helen realised that the layout of the room was most unfortunate. People naturally wished to sit as close to one of the fires as they could, but since Lady Craddock had appropriated the sofa nearest the hearth at one end, and Lady Thrapston a matching one at the other, several ladies, apart from her and her aunt, were hanging about in the doorway as though plotting a course between Scylla and Charybdis.

‘Is there no neutral ground?’ Aunt Bella whispered to her more knowledgeable friend.

‘The gaming room. It is just through that door,’ she replied with a laugh. ‘Only I am not permitted in there until Norton comes.’

Aunt Bella’s eyebrow shot up.

‘I will explain later,’ she said, with a meaningful nod in Helen’s direction.

Helen smiled politely, though she took exception to the way the woman was trying to monopolise her aunt and exclude her.

‘Look,’ she said, indicating a quartet of chairs grouped around a table towards the centre of the room. ‘That looks a safe enough place to sit.’

‘We shall have our backs to the piano, though,’ said Lady Norton. ‘Lady Thrapston might take it as an insult to her daughters…’

‘Especially since I intend to sit and gossip with you, rather than listen to their uninspired performance,’ agreed Aunt Bella cheerfully. ‘But, since I do not care what that woman may think of me, I think we may as well risk it.’

The three of them made their way to the table and sat down, laying their reticules on its highly polished surface before anyone else could steal a march on them.

‘You know why they are all here this year, don’t you?’ Lady Norton said, when the music came to a particularly noisy section that ensured nobody could overhear what she was about to say.

‘Augustine is of an age to make her come-out, and I have heard that Lady Thrapston is angling to get her brother to open up Bridgemere House for at least part of the season in her honour.’

‘Do you think he might?’

Lady Norton snorted. ‘He did not do so for Octavia. Why should he make an exception for Augustine? Besides, their father is still alive. And I am sure Bridgemere will point out that he can well afford to launch his girls creditably.’

‘Then why on earth is Lady Thrapston making the attempt?’ Aunt Bella was leaning forward, her eyes shining with curiosity. Helen had not seen her this animated since well before the collapse of the Middleton and Shropshire Bank.

‘Bridgemere House is so much larger than their own London house. And Lady Thrapston, apparently, thinks it is about time Bridgemere spent some time in town again. What better time than to launch his supposedly favourite niece into society?’

‘You mean he has not always been such a reclusive person?’ Helen asked.

But before Lady Norton could elaborate, they all became aware that the General’s wife was approaching their table. With a conciliatory smile, she indicated the one remaining chair and said, ‘I do apologise for my husband’s outburst earlier. I hope you will not hold it against me.’

Before anyone could say anything she sat down and added, ‘It is such a pity we have got off on the wrong foot. Especially since the few days we are all going to spend here gives me such a wonderful opportunity to get to know you better, Helen.’ She turned an anxious smile upon her. ‘The breach between my husband and his sister has kept us apart for too long, don’t you think?’

‘Well, I…’ It was such an about-face that Helen did not know what to think.

Mrs Forrest smiled sadly. ‘It must have been a terrible blow for you to lose both your parents at such an impressionable age. I would have loved to have raised you myself, but as you know the General is not a man one can cross…’

Helen frowned, trying to recall if her impressions of that time might be faulty. She had not thought her aunt had seemed terribly keen on taking her in, and could certainly not remember her attempting even the smallest argument with the General on her behalf. But then, she had already been through several households where neither adult had wanted the expense of her upkeep, and had begun to feel like a leper.

‘Your mother and I were…well, sisters, you know,’ she said airily. Then she glanced over her shoulder, as though checking to make sure the gentlemen were not yet joining them, and said, ‘I may not stay and chat with you now, but perhaps we could take a walk about the grounds tomorrow? While the men are out shooting?’

Helen hardly had to think about her response. Here was a woman who had known her mother. Though she had no complaints about the way Aunt Bella had raised her, she had never met either of Helen’s parents. It would be wonderful to have somebody to talk to who had known them both.

‘I should like that very much,’ she said.

As soon as they had made arrangements about where to meet, and at what time, Mrs Forrest got to her feet and went to join a group of ladies who were seeking a fourth for a hand of whist.

‘She did not invite me, I hope you notice, Helen,’ said her aunt darkly.

Immediately Helen felt contrite for arranging to meet Mrs Forrest without considering how this might affect Aunt Bella.

‘Did you want to go out walking tomorrow?’ said Lady Norton. ‘If you do, then you and I could take a stroll together. Though myself I dislike going out when it is so cold. I would much rather stay within doors and amuse myself with a hand or two of piquet.’

Aunt Bella turned to her with a smile. ‘Then that is what we shall do while Helen renews ties with her mother’s family. If that is really why Mrs Forrest has attempted to detach her from my side.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Helen with a frown.

‘Well, has it never occurred to you that if she really thought so much of her sister’s child she would at the least have written, or sent small gifts for birthdays and Christmas?’

Helen’s heart sank. ‘Perhaps the General would not permit it.’

‘Yes, that might be it. But I would not be a bit surprised to learn that she has some other motive than reconciliation on her mind. Take care, Helen. She may smile and say all the right things here, where there are plenty of eyes on her. But I have a strong suspicion she is up to something.’

And so Helen was on her guard when she went to meet her aunt the next morning. And it was just as well, because they had scarcely left the shelter of the house before Mrs Forrest unsheathed her claws.

‘We wish to know exactly what you are doing here, young woman,’ she began coldly. ‘And to warn you that whatever your intentions may be we intend to see to it that your days of being a drain upon Isabella’s resources come to an end. If my husband had been the head of the family, instead of that ineffectual brother of his, he would never have permitted things to go this far. Indeed, Isabella should never have been permitted to make a home for herself, unprotected, to fall prey to unscrupulous people who only have an eye to her fortune!’

It was so obvious that Mrs Forrest considered Helen to be one of those unscrupulous persons with an eye on Aunt Bella’s fortune that for a brief second she almost blurted out the truth. That there was no longer any fortune for the General to be getting into such a pother about. She found it incredibly sad that this woman had brought her out here simply to squabble over money—non-existent money at that—when they could truly have been spending the season putting aside past misunderstandings and learning to deal better with each other.

Not that she could say as much. For it would feel like a betrayal to talk about Aunt Bella’s financial losses behind her back—especially to this woman.

And Aunt Bella had been upset enough about the way the loss of her fortune had affected Helen as it was.

She had gripped Helen’s arm so hard it had almost been painful. ‘Helen,’ she had said, with tears in her eyes, ‘I cannot believe I have let you down so badly. I thought I had provided for you. Everything I had would have been yours when I died and now it is all gone. You have nothing. Now or in the future.’

‘Aunt, please, do not talk this way,’ she had remonstrated. ‘You have provided for me. You gave me a home. You took me in and raised me as though I was your own child when nobody else wanted me. And do not forget how very poor my parents were. Had they lived, I would never have had any expectations for my future.’

Her aunt had seemed much struck by that point. Then Helen had said, ‘Besides, you gave me such a broad education that I will surely be able to find work eventually.’

‘There is that,’ Aunt Bella had said. ‘It will be some comfort to know that I have at least ensured you may keep your independence. I have not raised you to think you have to rely on some man, have I?’

No, she had not. To begin with she had loved Aunt Bella so much it had never entered her head to form any opinion that ran counter to her own strongly held beliefs. But as she had grown, and observed the fate of other women of her class, she had begun to regard women who relied entirely on their menfolk with a tinge of contempt. They were like the ivy that had to cling parasitically to some sturdy tree for its support, having no strength in themselves.

Helen eyed her real aunt with a heavy heart. If this woman had kept her, what would she be like now? Cowed and insecure? Afraid to lift her head, never mind her voice, should the General or any other man express his disapproval of something she had done?

Thank heaven she had met Bella Forrest, who had always encouraged her to think for herself. To trust in her own instincts and follow her own heart.

She forced her lips into the semblance of a polite smile.

‘I am quite sure you do not include me amongst the ranks of people attempting to part Aunt Bella from her fortune? Because you know that I was merely a child when she first showed an interest in me…’

‘But you are not a child now, are you?’ Mrs Forrest put in swiftly. They came to the end of the gravelled path along which they were walking, and passed through an arch in a closely clipped yew hedge into an enclosed garden. ‘Though you have got your claws into her now, I am warning you that we intend to take steps to protect her. Steps that should have been taken years ago!’

‘This is ridiculous! I—’

But before she could finish her observation she noticed that another party was already strolling across the lawn within the sheltered enclosure. The Countess of Thrapston and her two daughters came to an abrupt halt, and turned round to stare at the sound of raised voices. Helen suspected—although they were all wearing different bonnets and coats—that these were the same females she had observed from the drum room, walking through the formal gardens on her first day here. Oh, how she wished she had observed them more closely. If she had realised this was a favourite walk of theirs she would not have allowed her aunt to strike out in this direction! It was upsetting enough to be having this altercation. It was made ten times worse to have this haughty woman and her proud daughters witness it!

Mrs Forrest recovered first. ‘Oh, Lady Thrapston,’ she gushed, dropping into a deferential curtsey. ‘I am so sorry if we have intruded upon your walk. But really, this girl is such an aggravating creature that she quite made me lose my temper.’ She shot Helen a malicious glance. ‘I dare say you overheard how she has latched onto my husband’s poor sister, and for years has taken shameless advantage of her generous nature?’

‘Poppycock!’ snapped Helen, finally losing her battle to keep a civil tongue in her head.

‘You deny that you have wheedled your way into a defenceless woman’s affections? To the extent that she has made a will in your favour? And that you now stand to inherit a fortune that should by rights return to her real family upon her death?’

So that was what this was all about. General Forrest cared nothing for his sister’s welfare. He was just desperate to claw back some of the money he believed she had.

At least there was one slur upon her character she could refute without betraying her aunt’s confidence, though.

‘I do not expect,’ said Helen through gritted teeth, ‘to receive anything more from Aunt Isabella in future.’

‘No?’ said Mrs Forrest, with a sarcastic little laugh. ‘You do not, surely, expect me to believe that?’

‘I do not care what you believe—though what I have just told you is the truth. I intend to work for my living.’

‘Oh, really!’ scoffed Mrs Forrest. ‘As if any woman would choose to work for her living if she had an alternative!’

Helen was not about to tell this woman she had no alternative. Particularly since the Thrapston ladies were all listening avidly.

Instead, drawing herself up to her full height, she said, ‘On the contrary. I am pleased to tell anyone who may be interested that a few days hence I shall be a completely independent woman. I have already secured a post as governess to the children of a family in Derbyshire.’

The girls looked horrified.

‘I do not scruple to tell you, young lady,’ said Lady Thrapston, shaking her head, ‘that it is not at all the thing to boast about taking employment. No true lady would stoop to such measures. I have heard that Isabella Forrest is something of an eccentric, and if this is an example of the kind of thing she has taught you—’

‘Though, if it is true,’ Mrs Forrest interrupted, ‘my husband will be most relieved. Perhaps he need no longer be at outs with Bella, and then she might—’

Helen was by now beside herself with anger. She clenched her fists. What right had Lady Thrapston to make any sort of observation about her conduct? None whatever! And how dared Mrs Forrest assume Aunt Bella would meekly make a will in her brother’s favour after the way he had treated her?

Her eyes narrowing, she took a pace towards the three Thrapstons.

She had just taken a breath to make a pithy rejoinder when the hedge to the south of where they were standing suddenly erupted. A dog that was very nearly the size of a pony got its shoulders through and then, barking joyously, bounded straight towards them. From the long, matted hair Helen recognised the hound which had been sprawled on the hearthrug in His Lordship’s study the morning before.

Helen had never been so glad to see such a disreputable-looking animal, or so impressed by the effect it had on her erstwhile tormentors. Emitting shrill shrieks, Lady Thrapston and her daughters darted round behind Helen before the dog managed to reach them. Mrs Forrest, even less stalwart in the face of danger, simply took to her heels and fled. Helen could hardly wait to inform Aunt Bella just how athletic her sister-in-law was. How it would make her laugh to hear of that sudden turn of speed!

The hearthrug dog, meanwhile, had reached its target and leapt up, setting its paws on Helen’s chest and licking her face. Only the press of females cowering behind her stopped her from falling flat on her back.

‘Eeurgh!’ Helen could not help exclaiming, screwing her eyes tight shut, wishing that she could somehow stop her nostrils, too. She was not used to dogs, and found the exuberance of his slobbery greeting somewhat too pungent for her liking. Though she did not feel the least bit frightened. She had no doubt it was a doggy sort of friendship the great beast was demonstrating, and felt rather scornful of the two girls who were now squealing with fright, cowering behind her and Lady Thrapston.

‘Esau!’ the Earl’s voice boomed across the lawn. ‘Devil take it, what do you think you are doing?’

The dog looked in the direction of his master’s voice, drool dripping slowly from his lolling tongue.

The Earl forced his way through the hedge just where the dog had broken through. He took the situation in and snapped his fingers. ‘Heel, I say! Heel!’

To Helen, it looked as though the dog sighed and shrugged its shoulders before obediently dropping to the ground and loping across to his master’s side, where he flopped to the ground and rolled on his back, paws waving in the air.

‘I am not going to rub your stomach, you hell hound!’ the Earl snapped.

The dog merely looked up at him adoringly and wriggled encouragingly.

Helen, already struck by the humour of the situation, could barely stifle her giggles. She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, covering her grin under the pretext of vigorously wiping away the slobber that coated her cheeks.

‘Really, Bridgemere,’ said Lady Thrapston, emerging from behind Helen. ‘Have you no control over that animal?’

‘Better than you have over your own manners,’ he replied coldly. ‘You have a very carrying sort of voice, My Lady, and I beg leave to inform you that you have no business berating Miss Forrest upon her future plans. Plans which, in any case, I regard as admirable!’

‘Excuse me…’ Helen put in, suddenly cross all over again. Though it was quite pleasant to hear the Earl say that he found her admirable, she was not in the least bit pleased that he was saying what she would have said herself, had the dog not put a halt to proceedings.

The Earl made an impatient gesture with his hand.

‘Not now, Miss Forrest!’ he snapped, his eyes fixed upon his sister. ‘I find it remarkably refreshing to hear that there is at least one woman in England who does not have marriage to a wealthy man as her goal after having been launched expensively into society!’

At that point Helen’s temper came to the boil. It was beyond rude for these two aristocrats to stand there arguing about her as though she was not present. Besides, it was perfectly clear they were not arguing about her at all, but about what Lady Thrapston expected Bridgemere to do for her daughters.

Who were both close to tears.

‘Don’t you assume you know anything about me or my goals, My Lord!’ she said. ‘It is only women with a dowry and a family behind them who have the luxury of taking the route of which you speak! And, since I have not a penny to my name, I should have thought it would be obvious even to you that route is not open to me!’

‘You see?’ said the Countess. ‘Even this creature would rather marry than work for a living! You have heard it from her own lips!’

The Earl swung to her, his eyes blazing, as though he felt she had betrayed him.

Not a penny to her name? What nonsense was this? From the preliminary enquiries he had made, it was generally known that she stood to inherit a substantial fortune from Isabella Forrest. Who was already keeping her in some style.

‘N…no, I did not mean that, exactly…’ Helen stammered, her eyes flicking from brother to sister and back again.

‘Come, girls,’ said Lady Thrapston imperiously. ‘We shall return to the house, since His Lordship chooses to exercise that beast where his guests should feel safe to walk!’

Her nose in the air, she swished across the lawns, her two subdued daughters scurrying along behind her.

The dog rolled itself upright and woofed once after them, as though in triumph.

Helen stood frozen to the spot by Lord Bridgemere’s glacial stare. He waited until the other ladies were out of earshot before speaking again, while Helen braced herself for yet another battle royal.

‘I trust you are unharmed?’ he said, completely taking the wind out of her sails. ‘For some reason,’ he drawled, as though there was no accounting for the working of a dog’s mind, ‘Esau regards you as a friend. The moment he heard your voice he made straight for you to make his presence known.’

‘Straight, yes,’ she agreed. ‘Straight through the hedge,’ she amended, a bubble of mirth welling up inside her as she recalled the consternation he had caused. Then with a perfectly straight face she reached up and plucked a yew twig from the front of Lord Bridgemere’s waistcoat. ‘And you came straight after him,’ she observed, tossing the twig to the ground.

‘He frightens some females,’ he countered. ‘He is so large and…’

‘So sadly out of control.’ She shook her head in mock reproof.

His brows drew down into a scowl. ‘No, that is not the case at all. He is very well trained…’

Abruptly she averted her face, as though glancing towards the dog, who was now sniffing away at the foot of the hedge. But not quite quickly enough to hide the laughter brimming.

He caught at her chin and turned her face towards him, studying it in perplexity. Then suddenly comprehension dawned.

‘You…you are teasing me!’

For a moment she felt as though her fate hung in the balance. It was the height of impertinence for one of her station to treat a man of his rank with such lack of respect.

But then he smiled.

Really smiled—as though she had just handed him some immensely rare and unexpected gift.

Her stomach swooped and soared—just as it had done when, as a little girl, she had taken a turn on her garden swing.

She had thought him attractive, in a dangerous sort of way, when she had believed he was merely a footman. Had imagined maidservants queuing up to kiss that mouth when it had been hard and cynical. But the intensity of that smile was downright lethal. As she gazed, transfixed, at those happily curved lips, with his hand still cupping her chin gently, she wished that he would pull her closer, slant that mouth across her own…

With a gasp, she pulled away from him.

His smile faded. He looked down at the hand that had been cupping her chin as though its behaviour confused him.

‘E…Esau?’ she stammered, determined to break the intensity of the mood. ‘You called him that because he is so hairy, I take it?’

‘And he has a somewhat reddish tinge to his coat,’ he agreed mechanically. Then, as though searching for something to say to prolong their odd little conversation, ‘Under the mud which unfortunately he chose to roll in this morning.’ He looked down at her attire ruefully. ‘And which is now liberally smeared all over your coat.’

For the first time Helen took stock of the damage the encounter with his dog had wrought upon her clothing. Helen had wrapped a shawl over her bonnet before setting out. It had slithered to the ground when Esau had jumped up, and the other ladies had trodden it into the ground. Her gloves and cuffs were shiny with the aftermath of Esau’s affectionate greeting, and her shoulders bore the imprints of his enormous muddy paws. And, worst of all, when he had dropped to the ground his claws had torn a rent in her skirt.

‘You must allow me to replace it.’

‘Must?’ Taking exception to his high-handed attitude towards her, she took a step back. ‘I must do no such thing!’

‘Do not be ridiculous,’ he snapped, his own brief foray into good humour coming to an abrupt end. ‘I saw the way my sister used you as a human shield to protect her own clothing from Esau’s unfortunate tendency to jump up on people he likes. And she can easily afford to replace any gowns his paws might ruin. I suspect that you cannot. I have just heard you declare you have not a penny to your name! And I doubt if you have more than two changes of clothing in that meagre amount of luggage my staff carried up to your room.’

Helen stiffened further. ‘Mud brushes off when it dries. And I am quite capable of darning this little tear,’ she said, indicating her skirts. ‘Any competent needlewoman could do it! And, contrary to your opinion, I do have a clean gown into which I may change. I am not a complete pauper.’

‘Nevertheless, you are not the heiress that General Forrest has assumed, are you? What has happened between you and your aunt? Why do you have to go out and work for your living? Will you not tell me?’

‘It is not your affair—at least not my part of it.’

She was not going to confide in him. It shook him. Most people were only too ready to pour out a litany of woes in the hope that they might persuade him to bail them out.

He had already told Lady Thrapston that he admired her, but if he were to say it again now it would be with far more conviction. For he realised that he really did.

‘That damned pride of yours,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Nevertheless, Miss Forrest, you have to admit that it is entirely my fault that your clothing has been ruined. As Lady Thrapston pointed out, I should not have returned to the house by this route when I knew that visiting ladies like to take their exercise in the shelter of the shrubbery. Please,’ he said, stepping forward and grasping her by the elbows, ‘allow me to make amends.’

For once he would like to be able to do a small thing for someone he suspected had suffered some kind of financial reversal. And what was the cost of a coat to him?

Esau, as though sensing the tension between them, bounded over and sat at Helen’s feet, gazing up at her with his head on one side.

‘It would be quite inappropriate for you to do so,’ she pointed out.

It felt as though the sun went behind a cloud when he let go of her arms and stepped back.

‘But thank you for your kind offer,’ she said, in a desperate attempt to undo the offence she could see he had taken at her refusal.

It was no use. His face had closed up.

Which was ironic, considering the last time they had spoken he had complained that people only came to him because they wanted something!

‘No very great harm has been done by your dog. In fact,’ she said, reaching out one hand and tentatively patting the great shaggy head, ‘I am rather grateful to him for putting such an abrupt end to my walk.’

‘You do not like the gardens?’

‘The gardens seem very pleasant, My Lord, from what little I have seen so far.’

‘Perhaps you would enjoy seeing more of them,’ he said, as though he had just been struck by a brilliant idea, ‘if you had a more congenial escort? I confess, though I generally only permit Esau to accompany me on my morning ride, I—’

He pulled himself up short, frowned, and made her a stiff bow. ‘Miss Forrest, since you will not permit me to replace the clothing Esau has ruined, perhaps you will allow me to make amends in another way. Let me show you these gardens tomorrow, early. Before anyone else has risen. Before the sun has burned the frost away.’

‘Oh.’ Helen blinked up at him. ‘I thought you said you preferred to be alone…’

‘To ride alone,’ he corrected her, with some signs of irritation. ‘But I have not asked you to ride with me. Just to walk. Will you?’ He clutched his riding crop between his hands, his whole body tensing as he added, ‘Please?’

For one wild, glorious moment Helen had the feeling that her assent would really mean something to him. She wondered, given all that she had learned about him, how long it had been since he had asked anyone for anything.

Her heart went out to him. How sad to think that he might be so lonely that he was more or less begging her for an hour or so of her time. She suddenly saw that it was a rare thing for him to come across a person with whom he might spend time safe in the knowledge she would not be pestering him for some kind of favour. Lord, he must be one of the loneliest men on earth.

Especially if he had to resort to asking her to go for a walk with him. She was a virtual stranger to him. And whenever they had met they had ended up arguing.

She chewed on her lower lip. Going for a walk with him, unchaperoned, would be a rather shocking thing for her to do. Especially considering the vast difference between their stations. And yet…and yet…

She was quite certain she would never meet a man like him again.

In the dreary years of servitude that lay ahead of her, would it not be a comfort to look back to this time and recall that once, at least, a handsome, eligible man—a man who made her heart flutter—had urged her to cast convention aside and spend time alone with him? Oh, not that anything would come of it. He could not possibly have any romantic feelings towards her. It was just a walk.

Sometimes, she decided, the conventions were ridiculous. As if he would stoop to attempting to seduce her, of all people. A guest under his roof!

She brightened up, knowing that she would be quite safe.

‘If the weather is fine, I think I should like that very much,’ she said.

While Bridgemere had been awaiting her answer he had felt as though he was teetering on the brink of a precipice. And now he wondered if he had tumbled headlong into it. For the sense of relief and gratitude he felt when she said yes was out of all proportion.

He was more than a little irritated with himself for letting her affect him so much.

‘I will wait for you in the mud room at first light, then,’ he said brusquely. ‘Cadwallader will give you the direction.’ He glanced down at her feet. ‘Wear sturdy footwear.’

And then he whistled for his dog and strode away, leaving Helen to trail back to the house in a state that was becoming all too familiar after an encounter with Lord Bridgemere. A turbulent mix of exhilaration, irritation, yearning and trepidation—and now, as if that were not quite enough to contend with, more than a dash of compassion for the man who was expected to bear everyone else’s burdens but had nobody to help him bear his.




Chapter Six


The next morning Helen woke early. She had escaped up to bed as soon as she could, uncomfortable about lingering in the winter drawing room amongst so many antagonists, leaving Aunt Bella to enjoy some hands of cards with Lady Norton. Helen was not sure what the time had been when her aunt had tiptoed back into their room. She looked down at her now, where she lay sprawled on her back, snoring gently, with a fond smile. It must have been well past midnight. Not even the sounds of Helen rising and having her wash had managed to rouse her this morning!

She rubbed a small patch of frost from the inside of the windowpane with the corner of her towel to see a still star-spangled sky. Not a cloud was in sight. It would be bitterly cold outside. Not that even a blizzard would have doused the excitement that was welling up inside her. Lord Bridgemere had asked her to go for a walk with him. Her! When he so famously shunned others. She simply added several flannel petticoats beneath her gown, as well as a knitted jacket under her coat, and a woollen shawl over her bonnet.

And left the room with a smile on her face and a spring in her step.

Lord Bridgemere was waiting for her in the mud room, similarly bundled up against the cold.

‘I would prefer not to take a lantern,’ he informed her. ‘The sun is only just rising, but I believe we can make our way where we are going quite safely without one.’

‘Oh. Very well.’ She smiled at him, quite content to go along with whatever he suggested.

He opened the door for her, and with a slight dip of the head extended his arm to indicate she should precede him.

She wanted to laugh out loud. She had expected nothing but slights and insults in her new life as a humble, hardworking governess, but here was a belted earl opening a door for her! Sharing his morning walk with her simply for the pleasure of her company. Well, wouldn’t this be something to look back upon when she eventually moved to the Harcourts’ home?

She smiled happily up at him as she passed him in the doorway. And breathed in the sharply fresh air with a sense of relish. She had always loved this time of day. It was like having a blank sheet of paper upon which she could write anything.

She darted a surreptitious glance at him as he closed the door behind them. Then averted her gaze demurely when he took her arm to steady her as they set off across the slippery cobbles of the kitchen court. He did not look at her. He kept his eyes fixed ahead, on where they were going. Once they left the cluster of buildings at the back of the main house he led her away from the formal gardens, where she had walked before, and up a sloping lawn towards a belt of trees.

After a while she took the risk of studying his face through a series of glances as they walked along. Most particularly her eyes were drawn to the mouth that had been haunting her imagination from the very first moment she had seen him. When she had thought he was a footman. Now she knew he was an earl, he was no longer beneath her socially, and so…

Guiltily, she tore her eyes from his mouth and cast them to the ground. He was as far from her socially as ever! She ought not to be thinking about kisses—especially not where he was concerned. For it could only end badly for her. Aunt Bella had already told her the man was not the marrying kind. And she had too much pride to become any man’s plaything.

No matter how tempting he was, she thought, darting another longing glance at his handsome profile.

No, far better to have some innocent, pleasurable memories from this outing to keep her warm in the bleak years ahead.

And she did feel warm, just being with him arm in arm like this. Her heart was racing, and her blood was zinging through her veins in a most remarkable way. She heaved a sigh of contentment, making her breath puff out in a great cloud on the still winter air.

‘Am I setting too fast a pace for you, Miss Forrest?’ Lord Bridgemere enquired politely.

‘Oh, no,’ she replied. ‘Not at all.’

‘But you are becoming breathless,’ he said with a frown. ‘Forgive me. I am not used to measuring my pace to suit that of another.’

‘I suppose Esau has no problem keeping up with you, though?’ she observed.

He frowned, as though turning her remark over in his mind, before replying rather seriously, ‘No, he does not. He is an ideal companion when I ride, since he eats up the miles with those great long legs of his. It is, in fact, when he has not had sufficient exercise that he becomes…exuberant.’

Some of her pleasure dimmed. He was having to deliberately slow the pace he would have preferred to set because she was with him. And the way he was smiling now, after talking about his dog, made her feel as if he would be enjoying himself far more if it was the dog out here with him!

It was some minutes before either of them spoke again. Lord Bridgemere seemed preoccupied, and Helen, even though he had slowed down considerably, had little breath left to spare for speech.

It had been getting steadily lighter, and just as they reached the trees the sun’s rays struck at an angle that made the entire copse glisten diamond-bright. Since the frosted branches almost met overhead, they looked like the arches of some great outdoor cathedral.

‘Oh!’ she gasped, stopping completely just to gaze in awe at the magical sight. ‘I feel as if, I am in some…church,’ she whispered. ‘Or a temple. Not made by human hands, but by…’

‘Yes,’ he said in a low, almost reverent tone. ‘That is exactly how I feel sometimes out here, at sunrise.’

She twirled round, her head arched back, to admire the spectacle from every angle. It made it all the more wonderful that through various gaps in the branches she could make out the moon against the pearly dawn sky, and just one or two of the last and brightest of the stars.

‘Oh, thank you,’ she breathed. ‘Thank you for bringing me here to see this.’

‘I knew you would appreciate it,’ he said, his eyes gleaming with what she thought looked like approval. ‘You are the one person I know who would not grumble about the necessity of rising early to witness this,’ he said. ‘Most of my other visitors prefer staying up all night drinking and gaming, then sleeping half the day away. It does not last long, this rare moment of utter perfection. But just now, as the sun strikes the frosted branches, it makes everything so…’ He frowned, shaking his head as though the right words eluded him. ‘One can almost embrace winter. For only in this season can one experience this.’ He turned around, just as she had done, only far more slowly, as though drinking in the frozen splendour of their surroundings.

Then, without warning, his face turned hard and cynical. ‘Nature has a remarkable way of compensating for absence of life. None of this would be possible without bitter cold. And long, dark nights. You can only see this when the branches are stark and dead.’

He turned to her with a twisted sort of smile on his lips. ‘Of course before long the very sunshine that creates this glorious spectacle will melt it all away. You can already see the mist beginning to rise. In another hour all that will be left of your mystical temple to nature will be dripping wet branches, blackened with mould, and pools of mire underfoot. Come,’ he said brusquely, ‘there is something else I wish you to see.’

Puzzled by his abrupt change of mood, Helen plunged through the copse after him. He did not seem to care if she could keep up or not now, and she was soon quite out of breath.

‘There,’ he said, as he emerged from the trees into a small clearing.

She saw an ancient ruin with a tower at one end, half overgrown with ivy, and at its foot, a sheet of ice almost the size of the front garden of their cottage in Middleton.

‘We nearly always get some ice forming up here over winter,’ he said. ‘The position of the trees keeps the sun from melting it away each morning. This year I have had the staff deliberately extend it. The lake here is too deep to freeze, except a little around the edges, so proper skating is out of the question, but I thought the children would enjoy sliding about on this. What do you think?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You are going to be a governess. You know children. They always seem to love to skate. Don’t they? I know I did as a boy.’

Helen’s heart plummeted. She had been having fantasies of stolen kisses. He had been thinking of asking her professional opinion, as a woman experienced with children, about his plans for amusing the children of his guests.

Oh, well. She shrugged. It had been only a wild flight of fancy on her part. What would a wealthy, handsome man like him see in an ordinary, penniless woman like her? At least now she did not have to be quite so concerned about what he thought of her.

The notion was quite liberating.

‘Only as a boy?’ she repeated, grinning up at him. ‘Don’t you still enjoy skating?’

And, before he had the chance to say a word, she gathered her skirts and made a run at the ice. When her boots hit the slippery surface she began to glide. It had been a while since she had last been skating, and then she had worn proper skating boots. Staying upright whilst sliding rapidly forward in ordinary footwear was a completely different sensation. To keep her balance she had to let go of her skirts and windmill her arms, and lean forward…no, back…no…

‘Aaahh!’ she squealed as she shot across the ice like a missile fired from a gun. She had totally misjudged how far her run-up would propel her.

She screamed again as she reached the perimeter of the ice, and realised she had no means of slowing down without the blades she was used to wearing for skating. She hit the slightly sloping bank running. Momentum kept her going, forcing her to stumble rapidly forward a few paces, before she managed to stop, with her gloved hands braced against an enormous bramble patch.

‘That was amazing!’ she panted, straightening up with a huge sense of achievement. She had not fallen flat on her face! Only her skirts had snagged amongst the thorns. Head bowed, she carefully began to disentangle the fabric, to minimise the damage.

‘You might want to do something about these, though,’ she remarked. ‘Somebody might hurt themselves.’

‘Only,’ he bit out, striding round the ice patch with a face like thunder, ‘if they have no adult to supervise them, and to prevent them from going wild. What the devil were you thinking?’ He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. ‘You little idiot! You could have gone headlong into those brambles and cut yourself to ribbons!’

He had scarce been able to believe it when she had flung herself out onto the ice like that. And when he had heard her scream…For one sickening moment he had pictured her lying injured, her face distorted with pain, frozen for all eternity in agonised death throes…

And then, when he had realised that scream was bordering on a cry of exhilaration, that she was relishing the danger, totally oblivious to the effect her reckless escapade might have upon him…

She gazed up at him in shock, all her pleasure from the little adventure dashed to pieces.

‘If you think me an idiot,’ she retorted, stung by his harsh words, ‘you should not have asked for my opinion!’ She swatted his hands away from her shoulders, taking such a hasty step backwards that her skirt ripped. ‘And now look what you have made me do! Whenever I come anywhere near you it ends in disaster!’

Disaster? he echoed in his mind. This girl had no notion of what disaster truly was. She had come nowhere near disaster.

He tamped down on his surge of fury, acknowledging that it was not her with whom he was angry. Not really. God, Lucinda! Would her ghost never leave him be?

Nobody deserved to die so young. No matter what she’d done. For a moment he was right back in the day he had heard of Lucinda’s death, ruing the decision he had taken to wash his hands of her. He should have stayed with her, curbed her. She had been so wild he ought to have known she could be a danger to herself. He had lived with the guilt of her death, and that of the innocent baby she’d been carrying, ever since. Guilt that was exacerbated by the knowledge that a part of him had been relieved he was no longer married to her. Yes, she had set him free. But death was too great a price for any woman to pay.

It was with some difficulty that he wrenched himself back to the present, and the woman who was examining the damage to her gown with clear irritation. It was only a gown. Just a piece of cloth that had been torn. Had she no sense of perspective?

‘I have already told you I am willing to replace your gown…’

‘That was another gown!’ she snapped, made even angrier because he had not noticed she was wearing an entirely different colour today. ‘And I have already told you that giving me such things is out of the question!’

That was correct. He had forgotten for a moment that she was merely a guest in his house. That he had no right to buy her clothing. To question her conduct. To be angry with her.

To care what happened to her.

Helen saw his face change. He no longer looked angry. It was as though he had wiped all expression from it.

‘I asked for your opinion,’ he said in a flat, expressionless tone, ‘because you are never afraid to give it. You tell me the truth. Because you care nothing for what I may think of you.’

‘Oh, well,’ she huffed, feeling somewhat mollified. It was true that, from what she had observed, most of the people who had come here for Christmas had some kind of hidden agenda. ‘Then I apologise for my angry words.’ She had lashed out in a fit of pique because he very clearly had no problem keeping his mind off her lips. No, he could not possibly have entertained one single romantic thought towards her, or he could not have chastised her in that overbearing manner. Speaking of having some responsible adult to watch over the children, implying he thought she was most definitely not!

‘Though,’ she said ruefully, ‘I do not know as much about children as you seem to imagine. The post I am about to take is my first. However, I do think this will be a lovely surprise for them.’ Her eyes narrowed as she looked back at the glassy smooth surface he had created. Then she looked straight at him. ‘Or for any adult who does not have too inflated an opinion of their own dignity.’

‘So you think I have an over-inflated view of my importance?’ he replied coldly. ‘You think me a very dull fellow, in fact? As well as being hard and unfeeling when it comes to the plight of elderly relatives? I see.’

He gave her a curt bow. ‘Perhaps it is time we returned to the house.’ He eyed her nose, which had a fatal tendency to go bright red in cold weather. His lips twisted with contempt. ‘I can see that you are getting cold.’

She knew it looked most unattractive, but did he really have to be so ungentlemanly as to draw attention to it? Anyone would think he was trying to hurt her.

As if he wanted to get back at her for hurting him.

Oh. No…surely not?

But if that were the case…

‘I never said I thought you hard and unfeeling. Well, not exactly! Don’t go pokering up at me like that!’ she protested.

To his back.

He was already striding out in the direction of the house. She would have to trot to keep up with him, never mind catch up with him. She stopped, hands on her hips, and gave a huff of exasperation.

If only it had snowed recently. There was nothing she wanted so much as to fling a large wet snowball at him and knock his hat off!

Except, perhaps, put her arms round him in a consoling hug and tell him she had never meant to insult him. Though she would have to catch up with him to accomplish that. And he had no intention of being caught.

‘Ooh…’ she breathed, shaking her head in exasperation with herself. What on earth had made her fancy there had been a glimmer of attraction burning in his eyes when he had invited her to come walking with him? Well, if it had ever been there it was gone now. He had just looked at her as though she were something slimy that had crawled out from underneath a rock.

It was not the kind of look she was used to getting from men. Aunt Bella had reminded her only recently that she was a pretty girl. Had urged her to win Mr Cadwallader over with one of her smiles. Had she become vain in recent years? She lowered her head in chagrin as she began to trudge back to the house in Lord Bridgemere’s wake. Though she had never actively sought it, she had come to regard flattering male attention as her due.

There were some who would say she was getting a taste of her own medicine, no doubt. Because whenever one of the men of Middleton had sidled up to her in the market, or some such place, under some spurious pretext, to tell her how pretty she was, she had felt nothing for them but contempt. And now the first man she had met who had actually awoken some interest was completely impervious to her charms. He had not paid her a single compliment, nor tried to hold her hand, or snatch a kiss. And yet whenever she was in Lord Bridgemere’s vicinity kissing seemed to be all she could think about.

Whereas he, to judge by the stiff set of his shoulders as he drew steadily further and further away, found her annoying.

She flinched, wondering why that knowledge should hurt so much. These days he was out of her reach socially, anyway. Perhaps, she decided glumly, it was just that he represented everything that was now out of her reach. The social standing and the affluence that she had taken for granted when she and Aunt Bella had been so comfortably off.

There was nothing so appealing as something that you knew you could never have.



That afternoon Helen took the opportunity to slip away to the library, since the light in there was so much better than it was in their room, with her sewing basket tucked under her arm. She had told her aunt that she intended to make a start on the alterations she had already decided her gowns needed, and the minor repairs her encounters with Lord Bridgemere had made necessary. But really she wanted to get on with the little gift she had been sewing for Aunt Bella. Besides which, the floor-to-ceiling windows contained some heraldic designs which she wanted to sketch. She had decided to use them as a basis for another project which, it had occurred to her, she must complete very swiftly, since it lacked only three days until Christmas.

She made herself comfortable upon one of the window seats with which the room was blessed, and bent her mind to the task in hand. She was not sure how long she had been sitting there when she became aware she was no longer alone.

She looked up from the tangle of silks on her lap to find Lord Bridgemere standing in the doorway. His face was, as usual, hard to read.

Helen felt her cheeks grow hot, and knew she was blushing. It was the first time she had seen him since that early-morning walk of which she’d had such high expectations. And which had resulted in her making such a fool of herself and caused her a morning of quite painful soulsearching as she’d faced up to several unpleasant truths about her character. She had come to the conclusion that whenever Lord Bridgemere looked at her what he saw was a very vain and silly woman.

‘I was just passing,’ he said, moving his arm towards the corridor outside. ‘And I saw you sitting here alone.’

And had been transfixed by the way the sunlight gilded her hair, the pout of her lips as she concentrated on whatever it was that she was doing.

He cleared his throat. ‘Why are you on your own, Miss Forrest? Is your aunt unwell?’

Even as he said it he knew that she would not be down here if that were the case. She would be upstairs, nursing her adopted relative. Or down in the kitchens, making some remedy for her. She would not have bothered to ring the bell. A smile kicked up one corner of his mouth as he pictured her marching into the kitchens and elbowing his servants aside to concoct some remedy which only she knew how to make to her own satisfaction.

‘Far from it,’ replied Helen, wondering what could have put that strange smile on his face. Did she have a smut on her nose? Or was he just recalling one of the many ways she had made a fool of herself since she had come here?

‘Aunt Bella is in the card room with Lady Norton. They plan to spend the afternoon drinking tea and gossiping about the fate of mutual acquaintances.’

Her face was so expressive he could not miss a little trace of pique at the way the older woman was treating her. There was something going on between these two ladies that he needed to uncover. The general belief was that Helen was the older Miss Forrest’s sole heir. But she had told him she needed to go out to work because she was penniless.

Yet she was still fiercely loyal to her adopted aunt. Whatever had happened between them, it had not soured her.

He found himself walking towards her.

‘And what is it you are doing?’

‘Oh, nothing much!’ Helen quickly stuffed her rough sketches of the Bridgemere coat of arms into her workbasket, and held up the bodice of one of the gowns she was altering. ‘Tedious stuff. Making buttonholes and such,’ she said.

His brows lowered slightly. ‘Is there nothing more amusing you could be doing?’

Helen grappled with a sense of exasperation. She had accused him of neglecting her and her aunt, had felt resentful of the amusements he had provided for the other guests. Yet now he was here, playing the gracious host, she felt uncomfortable. She was not an invited guest. She had done nothing but cause trouble since she had entered his house. And he must have a thousand and one more important things to do with his time. He ought not to be wasting it on her.

‘Please do not trouble yourself with me. I am quite content. I…I would actually prefer to be doing something useful than frittering the time away with cards or gossip.’

‘Is that so?’

Sometimes Miss Forrest said things that were so exactly what he felt about life himself that it was as though…

He sat down on the window seat beside her and took hold of the piece of material draped across her lap.

‘Oh, be careful of the pins!’

He let it go. He had only focussed on it because he had not wanted to look into her face. Lest she see…what? A quickening of interest that she very obviously did not return? She thought him hard and unfeeling, full of his own importance. And worst of all dull. There was no worse character flaw a man could have in the eyes of a girl as lively as this. Had not Lucinda told him so often enough?

It took Helen a great effort to sit completely still. The material which he had dropped back onto her lap was warm from his hand. The fleeting sense that it might have been the touch of his hand on her leg had created an echoing warmth in the pit of her stomach. Which was even now sinking lower, to bloom between her thighs.

Oh, Lord, she hoped he had no idea how his proximity was affecting her! Why did it have to be this man, the one man she knew she could never have, who was making her respond in such a shocking way?

‘If you really would enjoy being useful, it occurs to me that there is a way in which we could help each other,’ he said, laying his arm casually along the edge of the windowsill.

Did he know that extending his arm like that made her feel enclosed by his arms? Was he doing it on purpose, to make her even more conscious of him?

And in what way could she possibly be of any help to him?

Unless she had betrayed her interest in him?

He had no need to marry, but if a woman was silly enough to let him know how physically attractive she found him, might he think he could cajole her into a brief affair?

‘I don’t think there can possibly be any way I could be of help to you,’ she said primly, averting her head. If he was going to insult her by suggesting what she thought he was, then she had no intention of letting him see how much it would hurt!

‘You said this morning that you do not have much experience with children, Miss Forrest. And it just so happens that there is a whole batch of them here. They have come with their parents, who have consigned them away upstairs with their nurses. If you wanted to gain some experience with working with children before you take up your first post, then here is an ideal opportunity.’

Experience with children. Of course. She let out the breath she had been holding, chiding herself for once again rating her charms far more highly than Lord Bridgemere obviously did. Here was she, thinking he was about to make her an improper suggestion, while nothing could have been further from his mind. Would she never learn?

‘The children of your guests?’ she echoed faintly. ‘You wish me to go and help…?’

‘I have already enlisted the services of Reverend Mullen. He has written the script, which he tells me he has based mostly on the gospel of Luke…’

‘Wait a minute. Script?’ She raised her head to look at him, quite puzzled. ‘What script? What are you talking about?’

‘I forgot. This is your first visit to Alvanley Hall, and you are not aware of the traditions that prevail.’ He leaned back, his eyes fixed intently on her face. ‘Each year I throw a ball for my tenants on Boxing Day, as part of my gift to them to reward them for all their hard work and loyalty to me throughout the year. Out at one of the barns on the home farm. The children who are brought by their parents to stay at the Hall always put on a little entertainment for them to start the evening’s festivities. The villagers always perform their mummer’s plays for me on Christmas Day, and so I return the favour by getting up this party for them. And, of course, it helps to keep the children occupied during their stay here.’

‘Of course,’ she echoed faintly, still feeling somewhat resentful that it had not occurred to him to make her a proposition. Which she would naturally have refused! But still…

‘So would you, then? Like to become involved in putting on the production for my tenants?’ Or did she consider it was beneath her to spend her time coaching the children to perform for rustics?

She was not quite sure how she could be of any help, since he had already told her that Reverend Mullen was writing the script and coaching the children through their parts. She had no experience whatever of amateur theatricals. And the children had their own nurses to see to whatever else it was they needed.

Yet it would be a good opportunity to see how the children of the very upper echelons of society were organised, even if she could contribute very little.

The experience would be of more benefit to her, she suspected, than to Lord Bridgemere.

‘Thank you, My Lord,’ she said through gritted teeth, wondering why his eyes had turned so cold. ‘I should find the experience most beneficial.’

It was ridiculous to let the Earl’s treatment of her hurt so much. It was not as if she had seriously believed there could ever be anything between them. And as for those brief flashes of feeling as though she was totally in tune with him…well, they had clearly existed only in her own mind. Lord Bridgemere might have paid her a little attention, but she could see now that it had only been to assess how he could make the best use of her.

‘Thank you,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I must leave you now. Cadwallader has arranged a full afternoon for me, and would be most put out if I ruined his timetable. Can you find your own way up to the nursery?’

‘If not, I can always ask for directions,’ she replied acidly.

She got to her feet and began tidying her work away as soon as he’d left the room. Though she disliked being on the receiving end of Lord Bridgemere’s demonstration of his organisational skills, she would appreciate the experience of working with some children before she took up her new post. Even though she had decided, when all the money had disappeared, that she would find consolation in moulding young minds in the way Aunt Bella had moulded hers, she was a little nervous about how exactly she would go about the task. Lord Bridgemere could not have hit upon a better way of helping her become accustomed to her new station in life.

Drat him.



Helen enjoyed the rest of the afternoon much more than she had expected. To begin with, the Reverend Mullen welcomed her with an enthusiasm that was a balm to her wounded pride.

‘Ah, good, good—His Lordship has managed to persuade you to lend your talents to our little endeavours,’ he beamed, when she entered the huge attic space which had been converted into a rehearsal area. ‘I have cast the children as best as I can,’ he said, ‘and rehearsed them once or twice, but they are in dire need of costumes. His Lordship told me you consider yourself a most competent needlewoman, and would be able to help on that front.’

Helen’s lips compressed as she recalled flinging those very words at Lord Bridgemere on the day she had rejected his offer of a new gown to replace the one Esau had spoiled.

But it was hard to stay cross for very long in the atmosphere of jollity over which the Reverend Mullen presided. He was scarcely any older than Nicholas Swaledale, she reflected, yet two youths could not have been more different. The Reverend was earnest, diligent and…well, worthy was the word that kept on springing to mind in his regard.

And the children, unlike their parents, all seemed to regard their visit to Alvanley Hall as the highlight of their year.

‘Christmas last year was horrid,’ said the tubby lad who was to play the part of Joseph, while she was measuring him for his costume. ‘Mama and Papa wanted us to keep out of the way while they had their parties. And they forgot all about us. We never got a big feast, like we had the year before at Alvanley. Will we be having a children’s feast, this year, Miss Forrest?’ he asked excitedly. ‘We had cake and jelly and ices last time, I remember.’

‘I do not know. This is the very first time I have been here.’

Immediately ‘Joseph’s’ expression turned pitying. ‘Never mind, you’re here now. Perhaps you will be able to come to our feast with us, and then you’ll see!’

‘I think I should like that.’ She laughed. Far more than the deadly formal banquet she guessed would be provided for the adults.

It would be wonderful to stay up here with the children and servants…

She sucked in a sharp breath. Why had she not seen it before? He had not invited her. She was here as the companion of Aunt Bella, nothing more. He had placed her in a room he’d told her was allotted to upper servants, and when he’d seen her making use of his library, as though she was a guest with the right to make free with the public rooms, he had sent her up here, where the Reverend Mullen could find fitting work for her to do!

She flushed angrily. He thought of her as a servant! It was not his wish to help her gain some experience with children that had prompted him to send her up here. No, he was just putting her in her place! Keeping her out of sight of his relatives, several of whom clearly objected to her presence.

‘Did you prick your finger?’ asked the pretty little girl who was to play the part of Mary.

When Helen had first come up here the child had run her eyes over her rather plain gown and looked as though she had immediately relegated her to the status of servant. But in spite of that she stopped sifting through the pile of materials that had been provided to make up the costumes the moment Helen gasped.

‘I am always pricking my finger when I sew my sampler. You should use a thimble,’ she said, nodding sagely.

‘Thank you,’ said Helen amending her impression of her as a haughty little madam. ‘I shall remember that.’

‘We get nice presents here, too,’ she said absently, resuming her search for something she deemed fit to appear on stage in. ‘All of us. Nobody is forgotten,’ she said, with such a wistful air that Helen suspected she must have suffered such a fate herself. ‘And we get to stay up really late to put on our play. And all the grown-ups watch us and clap their hands. Even Mama and Papa.’

Helen could barely refrain from putting her arms round the child and giving her a hug. Her words spoke volumes about the way she was usually treated in her own home.

‘I would rather they didn’t,’ said the slender boy cast in the role of the angel Gabriel, who was sitting on a nearby stool, glumly studying his copy of the play. He was clearly nervous about performing in front of an audience. ‘I would rather just stay up here with a book.’ He coughed in a most theatrical manner. ‘I don’t think I will be able to say my lines. I think I’m catching cold.’

‘You had better not, Swaledale,’ observed ‘Joseph’. ‘Or you will miss the skating.’

Helen looked sharply at ‘Gabriel’. If his name was Swaledale then he must be the younger brother of Lord Bridgemere’s heir. Now that she knew he was related, she thought she could see a resemblance. He did have a rather sulky mouth.

‘Miss Forrest,’ said ‘Joseph’, turning to her, ‘His Lordship has made a skating pond, especially for us children. We are all going to go down tomorrow if the rain holds off. Will you be coming with us?’

‘I am not sure,’ she replied, tight-lipped. The Earl had specified that he wanted responsible adults to watch over his precious young relations, implying that she did not qualify.

‘Mary’ pouted. ‘I expect it is only for boys. The girls will have to stay indoors and…learn lines, or something equally tedious!’

‘No, no, Junia, dear,’ said Reverend Mullen, who had been passing with a sheaf of scripts in his hands. ‘All the children are to gather in the stableyard, first thing in the morning, where a cart is to be ready to carry them to the pond. Those who do not wish to skate do not have to. They may watch. There will be a warm shelter where hot chocolate and cakes will be served.’

‘Joseph’s’ eyes lit up.

‘And did I not tell you, Miss Forrest? His Lordship particularly wants you to accompany the nursery party, since you are such an enthusiastic skater.’

‘Are you?’ said Junia, dropping a length of purple velvet and looking up at her wide-eyed. ‘Would you teach me to skate?’

‘Of course I will,’ replied Helen, suddenly understanding why her parents sometimes overlooked her. Junia, she recalled hearing, was the name of another of Lady Thrapston’s daughters. Her mother must have been furious she had produced yet another girl, when there, in the form of ‘Gabriel’, was the proof that her sister, Lady Craddock, had produced not only an heir for Lord Bridgemere, but also a potential spare.

As Reverend Mullen hurried away, bent on his next task, Helen’s mouth formed into a determined line. No child over whom she ever had any influence would be made to feel inferior because of their sex! She would make sure their accomplishments were applauded, their talents encouraged, and—she glanced at the slender, pale young ‘Gabriel’—their fears soothed.

Junia sat back and beamed at her. And Helen’s opinion of her mellowed still further. She probably could not help being a little haughty, considering who her mother was. The poor girl had clearly been taught that certain behaviour was expected of a young lady. But Helen was going to see to it that tomorrow, at least, she had the chance to break out in the direction her natural inclination carried her!

Then she turned to ‘Gabriel’.

‘You know, you do not have to say very much,’ she said, eyeing his script. ‘From what I have seen of the way Reverend Mullen has written it, you mostly have to stand there, looking imposing, while Junia recites the Magnificat.’

‘And keep the little angels in order,’ said Junia.

Many of the younger children, who could not be expected to learn lines, would be dressed as angels and simply moved about to represent the heavenly host watching over the events taking place in Bethlehem.

He sighed despondently. ‘They won’t mind me,’ he prophesied gloomily. ‘Nobody ever takes any notice of me.’

‘They might,’ said Helen on a burst of inspiration, ‘if you arm yourself with some treats as a reward for good behaviour.’

‘I say, Miss Forrest,’ he said, brightening up immediately, ‘that’s a capital notion. I might ask Cook for some jam tarts, or something!’

Helen had visions of half a dozen little angels, their faces smeared with jam. ‘Something like ginger snaps?’ she suggested. ‘Easier to stow in your pockets for distribution at the proper time. I shall go and have a word with Cook about it later on.’

How fortunate she had already mended fences below stairs, she reflected as Gabriel grinned at her.

Goodness! Helen was beginning to think she might have some natural talent when it came to dealing with children after all.




Chapter Seven


Alas, she had not so much success with adults!

The very moment she walked into the blue saloon that evening she felt out of place. And self-conscious because she had so badly misinterpreted Lord Bridgemere’s motives in singling her out for attention. Right now he was moving from one group of guests to another, playing the part of dutiful host. Something inside her squeezed painfully as she saw afresh that it was the duty of a good host to pay a little attention to each of his guests. And she had mistaken his willingness to spend a little of his time ensuring she enjoyed some of the beauty of his estate at dawn’s first light as personal interest in her. His subsequent attitude had shown her how he really viewed her.

And yet, even knowing this, she was still painfully aware of exactly where he was at any given moment. It was as though she was attuned to the low, melodious timbre of his voice. And, her attention having been caught, she could not prevent her eyes from seeking him out. And then she would feel deflated whenever she caught sight of the back of his head, his light brown hair gleaming in the candlelight. For he would always be intent upon somebody else. So far as he was concerned she might as well not exist.

It was even worse once they sat down to dine and she had an unimpeded view of him at the head of the table. For he talked quietly to those seated on his right hand, or his left.

And ignored her completely.

By the time the ladies withdrew, all Helen wished to do was escape to her bedchamber, where she might have some chance to wrestle her tumultuous feelings into submission.

But Lady Thrapston beckoned to her the moment she crossed the threshold, and she did not see how she could refuse her imperious summons to take a place on the sofa beside her.

Under cover of the noise her two daughters were making at the piano, Lady Thrapston fired her opening salvo.

‘I have been observing you,’ she said, with a grim smile. ‘And I feel obliged to warn you that your tactics will not work with Bridgemere.’

‘Tactics?’ Helen was so surprised that she hardly knew how to answer Lady Thrapston. They had a knack, she reflected wryly, Lord Bridgemere and his sister, of reducing her to parroting one or two words of their speech.

‘Do not play the innocent with me. You fool nobody with all that nonsensical talk about not wishing to marry! It is quite obvious that you have set your cap at Lord Bridgemere.’

Helen’s first instinct was to deny the allegation indignantly. She had just opened her mouth to make a pithy rejoinder when she heard her aunt laughing at something Lady Norton had said. And she closed her mouth abruptly. She must not let her temper get the better of her. Aunt Bella was still awaiting Lord Bridgemere’s verdict, and until then it would not do to create an even worse impression upon him than she had already done.

She contented herself by lifting her chin and glaring at Lady Thrapston.

‘Nothing to say for yourself?’ the haughty matron said. ‘But then what can you say in your defence?’

Helen wondered if she had just made a tactical error. For it looked as though Lady Thrapston thought her dart had gone home. Her next words confirmed it.

‘With my own eyes I have watched you making a spectacle of yourself. And let me tell you this. Fluttering your eyelashes at him over the soup plates is one thing, but it has come to my attention that you have now gone to the lengths of luring him to some out-of-the way spot in an attempt to compromise him.’

‘That is not true!’ Helen gasped. She had not done any luring! Lord Bridgemere had invited her to go out walking with him.

How dreadful that somebody had seen them and run to Lady Thrapston with such a tale. She felt quite sick that somebody disliked her enough to do such a thing, without a shred of evidence.

Especially since she would never dream of setting her cap at any man, or luring him into a compromising position.

But she had felt acutely disappointed that his attitude towards her had been so completely impersonal, she admitted to herself. And, her conscience whispered, she’d also had to chastise herself several times for entertaining inappropriate thoughts regarding Lord Bridgemere. Lady Thrapston had obviously noticed that she could not help finding him most attractive. Even when he had made it perfectly clear he was immune to her, she reflected with chagrin.

Her cheeks flushing guiltily, she said, ‘I am aware that His Lordship would never consider marrying someone like me.’

Lady Thrapston nodded grimly. ‘I trust you will remember that, my girl. If you know what is good for you, you will take care to keep well away from him for the remainder of your visit. It would not do for rumours of indecorous behaviour to accompany you to your new post, would it?’

Was this a threat? Helen reeled at the thought of the damage Lady Thrapston could do to her future if it was. A judicious word in her employer’s ear, from a woman of her rank, and her job could well disappear. Nor, if gossip spread about her supposed conduct, would it be easy for her to find another.

Helen wished she might make some clever, cutting rejoinder, but for once she knew it was imperative she keep her tongue between her teeth.

‘No,’ she whispered. She dared not risk antagonising Lady Thrapston, and have her spread unfounded gossip about her. What General Forrest had begun was bad enough.

‘You may return to your aunt,’ said Lady Thrapston, a small, but self-satisfied smile playing about her mouth.

She had the look of a woman who had just successfully put a designing trollop in her place, fumed Helen as she walked, stiff-legged and straight-backed, to her aunt, and sat down, her fists clenched in her lap.

It was so unfair!

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, unable to deny that, had she behaved with greater propriety, the woman would not have had cause to think what she had. Her eyes did keep straying towards Lord Bridgemere whenever he was present. Something about him drew her like a magnet. And, from what Lady Thrapston had just said, her attraction towards him must be written all over her face.

She sighed. A proper young lady should never reveal what she was thinking. Her aunt had informed her of that fact many times, without ever managing to teach her how such a feat might become possible. With the result that everyone must be able to tell exactly what she was thinking just by looking at her. She glanced round the room, wondering what everyone had just made of her encounter with Lady Thrapston. And noted several ladies staring at her in a disapproving manner. Lord, did everyone




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