Buch lesen: «Lord Hunter's Cinderella Heiress»

Prologue

Leicestershire—1816

‘You’re wanted, Miss Nell. The master has some viscount or other wanting to take Petra through her paces. Lord Hunter, I think his name was. Knowing fellow.’

‘Another one? I hope she takes him head first through a hedge, Elkins,’ Nell replied, her voice muffled as she bent to examine Pluck’s fetlock.

‘She’ll have to go to someone and he seems a fair choice—no bluster about him.’ The elderly groom smiled.

‘I don’t know why Father insists I escort his guests anyway. As head groom you are far more qualified than I.’

‘It’s simple, miss. You’ve got the best seat in the county and that gives them fellows the idea their wives or daughters might look the same if they took home one of these prime bits of blood. They won’t, no how, but there’s no harm in it. Your father’s a hard man, I know, but he’s right proud of the way you are with horses. You’re like him there, see you.’

Nell wrinkled her nose—she didn’t want to be like the brutish sot in any way whatsoever. She secured the stall door, but Pluck shoved her arched neck over the side and shook her mane. Nell relented and came back for one more stroke.

‘No, you can’t go to your mama yet. And, yes, I will go and see if he is worthy of her and if he isn’t I’ll have her toss him into a pond. You like that idea, don’t you, you little rogue? Father and Aunt Hester will skin me, but for Petra I just might find the nerve. Now I must go or I will be late and Father will be furious and then Aunt Hester will be furious, too.’

There was no way the filly could understand how serious that was, but Pluck’s head ducked back into the stall.

Her father was already in the stable yard. He was hard to miss—even braced on his cane and his face lined with pain and puffy from years of hard drinking, his height and booming voice intimidated everyone around him. However, this time he was diminished by the man who stood by his side. Not in inches—they were probably of a height and the stranger certainly hadn’t her father’s massive and blustering look. In fact, the first thing that struck her was that he was very quiet.

They hadn’t seen her yet and she watched as the stranger approached Petra. His movements were economical and smooth, and his hands, though they looked large and strong, were calm and travelled slowly over the mare as he examined her. It was just the right way to approach a high-spirited horse.

It was only when her father called her over that she looked at the man’s face. He was probably close in age to Charles Welbeck, who had just turned twenty-five the week before she and her father had gone to Wilton, but he seemed older. There were creases of weariness about his eyes and a bruised look beneath them as if he had not slept well for a long time.

She couldn’t imagine such an expression in Charles’s cheerful blue eyes. But other than that she had to admit he was almost as handsome as Charles, though in a completely different manner. She wondered if he was perhaps part-foreigner and that might account for the dark chestnut hair and the warm earth tones of his skin and the sunken golden brown of his eyes. It wasn’t a comforting face—its sharp sculpted lines didn’t make her think of princes and dancing through the night at the village fête in Wilton; it was an arrogant face more suited to the weighty matters of a beleaguered king and she doubted a glance from his tired eyes would make her think of dancing.

Not that Charles had ever asked her to dance. He hardly even looked at her for more than a kind greeting. Except for just once, when she had been fourteen. Her father had been furious at her for cramming one of his horses at the Welbeck jumping course and she had stood, humiliated and wilting under his wrath until Charles put his arm around her and said something which made the men around them laugh, but the smile in his eyes as he glanced down at her told her it wasn’t unkind. It had calmed her father and filled her with a peaceful warmth she had begun to forget existed. At that moment she had known there would never be anyone else for her but Charles.

She had no illusions her love would ever be reciprocated. Charles was perfect and she...she was a beanpole, almost as tall as he but painfully scrawny. The village boys would snigger and call her Master Neil behind her back and she was accustomed to the dismay in young men’s eyes when she was partnered with them at the informal dances held at her best friend Anna’s home in Keswick. It was only when she was on a horse that her height didn’t bother her. In fact, very little bothered her when she was on a horse.

So as she watched Lord Hunter mount Petra she hadn’t in the least thought about him as a man, or herself as an unattractive and overly tall seventeen-year-old. She was Miss Nell and she could ride a horse better than anyone—man, woman, boy or girl—in the county.

She tensed as Petra sidled at the man’s unfamiliar hand and weight and was immediately checked, but so gently that the motion was almost invisible. She couldn’t decide if his calm was innate or assumed, but she met Elkins’s gaze and shrugged. He would do.

‘Fells Pasture or Bridely field, then, Miss Nell?’ Elkins asked.

‘Fell’s Pasture, I think,’ she replied and turned to the man. He was watching them with a slight smile, clearly aware he was being weighed and judged. His eyes gleamed gold at the centre, or perhaps that was a trick of the sun, which was just catching at the edges of the trees behind her. She herself preferred light-haired men, like Charles, but Anna would probably think him very handsome.

‘Is that good or bad?’ he asked.

‘It means we presume you can stop Petra from throwing you, Lord Hunter,’ she replied, surprising herself. She was not usually so direct. ‘But if you aren’t comfortable with her yet, we can start with some easy riding. It’s just that Fell’s Pasture has a few miles of open runs and safe jumps. Alternately once you ride her I can show you her paces myself. She is probably our fastest mare and it would be a pity if you didn’t see just how beautifully she gallops.’

He cocked his head to one side with a glimmering smile that turned the lines of tension she had noticed into laugh lines. She had probably been wrong about the signs of strain; his smile didn’t allow for the presence of the darkness she had sensed.

‘I don’t think you meant any of that as an insult, did you?’

Nell stared at him, running through her words in her mind.

‘Not at all, my lord. You appear to handle her well enough, but I just want to do justice to Petra. Father must have told you she can be a little resistant at first, but she knows me and will open up more easily with me in the saddle. I merely thought you would want to see her at her best.’

‘We won’t have time to switch to side saddle anyway, so let’s just see how I manage, shall we?’

She shrugged and turned to Hilda, her mare, allowing Elkins to help her mount.

‘We don’t put a side saddle on Petra; she’s trained for a man’s saddle and weight. But as you said, we’ll see how you do.’

This time she heard the condescension in her voice and almost smiled at it.

‘I’m almost tempted to do an abysmal job of it just to see what you mean, Miss Tilney.’

He didn’t, of course, and as she watched him gallop across the field she didn’t know whether to be relieved that Petra was being delivered into the capable hands of a man who would treat her right, or disappointed that she hadn’t been given the opportunity to show him her mettle. In this one corner of the universe where she was completely capable, she rarely wished to show off, but today she felt that urge. She watched as the man stopped just short of where she and Elkins waited. There was gold in his eyes, she realised, and the colour was heightened by the clear enjoyment on his face, making him look younger.

‘Can you match that?’ he demanded, bending forward to stroke Petra’s damp neck.

Elkins chuckled and Nell didn’t need further prodding. She tossed her reins to Elkins and slipped off Hilda.

Clearly Lord Hunter hadn’t expected her to actually accept his dare because he looked disconcerted, but she just laid her hand on Petra’s muzzle and raised her brows, waiting.

‘Are you serious?’ he asked. ‘Now? But she’s probably winded and you can’t ride her in skirts...’

Nell unhooked the fastening that held the wide train of her skirt and hooked it over her arm.

‘These skirts work as well on a regular saddle. I made them myself. And far from being winded, Petra is just warming up, so instead of sitting there while she cools down, you can dismount and I’ll show you what she can do and then you will probably ask Father to buy Pluck, her filly, as well. Now, down you go.’

He dismounted meekly, still watching her with curious fascination as she placed her leg in the stirrup, swinging her other leg over, and with a practised flick cast her skirts over as well, the long folds of fabric covering her legs to her boots and obscuring the riding breeches she wore underneath. She plucked out the pin which held her riding hat and handed them to Elkins, and then she was off.

Petra didn’t disappoint her. If ever a mare flew, the grey blood mare rose off the ground, as smooth and slick as water, her small head down and extended like an arrow. Nell didn’t bother with proper lady’s riding posture, but leaned low into the shape of the horse, laughing as Petra’s mane stung at her face like a brace of tiny whips. Nell wanted that man to appreciate what he was getting, and if she managed to convince him to buy Pluck as well, it would be worth it. She hated when mare and filly or foal were separated too young.

She took Petra over the hedge at the far end of the pasture as if it wasn’t even in the way and then led her back for the long jump over the stream. When she drew up she was bursting with the excitement of the run. She could even cope with the knowledge that she probably looked a fright. Her hair was too straight to stay confined by pins and she could feel it hanging down about her face.

‘Well? Isn’t she amazing?’

He took the reins she held out to him as she swung out of the saddle and she realised he really was very tall because she actually had to look up, an unusual feeling and one she didn’t quite like since it reminded her too much of Father stalking at her. She hurried to mount Hilda, her exhilaration fading.

‘Indeed she is,’ Lord Hunter said as he stroked Petra’s sweating neck. It was easier now that she was mounted and he had to look up at her. ‘What is the name of her filly?’

‘Pluck. Well, that’s just my name for her, though Father prefers to call fillies and foals after their sires, so she’s known as Argonaut’s Filly, but that’s a mouthful, so I just call her Pluck, because she is. Plucky, that is.’

‘Like you.’

Her eyes widened.

‘Hardly. I’m the least plucky thing that ever was.’

‘Now that’s not quite fair, Miss Nell,’ Elkins interjected as they turned back towards Tilney Hall. ‘There’s none like you for throwing your heart over a fence.’

She shrugged, annoyed at herself and at them, though she didn’t know why.

‘That’s different. I know what I’m doing when I’m on a horse. You can see Lord Hunter to the house, Elkins. Goodbye, Lord Hunter.’ She rode off, feeling very young and foolish she had succumbed to showing off. He had been kind about it, but she still felt ridiculous.

She hoped her aunt didn’t have one of her whims and insist she dine downstairs because then he would see how wrong he was about her pluck. She wasn’t yet formally ‘out’ in society and she rarely dined with guests, which suited her just fine because those occasions when her aunt did demand her presence were sheer purgatory. Her father’s temper was nothing next to Hester’s vindictiveness.

* * *

Just when Nell thought the hour of danger had passed, Sue, the chambermaid, rushed into her room.

‘Her majesty says you’re to join the guests for supper, Miss Nell.’

Nell shook her head, desperately trying to think of some way to avoid this disaster, and Sue clucked her tongue.

‘There ain’t nothing for it but to go forward, chick. Hurry, now. Luckily I added a flounce to your sprigged muslin and it isn’t quite so short now, but you’ll have to keep the shawl over your shoulders because there’s nothing we can do now about the fact it won’t close right.’

‘I can’t... I won’t!’

‘You can and will. There isn’t aught else to wear, chick. Really, your father should know better but men are fools. That’s right—best heed me. Men are fools and you’re better a mile away in any direction!’

Nell stood like a seamstress’s dummy, rigid and useless as Sue busied about dressing her in her one decent muslin dress with its childish bodice and equally childish length. Though Mrs Barnes was an excellent cook, neither she nor Sue were capable seamstresses and the new flounce was clearly crooked and this would surely be the night the straining fabric would finally give way to her late-budding bustline. She would sit down and there would be a horrible rending sound and everyone would look at her and her aunt would sneer and oh so kindly suggest Nell go change and perhaps ask her why she had insisted on wearing that dreadful old dress and really she despaired of the girl because no matter how hard she tried to make her presentable there was only so much one could do with such a hopeless long meg... Nell would leave the room and of course not return because she had no other dress that was suitable for evening wear and because she couldn’t face their contemptuous and condescending stares and sniggers, and tomorrow her father would rant at her for having humiliated him in front of his guests and for being as dull as dishwater and less useful.

‘I can’t do it. I can’t. She is just doing it so she can make a fool of me again. I won’t.’

Sue squeezed Nell’s hand.

‘I wouldn’t put it past her but it will be worse if you don’t go. Here, don’t cry now, chick. Think—in two days you’ll be on your way back to school.’

Nell pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.

‘I wish I could go tonight. I hate coming here. I wish I could stay with Mrs Petheridge always.’

‘Well, Ma and I are glad you are here summers at least.’

Nell scrubbed her eyes and blew her nose.

‘Oh, Sue, I didn’t mean I don’t love you and Mrs Barnes. You know I do.’

‘Aye, you don’t have to say a thing, chick—we know. I wish for you that you could stay there year-round. Lucky your aunt doesn’t know how much you like that school or she’d have you out of there in a flash. Proper poison, she is, and no mistake. Now go stare down at your nose at the lot of them. Lord knows you’re tall enough to do just that. Bend your knees so I can get this over your head, now. Goodness, what do they give you to eat in them Lakes? I swear you’ve grown a size since you had to wear this just a month back.’

Nell chuckled and slipped her arms into the sleeves, struggling against the constricting fabric. Thank goodness for Sue. She was right—Nell could survive two more days.

This optimistic conviction faded with each downward step on the stairs. Her aunt was already in the drawing room and the familiar cold scrape of nerves skittered under Nell’s skin, almost painful in her palms and up her fingers, like sand being shoved into a glove. She kept her eyes on her pale slippers peeping out and hiding back under her flounce as she made her way to the sofa where she sat as meek and as stupid as a hen, praying that was the worst people thought of her.

The door opened again and out of the corner of her eye Nell saw two pink confections enter the room, followed by an older couple. She had learned to look without looking and she inspected the two pretty, giggling girls and their mother, who wore a purple turban so magnificently beaded with sparkling stones Nell couldn’t help staring.

‘Stop gawping, girl!’ a voice hissed behind her. ‘Keep your eyes down and your mouth shut or I’ll send that slut of a maid of yours packing, cook’s daughter or not! And pull that shawl closed. You look like the village tart with your bosom spilling out like that. Ah, Mr Poundridge, and Mrs Poundridge! So wonderful you could come for supper. So these are your lovely daughters! Do come and meet Sir Henry’s daughter, Miss Helen. She is not yet out, but in such informal occasions she joins us downstairs so she can acquire a little town bronze. Sometimes I wonder what we pay such an exorbitant amount to that school for, but what can one do but keep trying? Perhaps your daughters could give her some hints on the correct mode of behaviour in company. Oh, what lovely dresses! Do come and meet our other guest tonight, Viscount Hunter...’

Nell kept her eyes on her clasped hands as her aunt sailed off, dragging the Poundridges in her wake, only daring to raise her head when she heard her aunt’s voice mix with her father’s. None of them was looking at her except Lord Hunter. He stood by her father, flanked by the old suits of armour Aunt Hester had salvaged from the cellars, and together they looked like Viking and Celtic warlords under armed escort. She hadn’t seen him when she entered because she hadn’t looked and her mortification deepened as she realised he must have seen everything.

Nell’s eyes sank back to her hands. The gritty, tingling pain and the clammy feeling was still climbing, and though it hadn’t happened quite so badly for a while, she knew there was nothing to be done but wait it out. If she was lucky it would peak before her legs began to shake. She tried to think of Mrs Petheridge and her friends at school, but it was hard. Her left leg was already quivering. She wanted to cry at how pathetic she was to let this woman win each time, but self-contempt didn’t stop her right leg from beginning to quiver as well. Think of brushing down Petra. No, Father was there, glaring. Think of Mrs Barnes and her cinnamon bread... No, her mother had died with an uneaten loaf by her bed, so she could smell it. Of Charles’s sweet smile as he helped her mount the first time they had come to the Wilton breeders’ fair; of how he had put his arm around her when Father had raged. If he were here, she might be able to bear this...

Two days. Just today and tomorrow. Her right leg calmed and she pressed her palm to her still-shaking left leg. In two days she would see Anna and sit in Mrs Petheridge’s cosy study with the chipped tea set and ginger biscuits, helping the girls who cried for home or who threw things, because she was good with them. She breathed in, her lungs finally big enough to let the air in, and the clamminess was only down her spine now and between her breasts under the scratchy shawl.

‘Your father has agreed to sell me Pluck as well. Will you miss her?’

The sofa shifted and creaked as Lord Hunter sat and she looked at him in shock.

‘What?’ Her voice was gritty and cramped and his golden-brown eyes narrowed, but he just crossed his arms and leaned back comfortably.

‘I went to look at her as you suggested and I have to admit she is a beauty. By the length of those legs she might even turn out to be half a hand taller than her mother, but time will tell. I’m hoping she will win me points with Petra. What do you think?’

Think. What did she think? That any minute now her aunt would come and sink her fangs into her for daring to talk with someone. What was he talking about? Petra and Pluck. He was taking Pluck, too. It had been her idea. Yes, yes, she would miss her, but she would be gone by then, just two days. Oh, thank goodness, just two days. Just two. Say something...

‘I think...’ Nothing came and her legs were starting to shake again.

‘Do you know I live right next to Bascombe Hall? Were you ever there?’

Why was he insisting? She wished he would go away! Bascombe Hall...

‘No. Mama and Grandmama didn’t get along.’ There, a whole sentence.

‘No one got along with your grandmama. She was an ill-tempered shrew.’

She stared in surprise. How did he dare be so irreverent? If she had said something like that...

‘That’s better,’ he said with approval, surprising her further. ‘I understand you inherited the property from your grandfather, but that your father is trustee until you come of age. Since she never made any bones about telling everyone she had disapproved of her daughter’s marriage to Sir Henry, I’m surprised she didn’t find a way to keep you from inheriting.’

‘She did try, but the best she could do was enter a stipulation that if I died before my majority at twenty-one, my cousin inherits. Once I’m twenty-one there is nothing she can do.’

‘Well, with any luck she’ll kick the bucket before that and save you the trouble of booting her out of the Hall.’

She pressed her hand to her mouth, choking back a laugh. Surely he hadn’t said that! And she hadn’t laughed... She rubbed her palms together as the tingling turned ticklish. That was a good sign; it was going away. Had he done that on purpose? He couldn’t have known.

‘I keep hoping she might actually want to meet me. Is she really so bad?’

His mouth quirked on one side.

‘Worse. I know the term curmudgeon is most commonly applied to men, but your grandmama is just that. You’re better off being ignored.’

Oh, she knew that.

‘Had you ever met my grandfather?’

He nodded.

‘He was a good man, very proper, but he was the second son and he only inherited it when your great-uncle died childless. Those were good years for us.’

‘Why?’ she asked, curious at this glimpse of the relations she had never met.

‘Well, the Bascombes control the water rights in our area, which means all our crops are dependent on them for irrigation and canal transport, and for those few blissful years we had a very reasonable agreement. When he died your grandmother made everyone in the area suffer again. Thankfully your father is trustee now, which means he has the final say in any agreement.’

‘But if I’m the heir, I can decide now, can’t I?’

‘Not until you’re twenty-one and by then you will probably be married, so do try to choose someone reasonable, will you?’

A flush rose over her face and she clasped her hands again. Charles’s smile shimmered in front of her, warm and teasing.

‘I don’t think I shall be married.’

‘Well, you’re still young, but eventually—’

‘No,’ she interrupted and he remained silent for a moment. He shifted as if about to speak, but she made the mistake of looking up and met her aunt’s gaze. Pure poison, Sue had said. She pressed back against the sofa and drank in some air. The man next to her shifted again, half-rising, but then the door opened and the butler announced supper.

* * *

Hunter smiled at the pretty little brunette who was chirping something at him. She didn’t require any real answers and he could cope with her flirtatious nonsense to her utter satisfaction with less than a tenth of his attention.

Tomorrow he would have to return to Hunter Hall. It had been cowardly to escape the day after Tim’s funeral, but as he had watched his brother’s grave being filled with earth, the thought that it was over, all of it, pain and love, hopelessness and hope, had choked him as surely as if it was he being smothered under the fertile soil. He had needed some distance and the negotiations with Sir Henry over the fees for access to the waterways controlled by the Bascombe estate had provided an excuse to disappear. At least in this Sir Henry appeared to be reasonable, unlike his dealings with his daughter, and it appeared they would not be required to pay exorbitant waterway fees to the Bascombe estate, at least until the girl inherited.

No wonder Sir Henry had let drop that he was concerned his daughter, who would come into the immense Bascombe estate in four years, would be easy prey for fortune hunters. After her performance that afternoon Hunter had assumed that was because Sir Henry wasn’t confident he could keep such a mature little firebrand under control. But it was clear this girl would probably throw herself into the arms of the first plausible fortune-hunting scoundrel simply to escape this poisonous household.

He glanced down the table to Sir Henry’s daughter. She was barely eating, which was a pity because she was as thin as a sapling. She definitely didn’t look strong enough to have ridden Petra so magnificently that afternoon. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he knew she was an only child, he could easily believe this girl was a pale twin. No wonder she had recoiled at being called plucky. When she had entered the dining hall that evening he had stared with disorientation at a completely different person from the pert and intrepid horsewoman. A prisoner on the way to the guillotine had more jump in their step than the pale effigy that had somehow made her way to the sofa in the corner. Her skin had been ashen under its sun-kissed warmth, almost green, and he wondered if she was going to be ill. Perhaps someone petite might have looked fragile, but she just looked awkward.