ANNIE BURROWS - His Cinderella Bride

Amusement faded from his face. So. Her uncle had withdrawn the use of a horse, because he feared that their mutual love of riding might throw them together. His breathing quickened. No wonder she was looking daggers at him. She had few enough pleasures in her life, and unwittingly he had been the cause of her losing one—and what it must have cost her. He could not imagine what it must feel like to be unable to get out on horseback whenever the fancy took him. At least when she was his wife, she would have access to some of the finest mounts in the country—aye, and she would probably be able to manage a fair proportion of them too. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he thought of how her face would light up when he showed her round the stables at Ely.

‘Yes,’ Hester hissed as she saw, and misinterpreted, his slow smile of anticipation, ‘I thought you would be pleased to know you can now go to the stables without fear of running into me. I would so hate for you to be put out…bother.’ She sighed, returning her attention to her knitting. ‘Now you have made me drop a stitch. I will have to start this row all over again.’

Lord Lensborough was disconcerted that she had misconstrued his smile so badly. Of course, she could not have known what direction his thoughts were taking. He would have to make sure there were no more misunderstandings of that nature. The poor girl was upset enough about losing her riding privileges without thinking he was gloating. Her fingers were shaking quite badly.

‘Leave off that knitting and talk to me instead,’ he urged her, leaning forward and laying one hand over her trembling ones.

She jerked them away, her whole body rigid. Yes, she was right, he must move with extreme caution lest her uncle suspect he had begun to consider her in earnest, and contrive to remove her from his sphere altogether. He withdrew his hand, picking up instead a stray hank of wool that lay on the table between them.

‘Talk…’ Her voice had become quite husky. A tide of red swept from her cheeks, down her neck, to disappear into the tantalisingly concealing folds of her voluminous gown. ‘What about? What can we possibly have to talk about? Please go back to Julia and Phoebe and leave me be.’

‘No. Not yet.’ The tone of his voice was implacable. ‘I have a fancy to discuss politics, and I don’t think either of them have any political views one way or another.’

‘Well, neither do I,’ she exclaimed. ‘At least, none that a man like you would respect.’

Her eyes sought out her aunt, and her expression was such a speaking mixture of fear and guilt that he shifted his chair slightly, blocking the woman from Hester’s view.

‘I shouldn’t be the least bit surprised if I found your views novel, though. They might amuse me. Come, tell me what you thought about Wellington’s crushing defeat of Napoleon.’

Hester didn’t even pause to take a breath. To speak of amusement, and war, in the same sentence! She had known he was callous, but not to the extent of regarding men suffering and dying as a topic for amusing conversation.

Her wool fell to the ground and rolled unheeded across the polished parquet as she struggled to find words that were adequate to express the depth of her disdain for such a man.

‘I suppose you regarded Waterloo as a glorious victory,’ she hissed. ‘I suppose you admired Wellington’s determination to stop Napoleon at any cost.’

‘And you didn’t?’ He leaned forward, suddenly arrested by the notion that if her feelings ran counter to his own on this, he was going to be bitterly disappointed.

‘I think it was wicked of him to send so many men to their deaths. I don’t think there was anything glorious about the grief of the widows and orphans left behind. Nothing noble about the conditions those who survived were forced to endure when they returned home, crippled fighting for their country, unable to work. And I think it monstrous that the government does nothing to help them.’

By God, Captain Fawley could do with meeting Lady Hester Cuerden. She was the perfect antidote to all the shrinking society damsels that had done the man’s self-esteem so much damage. She would see beneath the scars, to the man, and whether she liked him or no, it would have nothing to do with the way he looked.

‘And you think the government should…?’

She turned her face to his, puzzled by something in his voice that sounded like genuine interest. ‘Provide relief, of course. Those men died, or were wounded, fighting for their country. Their country should now help them in return. Men like you…’

Her voice died away in her throat. His face was less than two feet from hers, his eyes fixed on hers with an expression that was so like admiration that for a moment she forgot what she had been about to say. His eyes, she noted, were not black at all, but dark brown, flecked with amber. Almost exactly like the patterns on the tiger’s-eye pin he was wearing in his neckcloth again.

‘Men like me…what?’ he prompted in a voice so gentle that suddenly he did not seem like the Marquis of Lensborough at all.

She swallowed, but found it impossible to break eye contact. And she resented that. What business had she noticing that his eyes were a fascinatingly unusual colour? His heart was still black.

‘You should pass a law. It’s no good saying such men are a menace and try to sweep them off the streets. If they are menacing, it is only because they were trained to be menacing by their drill sergeants. It was their ferocity that ensured our freedoms, wasn’t it?’

‘I cannot pass such a law, if I would. It takes more than the word of one man to get a law through parliament.’

‘Even a marquis?’ she jeered. Then, flushing, she lowered her head, aware of muted conversations going on all around her. The rest of her family was managing to engage in the sort of polite conversation fit for a drawing room. Why couldn’t she turn aside his barbs with some innocuous remark? Why did his proximity rob her of the ability to keep a civil tongue in her head? Lord Lensborough seemed able to reduce her to the point where all she wanted to do was slap his rugged, arrogant face.

She heard him sigh, and waited for his reproof. When it did not come, she felt even more in the wrong, which only served to make her angrier at herself. And at him.

‘You could do something if you wanted to, a man of your influence. Why, any charity would be glad of your patronage. People would queue up to make donations if they thought that by doing so they could curry favour with you.’

‘A charity,’ he mused. ‘A trust.’

A trust, in his brother’s name, to bring relief to the dependents of his regiment. What a fitting memorial that would be. He could not imagine why he had not thought of such a thing before.

It had taken this woman to inspire him, this remarkable woman who did not think or act like anybody else.

‘My brother fell at Waterloo,’ he confided quietly.

Hester’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes filling with mortified tears as she looked up into his grave countenance.

‘Oh, I am so sorry. I spoke without thinking. I did not mean to wound you…at least I did, but I would never have said quite what I said if I had known of your own loss.’

Lord Lensborough searched her face intently. There was a remorse there that showed she knew she had touched upon a pain that nobody else had even guessed might lie concealed beneath his impenetrable façade. Hardly anybody so much as suspected there was anything but the façade.

Determined to alleviate her distress, he explained, ‘Bertram looked on battle as an adventure. He died doing what he loved, what he believed in.’

To finally acknowledge this truth, out loud, was like healing balm pouring over his aching soul. Much of his grief, he suddenly realised, had stemmed from regarding his brother’s death as a sinful waste. He went to grasp her hands for a second time, feeling an irresistible urge to raise them to his lips in gratitude.

She snatched them away, shrinking back into her chair as a shadow fell over them both.

‘Uncle Thomas,’ she squeaked.

‘I saw you drop your wool, Hester.’ His voice was barely more than a growl. Lord Lensborough turned and saw that the man had painstakingly rolled the wool into a neat ball and was holding it out to his trembling niece. ‘Is anything amiss?’

Lord Lensborough’s hackles rose. ‘Nothing is amiss here, sir. We were discussing Waterloo, and Lady Hester was making some very helpful suggestions about what might be done for the relief of war widows.’

Sir Thomas did not even bother to turn his head in Lord Lensborough’s direction. He pointedly addressed his next remark to Lady Hester.

‘My dear girl, you have no need to stay here if you do not wish to. You may retire to your rooms whenever you please.’

Without a word, Lady Hester leapt to her feet and quit her chair, scattering her knitting in all directions as she fled without so much as one backward glance. Lord Lensborough rose to his feet somewhat more slowly, his glare boring into Sir Thomas’s back as he followed his niece at a steady pace from the room.

* * *

‘Hester,’ Sir Thomas called out as she began her headlong flight up the stairs.

She turned, forcing a tremulous smile to her lips.

Sir Thomas looked up at her, frowning. ‘You know, my dear, if that fellow makes you uncomfortable, you need not suffer his manners.’

‘But my aunt wishes us all to—’

‘Bow and scrape to him. I know.’ He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘You gave us all fair warning that you objected to his coming here, and that you wanted nothing to do with him. I should have listened. My girls must put up with his overbearing ways, since they are set on marrying the fellow, but for my part you may tell him to go to the devil if you wish.’

Hester’s smile faded altogether. ‘Oh, Uncle Thomas, I have already said the most terrible, unforgivable things to him. Now I know you will not disapprove, I think it would be as well to keep out of his way. In fact, I rather think Julia and Phoebe would do better if I kept out of sight. I appear to annoy him almost as much as he annoys me. I really do not set out to provoke him, Uncle Thomas.’

‘I know, I know, it’s like a red rag to a bull. The atmosphere would certainly be less fraught if you were kept apart. We are all holding our breath, waiting for the next explosion to take place.’ He smiled. ‘Why don’t you go back to Em’s after church tomorrow, and have the afternoon to yourself?’

Hester came down one step. ‘Will Aunt Susan be able to manage without me? Dinner tomorrow is quite elaborate, and I had planned on a treasure hunt for the children.’

‘I am sure any domestic crises can await your return. Nor will it harm the children to remain in the charge of their nurses for one afternoon.’

Hester looked more relaxed immediately. ‘About dinner,’ she began hesitantly.

‘No need to put in an appearance unless you want to. Have a tray up in your rooms, if you like. If you want a gossip with Henrietta about Barny’s progress, or whatever else it is you two girls find to talk about, you could always invite her to one of those midnight feasts you used to have when you were schoolgirls.’

Hester shook her head. ‘Uncle Thomas, those midnight feasts were supposed to be secret.’

‘With everyone who was invited to them having to traipse through the servants’ hall to get to your staircase?’ he asked. ‘Stealing biscuits and jugs of lemonade from the kitchen on the way?’

Hester felt a warm surge of affection for her uncle, for his forbearance with her prickly insistence on maintaining the complete privacy of her rooms. Nobody went into them without an express invitation, not even a maid to clean.