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That was the bare formalities out of the way, so Colm tensed, waiting for an order to stay away from the Winterleys from now on. God-send the man had not found out about Verity’s misadventure or the roles he and Miss Winterley took in it on that night he was trying so hard not to remember.
‘You should visit your late father’s godmother,’ Lord Farenze said. ‘She owns a very fine portrait of him taken in his youth and it confirmed all my suspicions about you.’
‘And now?’ Colm challenged because he couldn’t endure sitting here squirming while the man made up his mind whether to dislike him for being his father’s son.
Then the ageing butler re-entered, followed by a footman with that wine and Colm had to be patient after all. He watched his glass being filled with rich wine he didn’t intend to drink and bit back a sigh.
‘That will be all, Oakham,’ Lord Farenze said, ‘close the door behind you.’
Ah, so they were about to stop dancing about, were they? Colm put his glass down virtually untouched and tried to look a lot more relaxed than he felt.
‘I would rather you and my daughter had not met that night at Derneley’s, or in the park the next morning, but what’s done can’t be undone.’
At least Miss Winterley’s father didn’t know about their disgraceful escapade in Cavendish Square. Colm blanked the thought of it from his mind so his lordship couldn’t read it and listened for what came next.
‘You have little to offer any woman, let alone my daughter, but you were alone with her for far too long before I turned up to make you respectable.’
‘That’s true,’ Colm admitted carefully.
‘Yet you stayed in that library although you knew you were the last man on earth she should be alone with like that.’
‘Now there I must argue, my lord. Sir Steven Scrumble proved a worse rogue than me that night,’ Colm said bitterly. Having to name that piece of filth as a brother in infamy made him feel as if he was indeed lying down with swine.
‘You’re splitting hairs, Hancourt. My daughter has fought against the blight of her mother’s blown name all her life. If any gossip gets out about her being alone with you in a closed room at Derneley House that night, I’ll rip you to shreds.’
‘I have already promised to keep silent.’
Deeply offended by Lord Farenze’s doubts, Colm wanted to spring to his feet and stalk out in a noble huff, but years of military discipline kept him sitting here and wasn’t it true you should know your enemy? There was little doubt Lord Farenze considered him one of those since he refused to take Colm’s word for the iron promise it truly was.
‘I saw the way you looked at my daughter and you have wild blood in your veins, however hard you try to deny it. If you were still rich as Croesus, you’d have an uphill struggle persuading me to consent to a marriage between you and Eve. You would have to love each other to the edge of reason for me to even think about such a repellent idea. Imagining the public mockery and doubts such a marriage would arouse makes me shudder for my daughter and say that, no, even that would not be enough. Steer clear of her, Hancourt, maybe then I’ll admit you’re a better man than Lord Christopher Hancourt ever was.’
‘I have met Miss Winterley only twice and you really think I see her as a fine opportunity to better myself? I don’t recall offering her marriage on such a short acquaintance and you will just have to believe I have absolutely no intention of ever doing so in the future since you don’t respect my word of honour.’
‘You don’t want to marry her?’ his lordship asked, sounding as if he was genuinely surprised any young man in possession of his right senses wouldn’t want to do so.
He was quite right, of course, but Colm had learnt the difference between wanting something and being able to have it at a very early age and he couldn’t argue with the facts. Why would Miss Winterley love him anyway, even if he was fool enough to fall in love with her? He recalled for a dangerous moment how perfectly she had fitted into his arms and how ardently she responded to his kisses, but he was sitting across from her father, for goodness’ sake. If the man could read his mind right now he’d challenge him to a duel, or horsewhip him out of the house.
‘No, I don’t and even if I did I have to admit that if my sister was being courted by a vagabond like me I’d move heaven and earth to stop him as well. I will do my best to avoid your daughter if we happen to meet by chance, Lord Farenze.’
‘Oh, no, don’t do that. She’d soon realise I’ve warned you off and insist on conversing with you as if you’re the most interesting young man on earth every time you set eyes on each other from that moment on. Don’t you know anything at all about contrary young ladies with too much spirit and stubbornness to meekly do as they’re bid, Hancourt?’
‘Not really, there are very few of them to be found on the average battlefield.’
‘There were plenty in Brussels last spring.’
‘Not when you had as much to do as we did and so little time to do it in, and certainly not if you are as poor and unconnected as Captain Carter.’
‘You’re not Captain Carter, though, are you?’
‘No, but I’m not quite the Duke’s nephew yet either.’
‘You can’t escape the bed you were born in,’ Lord Farenze said as if he was trying hard not to hold his breeding against him, but still unconvinced he was any better than his father at heart. He watched Colm with his grey-green eyes suspicious and very guarded indeed for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind to trust him so far and not much further. ‘My wife has invited your uncle and aunt to Darkmere to view our collections and for her Grace to paint whatever she chooses,’ he admitted rather grimly. ‘I couldn’t rescind her invitation when I realised his Grace’s nephew has been included in my lady’s hospitality, since your uncle and aunt seem reluctant to part with you so soon after they nearly lost you at Waterloo.’
‘Oh,’ Colm said, almost silenced by the novelty of actually being wanted by family for once in his life. This certainly wasn’t the moment to feel almost unmanned by the idea and he scrambled round for an excuse to stay away of his own accord, but his latest adversary was too far ahead of him.
‘As a public declaration of peace between Hancourts and Winterleys it could hardly be bettered, so I expect you to accept my wife’s invitation to Darkmere, but be very careful how you conduct yourself when you get there.’
‘Of course, Lord Farenze,’ Colm said stiffly, thinking he would almost rather be back with his regiment on a forced march.
‘I am sorry to be so blunt. Eve’s happiness and peace of mind come first with me, but I am ashamed of offering hospitality with one hand and snatching it back with the other. If not for my daughter, I could like you very well and, according to a man who knows more about most people than they probably want him to, you’re a brave man and a good officer.’
‘I thank him for his good opinion,’ Colm said, wishing he could go to Darkmere Castle as anyone but Colm Hancourt for a foolish moment.
‘I’m glad we’ve had this talk. Now my wife can go on peace-making and you will have to endure the sharp edge of my daughter’s tongue once she finds out how neatly you deceived her. I hope I can rely on you to infuriate her even more?’
‘I think you can be quite certain of that, my lord,’ Colm said glumly.
A week later Farenze House was closed up and the knocker had been taken off the door. Colm noted the blank unlived-in look of the place when his uncle’s carriage swept past at the start of its own long journey and he rode behind as the Duke of Linaire’s almost noble nephew on a horse Captain Carter could only dream of. Colm watched the ponderous coach navigate the busy streets, then gain the Great North Road with mixed feelings.
He was Colm Hancourt again for the first time in years, but he had little control over his destiny.
For the next few days he tried to forget their ultimate destination and enjoy the tour of the greatest houses and collections in the land before they ended up at Darkmere Castle. At first all he noted was mud and the biting cold, then the quiet beauty of the late autumn landscape stole his heart. He didn’t suppose dire poverty felt better in Britain than in the war-ravaged lands he’d quit with a sigh of relief after the first, fragile peace was made and Bonaparte went to Elba for a nice little holiday before Waterloo. It wasn’t much to boast about, but a British pauper could aspire to more than he was born to and stand some chance of achieving it.
This particular Briton had gone from fabulous fortune to nothing much at all, so he’d done it the other way about, but he was privileged all the same. He was the Duke of Linaire’s nephew and dressed as a gentleman. He had a good horse to ride, warm clothes to wear and the luxury of sleeping in the best inns when they were not staying in some of the finest houses in the land. This was a chance to learn more of his own country than a London childhood and eight years in the army allowed until now.
He rode out on a crisp November morning a week or so after leaving London as courier to his uncle and aunt and wondered at the meandering route they only seemed to decide a day at a time.
Wherever they were going he had settled into being Mr Hancourt again, he reflected, as he got a lower bow from the landlord of the Swan and Whistle than Mr Carter would have done. Life was less dangerous than it had been as a humble ensign, lieutenant, then captain of the 95th Rifles. Colm once swore to manage without a family who saw him as an embarrassment, but eight years of war had tempered him. He managed a self-deprecating grin at the thought of that angry resolution and hoped he was a better man than he was when he invented Mr Carter.
But for Miss Evelina Winterley he might even be content and it would be so much better if he could forget her until she was under his nose again, but somehow he couldn’t. He had too much time riding ahead of the ducal carriage to think right now. While Miss Winterley should have vanished from his thoughts after her father’s warnings it was impossible to forget a lady of character and grace to order. He caught himself smiling at thin air as if she was smiling right back. Just as well he was riding ahead of his uncle and aunt today and not by the side of the coach because this way neither of them could ask what he was grinning at.
He groaned quietly. This was nonsense, wasn’t it? He had nothing; he wasn’t quite nobody, but what sort of a gentleman lived off his wife’s dowry and his uncle’s charity? Not his sort, he told himself against the wild thunder in his blood that turned hot and primitive at the thought of having Miss Winterley as his wife. Her father was right and even if she wanted him right back that would fade when the sneers and whispers made her wonder what sort of a fool she was to wed the penniless son of her mother’s last lover. He didn’t love her; they had only met three times, for heaven’s sake, so how could he? This stupid feeling that they were perfectly designed to fill the dark and empty places in each other’s lives was a snare to avoid at all costs. Longing for a woman he couldn’t have would drive him mad. He could stop himself wanting what he couldn’t have if he worked hard enough. If he put his mind to it and perhaps wasted far too much of his meagre savings on a mistress, he could stop himself longing for impossible things and forget how urgently he wanted Miss Winterley that night at Warlington House and ever since.
Lord Farenze had made it very clear he was to arrive at Darkmere as the Duke’s nephew and act as if he had no idea Miss Winterley ever met a librarian in a dusty book room, or a lowly clerk in the respectable confines of Green Park. Colm thought the man was worrying without cause. He hadn’t seen any signs she even liked him in the lady’s lovely turquoise gaze. The sneaky idea that if his lordship was worried about his daughter’s feelings he must have good reason to be banished somehow. Yet he only had to think of their first meeting in Derneley’s neglected library to become that tongue-tied idiot again and as for that confounded kiss…
Best not to think about that. What else was there? At that dangerous point the yard of tin sounded and he turned round to see a groom waving at him to stop.
‘Colm, dear boy, we were supposed to turn off at the last crossroads, but you’re so deep in thought we missed it. Anyone would think you were Wellington busy planning a battle,’ Aunt Barbara said when he was in earshot.
He’d been thinking of Miss Winterley most of the morning then and wasn’t it a good thing her father didn’t know? ‘I am a clod, your Grace,’ he admitted with a sheepish grin. ‘We could take the next turning and get back to Berry Brampton as best we can.’
‘I’d sooner find somewhere Rooksby can sweep round so we can head back rather than risk being jammed down a narrow lane,’ the Duke argued mildly.
‘I should be paying attention,’ Colm replied, feeling a fool for letting Miss Winterley get between him and his duty yet again.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_17b13221-f331-5a98-b03b-885b8e4aa59f)
‘I quite thought the Duke of Linaire would be here by now,’ Eve said to her father as they rode back to Darkmere in Verity’s wake one day in early December. Chloe had given up riding until her latest baby was born now and Verity wanted to spend as much time as possible with her beloved aunt. Verity’s life was changing and she was poised on the edge of womanhood. Eve shivered at the thought of that night at Warlington House and feelings she didn’t want to think about ran through her as Carter’s kiss felt so vivid on her lips it was almost as if she could still feel the warmth, strength and excitement of his touch with all her senses. Verity wasn’t the only one confused by the war between mind and body as she tried to come to terms with a new reality.
‘The Duke said they were to call on friends and fellow scholars on the way,’ Lord Farenze replied, seeming oblivious to the battle she was waging against a heady memory. ‘Are you bored with our company then, Eve?’
‘No, but it will be awkward for you to meet Lord Christopher Hancourt’s son under your own roof, won’t it, Papa?’
‘Maybe I already know him,’ her father said with that closed expression she had seen a little too often lately.
‘What’s he like, then? Goodness knows what he’s been up to so far, it seems a deep dark family secret.’
‘Goodness might know, but you’ll find out soon enough.’
‘I wish you’d stop being so mysterious and tell me about him.’
He shot her a sceptical look, as if he’d like to get inside her head and have a good rummage about. ‘I shall let you judge for yourself.’
‘Why do you seem to dislike him already? You were living apart from my mother when Lord Christopher Hancourt became her lover.’
‘Maybe I can’t forgive his father for being such a confounded idiot then?’
‘There are so many of them in the world according to you, Papa,’ she said sweetly. ‘What was so special about that one?’
‘You think I’m a grumpy bear?’ he said, neatly avoiding her question.
‘I think you might be if you hadn’t had the sense to marry Chloe. She usually laughs you out of your dark moods now and I’m very grateful for the improvement in your temper.’
‘If my temper is so uncertain, I like to think my daughter is shrewd enough not to provoke it too often.’
Eve couldn’t tell if he knew how disturbed she was by Mr Carter. He should have faded more with every mile they travelled from London, but it was as if she had brought the fogs and gloom of the capital with her to Darkmere and him as well. Try as she might she couldn’t get the wretched man out of her head.
‘I did say it improved when you married Chloe, didn’t I?’ she teased lightly enough.
‘So you did.’
‘I shall risk it and ask again why you hated Lord Christopher for running off with my mother so much then.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘And you still think me too young to hear the full story, I suppose? To you I’ll always be so; isn’t it about time you realised that I need to know?’
‘I’ll discuss it with you after you wed and can understand the contrary passions of men and women better. The truth is I don’t really want to think about your mother and her last lover at all. If Lord Christopher Hancourt ever thought she would bring him joy, I suppose I ought to pity him, though.’
‘You acquit me of any stain from my mother’s sins, but seem reluctant to give his son the same immunity, Papa.’
‘I never said I was logical about it,’ he said austerely.
Eve almost gave up on the subject to stop that bleak look silvering his eyes whenever he thought of his first unhappy marriage.
‘Hancourt is more of a man than his father was, but I don’t want him near you, love. I know how young men think and feel, I was one myself once upon a time.’
‘I have no intention of encouraging Mr Hancourt as more than a simple acquaintance.’
‘Far from simple, I suspect.’
Eve rolled her eyes at the grey sky over their heads and waited for something more worthy of her father as an excuse. ‘I have no intention of falling in love with the man, or is he still a boy? He can’t be very much older than I am.’
‘You must judge for yourself, but I wish your stepmother had been a little less generous with her hospitality for once.’
‘I’m hardly likely to fall in love with Lord Christopher Hancourt’s son at first sight, so you’re worrying about things that will never happen, which isn’t like you.’
Her father still looked troubled as they rode along the Northern Avenue towards the more workaday side of Darkmere and the stables. ‘I only ever want to do what’s best for you, Eve,’ he said at last.
‘Anyone would think Mr Hancourt was going to ride up the drive on a knightly charger and carry me off across his saddle brow. How astonished the poor man would be if he knew we even considered him as an impassioned suitor for my hand. He’s never even set eyes on me and I don’t inspire that sort of romantic passion in a young man’s heart, thank heavens.’
‘Only because you have never met one who could wake the passion under the careful control you assume in public,’ he said a little too seriously.
‘Don’t worry, Papa, I shall lock myself in the Sea Tower and throw away the key if I begin to harbour even one warm feeling towards Mr Hancourt.’
And once the week or so the Duke and Duchess of Linaire were due to spend here was over, they need never see Mr Hancourt again, Eve decided as her personal groom hurried up to help her out of the saddle and Papa’s attention swung back to his wife.
‘I think it’s sweet the way he fusses over her,’ Verity objected when Eve whispered Chloe might not welcome her husband’s anxiety until she had finished being unwell for the day when they met later. ‘For years she had to be strong and self-sufficient for my sake and she deserves to be doted on by your papa.’
‘She does and I’m so glad she dotes on him as well,’ Eve said. ‘Would I could love and be loved like that,’ she added with a sigh. ‘I’m not the sort to inspire such a grand passion in a man.’
‘Nonsense,’ Verity argued loyally. ‘It just takes longer to win your good opinion, but I am shallow as yonder puddle and don’t think true love is for me.’
Eve suspected Verity’s infatuation with the youngest Louburn brother was responsible for that declaration and the accompanying grimace. It was good that Verity had realised how much danger she was in that night, but Eve didn’t want her to wear a hair shirt.
‘As if Chloe would let you be a careless butterfly even if you were that way inclined. Stop belittling yourself.’
‘I’ve good reason to be wary after I nearly landed us both in the basket that last night in London. Now we’re home and the world fits as it should again, I can’t imagine why it mattered so much to see Rufus that night. It wasn’t as if he was leaving for far-off lands or about to marry someone else; marriage is clearly the last thing on his mind.’
‘I doubt he has very much on that at the best of times, but I expect your parents’ love affair led you to expect something truer and deeper of first love than it can usually bear, Verity. I know your mother was barely half a year older than you are now when she fell fathoms deep in love with your father. You had a very different childhood, though, and Chloe always put your welfare first so you don’t need to escape a lonely childhood and an uncaring father. Captain Revereux adores you and can never wait to get home and spend time with you. Find a decent man to fall in love with and remember your mother and father paid a terrible price for loving so passionately and so young. Even the thought of you suffering like they did makes me feel quite faint.’
‘Please don’t turn into a hysterical female for my sake then, for I can’t have been in love with Rufus Louburn to have forgotten him so quickly and I promise not to imagine myself in love with a handsome face ever again. So stop frowning and come and play with the babies; I swear little James has grown a new tooth since yesterday, so no wonder he was fretful last night.’
Would that logic and determination were strong enough to stop a woman falling in love, whispered the secret Eve, under her good sense and virtuous reputation. Be quiet, the everyday one ordered and hurried after Verity before the reckless creature could come up with a scathing reply.
‘Fine sight, hey?’ the Duke of Linaire asked as the coach stopped so they could wonder at the famous prospect of Darkmere Castle ahead.
‘Indeed,’ Colm replied, ‘caught by the afternoon sun like that it makes me wish I could paint.’
‘Would that I could as well,’ the Duchess observed ruefully.
‘Come now, m’dear, I never came across a lady who could hold a candle to you at watercolour.’
‘I want to paint as I see, not as I can,’ she objected, her gaze sharpening as the sun caressed the famous old fortress and the last rags of autumn leaves left on the noble trees planted to shelter it from the worst of the wind shone russet and gold.
‘We’ve lost her again, m’boy,’ the Duke said with an indulgent look at his wife. The Duchess collected her sketching equipment, then he jumped down to help her out of the coach. ‘I shall tell Farenze you’ll be along when the muse deserts you, my love,’ he added as his wife’s maid joined her with a resigned nod to say she would get her mistress up to the castle before daylight faded completely.
‘Hmm? Yes, that would be as well,’ the Duchess said absently, making rapid pencil strokes in her sketchbook to capture Darkmere with the low winter sun on it and an angry sea and sky behind.
