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‘I thought you said that age didn’t matter in a love match.’
‘I said that?’
‘Yes, before you got married.’
‘Oh.’ Lydia looked sceptical. ‘Well, I suppose I did care for him, as much as he could have expected me to anyway, but I don’t see why I have to waste my best years in mourning now that he’s gone. I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted it either.’ She stopped pacing in front of a mirror and pressed her fingers against her cheeks, tugging the skin gently upwards. ‘I’m only twenty-eight. Wearing black crepe makes me feel old.’
‘We’re all tired of wearing black, Lydia, but those are the rules. At least you’ve no need to worry about money.’ Frances tried to sound reassuring. ‘John left you a good legacy.’
‘Barely a third of what he was worth.’
‘But he left the rest in trust for Georgie.’
‘With his lawyer holding the purse strings. As if I can’t be trusted.’
Frances dipped her head to hide her expression. The terms of John Baird’s will, though by no means churlish towards his young bride, suggested he’d understood her better than anyone had realised. With Lydia in control of his fortune, their son George would have been lucky to see so much as a penny on his majority.
‘Maybe he thought you wouldn’t want to be bothered with such details.’
‘I don’t see why. Georgie is my son. It’s not right that somebody else is looking after his future. John used me very badly.’
‘Mmm...’ Frances picked up her stone and polishing cloth again with a sigh. Lydia’s memory in regard to her deceased husband was becoming more and more selective by the day. But then John Baird hadn’t been quite the catch she’d been hoping for when she’d made her come-out, not compared with a certain eligible viscount anyway, a man they’d all thought had been lost at sea...
‘In any case, I wouldn’t remarry until after a suitable period.’ Lydia settled back on to the chaise longue. ‘But if I have to wait until I’m out of mourning then Arthur might marry somebody else and then where will I be? I missed my chance six years ago. I won’t miss it again.’
‘Marry?’ Frances stopped polishing abruptly. She’d been working on that particular piece of jet for half an hour, smoothing away the rough edges and imperfections so that now, in the light of a flickering candle, she could see her own eyes reflected in the surface. They looked sad even to her. Quickly, she put the stone aside, dropping it into a small wooden box filled with sawdust.
‘You mean you still want to marry Arthur?’ She asked the question softly, wondering why she hadn’t guessed the truth sooner.
‘Of course! What did you think we were talking about?’
‘You only said that you wanted me to take him a message.’
‘To persuade him to call on me, yes.’
‘Why can’t you just write?’
‘Because I already have.’ Lydia’s expression turned sullen. ‘He sent a note back saying he was too busy to renew our acquaintance. You know there was a time when that man would have crawled over hot coals for me and he calls it an acquaintance!’
‘You did marry somebody else, Lydia.’
‘Only because I thought Arthur had drowned! What was I supposed to do?’
‘Maybe wait more than a week before getting engaged?’
‘Wait?’ Black eyes glittered with anger suddenly. ‘I’d already spent years waiting for Arthur to persuade his father to accept me. It was humiliating enough having to keep our engagement a secret, but then he had to go and fall off his boat and abandon me. He left me to become an old maid!’
Frances fought the urge to roll her eyes. As she recalled, Lydia couldn’t have behaved any less like an old maid. She’d had more than enough spare suitors to choose from, not that Arthur had known about any of them. He’d been aware of her other admirers—in truth, it would have been nigh impossible to miss them—but he’d never known quite how serious some of those other flirtations had been. That had been one small mercy when he’d gone missing, though now Frances wondered how he’d felt when he’d come home and discovered just how quickly he’d been replaced...
‘I’m sure you were very hard done by, Lydia.’
‘How was I to know that he’d come back nine months later and I’d be stuck with John? Do you know, Arthur didn’t even visit me!’
‘How could he? You were married.’
‘Well, all right, but I’m a widow now and he’s still unattached, and now that his father’s dead there’s no one to object. I don’t see why we can’t resume our engagement. It’s quite romantic when you think about it, as if it were meant to be all along.’
‘Yes. How convenient of John to die when he did.’
Lydia shot her a petulant look. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand about love.’
‘I never said that I did.’
‘And Arthur did love me.’
‘Yes,’ Frances conceded wistfully, ‘he did.’
That part was undeniably true. She’d never seen a man so in love as Arthur Amberton had been with her sister. She’d still been in the schoolroom at the time, but to this day she remembered the way he’d gazed so adoringly at Lydia, as if she were the Juliet to his Romeo. Once upon a time, she’d hoped some man might look at her like that one day, though the chances of it seemed unlikely now.
Arthur Amberton had been the very epitome of everything she’d imagined the perfect gentleman to be: intelligent, charming and exquisitely mannered, albeit with a faint air of sadness about him. Dashingly handsome, too, with wavy, chestnut hair and intense, ochre-coloured eyes. He’d been considerate towards her, too, always taking the seat next to hers in the parlour when it was empty and asking about her art as if he were genuinely interested in her hobbies, treating her like an adult and not just a child, unlike the rest of Lydia’s admirers. She’d tried her very hardest to think of him as a brother, especially after Lydia had confided the secret of their engagement, but in truth she’d been more than a little in love with him herself, wicked as it had felt at the time. When he’d been lost at sea, she’d felt as devastated as if she’d been the one he’d left behind. She’d never understood how Lydia could have forgotten him so quickly, but then her sister had never been one to put all her eggs, let alone her heart, in one basket.
‘From what I’ve heard, however, it turns out I had a lucky escape six years ago.’ Lydia propped an arm behind her head. ‘Apparently the family fortunes were in a terrible state back then.’
‘Lydia!’
‘Oh, don’t be so naive, Frannie. Love has to survive on something, you know.’
‘Well, if he’s so poor, why do you want to marry him now?’
‘Because he’s not poor any more, silly. His brother’s marriage to Violet Harper restored all that.’
Frances reached into her pocket for a new stone, examining it for flaws as she tried to unravel the tangled machinations of her sister’s mind. She vaguely remembered hearing that Violet Harper, the shipbuilding heiress, had married Arthur’s twin brother Lance a few years before, though she couldn’t see how that helped Lydia...
‘I don’t understand.’ She gave up finally. ‘How does that affect Arthur?’
‘Because it was her money they used to develop and expand their iron mine. It’s become quite successful, so I hear, and Amberton Castle’s been almost completely refurbished. Not that Arthur resides there himself, the vexing man. He lives in some woebegone old farmhouse on the edge of the Moors, but the property’s all still in his name.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I make it my business to know.’
‘Oh...’ The tangles smoothed out suddenly. ‘And if you were to marry him, you’d insist on him moving back to Amberton Castle?’
‘Of course. For his own good.’ Lydia gave a self-satisfied nod. ‘It’s the family home and he’s the Viscount.’
‘But if his brother and sister-in-law have spent their money on repairing it...?’
‘Then I’m sure they could afford to make alternative arrangements as well.’
‘Naturally. What a pity Arthur doesn’t want to renew your acquaintance, then.’
‘He just needs to see me!’ Lydia shot bolt upright, glaring as if the words themselves had stung her. ‘If I could be in the same room with him for ten minutes, then I could convince him to propose again, I’m sure of it.’
This time Frances didn’t even try to stop her eyes from rolling. The worst of it was that Lydia was probably right. She’d never had any problem convincing men to do what she wanted. Usually she only had to snap her fingers for them to come running. It was frankly amazing that Arthur Amberton had managed to resist her appeals for this long, but then people said that he’d changed during the nine months of his mysterious absence. No one knew where he’d been or why he’d been away for so long. There were rumours that he’d spent time on a fishing boat, though surely that was unlikely.
‘Well, I’m not going.’ She put her foot down obstinately. If Arthur didn’t want to see Lydia again, then she certainly wasn’t going to force him. ‘And I don’t know why you think I could persuade him anyway.’
‘Because he’s always liked you. He was forever wandering off to talk to you.’
‘Was he?’ Frances felt her cheeks flush guiltily. Sometimes it had seemed as if he’d deliberately sought out her company, but then she’d always assumed that had been wishful thinking on her part. ‘I’m sure he was just being kind.’
‘Of course he was just being kind,’ Lydia snapped, ‘but it was rude of the pair of you. I used to feel quite aggrieved.’
‘Then I’m sorry.’
‘You could still make it up to me.’
‘No!’
‘Think about poor Georgie. Don’t you think he deserves a stepfather?’
‘Of course he does.’ Frances narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Lydia had always been quick to recognise other people’s weaknesses and the three-year-old boy was definitely hers.
‘And don’t you think a viscount would make a worthy stepfather? Think of all the advantages. Not just to him, but to poor Mama and Papa as well.’
Poor Mama and Papa? She stiffened at the implication. ‘What about them?’
‘Well, they must have expected to have us both married off by now and yet here I am, back under the same roof, and it’s not as if you’re ever going to leave. It must be a lot to deal with at their age when they might have expected a bit of peace and quiet. If I married Arthur, then it would make life easier for everyone, don’t you think?’
Frances bit down hard on her lip. She couldn’t deny that. For everyone except Arthur himself, that was...
‘And you could come and live with us at Amberton Castle, too, if you wanted.’ Lydia’s voice took on a wheedling note. ‘Georgie much prefers you to his nurse and he’ll need a governess.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘If you’re not too busy playing with stones, that is.’
That did it. Frances put both her hands down on the table, pushing herself to her feet. ‘I am not playing with stones. I’m making jewellery. Which some people think I’m quite good at, incidentally. I made four pounds last week.’
‘Why, whatever do you mean?’
‘Just that I took a few of my best pieces to Mr Horsham and he bought them from me.’
‘The jeweller? You mean you’re in trade?’
Frances hesitated for a moment and then smiled. It hadn’t occurred to her to think of it that way before, but now that Lydia had said it, she supposed it was true. Carving beads and cameos out of the jet she collected on the beach was just one of her many artistic pursuits, but she enjoyed it. If she could make a reasonable amount of money from selling her pieces, then perhaps it could be a means of becoming independent, too, a way to live without feeling like a burden or embarrassment to others. Then she could be the artist Frances Webster instead of that poor, scarred girl...
‘Yes.’ She pulled her shoulders back, fuelled by a new sense of ambition. She was in trade. And pretty happy about it, too.
‘Do Mama and Papa know?’
The happy feeling vanished at once. Since the accident, her parents had allowed her far more freedom than most women her age, but when those activities involved trade, she had a feeling even they might not be quite so tolerant.
‘Perhaps I ought to tell them...’ Lydia’s rosebud mouth curved into a smug-looking smile. ‘After all, they have a right to know when you’re sullying the family name.’
‘I’m not sullying anything!’
‘That is unless you’re prepared to deliver one little message for me?’
‘All right, Lydia, you win.’ Frances dropped back, defeated, into her seat. ‘What do you want me to tell him?’
Chapter Two (#ud4e05c63-852b-582b-a900-a9e73873fa77)
Frances weaved a slow and reluctant path along the beach, stopping occasionally to pick up a pebble and skim it across the tops of the oncoming waves. She didn’t bother to count the bounces. Her record was fourteen in a row, but today the stones felt like lead weights. She was dragging her feet so heavily that if she didn’t hurry then the tide would be all the way up to the cliffs before she could make her escape back to Whitby, but at least she knew the tempestuous North Sea and its shoreline well enough to know exactly how much time she had.
Besides, she reassured herself, her errand wouldn’t take long, just a few minutes to deliver the message and get a response. For her sake, she hoped it was a yes, if only to prevent Lydia from sending her back again. For Arthur Amberton’s sake, however, she hoped it was a definitive no. Family loyalty aside, she couldn’t help but feel that he’d been the one who’d had a lucky escape six years before. He might have been head over heels in love with her sister, but he hadn’t known her at all.
Frances’s stomach had been performing a series of unwanted contortions at the prospect of seeing him again, her emotions torn between excitement and dread. After his surprise return, she’d hoped to catch a glimpse of him in Whitby, if only to reassure herself that he was truly alive and well, but to no avail. According to the local rumour mill, he rarely came to town, let alone attended social functions, and after a while she’d given up hope.
Which was, she’d eventually decided, for the best. As much as she’d wanted to see him, she’d had absolutely no desire for him to see her. If they’d met again, then she would have had to explain the veil that she habitually wore out of doors and then listen to the inevitable words of sympathy and reassurance. She was heartily sick of those words, shallow platitudes that meant nothing, especially from men, though perhaps not from Arthur...
Would he have behaved any differently from Leo if he’d been in the same situation? she wondered. She didn’t want to believe that Arthur would ever have been so fickle, but he was still a man, and men seemed to value beauty in women above all else. Lydia was living proof of that and Arthur had been smitten with Lydia... In which case, yes, he probably would have behaved like Leo after all!
She stopped short, shocked by the direction of her own thoughts. They sounded bitter in her own head and she didn’t want to be bitter, even if it was hard not to be sometimes. Besides, what did it matter how Arthur would have behaved? What did it matter what he thought of her veil? This visit had nothing to do with her. She was there to talk about Lydia, that was all.
She tossed her last pebble into the sea and then started up the sandy slope towards a gap in the cliffside. According to Lydia, Arthur’s farm was located just before the small fishing port of Sandsend, half a mile from the shore and accessible along a gorse-lined path from the beach.
She made her way along it, skirting around the perimeter of the village to join a dirt track on the other side. It was steeper than she’d expected and rutted with holes that made walking difficult, so that she was panting by the time she reached the edge of the Moors, where lush green fields gave way to brown heathland. Breathless, she stopped at a wooden gate, taking a few moments to admire the view. From this vantage point, she could see the sea spreading out like a shimmering turquoise carpet all the way to the horizon beyond. It was a beautiful position for any dwelling, even a ‘woebegone, old farmhouse’, though as she trudged on through the gate and around the side of a small woodland copse, she could see that it was anything but.
Far from dilapidated, it was clearly a working farm, a scene of well-organised chaos with giant bales of hay stacked along one side of a three-storey stone house and what looked like a newly built log store on the other. It was hardly deserted either. On the contrary, there seemed to be animals everywhere: pigs in a sty, goats and sheep in two separate pens, at least two dozen chickens and five lazy-looking cats roaming wild, not to mention a pair of horses peering out from over the top of a stable door.
Frances stopped in the centre of the yard and turned around slowly, searching for any sign of a human in the midst of so many animals, but there seemed to be no one, just a brown-and-white speckled dog sitting by the front door of the farmhouse, its head tipped to one side as if it were the one in charge. Judging by its short coat and piercing blue eyes, she guessed it was a sheepdog, though fortunately it seemed to be friendly as well.
She bent down to ruffle its ears, struck anew by the impropriety of her situation. She was an unmarried, unchaperoned, uninvited lady, trespassing on behalf of her widowed sister in order to persuade a single gentleman—a viscount, no less!—to accept a request that he’d already refused! Only Lydia would ask such a thing. Only Lydia would expect it to work!
But she was there now and she might as well get the whole mortifying scene over with. Lydia was more than capable of carrying out her threat and telling their parents about her fledgling business if she didn’t do what she wanted and her work was too important for her to risk that. She’d tell them about it herself eventually, once she’d earned enough to stand on her own two feet if necessary, but not yet. She had her own plans for the future and she’d reveal them when she was good and ready.
Bolstered by that conviction, she lifted her hand to the front door and knocked. There was no answer, though the door swung open on its hinges with a loud creak.
‘Lord Scorborough?’
She called out his name, but there was still no answer. No sound at all, in fact. Tentatively, she took a few steps inside and along a darkened hallway, poking her head around another door into what looked like the kitchen. That was empty, too, though there was a large iron kettle steaming on the range. Perplexed, she lifted her veil and pulled it back over her bonnet for a clearer view. Clearly somebody was nearby, but why weren’t they answering?
She felt a tremor of unease, resolving to go back outside to search the yard again, when she heard the click of a door opening further down the hallway. Quickly, she turned around, ready to explain her intrusion, only to find herself face to face with a complete stranger wearing nothing more than a pair of short, cotton under-drawers.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed aloud, sucking in a breath of panic as the stranger came to an abrupt halt, uttering a series of vividly descriptive expletives whose meanings she could only imagine. His legs and upper body were completely exposed so that, in the time it took for her to recover her wits, she had a close-up view of powerful calves, a muscular chest and arms that looked to be around the same circumference as her waist.
‘Oh!’ She wasn’t sure why she repeated the exclamation, only that it seemed appropriate as she dragged her gaze to his face. His rugged appearance was almost as alarming as his lack of apparel. Close-cropped hair and dark stubble gave him the look of a convict. Was he a convict? His colourful language certainly wasn’t that of a gentleman. She felt her palms break into a cold sweat, panic mounting as her heartbeat started to hammer erratically. The wrong farm! She must have come to the wrong farm, she realised, berating herself for the mistake in the split second before their eyes met and she spun on her heel and fled...
* * *
Arthur Amberton, the Fourteenth Viscount Scorborough, had just finished bathing. He’d just stepped out of his bathtub, rubbed himself down with a sheet and pulled on a pair of under-breeches as an afterthought—an impulse for which he was now extremely grateful. Since he didn’t keep servants and rarely had any visitors, he generally had no qualms about wandering around his own house completely naked, especially during the hot summer months, so that to find a black-clad woman standing in the corridor in front of him had come as an equal, and in his case somewhat uncanny, surprise to both of them.
