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The Westmere Legacy
Mary Nichols
Isabella's grandfather, the Earl of Westmere, insists she take a husband – and she must choose which of her four second cousins it must be. In desperation, Bella turns to Robert Huntley, the cousin with whom she's shared many a childhood adventure.A distinguished captain of the Hussars, Robert finds himself agreeing to her outrageous suggestion of a pretend engagement. He tells Bella he has no desire to be shackled in a loveless marriage, and their engagement must end once she's had a Season in town. Why, then, is he tantalized by thoughts of Bella, and the pleasures their marriage could bring them both?
“I shall go mad if I have to stay here a day longer,” Bella cried.
“Then you shan’t.” Robert took a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. “I believe this is an invitation to spend some time with Mama. She has sent me with the coach to fetch you.”
“Oh, Robert, you are an angel!” She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him joyously on each check, as a child might have done. He raised his hands halfway to his shoulders and then, not knowing what to do with them, dropped them again and stood stiffly to attention.
Suddenly aware of his lack of response, she stood back, her face scarlet. “Oh, I am sorry….”
He smiled and stroked her cheek with the back of one finger. “Impulsive as always, my dear, but you must remember that we are no longer childhood playmates. Society is likely to be shocked by such forwardness.”
The Westmere Legacy
Mary Nichols
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MARY NICHOLS
Born in Singapore, Mary Nichols came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown children and four grandchildren.
Contents
Cover (#ua035dce9-82b7-5da8-ba47-c962d5be45b9)
Title Page (#u03ab8ba2-f4ab-5cc4-9bb1-ba2a0b8dbaa8)
About the Author (#u241e6c37-af7a-5f31-99ad-746c5b2e3985)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Historical Note
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#uadc00bc7-64db-51a1-a135-8c845db5ca69)
March 1816
‘Sylvester!’ William Huntley, second Earl of Westmere, could be heard bellowing as far away as the kitchens, where Bella was speaking to Cook about the day’s menus. ‘Sylvester! Damn your eyes, man! I want you here.’
‘Oh, dear, his gout must be plaguing him again,’ Bella said. ‘Where can Sylvester be?’
There was the sound of hurrying footsteps on the landing above them and then silence. A few minutes later a tall gangly individual in a suit of black clothes and thinning hair of indeterminate colour appeared in the doorway with a large jug which he handed to Daisy, the kitchen maid, to fill with hot water. ‘He is determined on dressing and coming downstairs,’ he said.
‘But he hasn’t had his breakfast.’
‘He says he will have it in the breakfast parlour in half an hour.’
‘Oh, lor,’ Daisy said, filling the jug with hot water from a huge kettle on the stove and giving it back to him. ‘There’s no fire in there.’
‘Then you’d better put one there quick sharp.’
‘And who’s going to help me cook breakfast if the girl disappears, making fires?’ Cook demanded. ‘Can’t you persuade him to have his breakfast in his room like he always does? I can’t think why he should suddenly decide to come downstairs for it—it’s years since he did that.’
‘He says he’s made a decision and he’s going to set it in train today.’
‘Oh, and what might that be?’
The valet shrugged his bony shoulders. ‘How should I know?’
‘You’re privy to most things where he’s concerned. I’ll wager he’s told you.’
‘He has not and if he had, I wouldn’t tell you, madam. I’m off before he starts yelling again.’
‘Gout he might have, but it hasn’t affected his voice,’ Cook said, as they heard his lordship shouting again.
‘No, but it does give him a great deal of pain,’ Bella put in mildly, as the valet scuttled from the room with the hot water. ‘He will feel better directly when Sylvester has given him his wash and shave and bound up his poor foot. Daisy, go and light that fire. I will help Cook with breakfast.’
The thirteen-year-old Daisy picked up a basket of wood, an old newspaper and a tinder box and left the kitchen. Bella found an apron in a drawer and rolled up the sleeves of her dress to help prepare the household’s breakfasts. It was not an arduous task because although the Earl was hardly impecunious, he was very careful, some said mean, and kept no more staff than was necessary for his own comfort and the smooth running of the house and estate.
Indoors, there was only Sylvester Carpenter his valet, Sam Jolliffe the butler, Martha Tooke, housekeeper-cum-cook, Daisy the kitchen maid, a laundrywoman and two women who did not live in but came in from the village every day to make sure the east wing of the great mansion, which was the only part of it they used, was kept clean. It was not a convenient house, having the kitchens and pantries on the opposite side of the great hall to the reception rooms, but there were smaller, cosier parlours nearer to the hub of the great house, which were used now there were only three in residence.
This level of indoor staffing was considered adequate for a household that consisted of the Earl and Bella, and Ellen Battersby, Bella’s maid and companion. The elderly Miss Battersby was away, visiting her sister who was ill, and Bella missed her.
Isabella, known to everyone as Bella, was the Earl’s granddaughter, the only child of his son, Charles. She was seventeen years old and had lived at Westmere all her life. She did not remember her mother except as a rather ephemeral being who had always smelled nice and looked beautiful. She had died of fever after giving birth to a son who had survived her by only two days.
Bella’s memories of her father were rather different. His smells were of tobacco and brandy, especially the brandy. Sometimes he had been exceptionally jovial and sometimes morose to the point of silence for hours, even days, on end. He had also had a violent temper, which had often led her grandfather to sigh heavily and declaim, ‘I don’t know where he gets it from, I am sure. I am the mildest of men myself.’ Her father had died in 1805 when Bella had been six, and the event had hardly registered on her young mind except that she had suddenly found herself free of fear.
As for her grandfather, the Earl, he did have a temper, whatever he said to the contrary, but, unlike her father, he was never harsh with her. He had once been a very handsome man, tall and upright, with thick wavy hair and brown eyes beneath the finely arched brows which were the mark of nearly every male Huntley. He was old now, of course. Seventy-nine was a great age, and the hair, though still thick, was pure white, the eyes more often than not clouded with pain. He was always talking about ‘kicking the bucket’, which Bella found distressing.
Sometimes he would talk nostalgically of the times when he and his brother, John, had been boys and Westmere had simply been a bump in the fens, above the level of the fields that surrounded it, which had been frequently flooded in winter. It was hard to imagine that now because much of the marshy ground of the fens had been drained and cultivated.
It was the death of his brother which had made him more crabby than usual, she decided. John had been the younger by three years and it must have made the Earl aware of his own mortality. ‘Who would have guessed I would outlive him?’ he had said, on hearing the news. ‘He never had a day’s illness in his life while I am plagued by gout and a bad heart, have been for years.’
Sir John Huntley, baronet, had died suddenly in his sleep at his home, Palgrave Manor in the county of Essex, just as the church bells had been pealing in the new year of 1816. He had outlived his wife and only son, just as the Earl had done, but was survived by two widowed daughters, a granddaughter and four grandsons. Bella had been aware of undercurrents of feeling at the funeral they had attended two months before, though she could not exactly put her finger on why that should have been.
The church had been full, everyone dressed in deepest mourning, and during the committal they had obviously been distressed, but afterwards, when friends and distant relations had departed and close family had congregated at Palgrave Manor for refreshments and the reading of the will, there had been a certain tension and whispered comments about the inheritance.
‘But I could not see there should be any dissent about it,’ Bella said to her grandfather on the return journey from Palgrave to Westmere. ‘I thought Sir John disposed of everything very properly. Edward has the title and the estate, which is surely as it should be, but he did not neglect the others. An annuity for the other three men and generous gifts to the ladies. Everyone was remembered, even the servants.’
It was a very uncomfortable journey with the roads deep in snow and the poor horses struggling to pull the heavy family coach through the drifts. And though they had hot bricks at their feet and warm rugs wrapped about their knees, Bella was still numb with cold and was quite sure her grandfather felt it even more than she did. It worried her that he had insisted on making the journey at all. He would have been excused his absence in the circumstances, she was sure.
‘Of course they were,’ the Earl growled. ‘It’s not John’s estate they are concerned with, but mine.’
‘Yours?’ she queried in surprise.
‘I have no son living and no grandsons. My brother was my heir. Now he is gone they are gathering like a crowd of vultures, waiting for me to stick my spoon in the wall, too. Got their eyes on my blunt, not to mention the title.’
‘Oh, Grandpapa, I’m sure not,’ Bella said, unwilling to believe any of her four second cousins were so mercenary. ‘They are concerned for your health, that is all.’
‘Oh, indeed they are,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘I’ve a good mind to live for ever to confound them.’
‘I hope you may, Grandpapa.’
‘Dear child, I do believe you are the only one who means that.’
And then he abruptly changed the subject, looking out of the coach at the bleak white landscape and saying how he would be glad when spring arrived and he could see the new lambs frolicking in the fields—the home farm had a large flock of sheep—and from that she deduced he was not expecting to die quite yet.
He did not mention it again and they resumed their usual humdrum routine. Every day he had his breakfast in his room and then followed a leisurely toilet, after which he made his way down to the little parlour and then, if he felt well enough, took a gentle hack round the estate and spoke to his steward about the work that needed doing. Sometimes she accompanied him on his rides or they would go out in the carriage together to visit neighbours. They would have dinner at three and supper at seven and he would retire early to his room.
Every Sunday morning, they went to the church in the village of Westmere, after which the Earl would stop and make some caustic comment to the parson about the sermon or the text and they would return home in time for an early dinner.
Apart from discussing the daily menus with Martha, Bella’s only other duties were to write letters for her grandfather and read to him from The Morning Post and The Times which were sent down by mail from London every day. He also subscribed to Cobbett’s Political Register, which often had him exploding with indignation. She wondered why he continued to require her to read it aloud if the author’s radical views annoyed him so much. ‘Tuppeny trash,’ he called it, but, then, the Earl would disagree with almost everyone, just for love of an argument.
When not attending to her grandfather, Bella occupied her time with walks, charitable works, sewing and writing her journal. Not that she had a great deal to commit to paper, but she liked to observe people and their foibles and watch nature unfold, year by year, from winter to spring and into summer and autumn, to record the first snowdrop, the first cuckoo, the day the harvest began and the day the meres froze over and everyone took to their skates. She wrote about little domestic problems and news of the village—who had been taken to bed with child, who had died, which young man was courting which of the village girls.
She read the Ladies’ Monthly Museum and subscribed to a lending library so that she could read the latest novels. She had even begun to write one of her own, full of unrequited love, mystery, duels and dangerous adventures. It helped to relieve the boredom of a life that was mundane to say the least. She often longed for something exciting to happen to liven it up. And now it looked as though it might. Something was in the air. But what?
She did not have long to wait. As soon as they had finished their breakfast, the Earl stood up, pushing Sylvester aside when he ran to help him. ‘Leave me, man, I am not slipping my wind yet.’ Then he turned to Bella. ‘Come with me, I want some letters written.’
She followed him to the library, where he sank into an armchair beside the fire. ‘You don’t look quite the thing, Grandpapa. Are you sure you want to do this today?’ she asked. Spring was a very long time coming this year and the dismal days seemed to make him more and more tired.
‘Yes, been putting it off too long as it is.’
‘Very well, but you must stop if it becomes too much for you.’
‘Will you cease fussing, child, and fetch out the writing things? I want four letters written.’
‘Four?’ she queried in surprise as she seated herself at his big leather-topped desk and took notepaper and pens from the drawer.
‘Yes, one to each of my great-nephews. You know their directions.’
‘Yes.’ She dipped a pen in the ink and waited while he assembled his thoughts.
‘Dear whichever of them you start with,’ he began. ‘It doesn’t matter, they’re all the same. You are requested and required to attend me at Westmere Hall on Thursday the 20th day of March at two in the afternoon…’
‘Grandpapa, is that not a little abrupt?’ Bella ventured. ‘And very short notice. The twentieth is only three days away.’
He laughed. ‘They will all come running with their tongues hanging out—you see.’
‘Why do you want to see them all at once? It will exhaust you.’
‘It will be far less tiring than telling them one at a time. And besides, they won’t be able to argue among themselves about what I said to each if they hear it together.’
‘Hear what, Grandpapa?’
‘My will…’
‘But surely that happens…’ She stopped in dismay. ‘Oh, please, do not tell me you are unwell.’
‘I am old, Bella, and I have been thinking that I ought to make my peace with the past and ensure the future. Your future.’
‘Mine?’ she queried. It had never entered her head to wonder what would befall her after her grandfather died. She supposed, if it happened before she was married, he would leave her in the care of whoever succeeded, but until recently she had not given a thought to who that might be. Louis was the oldest of the great-nephews, but he was the son of a daughter. On the other hand, Edward was the elder son of a son and he bore the family name of Huntley, which Louis did not. She had no idea how these things were managed, but she could very well see quarrels ahead. No doubt her grandfather had seen them, too, and this was his way of dealing with them. But where did James, also on the distaff side, and Robert, Edward’s younger brother, fit into it?
They were all honourable men and would make sure she had a roof over her head and did not starve. Suddenly she was filled with apprehension. Her grandfather must be having doubts about that or he would not be writing to them. She found herself looking at him, her heart thumping, the letters unfinished.
‘Yes, my dear. You know when I am called to account, I do not want to be found wanting as far as you are concerned. You are a female and a very young and comely one.’ He paused to scrutinise her from top to toe as if he had not looked at her properly for a long time. He saw large hazel eyes set in an oval face surrounded by dark ringlets, a proud neck, sloping shoulders and a trim figure dressed in a light green merino wool gown. She was taller and thinner than he would have liked, but he supposed she would fill out as she matured. He favoured women with a little more meat on them. ‘And marriageable. You will need advice and instruction…’
‘There is Miss Battersby, Grandpapa.’
‘Pah! Her head is full of romantic notions. She would marry you off to the first young gallant with a ready smile and a twinkling eye.’
‘She is not such a fribble and neither am I.’
‘Perhaps not. But I am not going to take the gamble. I want to see you married before I go.’ He paused. ‘You know, being a female, you cannot inherit Westmere directly?’
‘Yes, Grandpapa, and although I would rather not think about it, I am sure you will make provision for me. I am in no hurry to marry.’
‘You may not be, but I am. That is why I have sent for those four. You shall marry one of them.’
‘Grandfather!’ She was shocked to the core. ‘You are surely not going to instruct one of them to wed me?’
‘No. The choice will be yours.’
The conversation was becoming more and more bizarre and her senses were reeling. She leaned back in her chair, the letter-writing forgotten. She could not imagine herself married to any one them. Although they were not first cousins, she had always looked on the young men as kinsmen, part of the family who came and went and sometimes stopped to chuck her under the chin and ask her how she did. The idea of being married to any one of them was past imagining.
