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It had been a number of years since Sir Philip had had reason to visit the house. He could see at a glance, as he turned his fine bay hack into the driveway, that the property was showing signs of neglect. The garden, although far from overgrown, was nowhere near as neatly contained as he remembered, and the house, too, clearly demanded attention in several areas.
After securely tethering his mount to the hitching post, he wasted no time in making his arrival known. His summons was answered promptly enough by a middle-aged woman whom he had known since boyhood, and who didn’t attempt to hide her delight at seeing him.
‘Why, Sir Philip! It’s been a mort of years since you stepped into the parlour here at the Grange. Come in, do, sir,’ she invited. ‘Miss Beth will be that pleased to see you, I’m sure. She shouldn’t be long. Be out with that man of hers at present. But she promised to be back in good time for luncheon.’
‘Man…?’ Philip echoed, once again experiencing the strangest gnawing sensation in his abdomen.
‘That’s right, sir, Mr Rudge. Takes proper good care of her so he do. Hardly ever lets her out of his sight, so I understand. They be out now looking at horses over Markham way, it being market day. But Mrs Stride be here. Nice lady she be. I’m sure she’ll be happy to bear you company until the mistress returns. If you step inside, sir, I’ll make you known to the lady.’
Still trying to assimilate what he had discovered, and not put his own wild interpretations on the scant information, Philip entered the, now, slightly faded front parlour to discover a woman seated by the hearth, and looking so completely at home in her surroundings that one might have been forgiven for supposing she were mistress of the house.
As she set aside her sewing, and rose to her feet, he judged her to be of a similar age to his sister, though wearing rather better. The instant she spoke, inviting him to sit down and offering refreshment, it was evident, too, that she was an educated woman of no little refinement; and one who, moreover, betrayed no diffidence whatsoever at finding herself in the company of a peer of the realm. All of which only added to the puzzling questions swirling round his head.
‘You must forgive me, ma’am, for calling so soon after your arrival here. Only I allowed avid curiosity for once to override basic good manners. Miss Ashworth and I knew each other so well at one time that I wished to renew the acquaintance without delay.’
‘I know she will be delighted to see you, Sir Philip. She mentioned yesterday, when we took a short-cut across your land, that you would forgive such a liberty in one whom you had known since she was an infant.’
Heartened by the fact that Mrs Stride had not attempted to correct him after he had referred to Beth as Miss Ashworth, Philip took a moment to sample his wine and study the handsome woman seated opposite. ‘Forgive me, ma’am, for asking, but would I be correct in assuming you’re not even distantly related to Beth?’
‘You would indeed, sir,’ she instantly confirmed. ‘I am, to all intents and purposes, a hired companion. But you will never get Beth to admit as much. My late husband was a major in the army, and lost his life at Talavera. It was while I was attempting to attain passage back to England that Colonel Ashworth engaged my services, after his daughter’s unexpected arrival in the Peninsula.’
Sir Philip’s ears instantly pricked up at this. ‘Unexpected…?’ he echoed.
The widow appeared nonplussed for a moment, then she shrugged. ‘I believe I’m right in thinking the Colonel wasn’t expecting her. But it was some years ago, and my memory is a trifle hazy. Many letters from home were never received, so perhaps it was merely that he wasn’t sure when to expect her.
‘He certainly never seemed displeased by her presence,’ she continued after a moment’s consideration. ‘That I can tell you with complete conviction. Quite the opposite, in fact! I believe he derived great comfort from having his daughter with him. And, of course, he always made sure she was well protected.’ She shook her head and smiled. ‘Not that Beth needs much protection. As you are possibly aware, she can ride and shoot as well as most men. Which, she assures me, was the result of a somewhat unorthodox upbringing.’
‘Unorthodox in the extreme, ma’am,’ he concurred, smiling as he was assailed by further memories. ‘Encouraged by a doting father, she scandalised half the county by her tomboyish behaviour.’
‘But not you, sir, I think,’ the widow remarked, after staring across at him intently.
‘How very perspicacious of you, ma’am,’ he responded, not attempting a denial. ‘No—in fact, in many ways I thought it a great pity that the Colonel permitted his sister to interfere to such an extent in his daughter’s upbringing. Under Lady Henrietta Barfield’s guiding hand much of Beth’s natural charm simply disappeared.’
Clearly Ann Stride was amazed to hear him say this. Before she could voice her surprise, however, the door was thrown wide, and the young mistress of the house stood framed in the aperture.
For several long moments no one spoke. It was evident to Ann, at least, that her dearest friend had been apprised of the precise identity of the caller awaiting her in the parlour, for no vestige of astonishment whatsoever was apparent in her face. In fact, her expression remained so impassive that it was impossible to judge just what was passing through her mind, as her visitor rose at once to his feet and her vivid blue eyes scrutinised him unashamedly from head to toe.
Sir Philip, on the other hand, appeared, if not precisely stunned, certainly taken aback. And favourably so, Ann suspected. At first glance his shapely brows had risen sharply, then, with the self-assured air of a gentleman of breeding and aplomb, he moved languidly towards the door, hands outstretched to capture both of Beth’s.
‘How good it is to see you again, and looking so well,’ he said softly, whilst all the time peering down intently at each delicate feature in turn, as though to assure himself that the boy–girl who had trailed about after him over the estate like some adoring puppy all those many years ago, and this self-assured young woman now standing before him, were indeed one and the same person.
Their years apart had undoubtedly been good to her. There was no sign now of the pretty plumpness of youth. Almost half a decade spent out in the Peninsula, suffering privations he dared not even imagine, had helped to hone her face into something quite out of the common way. Bright blue eyes considered him levelly above high cheekbones. The small, straight nose and the contours of her perfectly moulded mouth had not changed, as far as he could tell. Only the firmness of the jaw-line seemed more marked, and there was a suspicion, too, now of determination in the set of the slightly pointed little chin.
‘You look very well, Beth, my dear. Very well indeed,’ he assured her, releasing her hands the instant he felt her attempting to withdraw them.
‘And so do you, Philip,’ she returned, bestowing a smile upon him that emphasised wonderfully well those beneficial changes in her appearance, before brushing past and turning her attention to the other occupant of the room.
‘How often have I remarked, Ann, that the passage of time is grossly unfair to favour for the most part the male of the species, though overindulgence can be disastrous for members of both sexes. And talking of which…can I tempt you to remain a little longer, Philip, by refilling your glass?’
He readily agreed. Ann, on the other hand, refused, and begged to be excused a moment later in order to search the workbox in her bedchamber for a certain shade of thread better suited to the fabric she was sewing.
Once again smiling, only wryly this time, Beth watched her leave, before returning her attention to her guest, and tutting loudly. ‘Really, I think I must have a word with dear Mrs Stride. If she wishes to be considered my companion, then she will need to take her duties a deal more seriously from now on. To leave me ensconced with an eligible bachelor…what can she be thinking of!’
He had no difficulty recognising that age-old glint of mischief dancing in her eyes, so wasn’t unduly taken aback when she added outrageously, ‘Of course, she might have wisely perceived that I was in no danger. But she might at least have considered you, Philip. An eligible baronet is fair game, and it isn’t totally unknown for me to act on impulse. Just think what a scandal we’d cause if I were to take it into my head to importune you.’
For answer he threw back his head and laughed heartily, something he had done so very infrequently in recent years. ‘I was wrong. You haven’t changed much at all.’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. People do, you know,’ she countered, after collecting his glass. ‘Can I tempt you to join me in a measure of port?’ The slight frown of disapproval bent in her direction was patently not lost on her, for she added, ‘No, not considered a lady’s drink, I know. Unfortunately I picked up the habit whilst abroad, and got my darling Rudge to return to Portugal in order to obtain a couple of dozen cases of the stuff, before setting sail for home.’
‘And dare I enquire who “darling Rudge” might be?’ Philip asked, watching her lower herself with a grace that was wholly natural into the chair opposite.
‘For want of a better description, I suppose you might say Amos Rudge is my major-domo.’ Leaning back in her chair, she appeared completely at ease in the company of a gentleman whom she had not set eyes on in six long years. ‘He’s a trifle rough around the edges, it must be said. The Lord only knows what callers to the house will make of him. He’s not above telling someone he doesn’t like the look of to clear off in no uncertain terms. Used to be dear Papa’s batman, as it happens.’
At mention of the late Colonel, Philip immediately offered his condolences. Which were sincerely meant, for not only had he respected his late neighbour, he had genuinely liked him too.
‘I understand it happened towards the latter part of the campaign,’ he added, when she regarded the contents of her glass with a pensive expression on her face, though blessedly with no suspicion of tears.
‘Yes, he was shot in the back whilst out on a scouting mission for Wellington, shortly before the army crossed into France, and died a few days later. But I’m not sorry it happened that way,’ she surprised him by admitting. ‘I had been informed by one of the army surgeons a few months before that my father was in the first stages of the wasting disease. He died serving his country. He would have wanted it that way. He was buried in Spain. And I remained with the army until we reached Paris. I believe he would have wished that too.’
Once again she relapsed into silence for a few moments, whilst all the time regarding him steadily over the rim of her glass, before adding, ‘Yes, sadly we have both lost loved ones during these past years, Philip. It was very many weeks before the sad news of Eugenie’s death reached us. Papa did write on behalf of us both. I hope you received his letter?’
Beth continued to regard him keenly. Although the heartfelt sympathy he had shown when speaking of her father was still there, lurking in the depths of his eyes, she could detect, amazingly enough, absolutely no other very evident emotion hidden in those grey depths. It was really most strange. She would have expected to see something…anything to betray his own deep sorrow. But there was nothing.
‘I did write to my aunt and uncle, of course, during the time I was out there in Spain, keeping up with all their news as best I could,’ Beth went on to reveal, more in an attempt to bridge the lengthening silence than anything else. ‘I will say one thing for Aunt Hetta, she’s nothing if not a pragmatist. Grieve over the loss of her eldest daughter she undoubtedly did, and always will, I do not doubt, but it clearly didn’t deter her from doing her absolute best for her other girls. Three married daughters now—some achievement!’
‘Indeed, yes,’ Philip agreed, a suspicion of a smile tugging at his lips now. ‘Life goes on, as the saying goes,’ he added, finishing off his port, and rising to his feet. ‘And speaking of which, would you and Mrs Stride care to dine with us at the Court on Friday evening as, judging by your attire, I assume you consider your period of mourning at an end?’
‘Us…?’ Beth echoed, swooping down on this surprising disclosure.
‘Connie intends staying with me for a few weeks, playing hostess.’
‘Has she brought the family with her?’
‘Good God, no!’ Philip shuddered at the mere idea. ‘I might be an indulgent brother, Beth, but not to that extent. The whole brood, five of ’em at the last count, decided to come down with a string of childish ailments that continued throughout the spring and most of the summer, resulting in their mother’s total exhaustion. She’s taking refuge with me at the Court for a few weeks’ well-earned rest. Or at least that’s what she’s putting about. What she’s really determined to do is ensure my thirtieth birthday doesn’t pass without celebration.’
Beth frankly laughed as she, too, rose to her feet to bid him farewell. ‘Oh, well, in that case we’ll be delighted to accept your invitation to dine.’
‘Excellent!’ He appeared very well pleased. ‘Only a small affair, you understand? But it will offer you the opportunity to reacquaint yourself with a few neighbours, and meet some new ones too.’
With that, he captured her hand, and, before she could withdraw it from his grasp, he had brushed his lips lightly across the skin.
Chapter Two
At the click of the door Beth abandoned her position by the window, from where she had been following her esteemed visitor’s progress along the short sweep of the drive, until he had disappeared from view. She wasn’t remotely surprised to see her good friend return to the room, just as she hadn’t been particularly surprised by her feeble excuse to leave it a short time earlier. Ann was nothing if not highly perceptive. She would have judged in a trice that the rapport between the master of Staveley Court and the mistress of the Grange had once been, perhaps, a trifle stronger than that of merely affable neighbours, even though Beth had done her utmost to keep her feelings well under control the instant she had discovered the identity of the unexpected caller.
She continued to do so now, as she slanted a mocking glance on her way back over to the decanters. ‘My paid companion you might wish to be termed, but pray abandon any desire to become a duenna. I should dismiss you in a trice for rank incompetence.’
Far from chastened, Ann frankly laughed. ‘But, my dear, I could see you were in no danger! I believe I recognise an honourable gentleman when I see one. And such a handsome one, too!’
Beth paused in the act of refilling her glass to consider for a moment. ‘Do you think him handsome?’
‘Why, yes! Don’t you?’
‘Not particularly, no. Attractive, certainly,’ Beth answered, as candid as ever. ‘But I have always considered him completely trustworthy. And I cannot imagine my opinion on that will ever change.’
‘And, of course, you have known him well enough to have formed that opinion of his character. Yet, when you took the liberty of crossing his land yesterday, and touched upon your relationship with the eligible Baronet, you gave me every reason to suppose you had never been anything other than amiable neighbours.’
Although the accusation was clearly discernible, Beth wasn’t unduly troubled by it. ‘And so we were, Ann dear. Here, pass me your glass, and I shall refill it with that revolting concoction you choose to tip down your throat!’
Once comfortably settled in their respective chairs again, Beth made no attempt to divert her companion’s mind by raising a different topic. Instead, she tried to explain her past relationship with the Baronet more fully by first reminding Ann of certain convivial evenings enjoyed out in the Peninsula in the company of Colonel Ashworth, and other distinguished officers.
‘So, having heard him, on more than one occasion, reminisce about my childhood,’ she continued, ‘you must have gathered I had had something of an unorthodox upbringing.’
‘Oh, yes, I do recall your father mentioning on more than one occasion that you were something of a tomboy, shamefully going about in breeches.’
Beth gurgled with mirth, genuinely amused. ‘Yes, and it was all very well for him, years afterwards, to lament over my deplorable behaviour, but let me assure you, at the time, he actively encouraged me to behave like the son he’d never been blessed to have.’ She considered for a moment. ‘Had my father been next in line for the title, instead of the youngest of three sons, I think maybe he might have remarried at some point and tried to beget a son himself. But as it was…’
Settling herself more comfortably in the chair, Beth allowed her mind to wander back over the years yet again. ‘You’ll remember me telling you that my mother died when I was very young. My recollections of her are distinctly hazy, merely flashes of memory concerning sweet perfumes and gentle words and caresses. My recollections of my father in my formative years are, by contrast, most vivid. He taught me to ride. Astride, I might add. When I was seven years old and he wished to purchase a side-saddle for me, I quite naturally recoiled in horror at the mere thought. So he bought me a suit of boy’s clothes instead.
‘Don’t be fooled by anything you might have heard him say out there in Spain,’ Beth advised, smiling fondly. ‘Believe me when I tell you he felt so proud that his little girl was a bruising rider, and had learned to shoot as well as he could. He rarely objected when I escaped from my long-suffering governess to accompany him out. And so it followed that whenever he was invited to join a shooting party in the locale, or went fishing with neighbours, I, too, went along. Philip frequently accompanied his father, and so, naturally, we became very well acquainted. I always looked forward with much pleasure to those times when he came home from school and, later, university. I regarded him as…possibly…a surrogate brother then, and followed him about everywhere.’ Smiling still, she shook her head. ‘He, poor boy, must have found me such a confounded nuisance, but he was always so very patient with me.’
Pausing to reduce the contents of her glass, Beth took a moment to collect her thoughts. ‘Of course such a state of affairs couldn’t possibly continue. Dear, dear, the granddaughter of an earl, no less, going about in breeches…?’ She raised her brows in mock horror. ‘It was not to be borne! Eventually my father’s only sister, the only member of his family, incidentally, with whom Papa ever had any dealings during the vast majority of his adult life, succeeded in forcing him to acknowledge the error of his ways, and in persuading him to pack me off to an exclusive seminary in Bath, where her own eldest daughter was a pupil.
‘I must confess I did somewhat resent Aunt Hetta’s interference at first,’ Beth went on to reveal. ‘And woe betide the woman if she ever attempts to meddle in my affairs again!’ A reluctant smile then tugged at her mouth. ‘To be fair, though, I’m forced to own she was in the right of it on that occasion. Eventually even I was brought to acknowledge the fact that I simply couldn’t go on behaving in such an outrageous fashion, especially if I ever hoped to make a suitable marriage. And besides—’ she shrugged ‘—the few years I spent at the seminary weren’t so bad. My eldest cousin and I were much of an age, and of course we’d seen each other on several occasions before then. But at the seminary we shared a room and became the very best of friends, more like sisters than cousins. At least, that’s how I eventually came to look upon Eugenie.’
The widow thought she could detect just the faintest trace of bitterness in Beth’s voice, and was frankly puzzled by it. Although Beth could never have been accused of boasting about her more illustrious family connections, she had on several occasions during the past five years mentioned her cousin Eugenie, always with affection, and always with much regret at her passing.
‘I seem to recall your saying you kept in regular contact with that cousin in particular,’ she remarked, in an attempt to discover a little more about this period in her dearest friend’s life.’
‘Yes, we exchanged letters on a regular basis and, as Papa had become increasingly less remote as the years had passed, at least where his only sister was concerned, we visited Lord Barfield’s mansion in Surrey at least once a year. Then, quite out of the blue, shortly after Eugenie had enjoyed a very successful first Season in town, Aunt Hetta professed a desire to accompany her eldest daughter here. The visits quickly became more frequent, every three months or so. Foolishly I imagined my cousin instigated those frequent journeys into the West Country for the sole purpose of seeing me.’ The shout of laughter that echoed round the parlour held a distinctly hollow and bitter ring. ‘How wrong can one be! The main reason for the regular visits was to remain in close proximity to a certain eligible young bachelor who had paid her no little attention during her weeks in London the previous year.’
Ann sympathised. ‘Little wonder you felt so aggrieved, my dear.’
‘Yes, and much more than you realise. I also foolishly imagined that Philip’s visits to this house were prompted by a desire to keep in regular contact with his childhood companion, not to moon over the beautiful girl with whom he had fallen head over heels in love.’
Rising to her feet, Beth went to stand before the window once more, and after a significant silence, when the only sound to be heard was the crackling of the logs on the fire, she at last conceded, ‘But perhaps I’m doing Philip an injustice to speak so disparagingly of him. Little wonder he fell so hopelessly in love with Eugenie. Believe me, Ann, she was the most beautiful girl imaginable—golden blonde hair, big, bright blue eyes, and the sweetest of dispositions.’
The sigh she uttered seemed to hang in the air for a long time before she added, ‘Although I was blissfully ignorant of it at the time, Waldo Staveley persuaded his nephew to wait until the following year before making anything official. Philip, seemingly, must have been content enough to follow his uncle’s advice. Which was understandable in the circumstances. He was very young, not four-and-twenty, and he was having to accustom himself to a vast number of responsibilities, as he had only months before come into the title. None the less, one cannot expect to keep things secret indefinitely and eventually word leaked out that an engagement announcement would be forthcoming in the spring of the following year.
‘During this period, Papa sailed for Portugal with Wellesley in the summer of ’08, as you know, and there was no possibility that I could remain here at the Grange. Foolishly I felt hurt, and harboured far too much resentment towards Eugenie and her mother to stay with them for the duration of Papa’s absence, and so I inflicted myself on my mother’s maiden aunt, who still resides in Plymouth. I was brutally aware, of course, that I would be expected to travel to Surrey for the engagement party the following year. As the months passed, and the date for the celebration loomed ever nearer, in sheer desperation I sought a way out of my predicament, and managed to attain passage on board a ship bound for Portugal, just a matter of a week or so before the engagement was made official. Great-Aunt Matilda suspected nothing until she discovered the note I had left her, poor darling. She must have been desperately concerned, even though I assured her I was sharing a cabin with the wife of an army surgeon, eager to join her husband out in the Peninsula, and would therefore be adequately chaperoned for the duration of the voyage.’
‘Even so, you took a desperate risk, my dear—a young girl, just turned twenty, travelling without a male protector,’ Ann pointed out.