A scoundrel of the ton...

Her knight in shining armor?

Katherine Wilder will do anything to escape her forced marriage, even ask Brandt Radcliffe to kidnap her! Only she doesn’t expect a man so disreputable to say no! With her father now desperate to marry her off to line his own pockets, widower Brandt has become her reluctant protector—and it seems the only way he can do that is to marry her himself...!

“A perfect pleasant Regency.”

—RT Book Reviews on Married for His Convenience

“Witty, well-researched and emotionally gripping.”

—Goodreads on No Conventional Miss

ELEANOR WEBSTER loves high heels and sun—which is ironic, as she lives in northern Canada, the land of snow hills and unflattering footwear. Various crafting experiences—including a nasty glue gun episode—have proved that her creative soul is best expressed through the written word. Eleanor has a Masters Degree in Education and is a school psychologist. She also holds an undergraduate degree in history, and loves to use her writing to explore her fascination with the past.

Also by Eleanor Webster

No Conventional Miss

Married for His Convenience

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Her Convenient Husband’s Return

Eleanor Webster

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07396-7

HER CONVENIENT HUSBAND’S RETURN

© 2018 Eleanor Webster

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To all those who choose to follow their hearts and

refuse to be limited by society’s norms, their own fears

or physical and emotional challenges.

To my husband, who encouraged me

when the struggle to get published overwhelmed.

To my father-in-law, for his ongoing interest

and his insistence that the villain receives

suitable retribution for heinous crimes committed.

To my father, who inspires with his love of life

and his continued joy and interest in the world—

not to mention a daily diary spanning 78 years!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

Her fingers touched the pins which impaled each fragile butterfly. She felt the cold hardness, contrasting with the spread-eagled insect wings, delicate as gossamer.

The air smelled of dust, laden with a cloying sweetness. Despite her lack of sight, Beth could feel the Duke’s gaze on her. Goose pimples prickled on her neck and she shivered even though the chamber was warm from the crackling fire.

‘Ren?’ she called.

‘Your friend is in the other room, looking at the tiger I shot. An artistic boy, it would seem?’

He stepped closer. ‘So, do you like the butterflies?’

She could smell his breath, a mix of alcohol, tobacco and that odd sweetness.

‘I find them sad.’

‘That is because you cannot see,’ the Duke said. ‘If you could see, you would admire their beauty. I pin them when they are still alive. The colour of their wings stays so much brighter, I find.’

She swallowed. Her throat felt dry. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth as if swollen, making words difficult to form.

‘You are yourself very beautiful,’ he said. ‘An unusual beauty, a perfection that is so seldom seen in nature. Your face, your features have a perfect symmetry. That is why I like the butterflies.’

She withdrew her hands from the display case, shifting abruptly and instinctively away. Stumbling, she felt a sharp corner strike her thigh.

‘Do be careful.’ The Duke’s hand touched her arm.

She felt the pressure of his fingers and the smell of his breath. She pulled her arms back, hugging them tight to her body.

‘Ren!’ she called again.

‘The walls are very thick here. It is nice to know that one’s residence is well built, don’t you think?’

She felt her breath quicken as sweat dampened her palms.

‘Beth?’

Relief bubbled up in a weird mix of euphoria and panic as she heard Ren’s familiar step.

‘That stuffed tiger is fantastic,’ he said. ‘I’d love to see one alive. Did you want to feel it?’ He paused. She heard him step to her. ‘Beth, are you sick?’

She nodded and he grasped her hand, his touch warm and familiar.

‘I—would—like—to—go—home.’ She forced the words out in a staccato rhythm, each syllable punctuated with a harsh gasp.

‘Do return, any time you would like,’ the Duke said.

She held tight to Ren’s hand as they exited the room and stepped down the stairs. They said nothing as they traversed the drive and then took the shortcut through the woods and back to the familiarity of Graham Hill.

It was only as they sat in their favourite spot, leaning against the oak’s stout trunk with her hands touching the damp velvet moss, that her breathing slowed.

‘Don’t let’s go there again,’ she said. ‘Ever.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing.’ This was true and yet she had felt more fearful than she ever had before. More fearful than the time she had fallen off the fence into the bull’s paddock. Or when she had got lost in the woods. Or when her horse had got spooked.

‘He looks at you strangely.’

‘Yes, I feel it.’

‘We won’t go back,’ Ren agreed. ‘I thought he would have more animals. One tiger isn’t much.’

‘And butterflies.’

Ren stood. He could never stay still for long, unless he was painting. ‘Let’s forget about that creepy old place. We’ll not return, not for a hundred tigers. What should we do now—fishing, or should we see if Mrs Bridges has baked?’

Beth sniffed. ‘I think I can smell fresh scones.’

‘Your brother would say that is a scientific impossibility,’ Ren laughed.

‘And yours would say we should check it out anyway.’

He took her hand and she stood. Together they scrambled across the field towards Ren’s home. In the warm sunshine and with the promise of Mrs Bridges’s fresh baking, Beth forgot about the Duke and his butterflies.

Chapter One

Ten years later

‘You should marry me.’

‘What? Why?’ Beth gripped the couch’s worn velvet arms as though to ground herself in a world gone mad. Or perhaps she had misheard Ren’s stark statement.

‘It is the best solution.’

‘To what exactly? That you’ve been suffering from unrequited love during the ten years of your absence?’

‘Of course not,’ Ren said, with typical bluntness.

Beth felt almost reassured. At least he had not entirely taken leave of his senses.

‘If it is because of Father’s death, you need not do so. Jamie and I will fare well enough.’

‘Not if you marry the Duke, you won’t,’ Ren said.

‘You heard?’ Beth felt her energy sap, her spine bending. Her breath was released in a muted exhalation.

‘Bad news travels fast.’

‘I have not... He asked me to marry him, but it would be the very last resort. If I could think of no other option.’

‘It would be a catastrophe.’

Did he think she did not know this? Even now, her stomach was a tight, hard knot of dread and too often she lay awake at night, clammy with sweat and fear.

‘It would be better than debtors’ prison,’ she said tartly. ‘Anyhow, I hope to merely sell him the land.’

‘I’d take prison. Besides, he’ll never buy the land. He wants the land and you.’

‘I cannot see why Ayrebourne would want to marry a woman like me.’

She heard Ren’s sharp intake of breath.

‘As always you underestimate yourself,’ he muttered. ‘The Duke is a collector. He likes beautiful things. You are exquisitely beautiful.’

‘I—’ She touched her hands to her face. People had always told her that she had an ephemeral, other-worldly beauty. Indeed, she had traced and retraced her features, pressing her fingers along her jawbone and the outline of her cheeks to find some difference between her own and the faces of others.

She dropped her hands. ‘How did you learn about this anyway?’

‘Jamie.’

‘Jamie? You have seen Jamie already?’

‘Not here. In London. Gambling.’ Ren spoke in a flat, even tone.

‘Jamie gambling?’ Her hand tightened, reflexively balling the cloth of her dress in her fist. ‘I mean—he can’t—he hardly even socialises.’

‘I found him at a gambling house. I removed him, of course, before much harm was done.’

‘He hates London. When was he even in London?’

‘Last weekend.’

‘He said he was going to sell two horses at Horbury Mews.’

‘Apparently, he took a less-than-direct route,’ Ren said.

Beth’s thoughts whirled, bouncing around her mind, quick and panicked. It did not make sense. Jamie was so...so entirely different than Father. Where Father had been glib, Jamie spoke either in monosyllables or else was mired in pedantic detail and scientific hypothesis.

‘But why? Why would he do that? He knows only too well the harm gambling can do.’

‘I presume he hopes his facility with numbers will enable him to be more successful than your father.’

‘Except his inability with people will make him more disastrous.’

For a moment she was silent. Then she stood, rousing herself with a conscious effort, keeping her hand on the back of her chair to orientate herself. This was not Ren’s problem. She had not seen him for years and he had no need to make some heroic sacrifice for her or her family.

‘Thank you for telling me about Jamie. I will speak to him,’ she said stiffly.

‘Logic seldom wins against desperation.’

‘He has no reason to be desperate.’

‘He loves you and he loves this land. He’d hate to see you married to the Duke and he’d hate to sell as much as a blade of grass. He was cataloguing seeds when he was three.’

‘Seven,’ she corrected. ‘He was cataloguing seeds when he was seven. But I will determine another solution.’

‘I have presented you with another solution.’

‘Marriage? To you?’

‘I am not the devil incarnate, only a close relative.’

She released the chair, taking the four steps to the window, as though physical distance might serve to clear her thoughts. She could feel his presence. Even without sight, she was aware of his height, the deep timbre of his voice, the smell of hay and soap, now tinged with tobacco. There was a disorienting mix of familiarity and new strangeness. He was both the boy she had once known and this stranger who had just now bounded back into her life.

Beth wished she could touch his face. She wanted to read his features, as she would have done once without thought, an action as natural as breathing.

‘You do not come here for ten years and now turn up with a—a marriage proposal. How would marriage even help? It would not enable us to pay off Father’s debt. I already suggested to your brother that he buy the land, but he is as poor as we are.’

Ren laughed in a manner devoid of humour. ‘In contrast to my brother, I am a veritable Croesus. And you need not fear, I know you require independence and dislike the concept of marriage. This will be a marriage in name only.’

‘But why?’ she asked, then flushed, turning. ‘I did not mean—I mean, why marry me? Could you not just buy the land or loan us the money if you are so rich and eager to save us?’

She heard the rustle of cloth as though Ren had shrugged and could almost feel his lips curl in a derisive smile. ‘It would provide you with a guardian.’

‘I do not need a guardian.’

‘You are not yet twenty-one.’

‘I have Jamie.’

‘He is not yet twenty. Besides, he is no match for Ayrebourne. Marriage to me would make any marriage to the Duke impossible.’ He paused. ‘You were my best friend, you know.’

Beth rubbed her fingers against the smooth finish of the painted sill, while leaning her forehead against the pane. Her eyes stung with the flood of memories: long afternoons beside the brook, winter walks with the snow crisply crunching under their feet and long tramps through whistling windy days in fall.

‘Childhood friendship does not require this level of sacrifice. You and I haven’t spoken in years.’

For a moment he did not respond, but when he did, something in his voice sent a nervous tingling through her body making her breath uneven.

‘You know with us that doesn’t matter.’

She felt it, that intangible connection, that closeness that was rooted in childhood, but it had also changed. She heard him shift. She heard his breath quicken.

She bit her lip. ‘Why didn’t you write or come back or visit?’

There was a pause. She heard his discomfort, the intake of his breath and the movement of his clothes.

‘I couldn’t.’

‘It doesn’t take much. You inhale and speak. You pick up a pen or...or hire a horse.’

‘You’ll just have to believe me.’

‘And now you expect me to marry you after all these years?’

‘I expect nothing. I am merely offering a preferable alternative to the Duke,’ he said, his voice now hard and clipped.

She shivered. Few things frightened her, but the Duke was one of them. Marriage to him would destroy her. Even if she avoided that and he agreed to buy the land, it was an unpleasant concept and would give him even more reason to linger in the village or woods. She rubbed her arms. Goose pimples prickled the skin. She hated the thought of him owning the land on her own doorstep. Already, she felt watched. And sometimes, as she walked through the woods, she’d smell that odd sweet fragrance that seemed to emanate from him.

The Duke would use everything against her: her sex, her youth, her poverty, her sightless eyes, her wonderfully odd brother.

Ren stepped closer to her. She felt his breath on her neck, his tall presence behind her and his hand on her own. Warmth filled her, which was both comfortable and uncomfortable. The urge for distance and separation lessened so that, for an impulsive, crazy moment, she wanted only to lean against him and to feel his strength.

Ren was her friend. He had guided her over rivers and up steep hillsides.

His hand stilled the nervous movement of her fingers against the sill. ‘You can trust me.’

She nodded.

‘Let me honour our childhood friendship.’

‘We were good friends.’

His grip tightened and she felt the warmth grow, a tingling energy snaking through her.

‘The best. Don’t put yourself in that man’s power. Let me help,’ he said in a voice now oddly soft. ‘Don’t marry him.’

‘I don’t have the option to be selective,’ she muttered.

‘You do now.’

Chapter Two

Eighteen months later

Beth strode towards the stable. As always, she counted her steps, tapping the path with her cane. She lifted her face to the sky, enjoying the warmth of the sun’s rays and the soft whisper of breeze. She enjoyed spring. She liked the smell of grass and earth. She liked the rustle of fresh leaves, so different from the dry, crisp wintery crack of bare branches. She liked that giddy, happy sense of renewal.

Even better, she welcomed the ease of movement which came with drier weather. Country life at Allington was dreadfully dull.

Worse than dull, it was lonely. Her beloved sister-in-law was dead. Jamie seldom conversed. Edmund had left. Ren never came. Her maid chattered of ribbons.

For a fleeting second, she remembered childhood winters: walks with Ren, afternoons by the fire’s crackling heat in a room rich with the aroma of cinnamon toast. Sometimes Edmund would read while Ren painted and Jamie pored over a botanical thesis.

Beth pushed the past away, recognising her brother’s footsteps on the rutted path. She lifted her hand in greeting.

‘Field’s ready for planting,’ Jamie said without preamble, satisfaction lacing his tones.

‘You are trying new crops this year?’

‘New variety of beans. They will be hardier.’

‘In Edmund’s fields as well as our own?’

Jamie grunted assent. ‘As I doubt your husband plans to do so.’

‘He’s in London,’ she said flatly. ‘Besides, Edmund left a manager in charge.’

Edmund, or rather Lord Graham, was Ren’s brother. Her husband’s brother...husband. Even after eighteen months her mind stumbled over the word—it wasn’t surprising since she had likely conversed more with the village blacksmith, a man of guttural grunts and limited vocabulary, than her spouse.

‘I am also trying a new variety of peas,’ Jamie said.

She nodded. ‘By the way, do we have any surplus supplies? I went to the Duke’s estate yesterday. The people are starving so I asked Arnold to take grain.’

She heard Jamie’s quick intake of breath. ‘You should not go there.’

‘Arnold was with me. Besides, the Duke is away. He hasn’t visited me since I turned down his proposal.’

‘One good thing about your marriage. But he has been at his estate on occasion. I also saw him on our own grounds once. Said his hound had strayed.’

Beth felt a shiver of apprehension. Dampness prickled her palms and her lungs felt tight as if unable to properly inhale the air. She pushed the feeling away. ‘The important thing is to get his people food.’

‘It is that bad?’

‘Yes.’ Beth’s fingers tightened on her cane. Her jaw clenched at the thought of yesterday’s visit. She remembered a mother’s desperate effort to soothe her hungry child. She’d held his hands and felt the thin boniness of his tiny fingers pressed into her palm like twigs devoid of flesh. ‘The Duke’s treatment of his tenants has worsened. I worry that it is a form of punishment.’

‘Punishment?’

‘Yes, for avoiding marriage to him.’

‘The tenants were hardly responsible and I see no evidence for such an assumption.’

Beth nodded. Jamie’s world was so wonderfully black and white. ‘Sometimes human nature defies science.’

She felt his confusion and could imagine his skin creasing into a pucker between his eyes.

‘I’ll send some root vegetables as well,’ he said. ‘Are you going there now?’

‘No, but Arnold will later.’

‘We will send what we can,’ Jaime said, in his steady way.

That was Jamie all over. Steady, scientific, kind but without sentiment.

In contrast, Ren had married her in a wild, crazy, heroic gesture, disappearing after their wedding into the capital’s giddy whirl of brandy and women.

She tried to ignore that quick, predictable flicker of pain and anger. Obviously, she had not expected anything close to a regular marriage, but to be so abandoned and ignored was painful to her. For some ludicrous reason, as she had stood beside him in the still air of the tiny church, she’d imagined that they might become friends again.

Instead, they had ridden back to Graham Hall in an uncomfortable silence broken only by the rattle of carriage wheels and a discussion about the weather. Within half a day, Ren’s carriage had been loaded and he had disappeared as though he could no longer bear his childhood home or those associated with it.

Still, she had no reason to complain. He had paid off her father’s debts, Allington was profitable and the Duke remained largely in London. Thank goodness. She still shivered when she remembered their last interview.

‘I must go,’ she said to Jamie, diverting her thoughts. ‘I promised Edmund I would look in on a few of his tenants during his absence.’

She sighed. Mere weeks ago, Edmund had gone to war. She wished desperately he had not done so and knew he had been driven more by grief than patriotism. His father, his wife and their unborn child... Too many losses crammed into too few years.

‘A sight more than his brother will do,’ Jamie said.

‘His life is in London,’ she said. ‘We always knew that.’

* * *

The road to Graham Hill was a winding, meandering path through shaded woods and across open pasture. She had brought Arnold today, but even without her groom Beth knew her way. She could easily differentiate between sounds—the muted clip-clop of hooves on an earthy path was so different from the sharper noise of a horse’s shoe against a cobbled drive.

In some ways, her father had lacked moral fibre. In others, he had been remarkable. He’d helped her to see with her hands, to learn from sounds and scents and textures.

But it was her mother who had taught her independence and, more importantly, how swiftly such independence could be lost.

Lil, short for Lilliputian due to her small stature, slowed when the drive ended. Beth leaned forward, stroking the mare’s neck, warm and damp with sweat. Arnold swung off his mount to open the gate. She heard its creak as it swung forward and, more through habit than need, counted the twenty-one steps across the courtyard.

Lil stopped and Beth dismounted. She paused, leaning against the animal, her hand stretched against Lil’s warm round barrel of a ribcage. She heard the horse’s breath. She heard the movement of her tail, its swish, and Arnold’s footsteps as he took Lil from her, the reins jangling.

Except... She frowned, discomfort snaking through her. There was a wrongness, a silence, an emptiness about the place. No one had greeted her; no groom or footman had come. She could hear nothing except the retreating tap of Lil’s hooves as Arnold led her to the stable.

The unease grew. Dobson should be here opening the door, ushering her inwards, offering refreshment. Beth walked to the entrance. The door was closed. She laid her palm flat against its smooth surface, reaching upward to ring the bell.

It echoed hollowly.

Goose pimples prickled despite the spring sunshine. Pushing open the door, she stepped inside.

‘Dobson?’ Her voice sounded small, swallowed in the emptiness. ‘Dobson?’ she repeated.

This time she was rewarded by the butler’s familiar step.

‘Ma’am,’ he said. ‘I am sorry no one was there to meet you.’

‘It’s fine. But is anything wrong? Has something happened?’

‘Her ladyship is on her way, ma’am,’ he said.

Beth exhaled with relief. ‘That is all right then.’

Granted, her mother-in-law was a woman of limited intelligence and considerable hysteria, but her arrival was hardly tragic. Besides, Lady Graham would not stay long; she loathed the country almost as much as Ren and spent most of her time in London.

‘No, ma’am that is not it,’ Dobson said, pausing as the clatter of carriage wheels sounded outside. ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ he said.

After Dobson left, Beth found herself standing disoriented within the hall. She had forgotten to count her steps and reached forward tentatively, feeling for the wall or a piece of furniture which might serve to determine her location. In doing so, she dropped her cane. Stooping, she picked it up, her fingertips fumbling across the cool hard marble. Before she could rise, she heard the approach of rapid footsteps, accompanied by the swish of skirts: her mother-in-law. She recognised her perfume, lily of the valley.

‘Lady Graham?’ Beth straightened.

‘Beth—what are you doing here?’ Lady Graham said. Then with a groan, the elder woman stumbled against her in what seemed to be half-embrace and half-faint.

‘Lady Graham? What is it? What has happened?’

‘My son is dead.’

‘Ren?’ Beth’s heart thundered, pounding against her ears so loudly that its beat obliterated all other sounds. Every part of her body chilled, the blood pooling in her feet like solid ice. Her stomach tightened. The taste of bile rose in her throat so that she feared she might vomit.

‘No, Edmund,’ Lady Graham said.

‘Edmund.’

A mix of relief, sorrow and guilt washed over her as she clutched at her mother-in-law, conscious of the woman’s trembling form beneath her hands. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Edmund was Ren’s brother. He was a friend. He was a country gentleman. He loved the land, his people, science and innovation.

‘He was a good man,’ she said inadequately.

Then, above the thudding of her heart, Beth heard the approach of quick footsteps. With another sob, Lady Graham released Beth’s arm and Beth heard her maid’s comforting tones and the duet of their steps cross the floor and ascend the stairs.

Again disoriented, Beth stepped to the wall, but stumbled over her cane, almost falling. The wall saved her and, thankfully, she leaned against it. Her thoughts had slowed and merged into a single refrain: not Ren, not Ren, not Ren. Her breath came in pants as though she had been running. She felt dizzy and pushed her spine and palms against the wall as though its cool hardness might serve as an anchor.

That moment when she’d thought...when she’d thought Ren had died shuddered through her, sharper and more intense than the pain she now felt for Edmund.

And yet, Edmund had been her friend. Good God, she had spent more time in his company than that of her husband. Ren was but a name on a marriage certificate—a boy who had been her friend, a man who had married her and left—

‘Beth?’

Ren’s voice. Beth’s knees shook and tears prickled, spilling over and tracking down her cheeks. Impulsively she stretched out her hands. For a moment she felt only emptiness and then she touched the solid, reassuring bulk of his arm. Her hand tightened. She could feel the fine wool under her fingertips. She could feel the hard strength of his muscles tensing under the cloth and recognised the smell of him: part-cologne, part-fresh hay and part his own scent.

‘You’re here?’

His presence seemed like a miracle, all the more precious because, for a moment, she had thought him dead.

Impulsively, she tightened her hold on him, leaning into him, placing her face on his chest, conscious of the cloth against her cheek and, beneath it, the steady, constant thumping of his heart.

* * *

Her hair smelled of soap. The years disappeared. They were chums again. He was Rendell Graham once more. He belonged. His hold tightened as he felt her strength, her comfort, her essential goodness. Strands of her hair tickled his chin. He had forgotten its vibrancy. He had forgotten its luminosity. He had forgotten how she seemed to impart her own light, so that she more closely resembled angels in a church window than flesh and blood.

And he had forgotten also how she made his senses swim, how he wanted both to protect her above all things and yet also to hold her, to press her to him, to take that which he did not deserve, breaking his word—

‘Excuse me, my lord.’ Dobson entered the hall, clearing his throat.

Ren stiffened, stepping back abruptly. ‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘That is my brother’s name.’

‘I am—um—sorry—my—Master Rendell, sir.’

Ren exhaled. It was not this man’s fault that he had called him by a name he did not merit. ‘Yes?’

‘There are a number of matters we must discuss,’ Dobson said.

‘Very well, I will see you in the study shortly.’

Dobson left. Ren glanced at this slight woman...his wife. She was as beautiful as he remembered—more so since her body had rounded slightly so that she looked less waif and more woman. Her skin was flushed, but still resembled fine porcelain and she held herself with a calm grace and composure.

He’d tried to paint her once. It had not worked. He had not been able to get that skin tone, that luminosity. Of course, that was back when he still painted.

‘I am sorry,’ Beth said, angling her head and looking at him with eyes that couldn’t see yet saw too much. ‘Is there anything I can do to help you or your mother?’

‘No,’ Ren said, briskly. ‘No. You should not be wasting your time with us. Jamie will need you. He was as much Edmund’s brother as I.’

Despite the four-year age difference, Edmund and Jamie had shared a common interest in the scientific and a devotion to the land.

Worry and shock flickered across her features. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I must tell him. I don’t want him to find out from someone else. Except I don’t even know yet what happened. Edmund could not have even reached the Continent.’

‘Cholera outbreak on board the ship.’

Ren still couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to survive duels, crazy horse races, boxing matches and drunken gallops while Edmund had succumbed within days of leaving home.

‘He didn’t even see battle?’

‘No. Would it have made it better if he had? If he’d died for King and country?’ Ren asked, with bitter anger.

‘I don’t know. It wouldn’t change that he is gone.’

She was honest at least. Most women of his acquaintance seemed to glamorise such sacrifice.

‘Will there be a—a funeral?’ she asked.

‘We do not have a body.’ He spoke harshly, wanting to inflict pain although on whom he did not know.

‘A service, at least? I want—I need to say goodbye. The tenants, too.’

‘It is not customary for ladies to attend funerals,’ he said. The need for distance became greater. He must not grow used to her company. He must not seek her advice or her comfort. He must not rely on her. Beth had never wanted marriage to anyone. She valued her independence. Moreover, she belonged here in the country. Indeed, familiarity with her environment was an integral part of her independence.

And Graham Hill was the one place he could not live.

‘You know I have never been bound by custom.’

That much was true. If custom were to prevail she should be housebound, dependent on servants. Instead, she rode about her estate on that tiny horse and ran Jamie’s house and even aspects of the estate with admirable efficiency.

He forced his mind to shift. He was not here to analyse the woman who was his wife in name only, but to bury his brother ‘in name only.’ Efficiency was essential. He must take whatever steps were needed to cut his ties with the estate. To stay here was torture. Graham Hill was everything he had loved, everything he had taken for granted as his birth right and everything which had been ripped from him.

For a moment, he let his gaze wander over the familiar hall with the huge stone fireplace and dark beams criss-crossing the high arched ceiling. He had been back maybe five times since he had learned the truth, since he had learned that he was not really Rendell Graham, the legitimate child of Marcus Graham.

Instead, he was the bastard offspring of a mediocre portrait painter.

Abruptly, he turned back to Beth. ‘I will let you and Jamie know the time for the service,’ he said brusquely.

‘Thank you.’

For a moment she did not move. Her mouth opened slightly. She bit her lower lip. Her hand reached up to him. She ran her fingers across his cheek as she used to do. The touch was both familiar, but infinitely different. The moment stilled.

‘You do not always have to be strong and brave,’ she said.

His lips twisted. He thought of his life in London, of the stupid bets and nights obliterated by alcohol.

‘I’m not,’ he said.

Chapter Three

Beth sat beside the fire. It crackled, the snap of the flames tangling with the rhythmic tick of the mantel clock. She rubbed her hands with a dry chafing sound. She felt chilled, despite the spring season.

Jamie would be home soon. He would come in and talk crops and science in his single-minded manner.

And she would tell him about Edmund.

In many ways, Edmund had been his only friend; they had shared a fascination with science. Granted, Edmund had been older and more interested in mechanised invention than seeds, but there had been similarities in their minds and intellects.

And now, she must tell him about Edmund’s death. Strange how someone remains alive until one is told otherwise. Edmund was still alive to Jamie and would remain alive until she told him he was not. In many ways it made her the executioner.

Beth stood, too restless to be contained within the easy chair. She paced the seven steps to the window. She thought of Ren. He and Edmund had been inseparable as children—although he had spent little enough time here since. Her heart hurt for him, but she also felt anger. Why had he turned so resolutely against Graham Hill? How had London’s lure become so strong for the boy she used to know?

She remembered the four of them scrambling across the countryside. Well, Jamie and Edmund would scramble. She would often sit while Ren painted. She’d hear the movement of his brush strokes across the canvas, mixed with myriad woodland sounds; water, birds, bees, leaves... And Ren would describe everything: puffy clouds resembling sheep before shearing, streams dancing with the tinkling of harpsichords and tiny snowdrops hidden under the bushes like shy maidens.

Yet now Ren was at the big house with a mother he did not like.

Alone.

He no longer painted. He no longer liked the country. If gossip was true, his life in London was dissolute.

‘Arnold said you needed to speak to me.’

She startled at Jamie’s voice, wheeling from the window.

‘Yes. I need to tell—’

‘I know about Edmund,’ he said.

‘You do?’ She exhaled, both relieved that she need not tell him and guilty that she had not been the one to do so.

‘Lady Graham’s maid told the whole staff. Should not have enlisted. Tried to talk sense into him.’

She heard the wheeze of cushioning as her brother threw himself heavily into his chair.

‘He never was the same after Mirabelle died,’ she said.

‘Still had the land.’

Beth permitted herself a sad half-smile. For Jamie, the land, the scientific pursuit of hardy crops and livestock would always be sufficient. There was an invulnerability about him that she envied.

‘So Ren is Lord Graham now,’ Jamie said.

‘Yes.’

He made a grumbling sound. ‘I hope he intends to take his responsibilities seriously. No more capering about. He’ll have to spend more time here.’

‘I guess—’ she said jerkily.

His words startled her. She had not thought of this and felt that quick mix of emotion too tangled to properly discern: a jumble of breathless disorientation; anticipation and apprehension.

‘He may not want to,’ she said.

‘Must. His responsibility now,’ Jamie said. ‘Wonder what he knows about seeds?’

‘Not much. London isn’t big on seeds.’ She gave a half-smile that felt more like a stifled sob.

‘Guess I could teach him.’

Beth nodded. The young boy she had known would have needed no convincing. He had loved the estate from its every aspect. He’d loved the tenants, the fields, the animals.

But the man—her husband—did not.

* * *

The morning of the memorial dawned clear. Beth could feel the sun’s warmth through the window pane. She was glad it was sunny. Edmund had liked the sun.

She’d visited Graham Hill the previous day, but neither Ren nor his mother had been available, so she had returned with the nebulous feeling that she ought to do something more.

That was the thing about this marriage: it had brought them no closer. There had been no return of their former friendship, no occasional visits, no notes from London, laughter or pleasant strolls.

With Mirabelle’s death, she’d taken on more duties on the Graham estate but with a confused uncertainty, unsure if she was a family member helping out or a neighbour overstepping.

Now she wondered if she should go to Graham Hill prior to the service? Or merely join Ren at the church? Likely he’d prefer to ignore her or have her sit like a stranger. But the tenants would not.

Fortunately, the arrival of a curt missive from Graham Hill settled this dilemma. Jamie read the abrupt note which stated only that the Graham carriage would collect them so that she could attend the service with her husband.

‘Indeed, that is only logical. It would be foolish to bring out both carriages to go to the same location,’ he concluded in his blunt sensible manner as though practicality was the only issue at stake.

Husband. It had been so much easier to cope with a husband when he remained unseen in London. Then she had been able to think of that quick ceremony as a dream or an episode from a past life with little impact on her present. Indeed, he had felt less absent miles away than now when she knew they were within half a mile of each other, shared a common grief, but were as remote as two islands separated by an ocean.

Of course, his instant removal the day of the marriage service had hurt. She remembered listening to the fast trot of his fashionable curricle down the drive at Allington with a confused mix of pain, relief, embarrassment.

But truthfully, relief had overshadowed all other emotion. Allington had not been sold. Her father’s gambling debt to the Duke had been paid. She was safe from Ayrebourne. Indeed, she’d not been in that unpleasant man’s presence since she had politely declined his proposal, although she still felt an uneasy prickle of goose pimples when she remembered that interview.

Even now, close to two years later, the tightness returned to her stomach whenever she remembered the day. The chill cold silence of the library had felt so absolute. She’d wished that she had ordered a fire lit. She’d felt so enclosed, so isolated alone with this man.

‘You have an answer for me?’ he’d asked, taking her hand in his.

His fingers had been cold—not a dry, crisp cold, but clammy.

She’d said the right things, the pretty phrases of refusal. Of course, she hadn’t been able to see his expression, but she’d felt his anger. His hand had tightened on her own, his fingers digging into her flesh so that for days after it had felt bruised.

‘You are refusing?’

‘Yes, with gratitude for—for the honour, of course.’

‘And this other suitor? He will be able to pay off your father’s debts. They are substantial.’

‘Yes,’ she’d said.

For a moment, Ayrebourne had made no reply. Then he’d leaned closer. She’d heard his movement, the rustle of his clothes and felt a slow, growing dread, as though time had been oddly slowed or elongated. With careful movements, he’d lifted his hand and touched her face with one single finger. ‘A shame.’

Nauseous distaste had risen, like bile, into her throat. Twisting fear had made her tongue dry and swell, becoming bulbous as if grown too big for her mouth.

She had not been able to make a response and had remained still as though paralysed. Very slowly, his finger had traced her cheek, a slow, slithering touch. Then he’d pressed close to her ear, so that she could feel his warm moist breath and the damp touch of his lips.

‘But we are still neighbours so likely I will see you from time to time. In fact, I will make sure of it.’

His lips had touched again the tip of her ear.

‘I would enjoy that,’ he’d said.

* * *

‘Shall I be helping you with your hair this morning—ma’am—my lady?’

Beth jumped at her maid’s words. ‘Yes.’

‘Gracious, you’re white as a ghost. Are you well?’ Allie entered, bringing with her the sweet smell of hot chocolate.

Beth nodded. ‘Yes, I was just thinking—unpleasant thoughts. But I am glad of the distraction.’

‘And your hair?’

‘Best see what you can do.’

Usually Beth paid little attention to her appearance, but today she’d make an effort. It would show respect. Besides, she didn’t want to give Lady Graham reason to criticise. Lady Graham had never approved of the marriage. Who would want a blind country miss as one’s son’s wife—even a second son?

She startled, the movement so abrupt that Allie made a tsking, chastising noise.

‘He’s going to be Lord Graham,’ she said.

‘Yes, my lady.’

Of course, Beth had known that since she’d first heard of Edmund’s death and yet it seemed as though she only now recognised its full import. It changed everything. She could not believe that she had not recognised this earlier. Ren was no longer just the family black sheep. He was Lord Graham. He had duties, social responsibilities, a seat in the House of Lords.

Most importantly, he’d need an heir.

That single thought thundered through her. She clasped her hands so tightly together she could feel her nails sharp against the skin.

She’d known, since childhood, she would not—must not—have children.

Her thoughts circled and bounced. They would have to get an annulment. That was the only option. But was it possible? Would they qualify? Good Lord, ‘qualify’? It sounded as though she was seeking entrance into an exclusive club or scientific society. Or would they have to get a divorce? And what were the rules about divorce?

When should she talk to Ren about this? His brother’s funeral hardly seemed suitable. Was there a good time? A protocol for the dissolution of marriage? Would he agree?

Ally made another tut-tutting sound behind her. ‘Please stay still, my lady. You are that wriggly! Worse than a dog with fleas, if I may say so. I’m thinking I’ll trim your fringe, too, while I’m about it and really you don’t want to be wriggly when I do that or goodness knows how we’ll end up.’

‘Yes,’ Beth said, dully.

She made her breathing slow, as she used to do whenever she became lost or panicked. Their farce of a marriage would be annulled. But tomorrow was soon enough to worry. Today, she would show respect and support. She would bid farewell to Edmund.

After finishing Beth’s hair, Allie helped Beth put on her black bombazine. The cool, stiff cloth brushed over her skin, sliding into place. It was the same dress she’d worn while mourning Edmund’s wife Mirabelle. That had hurt also, but not like this. This loss of a childhood friend hurt in a gut-wrenching way.

Beth had intended to wait for the carriage in the front room, but didn’t. It felt too enclosed and she found herself drawn outside. Without sight, an empty room could be a chill place, bereft of sound or movement. In the outer world, the air stirred. She could discern the comforting and familiar sounds of life, the distant jangle of cow bells or the mewling of the stable cat.

The rattle of carriage wheels caught her attention and she stepped forward as soon the noise eased, wheels and hooves silenced. The door opened and Ren got out. She knew it was him. It was in the firmness of his step. It was in his smell, that mix of scents: cologne, hay, soap. Even more striking, it was her reaction to him, a feeling which was both of comfort and discomfort.

‘You were in the stable,’ she said.

‘And you are still eerily accurate.’

He took her hand, helping her into the carriage. It was a common enough courtesy and yet her reaction was not usual. Her breathing quickened but she felt, conversely, as though she had insufficient air.

She sank into the cushioning, so much more comfortable than that in her own more economic vehicle. He sat beside her. She could feel his body’s warmth, but also the tension, as though his every nerve and muscle was as tight as the strings on the violin Mirabelle used to play.

Impulsively, she reached for his hand. She wanted to touch him as she used to do, to break through the darkness which was her world and to communicate the feelings which could not be put into words. He jolted at her touch. Disconcerted, she withdrew her hand, clasping her fingers together as though to ensure restraint.

The silence was broken as Jamie entered also, his movements slow and heavy. The cushioning creaked as he sat opposite.

The carriage door closed.

‘You’re here,’ Jamie said.

‘Your observation is also eerily accurate,’ Ren said, but with that snide note to his voice he never used to have.

‘Hope you’re planning to spend some time here, now you’re Lord Graham.’

Ren became, if possible, more rigid. She felt the stiffening of his limbs and straightened back. ‘Shall we focus on my dead brother and not my itinerary?’ he said.

The silence was almost physical now, a heavy weight as the carriage moved. It closed in on them, the quiet punctuated only by the rattling of wheels and the creaking of springs.

She swallowed, aware of a stinging in her eyes and a terrible sadness—for Edmund and also that his three best friends should sit so wordlessly.

‘Thank you for collecting us,’ she said at last when she could bear the stillness no more.

‘The villagers would not want us to arrive separately,’ he said.

‘We would not wish to risk upsetting them.’ She spoke tightly.

His words hurt. She was not certain why. She did not need him to think of her as a wife. She knew he did not. She knew she did not want that. Yet, conversely, she needed him to think of her, to acknowledge her, to recognise that it was only right that she and Jamie and Ren bid farewell to Edmund together. They had been a band, a group, a fellowship.

‘Your mother is not coming?’ she asked.

‘She is more bound by custom than yourself. Besides, she has been unable to rise since our arrival.’

‘That was four days ago.’

‘Yes.’

‘She has been in bed since then?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You have been alone in the big house? With no one to talk to?’

‘Mrs Bridges loves to discuss the menus.’ He spoke in crisp tight syllables, like twigs snapping.

She was cruel, that woman. Selfish. Lady Graham, not the cook.

Without conscious thought, Beth reached again for him, taking his hand within her own. She felt its size and breadth. She felt the small calluses. This time he did not jolt away. Instead, with a soft sigh, he allowed his grip to fold into hers.

* * *

Ren wanted only to leave, to spring astride the nearest horse and ride and ride and ride until everyone and everything were but tiny pinpoints, minutiae on a distant horizon.

The carriage halted in front of the country church. The building was as familiar as his own face, its walls a patchwork of slate-grey stone criss-crossed with verdant moss. His glance was drawn to the graveyard, a place he and Edmund had tiptoed past, scaring each other with wonderful stories of disturbed ancestors, ghosts, spooks and clanking chains.

Now Edmund would join their number.

Ren looked also to the grassy enclosure with its clutter of uneven tombstones, clustered about the family mausoleum.

Edmund’s family.

* * *

The church was full. The villagers had placed vases of yellow daffodils at the end of every pew. Their blossoms formed bright dabs of colour against the darkness of the polished wood. Sunlight flickered through the stained-glass windows, splashing rainbows across the slate floor. Particles of dust danced lazily, flecks suspended and golden within the light. The atmosphere was heavy with hushed whispers, perfume, flowers and the shuffle of people trying too hard to be quiet.

Ren went to the Graham family pew where he’d sat as a child. The organ played. He could feel its vibration through the wooden seat. Beth loved that feeling. She used to say that she didn’t even miss her sight when she could both hear and feel each note.

The villagers looked at him, covert glances from across the aisle. He wondered how many of the farmers and tenants knew or suspected his questionable paternity? Did they despise him? Hate him? Pity him? Did he even have a right to mourn?

His gaze slid to Beth. Black suited her, the dark cloth dramatic against her pale skin and golden hair. Not that she would know, or even care. Beside her, Jamie sat solid and silent.

Ren did not know if their presence comforted or hurt. They reminded him of a time before loss, a time of childhood happiness, a time when his identify, his belonging had been without question.

His mother’s secret had shattered everything. Even his art no longer brought joy. Indeed, his talent was nothing but a lasting reminder of the cheap portrait painter who had seduced his mother and sired a bastard.

The vicar stood. He cleared his throat, the quiet noise effectively silencing the congregation’s muted whispering. He had changed little from the days when they’d attended as children, though he was perhaps balder. The long tassels of his moustache drooped lower, framing the beginnings of a double chin. Thank God for the moustache. It kept sentiment at bay.

The organ swelled, off key and yet moving.

They’d been here for their wedding. No spectators, of course. Just Beth and Jamie and the vicar with his moustache.

Ren swallowed. He could not wait to be gone from here. He wanted to escape to London with its distractions of women, wine and gambling.

In London, he was a real person—not a pleasant or a nice person—but real none the less. Here he was a pretender, acting a part.

In London, he could forget about Graham Hill and a life that was no longer his.

Slaughtered in a single truth.

* * *

Finally, as with all things, the service ended. Everyone rose simultaneously like obedient puppets.

Beth stood also, touching his arm, the gesture caring. Except he did not deserve her care. Or want it.

‘Best get this done with,’ he muttered. ‘You don’t need to stand with me at the door, you know.’

She tensed. He felt her body stiffen and her jaw tighten, thrusting forward. ‘I do,’ she said.

He shrugged. He would not debate the issue in the middle of the church. ‘Fine.’

They stood at the church entrance beside the vicar. Ren felt both the fresh breeze, combined with the warm, stuffy, perfume-laden air from the church’s interior. It felt thick with its long centuries of candle wax and humanity.

The tenants came in a straggling line. They gave their condolences, paid their respects with bobbing curtsies and bows. Strange how he recognised each face, but knew also a shocked confusion at the changes wrought by time.

And strange, too, how difficult it was to focus as though forming simple sentences involved mental capabilities beyond him. The vicar seemed to have an endless supply of small talk, caring questions and platitudes as though he stored them within his robes like a squirrel stores nuts.

Surprisingly, Beth also appeared aware of each tenant’s issues: births, deaths and crops. Her knowledge of such minutiae made him realise the level of her involvement. He had not fully recognised this before.

At last, when they had spoken to everyone and the steps had cleared, he turned to Beth, touching her arm.

‘I can’t go into the carriage yet,’ he said. ‘I need—’

He stopped. He didn’t know what he needed—a break from these people with their condolences who thought he mourned when he had no right to. Escape from the pain which clamped about his ribcage so that he could breathe only in harsh, intermittent gulps.

‘We used to go to service here every Sunday. The family and the servants. I remember Mrs Cridge, Nanny, would see us all around back to “get rid of them fidgets”.’

‘We can do that now, if you want?’

He nodded. He could not go into that carriage with its memories, echoes of their childish giggles. She placed her hand on his arm and allowed him to guide her as they stepped around to the other side of the church which overlooked the valley and winding stream.

‘I can hear it,’ Beth said, cocking her head. ‘The brook. Once you said it was as though the bells of a hundred fairy churches rang.’

‘Good Lord, what utter nonsense I used to spout.’

‘I liked it. You made me see in a way Jamie and Edmund could not. I suppose it is because you are a painter.’

‘Was.’

‘You don’t paint at all now?’

‘No,’ he said.

For long seconds, Ren stared at the expanse of green, the grass sloping into the twisting brook. The weather had worsened, the clouds thickening and dimming the light, muting the greens and making the landscape grey.

Beth placed her hand on his arm. He glanced down. Even in gloves, her hands looked delicate, the fingers thin.

‘Ren?’ She spoke with unusual hesitation. She bit her lip and he felt her grip tighten. ‘How long will you stay here?’

‘We can go to the carriage now if you are cold.’

‘No, I mean at Graham Hill before leaving for London. I want—I would like to talk to you some time.’

‘I will leave as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow most likely.’

This was a fact, a given, in a world turned upside down. Everything felt worse here. He was more conscious of Edmund’s absence. He was more conscious of the wrongness that Edmund should predecease him and that he belonged nowhere.

‘Tomorrow? But you can’t. I mean, will you come back soon?’

‘No.’

‘But the tenants need you.’

‘Then they will have to make do without.’

He watched her frown, pursing her lips and straightening her shoulders, an expression of familiar obstinacy flickering across her features.

‘The tenants look to the big house for support at times like this. They need to know that they will be all right. That there is a continuity of leadership that transcends the individual. If they are too worried, they can’t grieve properly.’

‘A continuity—heavens, you sound like a vicar or a politician. Is there a subject on which you don’t have an opinion?’

‘Icebergs,’ she said with a faint half-smile.

‘Pardon?’

‘I don’t have an opinion on icebergs.’

For a brief moment, he felt his lips twist into a grin, the feeling both pleasant and unfamiliar. ‘We don’t even get icebergs in Britain.’

‘Probably why I don’t have an opinion on them,’ she said.

For a moment, he longed to pull her to him, to bury his face into the soft gold of her hair and feel that he was not a solitary creature.

Except he was a solitary creature, a bastard. Moreover, even if his birth hadn’t made him unworthy of her, his more recent behaviour had.

He stepped away, squaring his shoulders. ‘My life is in London. The tenants will have to grieve as best they can without me. Therefore, if you need to speak to me, I suggest you do so now.’

She inhaled, brows drawing together. ‘But...’ She paused. ‘Very well, this is not really the best time, but we are alone and I do not know when I will next have the opportunity.’

‘Yes?’ he prompted.

‘It is just that, as Lord Graham, it is important for you to have a suitable wife and heir. When—when you married me, this was not the case. We thought Edmund and Mirabelle—Anyway, Allington is prosperous, our debts paid. The Duke is seldom here. And I...um...I thank you so much for your protection, but...but you must wish for your freedom. Likely that would be the best course of...of action, given the circumstances.’ She finished in a hurried garbled, stammering rush.

‘An annulment? You’re asking for an annulment?’ The effort to remain without expression was greater than that exerted in a thousand poker games.

‘Yes—an annulment—I suppose.’

The pain was physical. The word slammed into him, so that he felt himself winded. Annulment... It was a battering ram, beating into his eardrums, punching at his stomach. Fury, anger, hurt twisted and exploded. He clenched his fists so tightly the muscles hurt.

‘You choose to mention this now?’ he said when he could trust his voice.

Her face flushed. ‘I did not want to, but you gave me little option. Besides, I have never beaten about the bush. You have a new role and you need a proper wife. Anyway, it is not as though we have a real marriage. I mean, we have hardly spoken in eighteen months. You have not visited—’

‘I have no need of either wife or heir,’ he snapped, cutting through her words.

‘As Lord Graham, it is your duty—’

‘Stop!’ he shouted, losing any semblance of his hard-won self-control. ‘Stop calling me that ludicrous name.’

‘It is your name.’

‘A name I do not merit and do not wish to assume.’

‘You don’t have a choice.’

‘I may have to assume the title,’ he ground out. ‘But I can certainly choose to dispose of the estate, thus alleviating your unreasonable worry that I might require an heir.’

‘Dispose of?’ She twisted, angling herself to face him as though sighted and able to discern his expression. ‘How?’

‘The Duke of Ayrebourne will have the estate.’

He did not know why he felt compelled to speak the words. It was as though everything was hurting and he was driven to hurt also. Or perhaps he needed to voice his intent to make his decision real.

There was a pause. An expression of disbelief flickered across her features. ‘The Duke? How? Why?’

‘I intend to give it to him.’

‘What?’ Her hands reached for his face, her fingers skimming across his skin to discern expression. He startled as she traced his jaw and cheek.

‘You are serious,’ she whispered. ‘I thought it was a foul joke.’

‘I am serious.’

‘But why?’ Her hands dropped from his face, reaching for him and clutching the cloth of his sleeve. ‘The Duke of Ayrebourne? Your cousin? He is despicable. You always said so. That is the reason we married. You can’t—do that.’

‘I believe I can. I have confirmed it with the solicitor,’ he said.

‘Your solicitor? It isn’t entailed?’

‘No.’

She shifted, her grip still tight. ‘If you are in straitened circumstances, we can help. Jamie has made Allington prosperous. He will help you with Graham Hill. He is surprisingly clever with agriculture.’

‘I am not in straitened circumstances.’

‘He is blackmailing you?’

Ren laughed. ‘One has to care about the opinion of others to be susceptible to blackmail.’

‘Then why sell?’

‘Give.’

‘Give?’ Her face had flushed, a mottled mix of red and white marking her neck. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? Your family has owned this land for generations. Ayrebourne cares nothing for the people or the animals or the land.’

‘Then we have much in common,’ Ren said.

‘But you are not cruel.’

He shrugged. ‘People change.’

She shook her head, the movement so violent that her black bonnet slid to one side, giving her a peculiar appearance and making him want to straighten it. The odd impulse cut through his anger. His eyes stung. He wished—

‘Not like this,’ she said. ‘Something has happened. Something has changed you.’

‘My bro—’ He stopped himself. ‘Edmund died, if you recall. That is not enough?’

‘No. Something else. It happened long before Edmund left.’

For a moment, he was tempted to tell her everything. To tell her that Lord Graham was not his father, that Rendell Graham did not exist, had never existed. Why not? So many suspected anyway.

Then he straightened, moving from her.

She had always seen the best in him. She had run her fingers over his artwork and found beauty. She had touched his scrawny boyish arms and discerned muscle. He could not tell her. Not now. Not today. Not yet.

‘We should go to the carriage,’ he said.

‘And that’s it? You throw out this...this...ludicrous, awful proposal and then suggest we go home for tea.’

‘I will be having something considerably stronger, but you may stick to tea if you prefer.’

‘You’re doing it again.’

‘Yes?’ He raised a brow.

‘The drawl. It makes you sound not yourself.’

He smiled. ‘Perhaps because I am not myself,’ he said.

Chapter Four

Beth told Jamie after dinner that Ren intended to dispose of the estate. She had delayed, fearing it would distress him. Besides, she needed the time to mull over the news, to ensure that she was capable of speaking the words without smashing plates or throwing cutlery.

She heard Jamie’s angry movement. He stood and the dining room chair clattered, crashing into the wall behind him. ‘What? Why? Why sell?’

‘He is not selling. He intends to give it away.’

‘Give it away?’ Jamie paced. ‘Even more ludicrous. You have to stop him.’

‘Me?’

‘You are his wife.’

‘Not really. And he certainly will not listen to me.’

‘Who will he give it to?’ Jamie asked.

‘The Duke.’

‘The Duke?’ Jamie’s movements stopped, his stunned disbelief echoed her own. ‘Why? Good Lord, Ayrebourne turns his fields into park land so his rich friends can hunt. Starves his tenants. Why? Why the Duke?’

‘I don’t know,’ Beth said. ‘I mean, Ren knows that his cousin is loathsome. That is why he married me. It makes no sense that he would choose that man out of all humanity!’

‘His cousin...’ Jamie spoke softly. She heard him return to his chair and sit. His fingers drummed on the table.

‘You’ve thought of something? It matters that the Duke is his cousin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I—’ She heard Jamie’s movement from the creaking of the chair. ‘Can’t.’

Jamie had never been able to speak when distressed. Words were never easy for him, particularly if the topic digressed from agricultural matters.

‘But you know something that makes this understandable, or at least more so?’

He grunted.

‘And you can’t tell me?’

‘No.’ Jamie pushed his chair back. It banged against the wall. She heard him rise. She heard the quick, rapid movement of his footsteps across the room. ‘Don’t know anything anyway. Rumour. Best ask your husband.’

With this curt statement, he left. The door swung shut, muting the rapid clatter of his brisk footsteps as he proceeded down the passageway.

‘Bother.’ Beth spoke to the empty room. Jamie would drive a saint to distraction, she was sure of it. His knowledge was usually limited to seedlings and now, when he actually knew something useful, he refused to speak of it.

She half-rose, intent on pressing him further, but that would accomplish nothing. He was right, she supposed. She should talk to Ren. He was her husband, at least in name, and she deserved some form of explanation. Besides, she thought, with a characteristic surge of optimism, the fact that a logical reason existed, however warped the logic, was hopeful. One could argue against a plan rooted in reason and while she lacked any number of skills, fluency in words or argument was not one of them.

Beth stood with sudden purpose. She was not of the personality to give up. She would talk to Ren. She would make him tell her why he was so driven to give away his birthright. She would remind him that, whatever he felt now, he had once loved this land and its people—

That was it!

For a second, she felt transported. The plan flashed across her mind, fully formed and brilliant. She could almost feel those heady, optimistic days of childhood: the sun’s warmth, the splash of water, the smell of moss and dirt mixed with a tang of turpentine and paint.

Grasping her cane, she hurried, counting her steps between her chair and the door and then took the twenty paces along the passageway to the stairs. Of course, she hadn’t been to the nursery in eons, but everything was familiar: the smooth wood of the banister rail, the creak of the third stair under her foot and the whine of the door handle. Everything was reminiscent of childhood. Layered under the dusty scent of a closed room, she even detected a hint of cinnamon left over from long-ago nursery teas.

Beth crossed the hardwood flooring until her cane struck the cupboard. She knelt, swinging open the door and reaching inwards. Papers rustled under her fingertips. She could feel the cool dustiness of chalk, the hardness of the slate boards and the smooth leather covers of books, soft from use.

Then her fingers found the artist’s palette with its hard ovals of dried paint and, beside it, the spiky bristles of brushes. She stretched her fingers from them and, to her delight, felt the dry, smooth texture of rolled canvas. She grinned, pulling eagerly so that the canvasses tumbled on to the floor with a rustling thud.

Squatting lower, she unrolled them, bending close as though proximity might help her see. Carefully, she ran her fingers across each one, focusing as Ren had taught her to do. She felt the dusty residue of chalk, the ridged texture of oils and the smooth flatness of water paints.

She saw, as her fingers roamed the images. Memories flooded her. She felt close to him here, yet also distant. This was the person she had known. This was the person who had captured beauty and who had joked and laughed as they walked for miles, dragging with them the clattering easel.

The bottom canvas fascinated her most. It was a landscape. She could feel the tiny delicate strokes which formed the tufts of grass mixed with the strong, bold lines of fence posts and trees.

Likely she’d been with him when he’d painted this, lying with the sun hot on her face and the grass cool against her back. Ren had said that the grass was green and she’d decided that green must smell of mint and that it would feel damp like spring mist. In autumn she’d touch the dry stubble in the hay field and he’d say it was yellow and she would decide that yellow was like the sun’s heat.

In those days, he had loved every inch of this land.

And then everything had changed.

* * *

The next morning, Ren glared at the neat columns of figures written on the ledger in front of him. The estate was in excellent shape. The tenants seemed content and the crops prosperous. Sad to give it to a man such as the Duke.

He shifted back in his seat, glancing at the paintings on the study wall left over from his grandfather’s time: a hunting scene and a poorly executed depiction of a black stallion in profile.

He felt more an imposter here than anywhere else on the sprawling estate. In fact, he had been in the study only twice since the return of the cheap portrait painter—the before and after of his life. He’d been summoned that day. Lord Graham had been sitting behind his desk, his face set in harsh lines and his skin so grey it was as though he had aged a lifetime within twenty-four hours. He’d stood immediately upon Ren’s entry, picking up the birch switch.

And then his usually kindly father had whipped him. And he hadn’t even known why.

He had been summoned one other time, after completing school. There had been no violence. Instead, Lord Graham had sat behind this desk, his eyes shuttered and without emotion. He’d spoken in measured tones, stating only that an allowance would be paid, provided Ren stayed away from Graham Hill and kept his silence. Ren had taken the stipend for three months before profitable investments had allowed him to return it and refuse any further payment.

Now, in an ironic twist of fate, Graham Hill could be his. Ren looked instinctively to the window and the park outside. The branches were still largely bare, but touched with miniscule green leaves, unfurling in the pale sunshine. Patches of moss dotted the lawn, bright and verdant beside grass still yellowed from winter.

It hurt to give it up, just as it had hurt to leave it.

A movement caught his attention and he saw a female figure approach. She held a cane in one hand and a basket in the other. His wife. She was counting her steps. He could see it in the tap and swing of her cane and the slight movement of her lips. She moved with care, but also with that ease which he had so often admired. Good Lord, if he were deprived of sight he would be paralysed, unable to move for fear of falling into an abyss.

He watched as she progressed briskly, disappearing about the side of the house. He supposed she had returned to berate him. Or else she wanted to again demand an annulment.

Anger tightened his gut. He’d kept his word. She’d had freedom, autonomy and yet she’d thrown it back at him—

‘My lord, Miss...um, your...her ladyship is in the parlour,’ Dobson announced.

He stood at the study door, his elderly face solemn and lugubrious.

Poor Dobson—he’d found the marriage difficult enough. Not that Dobson disliked Beth, he simply disliked the unconventional.

Beth entered immediately. Naturally, she had not remained in the parlour, as instructed. She never had been good with directions. He watched her approach and knew both a confused desire as well as a reluctance to see her. Even after years spent amidst London’s most glamorous women, he found her beauty arresting. She was not stunning, exactly. Her clothes were elegant, but in no way ostentatious or even fashionable. Yet there was something about her—she had a delicacy of feature, a luminosity which made her oddly not of this world, as though she were a fairy creature from a magic realm—

‘Ren!’ Beth interrupted his thoughts in that blunt way of hers. She approached, counting her steps to his desk, and now stood before him. With a thud, she put down the large wicker basket. ‘You must see these!’

He dismissed Dobson and watched as Beth opened the carrier.

Then his breath caught. A stabbing pain shot just below his ribcage. His hands tightened into balled fists as she pulled out the rolled canvasses, laying them flat on the mahogany desktop.

‘Where did you find those?’ He forcibly pushed out the words, his throat so tight he feared he’d choke.

He stared at the images: the barn, its grey planks splitting with age, his old horse, the mosaic of autumnal colours, orange leaves and grass yellowed into straw from summer heat.

They were childishly executed, but with such care...such love.

For a moment, he felt that eager enthusiasm to paint. It was a tingling within his fingers, a salivation, a need, an all-consuming drive to create and capture beauty, if only for a moment.

‘Why did you bring these here?’ he asked in a staccato rhythm.

He felt his face twist into bitter lines—not that Beth could see them. It should have made him feel less vulnerable, that she could not discern his expression, but oddly it did not. He’d always felt as though Beth saw more, as though she was better able to discern human frailty, despite her lack of sight.

‘To remind you.’

‘I do not need reminding.’

He ran his fingers across the dry dustiness of the paint. It had been late August. The weather had been hot, a perfect weekend of cloudless skies and air still redolent with summer scent as though fate had conspired to give him that one, final, beautiful weekend.

‘I wanted you to remember how you felt,’ Beth said.

Of course he remembered! How could he forget? He’d felt as though, within a single instant, everything he had known, everything he had loved, everything he had believed had been erased, disappearing within a yawning hole, a cess pit.

The pain, the darkness—worse—the hopelessness had grown, twisting through him, debilitating even now. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight as a child might to block out nightmares. He pushed the canvasses away. They fell to the floor, taking with them the brass paperweight and a candle stick, the crash huge.

‘Ren?’

‘Take them!’

‘But why? You loved to paint. You loved this land.’

‘You need to go.’ He forced himself to keep his voice low and his hands tight to his sides because he wanted to punch the wall and hurl objects against windows in a mad chaos of destruction.

‘Nonsense! I’m not going anywhere until I understand the reason behind your decision. There is a reason. Jamie said so.’

‘Jamie? Jamie?’ Did even Jamie know his secret—a man who seldom spoke except about seedlings? ‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing. He went silent. But I need to know, to understand. I thought these would remind you. I thought you might enjoy them.’

‘You were wrong.’

‘Why?’

‘I—’ Words usually came so glibly, fluidly. Now they stuck in his throat. ‘You need to go,’ he repeated.

‘Why?’

‘Because I am angry and I do not want to frighten you.’

The woman laughed—not harsh laughter, but gentle. ‘Ren, you could never frighten me. You could not frighten me in a million years.’

Of course not! He might frighten grown men in duels. He might race his horse so fast that his groom paled or punch so hard his knuckles bled, but this tiny woman laughed in the face of his rage.

‘Perhaps I should explain to you what my lifestyle has become. Even the fringes of polite society avoid me.’

‘Which is too bad as you can be excellent company. However, I do not frighten easily. Jamie used to have some terrible tantrums,’ she added.

And now he was being likened to an angry child. It made him want to laugh.

‘Right.’ He stepped around to the front of the desk, bending to scoop up the fallen canvasses, candlestick and paperweight with businesslike swiftness. ‘You are right. I could never hurt or even frighten you. And really it doesn’t matter whether you stay or go because I could stare at these childish chicken scratches for ever and my decision would remain unchanged.’

‘But why? I want to know. Doesn’t even a wife in name only deserve that much?’

Her tone seemed laced with distaste and derision as she said the words ‘name only.’ My God, he could have made her more than a wife in name only. He could have dragged her to London or to the marriage bed if he hadn’t respected her so damned much, if he hadn’t known about her aversion to marriage and her need for independence.

‘And why Ayrebourne?’ she persisted.

‘Graham Hill is his birthright.’ He ground out the words between clenched jaws.

She shook her head. ‘What utter tosh. It is your birthright.’

‘Not so much.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Likely because it is none of your business.’

Two bright crimson spots highlighted her cheeks and her breathing quickened. They stood quite close now, in front of his huge oak desk. She shifted so that she was square to him, her hands tightened into fists, her chin out-thrust.

‘That is where you are wrong. You can marry me and then ignore me, but this is my business. I have been here. While you were in London, I was here. I helped Edmund after Mirabelle’s death. I organised village events, teas and fairs. I cooed over babies I could not see. I advised on how best to treat a bee sting and a—a boil which was on a place I cannot mention. Mirabelle was dead. Edmund was mourning. Jamie was Jamie. Your mother never came. You never came. I made this estate my business. I made the people my business. I helped Jensen run the place. I kept things going. I am sorry Edmund is dead, but if you are going to absolve yourself of this responsibility, I deserve to know why. You are Lord Graham’s second son. You are the heir.’

Out of breath, she fell silent. After the flow of words, the stillness felt intense. He heard a clock chime from the library and a gardener or stable hand shout something outside.

‘Actually, I’m not,’ he said.

‘Not what?’

‘Lord Graham’s son—second or otherwise.’

Chapter Five

‘Lord Graham was not my father.’

‘That is not possible.’ Her face blanched, the hectic red of anger now mottled.

‘Given my mother’s personality, it is,’ he said.

‘But...but who?’

‘A portrait painter. He came to paint my parents’ portraits in the year prior to my birth. Apparently his activities were not limited to capturing my mother’s likeness.’

‘He fell in love with your mother?’

‘Something like that,’ Ren said, although he doubted love had had anything to do with it. In fact, he rather doubted love’s existence.

‘But Lord Graham loved you so—’ She stopped. ‘He didn’t know?’

‘Not until the untimely return of the portrait painter. We rather resemble each other, you see. Me and the painter. Most unfortunate.’

‘Oh.’ She placed her hand on the top of his desk as if needing its support.

She would despise him now, he supposed. He waited, unconsciously bracing himself as though for physical assault. But her face showed only a dawning comprehension and compassion.

‘So that’s why everything changed,’ she said softly. ‘You must have been so sad and...shocked when you learned.’

‘Not so much. I was more intent on not drowning.’

‘Lord Graham tried to drown you?’

‘No.’

Lord Graham had flogged him. Ren hadn’t known why until Jason Barnes had blurted it out while the other boys had held his head under the water pump that the school used for the horses.

He remembered the boys’ faces, their mockery, the jeers and hard words. It had hurt and yet had also brought peculiar relief. At least he knew the reason for his father’s sudden hatred.

‘Who?’

‘The boys at school.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated. Tears shimmered in her sightless sky-blue eyes.

Where he had expected...rejection, he saw only sympathy. He reached forward, touching a tear’s glistening trail as it spilled down her cheek. Her skin was soft and smooth.

‘It’s ancient history. Not worth your tears.’

‘When Lord Graham found out, he sent you to school early? That is why you left so suddenly and why you don’t paint?’

‘Yes.’

‘And never came back for holidays?’

‘Lord Graham did not want me.’

Another tear brimmed over. ‘I’m so sorry. I did not think he could be so cruel.’

‘I do not blame him. What man would want his wife’s bastard?’

Her brows drew together at his words. She straightened, her cheeks an even brighter crimson. ‘Well, I do. Cruelty is never warranted. I blame your mother. I blame the painter. But not you. You are blameless. You were a child.’

He shrugged. ‘Opinions may differ on that score, but now you see why I must give the land to the Duke.’

Surprisingly, she shook her head. ‘No. He is still vile.’

‘Agreed. But he is my father’s nearest blood relative.’

‘It cannot be right or honourable to give the land, and therefore the tenants also, to a man who is dishonourable.’

‘It certainly is not honourable to keep property to which I have no right. I am not the true heir. You cannot argue with that.’

‘Jamie says I can argue about almost anything,’ she said, her lips twisting into a wry grin. ‘Did Lord Graham ever disinherit you? Did Edmund?’

‘Lord Graham died before Edmund’s wife died. He had every reason to expect that Edmund would have many children and live to a ripe old age.’

‘But Edmund? He knew before he went to war that he might not come back.’

‘Edmund was one of the few people who did not know the truth,’ Ren said.

‘You said the resemblance was obvious.’

‘He was at school when the painter came and then went to Oxford the next term. His attitude towards me never changed.’

‘But you said the students knew at school?’

‘I suppose they kept it to themselves. They liked Edmund.’

Edmund was the sort of boy who had fit in well at boarding school. They had understood him: strong, sizeable, not overly bright but good at sports and fishing and hunting.

In contrast, Ren was not. He had been an undersized runt, too bright, poor at sports and fishing and hunting.

A misfit.

* * *

Beth paced Ren’s study. Her thoughts whirled, a confused mix of comprehension, anger, pity and myriad other emotions. Her fingers trailed across the top of the desk, touching the familiar objects, the smooth metal of the paperweight which Ren had picked up from the floor, the leather portfolio, the edges of the inkstand and pen.

Then she turned, shaking her head. ‘It still is not right to give the land to the Duke. There is more than one kind of honour. I know Edmund would not want Ayrebourne to have it. He loved this land, almost like Jamie loves the land. He cared for the tenants.’

‘The Duke has a right to the land,’ Ren repeated in dull tones, like a child reciting lines.

‘And the tenants?’

‘I am sorry about them, but I cannot change facts. The tenants have no rights. They do not own the land.’

‘They have lived here for generations, for centuries. That doesn’t give them rights?’

‘No.’

‘It should.’

‘So now you plan to change society?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not? If I had acted the way people said I should, I would not be walking about this land. I would not be independent—’

‘Beth—for goodness sake—this is not about you. It is totally different. We all know you are independent and have done things no one else could do. But this is not the same.’

‘I—’ His tone hurt. ‘I haven’t.’

‘No? You have always been on a crusade. You always wanted to demonstrate that you were not inferior, that you are independent. You never wanted to marry because of that very independence. Likely you want an annulment for the same reason. Well, we’re agreed, you are the equal to any woman. But that doesn’t change the fact that this land is not morally or honourably mine. I must give it to Edmund’s closest relative. I am honour bound.’

‘Then it is a peculiarly cruel breed of honour.’

‘You can have that opinion, but my decision must stand. Anyhow Allington is completely independent and profitable so this should have a limited impact on the running of your affairs.’

‘What?’ Anger exploded like scalding water, pulsing through her veins, unpleasantly tangled with the fear she always felt when she considered the Duke.

She turned on Ren, hands tightened into fists. ‘Weren’t you even listening to me? These people, your tenants, are my friends. They will be kicked off land they’ve farmed for centuries. Or they will pay exorbitant rents so that they’re unable to feed their own children. I will feel gaunt faces, arms like sticks and the bellies of bloated babies. And I will know that the man who was once my friend and sort of husband is to blame.’

‘I am your friend and what sort of husband would you have me be?’

‘One that is not so—so self-righteous and honourable. You want to punish yourself because you are illegitimate. Fine, drink yourself into an early grave. Gamble yourself into oblivion, but don’t punish people far weaker than you and call it honour.’

* * *

Perhaps it was that cool disdain lacing the words she spat out as though they were noxious. Perhaps, for once, his anger could not be contained behind trite words and calm façade. Or maybe it was none of this but merely an impulsive, instinctive surge of lust.

His hands reached for her. He gripped her shoulders, pulling her tight, needing to feel her, to feel something. She stiffened, her shock palpable. Her hands pushed against his shoulders, ineffective like fluttering birds.

He didn’t care. Her futile movements fuelled the angry molten heat.

Her head moved, angling away as she twisted from him. He caught her lips, kissing her with a hard, punishing kiss.

Her fury met his own, her balled fists pushing him away.

Briefly, it was all fire and heat and rage. Then something changed. She no longer pushed against him; instead, her fists opened, her hands reaching upwards to grip his shoulders, pulling him closer. Her clenched jaw relaxed, her lips parting as anger eased, morphing into something equally strong. His kiss gentled. Her fingers stretched across his back, winding into his hair. He held her tight to him, hands at the small of her back.

The anger, the pain, the hurt drained away, pushed aside by a growing, pulsing need. He had wanted this woman for ever—long before he had known about want or lust or need. And she was here now, warm, willing, pliable and giving beneath him. He explored the sweetness of her mouth, shifting her backwards, pushing her against the edge of his desk. He stroked the column of her neck, the smooth line of her spine, the curved roundness of her bottom under the soft muslin gown.

He wanted—he needed—to fill her, to find forgetfulness in physical release, to make her his own. He wanted her to cling to him, to need him and desire him and to forget that annulment was even a word.

One hand pushed at her neckline, forcing the cloth off her shoulder so that his fingers could feel her skin and the fullness of her breast. With growing urgency, his other hand pushed up at the fabric of her skirt, his hands feeling and stroking the stockings she wore over shapely legs.

She said his name.

Something fell.

He stilled. He stared down at her flushed cheeks, tousled hair and bodice half-undone.

Disgust rolled over him.

What, in the name of all that was good and holy, was he doing? He moved from her so suddenly that she almost lost her balance, striking the lamp.

It fell, splintering against the hearth.

‘Ren?’

Self-loathing mixed with frustrated need. She was not one of his doxies. She was not one of the women who populated his London life. Moreover, she had made it quite clear she wanted to end their pseudo-marriage, which could hardly be construed as an invitation to consummate their union.

‘It would seem indeed that, after all, my sense of honour is somewhat impaired,’ he said.

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