Praise for Lucy Ashford writing as Elizabeth Redfern

THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

‘Unputdownable…[a] remarkable debut…

a glittering tale of London in 1795,

full of science, intrigue, war, revolution,

and obsessive passion’.

—Guardian

‘An engrossing read and a rich,

pungent evocation of the period’.

—Observer

‘…brilliantly handled to keep the reader guessing

right to the end’.

—Charles Palliser

‘Striking and original…a star is born’.

—Literary Review

‘Quite wonderful… It is Redfern’s ability to bring

each scene, each character alive that makes this

such toothsome reading’. —USA TODAY

AURIEL RISING

‘Intelligent’.

—New York Times

‘Richly atmospheric…Redfern’s strength is in

re-creating a morally corrupt world…’

—Publishers Weekly

‘Will you keep your trust in me, whatever you hear? Will you remember we are friends?’

Friends. Verena’s heart plummeted, but she managed to say lightly, ‘Good friends, indeed’.

Lucas nodded almost curtly, then took her hand and pressed his lips to it. She wanted to fling herself in his arms and cling to him and never let him go.

As he walked towards his waiting horse he turned to her one last time, as if he was about to say something else. But then he mounted up, gave a half-salute, and was gone.

She’d thought— everybody had thought—that he’d gone back to the battlefields of the Peninsula. But news came a few weeks later that he’d resigned from the army and was instead living the high life in London, with the Prince’s set. After that came whispers, too, of secret affaires with beautiful society women. And each piece of news about Lord Lucas Conistone stabbed Verena to the heart.

About the Author

LUCY ASHFORD, an English Studies lecturer, has always loved literature and history, and from childhood one of her favourite occupations has been to immerse herself in historical romances. She studied English with history at Nottingham University, and the Regency is her favourite period.

Lucy has written several historical novels, but this is only her second for Mills & Boon®. She lives with her husband in an old stone cottage in the Peak District, near to beautiful Chatsworth House and Haddon Hall, all of which give her a taste of the magic of life in a bygone age. Her garden enjoys spectacular views over the Derbyshire hills, where she loves to roam and let her imagination go to work on her latest story.

A previous novel from Lucy Ashford:

THE MAJOR AND THE PICKPOCKET

AUTHOR NOTE

I remember a fantastic history teacher at school, who held us spellbound with her tales of the Napoleonic wars. I’ve often wondered since if the tremendous appeal of the Regency lies in the contrast between the sparkle and glamour of upper-class life in London and the incredible danger faced by so many brave men during that long, long campaign against the French.

One of the most fascinating battles, for me, was Busaco, in Portugal, where in 1810 Wellington’s soldiers fought for their very survival. Wellington won, thanks largely to his courageous intelligence officers. And all this—you’ve guessed it—gave me the inspiration for my second historical for Mills & Boon, in which my hero, Lord Lucas Conistone, has apparently abandoned his army career to live the life of a rake with the Prince’s set.

Along the way he has broken Verena Sheldon’s heart. But is Lucas really what he seems? Why is he so interested in the journeys Verena’s explorer father made in Spain and Portugal? Gradually, amidst much heartache, Verena realises how Lucas, in the cruellest possible way, has been forced into an almost impossible choice—between his duty to his country and his abiding love for her.

I do hope you enjoy their story!

THE RETURN OF

LORD CONISTONE

Lucy Ashford

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For my alpha-male, AJR— who not only helped with the research, but also provided endless cups of tea.

Prologue

May 1810—Portugal

His four men huddled round a meagre fire and played cards for escudos. But Lucas Conistone stood apart, his hooded grey eyes scanning the peaks like a hawk’s as the fiery sun set over the mountains, the iron wind tugging at his tousled black hair and his travel-worn clothes.

Here, he’d been told. Here was the meeting place. If it was a trap, he was ready. His hand went to the pistol in his pocket and softly caressed the cold metal.

And then he turned round quickly, and his men also were on their feet, because someone was hurrying along the rocky path to this isolated mountain pass, a silhouette against the blood-red sun.

Lucas gestured to his men to sit again as he recognised the small, sinewy figure coming straight for him. ‘Como vai, Miguel?’ he said softly in fluent Portuguese. ‘I hear you have news’.

The man called Miguel grasped his hand, his dark head barely up to Lucas’s powerful shoulder, and said in the accent of the Portuguese mountain people, ‘News, yes, meu amigo. The body of the Englishman has been found at last’.

After nearly a year and a half of searching. ‘Where?’

‘He must have been swept downstream by the flood waters of the River Vouga. His body was trapped under rocks, and rotted in the water as the months went by—a suitable end, nao? And—this was found on him’. Miguel handed Lucas a small package; something saved, miraculously, from the water by the oilskin in which it was tightly wrapped.

Swiftly Lucas tore the package open.

A compact, leather-bound journal. And the first entry was dated—September 1808.

No. He wanted to shout his protest across the mountains. No. Where was the old one, the previous one?

He flicked through it—two, three pages only, of hurried notes. The rest was blank. A blow indeed.

Wild Jack, I have followed you to hell and back for this.

Curtly he held out silver coins to the man Miguel. ‘Where is the body now?’

‘We buried what was left of it, Inglês. For the spies of Napoleon Bonaparte are on the trail’. He looked up at Lucas slyly. ‘And they offer our people rewards also’.

Lucas clenched his teeth. ‘And what exactly have your people told them, Miguel?’

The man gave a crooked smile. ‘Why, we babbled of treasure. The old, old legend of gold buried somewhere in the steep hills high above Coimbra. Isn’t that, after all, what the English traveller you call Wild Jack died for?’

Let the French believe that, thought Lucas swiftly. Let the Portuguese, like Miguel, believe it. He was scanning the diary’s sparse contents: ramblings of a sea voyage from England, of a swift ascent into the mountains. The writings of a man knowing he was being pursued, and that the end was near.…

Already he was turning to his waiting men. ‘Get your things together. We’re heading homewards’. They moved instantly to roll up their thin blankets and tie them to their packs.

But the man Miguel pointed suddenly at the blood that stained Lucas’s shirt, all too visible where his long coat had fallen open. ‘You have been wounded, Inglês. Stay with us in the mountains for one night at least! We have food we can share’. Miguel’s black eyes gleamed mischievously. ‘And our girls—pretty girls, eh?—will be only too happy to make a man as handsome as you forget the perils of war!’

‘Obrigado, meu amigo, but it’s nothing’. Grimly Lucas pulled at his coat to hide the bloodstain.

‘An ambush?’

‘Of sorts. We had a run in with some French outriders on our way up here’.

‘Did they live to tell the tale?’

Lucas was already turning to go, but he swung round one last time. ‘What do you think?’

Miguel grinned. ‘They did not. You’ll be back soon with the key to the treasure, Inglês?’

‘I hope so,’ Lucas breathed. ‘For if others get it first, we are lost indeed’.

So Lucas Conistone and his companions set off down the barren slope, each of them as lithe and hard-muscled as any of the Portuguese who herded goats on the sparse spring grass of these high mountains. Lucas’s men were intent on their route, sometimes cursing softly under their breath at the difficulty of the terrain.

But their leader was thinking of another time. Another place.

Of the Hampshire countryside in early autumn. Of the English sun, warming a flower-scented garden whose acres of lawns swept down to the cliff’s edge, where the azure sea gleamed far below. Of a time when he’d thought he’d found love, and a purpose to his life.

But then the vision was gone, the dream over. And he was back in this foreign land, clambering down a treacherous path in the knife-sharp night air, with an almost impossible task facing him.

He was remembering, too, the last words spoken by a man about to die. Look after her for me, will you, Lucas? Tell her I did it for Wycherley. For all of them.… For God’s sake, look after Verena.

Chapter One

Early July 1810—Wycherley, Hampshire

‘They are ruined, you know,’ whispered the malicious female voice, ‘quite ruined! But, my dears, what can you expect, with four daughters and a father who was hardly ever here?’

Verena Sheldon froze, hidden from the three gossiping old busybodies by an ornate lacquered screen to which she was tying a label. ‘Three guineas,’ the label read. ‘Or nearest offer’.

Like everything else in Wycherley’s great hall, it was for sale. Like everything else—herself and her family included, it seemed—it was up for inspection, assessment and—condemnation.

During all this hot July day, neighbours, dealers from Chichester, and local businessmen with their wives and families had rolled up Wycherley’s long drive in carriages or on horseback. Some had also brought servants with open drays ready to cart their purchases away. Every hour Verena had seen the precious memories of her past and all her hopes for the future slipping away.

She put her hands to her burning cheeks as the vicious whispering went on.

‘Such a foolish woman, that Lady Frances,’ continued the rancid female voice. ‘And the way she’s brought up all those daughters of hers, with such airs and graces! Why, my dears—’ a cackling sound followed ‘—to think that only a short while ago her ladyship was boasting that her eldest was being courted by the Earl of Stancliffe’s heir! One would laugh, if it weren’t all so pitiable! Oh…’.

She trailed off as Verena Sheldon marched out from her place of unintended concealment, her amber-coloured eyes flashing fire.

‘Good afternoon, ladies!’ She squarely faced the Chichester tabbies. ‘Do you know, I somehow expected you would be here! Mrs Marsham, how did your daughter’s London Season go? Plenty of suitors—well, of course—and she’s engaged to….? Oh, I see, no one suitable yet, well, never mind…. Do, pray, enjoy the rest of your spying—I’m sorry, buying!’

The gossiping trio went off rather hastily, muttering. But everyone else continued to prowl round the hall, poking and prodding at the furniture, paintings and ornaments that had all been an integral part of Wycherley, her beloved home.

Verena found to her dismay that a great lump had risen in her throat. The vultures were everywhere. She even saw, through the crowds, one bold, shabbily dressed fellow with spiky black hair pulling out the drawers of an old walnut cabinet and bending to peer into the empty recesses. Really! Indignation welling again, she started pushing through the crowds towards him, but was distracted anew by the sight of a couple of porters going by with a delicate inlaid table. ‘No!’ she blurted out. ‘My father’s chess table—’

Her brother-in-law David Parker, who owned a farm that adjoined the coast road to Framlington, was quickly at her side. He’d been helping all day, and now she clutched at his arm. ‘David, we cannot let that go!’

‘We have to sell as much as possible before the bailiffs move in, I’m afraid, Verena. And it has been sold for the asking price,’ David said gravely.

The man who was buying the table—a dealer—broke in. ‘Which is more than you’ll get for this pair of Chinese vases just here!’ He was picking one up, to weigh it casually in his hand. ‘No more Chinese than I am, I’d say!’ He turned to David. ‘I’ll give you a guinea for the pair on top of the three guineas for the table, and that’s being generous’.

David hesitated, glanced at Verena, then nodded. The dealer hurried off to gather more booty.

Verena bit her lip. I won’t cry. When I heard about Lucas, I vowed that I would never, ever cry again.

Once the contents were sold, the house would have to go too. Mr Mayhew, the family’s attorney, had told her that. Kind Mr Mayhew was here now, collecting payments at a desk by the door and issuing receipts. Earlier he’d taken Verena aside and said, ‘You do realise, don’t you, Miss Sheldon, that there is actually a potential buyer for the whole estate?’

‘The Earl. Yes’. Her voice, miraculously, was steady. ‘And I had rather it went to anyone else!’

Mr Mayhew had glanced at her over his spectacles and sighed. ‘Very well. Very well…. But take my advice, my dear Miss Sheldon, and don’t make this harder than it needs to be. No need for you to attend the dispersal sale; your brother-in-law Mr Parker and I will manage the business perfectly well, I do assure you’.

But Verena believed that someone had to represent their family! Her one sensible sister, Pippa, married to David, was at home looking after their twin baby boys. Verena’s other sisters, Deb and Isobel, were up in their bedrooms, and both of them, like their mother Lady Frances, were loudly lamenting the collapse of their family fortunes—about as useful as leaking buckets, the three of them.

Lady Frances had tackled Verena before the sale began. ‘Verena, there will be gentlemen here this afternoon! Some of them with prospects!’ She’d glanced waspishly at Verena’s day gown of brown cambric, its only adornment the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons running firmly up the bodice to her throat. ‘Now, I know that your looks bear no comparison to Deb’s or darling Izzy’s—but if you do insist on being present, you might make some effort with your appearance! After all, your godfather is none other than the Earl of Stancliffe!’

‘And much good that has done us!’ Verena had snapped, her patience worn to a thread.

Lady Frances had retreated upstairs with her smelling salts.

Verena made a point of not changing her drab gown, and of only carelessly pinning up her chestnut-coloured hair before facing the seemingly endless onslaught of strangers cascading through the house.

And she had thought she would be able to bear it. But suddenly the plaintive tune of ‘My Soldier Love’ drifted across the crowded hall, and the emotions she’d tried so very hard to suppress came sweeping back in a wave of blinding memory.

That was her music box.

She’d put it in the sale herself, but….

She remembered Lucas, riding along the track towards her that golden autumn nearly two years ago; his body toughened by war, but his expression softening in glad surprise when he saw her.

Herself, twenty years old, stumbling towards him, her heart racing, yet full of joy, blurting out, ‘Lucas. You’re safe. I was so afraid…’.

He’d laughed as he sprang down from his big grey mare. ‘I’m untouchable,’ he’d said. ‘The bullets just fly past me’.

She would not cry for him ever again. But that little silver music box was his last gift to her.

She started to plunge through the crowds to where a corn merchant and his wife were greedily pawing over its delicate casing.

Then she stopped; remembering what David had said. We have to sell as much as possible, before the bailiffs move in….

Best to let it go, along with her memories. She turned round slowly and walked out through the open French doors into the west-facing gardens, where the sun was sending rays of gold across the sea below the cliff tops, and the scent of roses wafted towards her on the warm evening breeze.

With its mellow brickwork clad in ivy and climbing roses, Wycherley Hall was one of the most picturesque dwellings between the South Downs and the Hampshire coast, and had belonged to the Sheldons for generations. But now, her family would have to leave, and go—where? What would they do? How would they live? There was no answer except the sad cries of the gulls high above.

Last winter there had been troops posted all along this part of the coast, because of rumours that the Emperor Napoleon was sending an invasion fleet across the Channel. Now the troops were gone. But just sometimes lately, when she was alone, she felt as if she was being watched, though she told herself it was nothing but the rustling of birds, or small animals in the nearby woods. She was growing fanciful in her despair.

The dark clouds were piling up to the south, and though the sun was going down, the air seemed hotter, more sultry than ever. Verena turned, heavy-hearted, to go back into the house.

Lucas had once told her that it was the happiest house he had ever known. ‘I’ll carry my memory of you and Wycherley wherever I go, Verena,’ he’d said to her quietly. ‘Whatever you hear, please trust in me’.

And she had. More fool her.

‘Verena!’ A man’s voice broke abruptly into her reverie. ‘What on earth’s going on here? All those people—taking your furniture, your things…’.

She swung round to see the scarlet-jacketed Captain Martin Bryant, twenty-six-year-old war hero, marching towards her from the stable courtyard where he’d just sprung off his horse. She drew a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid we are quite done up, as they say, Captain Bryant. This is just the start’.

Martin, with his pleasantly boyish features and brown curls, looked horrified. ‘But—you won’t have to leave the house?’

She nodded, feeling a sudden constriction in her throat.

‘My dear Miss Sheldon!’ His light blue eyes were ardent. ‘May I call you Verena? I am, first and foremost, a man devoted to my military duties—duties that have too often taken me away from here!’ He was stammering a little; his face had turned slightly pink. ‘Otherwise, I would have asked you before’.

Oh, Lord. What was he talking about? Verena’s heart was beginning to thump. ‘Captain Bryant, I really should be getting back inside’.

He grasped her hand and clung to it almost desperately. ‘Verena. I want to ask you—I must beg of you the honour—the precious gift—of your sweet and lovely hand in marriage!’

She snatched her hand away and stood, frozen with shock.

Once, almost two years ago, she had walked with Lucas through these gardens, as the shadows lengthened, and the harvest moon encrusted the old house with fairytale shards of silver. Once Lucas had cupped her face in his strong but tender hands and breathed, ‘Some day I’ll be home again, Verena. Home for good. Will you wait for me?’

There was no need even for him to ask, because she’d not been able to imagine life without him. Hadn’t wanted life without him. ‘For ever,’ she’d breathed, with the ardent belief of a twenty-year-old. ‘For ever, Lucas’.

‘Captain Bryant,’ she said steadily, though the ache at the back of her throat threatened to choke her, ‘I’m sorry, but I cannot marry you. It wouldn’t be fair to you, you see, because I do not love you!’

His expression was imploring. ‘But perhaps you can grow to love me, in time!’

Again, she hesitated. Everyone would tell her that life as Captain Bryant’s wife would surely be preferable to employment as a governess, trapped in a dreary half-world between family and servants. Indeed, that was a prospect that filled her with dread.

‘I’m not rich,’ Captain Bryant was going on, ‘but believe me, I will do anything, my dear Verena, to provide you with the life you deserve! Your family also!’ he added hastily.

That, at last, made Verena smile just a little, and eased the pain that was squeezing her wretched heart. ‘All my family?’ she teased gently. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, Captain Bryant. We are really quite a frightening prospect, I do assure you!’

‘I don’t care!’ he declared defiantly. ‘I don’t care!’

He lunged towards her. She desperately sprang away from his outstretched arms—and felt the shoulder of the gown her mother so despised being firmly hooked by the sturdy thorn of the clambering pink rose shrub that grew by the back wall. She pulled herself away violently; the serviceable fabric held, but she felt, then heard, some of the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons that fastened her bodice at the front snap off with an alarming ping, their threads weakened by age. Oh, no….

She flung her hands across her breasts, but too late; Martin was staring, transfixed.

Verena, as even her mother reluctantly acknowledged, was slender but full-bosomed. And her gaping and shabby gown could no longer conceal that underneath it she wore something that could not be more different—an exquisite cream-silk chemise, scalloped and embroidered at the edges, low enough to reveal the full curve of her breasts. It was her one piece of finery. The one relic of the beautiful garments she had started to acquire when her future was full of hope.

In utter mortification she tried to tug her gown back across her bosom, making use of the few buttons that remained. But that dratted rose briar had left a thorn in her sleeve, and it pricked her every time she moved. ‘Ouch! Botheration!’ she gasped. Her long chestnut hair was starting to fall from its pins.

Martin Bryant, still wide-eyed, jumped to the rescue. ‘Here! Let me help you!’

‘No!’ She almost smacked him away, like a troublesome fly. But he persevered, drawing close to tackle the offending thorn; and things took a turn for the worse, because her efforts to escape from Martin meant that the bodice of her gown slipped apart again, and now she heard the sound of male voices and hoofbeats drawing exceedingly close; and just as she was frantically struggling to push Martin off, two horsemen rode into the yard.

And stopped.

Martin swung round angrily to face them. Verena, hot and dishevelled, had flung her arms across her silk-draped bosom. Already the first of the riders, dark-haired and clad in a long grey riding coat and polished boots, was dismounting with a lazy sort of grace to stand, wide-shouldered and imposing, at the head of his big roan mare.

She froze. She tried to speak, but the words would not come out.

The tall newcomer turned to his companion, who was also dismounting, and said languidly, ‘Hold the horses, Alec, will you?’ The fading beams of the setting sun drifted over his aristocratic face and figure, highlighting the slightly overlong thick black hair; the cold dark eyes with those deceptively hooded lids, the sharply defined, almost over-handsome features.

Oh, no. Please God, no.

What must he think? And why should she care any more?

She cared because this was Viscount Conistone, grandson and heir to her family’s enemy, the Earl of Stancliffe. This was Lucas. The man to whom she had, almost two years ago, given her heart, only to have it smashed into a thousand pieces.

Chapter Two

Lucas Conistone’s first impulse had been to knock the foolish fellow he’d seen mauling Verena Sheldon to hell and back; his next, to crush her full and passionate lips beneath his own. Dear God, Alec was right. He was an utter fool to have come here. That gown. The glimpse he’d got, of those sweet, full breasts…. And his memory had not played him false; her heart-shaped face was still as exquisite as ever. Yes, her chestnut-coloured hair had slipped from its pins in some disarray; but only to fall in utterly tantalising curls round her neck and throat. Her smooth, creamy skin was still flawless, and her almond-shaped eyes were just as he remembered, amber in some lights, gold in others.

The army fellow was about to say something, but Verena Sheldon spoke first. ‘My lord!’ She tilted her chin in unspoken defiance. ‘Some warning of your arrival would not have gone amiss. You were not—expected!’

Not invited. Not wanted, anywhere near Wycherley, she might as well have declared. Her arms were still folded tightly across her breasts as her eyes burned darkly up at him. She had lost weight. There were shadows beneath those beautiful eyes, as if she had been grieving…. What the deuce had been going on here just now?

‘Alec and I were just passing,’ Lucas said expressionlessly, ‘on our way to Stancliffe Manor’. He was pulling off his riding gloves and thrusting them into his deep pockets. ‘As my grandfather’s still in Bath, I promised him I’d visit the house to see that all was well. But then we saw the carriages. And decided to—investigate’.

‘Oh, you mean the sale!’ Her amber-gold eyes were wide and innocent. She even endeavoured to smile. ‘Yes, it really is so entertaining! We thought we’d have a clear out—one gets bored, Lord Conistone, with the same old pieces of furniture—’

Gammon. Lucas cut in, ‘I heard from your attorney that you’re selling Wycherley, Verena’.

He saw the colour draining from her face. She whispered, ‘You have no right to discuss our family’s affairs with anyone! No right at all, do you hear?’

A warning glance from his very good friend Captain Stewart, resplendent in the blue of the Light Dragoons, flashed Lucas’s way. I told you, Lucas, that this was a bad idea….

The young army fellow nearby stepped forward like an angry turkeycock. ‘You heard what Verena—Miss Sheldon—said, Lord Conistone! I think you would be doing her an enormous favour if you and your friend left immediately!’

Lucas let his gaze rake his bright uniform. Then he blinked. ‘I’m sorry? Have I had the pleasure?’

‘I am Captain Bryant, of the 11th Regiment of Foot!’

‘My congratulations,’ drawled Lucas. ‘No doubt your duties call. Off you run, now, Captain, there’s a good fellow’.

Some spluttering ensued, and a further reddening of those already pink cheeks. ‘Don’t you give orders to me, you—you—’

‘Let’s call it a polite suggestion, shall we?’ said Lucas softly. ‘After all, we’re not on the army parade ground now, are we?’

‘So you actually remember the parade ground, do you?’ retorted Martin Bryant bitterly. ‘My God, you got out of the army just about as quickly as you could, didn’t you, Conistone? Before the bullets flew too close?’

‘Martin!’ cried Verena.

Alec Stewart, at Lucas’s side, had taken a step forwards, muttering, ‘Too far, that, Lucas. Pray, let me sort the blackguard!’

But Lucas stopped him with a calm, restraining hand, and said directly to Martin, ‘Perhaps I left the army because I became weary of idiots like you’.

Martin lunged. Verena let out a low cry. Alec Stewart was swearing. But Lucas had already moved swiftly to one side, and his right fist flew. Martin staggered, then pulled himself up dazedly, wiping at the blood on his lip. ‘Damn you, Conistone!’

Lucas towered over him, powerful shoulders still braced, his eyes hard as iron. He said curtly, ‘That was just a warning, Bryant. Stop being a damned idiot. You’d best go and clean yourself up, before someone—and I assure you it won’t be me—receives a more serious injury’.

Still Martin hesitated. ‘Captain Bryant,’ Verena pleaded. ‘Do as he says. Please’.

‘I’m not leaving you alone with—’

‘Lord Conistone and his friend are going,’ interrupted Verena quietly, wretchedly. ‘Now’.

Alec said tersely to Lucas, ‘I’ll get someone to see to our horses. Then—I think you’ll now agree—we’d best be on our way’.

Martin Bryant had already hurried off, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding lip after shooting a look of hatred at Lucas. Alec turned to Verena, saying, ‘Do you still have your man Turley, Miss Sheldon? The horses need water and I must adjust my mare’s curb chain. Then we can ride on’.

She was fighting back the bitter mortification. What could she do? What could she say, that would not make things a thousand times worse than they were already?

Nothing, except speed their exit.

‘I will find Turley for you, Captain Stewart!’ she said. ‘We wouldn’t want you—detained for any longer than necessary!’

Alec hesitated. ‘Very well. I’ll take the horses to the stables, if I may?’

She nodded and turned for the house.

But she was too late. As Alec disappeared, a strong hand stretched out, almost casually, to grip her. ‘Wait,’ Lucas commanded.

This was—intolerable. Her whole body trembled with rage. With shock. With the longing—the treacherous longing—to be in his arms again, to feel his body pressed against hers, his warm lips caressing her skin.

Harlot. Fortune-hunting harlot, that letter had said. She spoke in a tight voice, staring into the distance. ‘Will you please let go of me, my lord?’

‘Oh, Verena,’ Lucas said tiredly. He had turned her to face him. She would not, she would not meet his eyes! But his long coat had fallen open, so she could see all too clearly how his cream shirt moulded itself to his powerful shoulders and chest, against which he had once cradled her so close that she could hear his heart beating….

‘Turley,’ she said blindly, ‘I must fetch Turley’.

‘Alec will sort all that’. Lucas Conistone’s voice was harder now. ‘Deuce take it, Verena, if you’re in difficulties of some kind, why didn’t you ask me for assistance? Why didn’t you write?’

‘Oh, pray forgive me, my lord!’ Her eyes flashed up to his now. ‘But, absurd as it seems, I did not once think, “Dear me, we are in trouble, I must ask Viscount Conistone for help!‘”

He had always been stunningly handsome. But now there was something different, a dangerous cold light in those inscrutable grey eyes. Only perhaps it had always been there, and she’d been too much of a lovesick fool to see it.

He said in a quiet voice, ‘I suppose I cannot blame you if you have come to hate me’.

She swallowed hard, suddenly aware that the air out here was oppressive with heat. As the shadows deepened, she heard a rumble of ominous thunder. And his eyes were already as dark as night. ‘Hate you?’ she replied, summoning false brightness. ‘No such powerful emotion, my lord; you see, the thought of you simply never crossed my mind! Though, may I say, I do not warm to your idea of arriving here, unannounced, to gloat over our misfortune’.

‘Verena. Stop it. Stop it,’ he grated out, so savagely that she flinched. Then he raked his hand through his dark hair and said, almost tonelessly, ‘I’m sorry if I ever gave you cause to think that I might find your plight—amusing’.

His hands. His long, beautifully shaped fingers. The way he used to caress her….. ‘No apology needed, my lord!’ Somehow she managed to keep a smile fixed to her lips. ‘You see, you never gave me any cause to think of you at all!’

She turned resolutely back to the house; but again he caught her, swinging her round to face him. ‘Verena’. His voice was almost a growl. ‘Wait. Please, I beg you. You must speak with me’.

She stood, unable to ignore the pressure of those warm fingers on her shoulders—a pressure that cruelly awakened feelings she’d thought long since dead. ‘What is there to say?’ she whispered. The thunder rolled nearer. A heavy drop of rain splashed on the ground by her feet.

‘Verena,’ he murmured, his fingers tracing tiny circles on her bare skin just above her collarbone—oh, no, she could feel her pulse racing at his merest touch. ‘You haven’t really forgotten me, Verena. You can’t have…’.

She jerked herself away from his treacherous hand and crossed her arms over her bosom. Dear God. Less than two years ago this man had walked out of her life, leaving her utterly bereft, and a target for the sneers of the whole county. Now he was here again. Why? She said with passionate defiance, ‘I have succeeded in forgetting you completely, my lord! And as for your sympathy—I can live without it, I do assure you!’

‘I was hoping to offer more practical help,’ Lucas Conistone said flatly. He looked up at the dark clouds, and a flash of lightning suddenly illuminated the hard line of his jaw. ‘Perhaps we could go inside and talk?’

‘Inside? The house?’ She looked as though he’d suggested they torch the place. ‘But—my mother is in there! Deb is in there!’

‘Deb?’ Lucas repeated the name almost blankly. Then he remembered that Deb was one of her three younger sisters, the foolish blonde one, the one he had least time for. He frowned. ‘Of what account, pray, is she?’

And Verena’s face, where before it had been anguished, was frozen into first shock, then shuttered coldness. ‘Oh, Lucas,’ she whispered. ‘Enough of this. I never expected to see you again. I never wanted to see you again. Please. Just go’.

So that was it, thought Lucas bleakly. She hated him. Just as well, he reminded himself. Yet she was so beautiful, with her hair tumbling now to her shoulders. And as for that damned gown, what buttons were left were barely managing to contain her luscious breasts; dear God, his blood surged with wanting her…. Grimly he fought down his arousal. ‘Verena,’ he said. ‘Verena, at least tell me why you are on the brink of losing your home’.

She stared. ‘Are you really going to pretend you don’t know? But of course, our activities are of no account in the kind of circles you move in…’. She gave a brittle laugh, but could not disguise the pain in her eyes. ‘It’s really quite simple, my lord. All our creditors have withdrawn their loans. And as the house is mortgaged, we must sell—everything’.

‘Everything?’ he echoed harshly. ‘Have you put everything up for sale?’

She gave a little shrug, then her fingers flew instinctively to secure her gown. ‘All that my family can survive without, yes. Furniture, paintings—the dealers have been through the house room by room’.

He drew a sharp breath. Here goes. ‘You might have other items of value, without realising it,’ he said quickly. ‘Have you thought of that?’

She looked shaken. ‘Such as?’

‘Such as your father’s personal possessions. Some people would pay good money for things you consider almost worthless. His papers, for example’.

‘His papers?’

He’d taken her by surprise, he could see. Her bewildered eyes—amber-gold eyes, dark-lashed, beautiful—met his again in shock.

‘Yes,’ he went on swiftly. ‘All his records of his travels abroad. Letters. Maps, perhaps. And—he kept some kind of diary, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, oh, yes,’ she whispered, ‘he was always writing, about everything. But who would pay for such trifles?’

‘I can think of several people. In London, for example, there are Portuguese exiles from the war, rich men who would dearly love any descriptive mementoes of their homeland’. You liar, Conistone, he rebuked himself bitterly. You deceiver.

She jerked her head up, her eyes over-bright. ‘Then I’m sorry, my lord, to have to inform you that, firstly, I would never dream of parting with my father’s private letters to me. And, secondly, he always kept his diary with him’.

That was true, thought Lucas grimly. His latest diary. But…. ‘What about his older diaries? Weren’t there any he’d completed, and left here?’

‘No! And if he did, I would never, ever sell them!’ Her voice trembled, then recovered. ‘Excuse me, my lord, but I find your pretended—interest in our plight nothing short of humiliating!’

She tossed back her head in defiance, just as she used to; the gesture afforded him yet another glimpse of those creamy-smooth breasts. His anger boiled. Damn it, had that fellow Bryant really been kissing her? The thought of it tipped him over the edge; desire lurched at his groin as she struggled to cover herself. That was the kind of trick used by whores in London.

And she was daring to play high and mighty with him?

‘Humiliating?’ he grated. ‘You speak of—humiliation, when, good God, the moment I arrived, you were outrageously flirting with that witless army boor?’

Her eyes flew up to clash with his. ‘I was not flirting! And do not speak of him like that!’

‘I’ll speak of him exactly as I like! What is that man doing here? Why isn’t he with his regiment?’

‘You may as well ask the same of your friend Captain Stewart!’ Verena cried. ‘For his—reputation leaves a deal to be desired!’ It was true; she knew it was a long-standing joke that Alec Stewart, a year or so younger than Lucas, spent a good deal more effort on hunting heiresses than he did on hunting the French. ‘Besides,’ she went on furiously, ‘Captain Bryant is not a boor, he is our friend! He was injured at Talavera, and his wound is not yet completely healed. So he makes himself useful. He helps the Revenue men watch this part of the coast for smugglers and—French spies!’

She saw him almost sneer. ‘French spies? Things have been busy at Wycherley’.

‘Meaning?’ she snapped.

‘I also heard that four weeks ago there was a burglary here’.

She went very still. ‘How do you—?’

‘Gossip travels’.

She seemed to sag. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I, of all people, should know that…’. Her voice faltered, then recovered again. ‘Indeed, there was evidence of an intruder. But—’ again, that toss of the head ‘—nothing at all was taken, my lord! And even if it had been, what business is it of yours? Besides, Captain Bryant himself has offered us his protection’.

‘Protection!’ Now his scorn was rampant. ‘That spineless fellow couldn’t fight off a damned flea’.

Her eyes whipped up to his, flashing with defiance. The rain was starting to fall all around them in the courtyard, the thunder rumbling; she had to raise her voice to be heard.

‘You are wrong, quite wrong! Captain Bryant is not spineless! And—and he has asked me to marry him!’

He found himself horrified. Furious. ‘My God. You will not do so?’

‘Why not?’ she declared bitterly. ‘Does anyone have a prior claim?’

Damn it, me. I do. He wanted to crush her in his arms, and feel those sweet, full breasts against his chest. Wanted to drown his aching arousal in the slender lushness of her body. He wanted.

Look after her for me, will you, Lucas?

The words that haunted him, every minute, every day. His mouth set grimly. Easier to let her continue to hate him. Though—utterly abominable for him.

But Bryant—her suitor? ‘Very well,’ he said in an iron-hard voice. ‘Very well. I can see, Miss Sheldon, that your troubles are overwhelming. I can see the lure of any port in a storm’.

Her eyes blazed. She tilted her chin. ‘Lord Conistone. I would be obliged if you would leave our home this instant. Now’.

‘Oh, I’m going,’ he said. ‘But before I leave, I thought you might want this back’. He reached into the inside deep pocket of his coat. And pulled out—the little silver music box.

She gazed at him in utter disbelief.

‘I saw someone leaving with it’. He shrugged. ‘I gave him twice what he’d paid in the sale. Sell it again if you wish. But this time—’ and his lip curled ‘—ask more for it. You shouldn’t find it difficult. You’re on the way to becoming a mercenary creature, Miss Sheldon’.

And Verena felt that her heart was breaking anew as she took the box in hands that were as numb as her heart.

Her despairing eyes flew up to his. Dear God. He was still—Lucas. But he despised her.

Perhaps he always had. And now, she’d as good as told him she might accept Martin as a suitor…. ‘Lucas!’

‘Yes?’

‘I—I never believed you were a coward, Lucas,’ she whispered. ‘Never that!’

The falling rain intensified every feature of his starkly masculine face. ‘Ah. Playing hot and cold with me now, are you, Miss Sheldon?’ he said softly. Suddenly he cupped her chin with one strong hand. ‘Hoping, perhaps, that if your gallant Captain realises he has a rival, he might rush you to the altar?’

She gasped with fresh pain. ‘That is despicable—’

Before she could say more, Lucas had pulled her close. She felt the light caress of his hands on her back; then he touched her scalloped silk chemise, her half-exposed breasts, running one tantalising thumb over her tightening nipple so she arched yearningly, helplessly towards him.

‘I can see for myself,’ Lucas Conistone grated, ‘that as well as selling your house’s contents to the highest bidder, you’re also selling yourself. A pity that the best offer you can get is from an utter nonentity like Martin Bryant’.

For a moment she was too frozen even to move. Too numb even to hate him as she should. Then she pushed him away and ran inside, still clutching the little music box, as her life fell to pieces around her.

Lucas stood very still as he watched her disappear into the house. Desire, frustration and black despair surged through every muscle of his powerful body.

Parting after that sweet autumn almost two years ago was for the best, he told himself bitterly as he walked slowly in the direction of the stables. It was the only thing to do. You knew that.

And yet he hadn’t expected to still want her so badly. Hadn’t expected her to be so damned beautiful. And he hadn’t expected her to look up at him with those wide, beautiful eyes, as if he were the devil himself.

Who could blame her? He’d lied to her. Deceived her.

His visit to Wycherley had not been a matter of chance, far from it. Five days ago in London he’d seen the notice in the newspapers of the Sheldon family’s dispersal sale. And then he’d heard of the attempted burglary.

His good friend Captain Alec Stewart, in London also, had tried to warn him. ‘For God’s sake, man. She’s no fool. Why all this “passing by” pretence? Can’t you trust her with the truth?’

‘The truth?’ Lucas answered sharply. ‘How much of it—how little of it will she be able to bear? And why should I expect her to believe a word I say?’

Well, he’d lied to her and achieved—nothing.

Lucas Conistone was aware of the occasional whispers that he had left the army because he had no stomach for war. But most people gave no thought to his resignation. The fact that, since his father’s early death ten years ago, he was heir to his grandfather’s earldom, with all the responsibilities that entailed, meant that many people had thought him irresponsible to have joined the army in the first place.

Verena clearly thought otherwise. He just hadn’t expected her to actually despise him.

Now Alec was approaching from the stableyard, with the reins of both their horses in his hand. ‘Everything’s sorted, Lucas—horses watered, curb chain fixed—but other than that,’ commented Alec drily, ‘I’m saying nothing. Nothing at all’.

Lucas took the reins from him. ‘I know,’ he said tersely. ‘You told me. I’m not welcome here, and I should have realised it. I’ll go on to wait for Bentinck, at the place and time we arranged, and you—will you set off back to Portugal?’

Alec, already mounting his horse, nodded. ‘Portsmouth first, then Lisbon—I should be back there in ten days. Any messages?’

‘Yes. Let them know in Portugal, Alec, that I still believe what I’m looking for could be here’.

‘At Wycherley?’ Alec’s face creased in doubt.

‘At Wycherley,’ Lucas emphasised.

And it was true—he did.

The diary. A year and a half ago, Lucas had followed Wild Jack across the mountains in hopes of getting that diary. Thought he’d seen Jack clutching it, as he faced death.

But now the body had been found, the diary with it—and it was the wrong one. Which meant that what Lucas really wanted must be here, somewhere, at Wycherley.

And he cursed the fate that had brought him here.

‘The girl will have nothing to do with you,’ Alec warned as he started gathering up his reins.

‘There are other ways’.

Alec’s pleasant eyes narrowed just a little. He said quietly, ‘In that case, I’m glad, for her sake, that she’s over you’.

Lucas watched him ride off towards the Chichester road before mounting his own horse. Alec was right. But for her to throw herself away on Bryant….

Something inside him twisted like a knife as he remembered the Verena he’d known. She’d been young and beautiful, and full of hope and, yes, love, for him. And he’d thought, this is the one.

But now, she hated him. And, by God, it was as well.

Chapter Three

Swiftly Verena, up in her bedchamber, pulled on an old cotton shift instead of the silk chemise, and then over it a shabby print gown, which did an excellent job of disguising her full breasts and narrow waist. Not even Lucas could accuse her of playing the whore in this.

She pulled it up viciously high at the neck, then, turning to her looking-glass, began to tug a comb through her rippling chestnut curls, which were damp from the rain. She stopped and gazed at herself. Her eyes were still bright with emotion, her skin still tingled from Lucas’s insultingly casual caress.

Meu amor. My love. That was what he had once breathed to her. One of his many damnable lies.

She pulled on a shawl and hurried to knock on the door of a nearby room. No answer—but she thought she heard the sound of sobbing. ‘Deb. Deb? It’s me—Verena’. She pushed the door open, and saw her sister sitting on the edge of the bed, her head bowed. When Deb looked up, her blue eyes were brimming with tears.

Verena quickly shut the door. ‘Oh, Deb!’ she cried, and rushed to embrace her, but Deb shrank away.

‘Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?’ she whispered. ‘I will not, I will not face him!’

Dear God. Had her sister observed that insult of a caress? ‘Did you—did you see him out there?’

‘No, but Izzy told me! She saw him and his friend Captain Stewart riding up the drive, and was full of it…’.

Be grateful for small mercies. Verena drew a deep breath and sat down beside her. It had been the final blow—almost laughable, really, were it not so cruel—to find out that less than one year ago Lucas had tried his luck with Deb also. What fair game her family must have seemed.

‘Deb, listen to me,’ she urged. ‘Lord Conistone is leaving. He only called here because he was on his way to Stancliffe Manor’.

‘You mean—’ Deb shivered ‘—he said nothing about me?’

‘Nothing at all’. Verena sighed. ‘Look, he will have gone already. Deb, you must forget him. You must be strong’. And so must I.

‘Oh, Verena’. Deborah flung herself into her arms, in a fresh storm of weeping.

And Verena did her best—an almost impossible task—to soothe her, then left her sister at last, returning to her own room to endure fresh heartbreak herself as she remembered how nearly two years ago she herself was fool enough to fall in love with Lucas, Lord Conistone.

In the early August of 1808, all of Hampshire was deluged by heavy rainfall, and the harvests were ruined. Verena’s father had gone away again on his travels—from which, in fact, he was never to return—and Verena, young as she was, found that their tenants and villagers were coming to her for help, since their mother, Lady Frances, could do nothing but bewail their troubles.

Verena had been supposed to be preparing for her come-out the following Season. The dressmaker had even completed part of her new wardrobe, of which the silk chemise was a sad relic. But instead of looking forward to parties and balls, she had found herself having to discuss their woeful finances with Mr Mayhew, her father’s attorney.

With Mr Mayhew’s help that summer she had dug deeper into the dwindling family coffers to save the home farm—save the estate, in fact; during discussions with the estate’s tenant farmers, she struggled to comprehend all the talk of crop rotation, winter fodder and seasonal plantings.

She still dreamed of going to London, with its theatres and fashionable parties. When her father returned, she told herself, everything would be as it should be once more! The last week of August seemed to echo her optimism, with days suddenly full of sunshine. Though Verena, riding back on an old pony from a meeting with some of the tenant farmers to discuss, of all things, the virtues of planting turnips as a fodder crop, knew that her return to Wycherley would be greeted by her mother with near hysterics.

‘Verena! You have been riding about the countryside like—a farmer’s wife! Oh, if any of our neighbours should see you!’

It was hot, it was beautiful outdoors, and the larks were singing above the meadows. And so, in a sudden impulse of rebellion, Verena had jumped off her pony near a haystack and let it amble towards some grass. Then, after pulling a crisp red apple and two books from her saddle bag, she sat with her back against the sweet-smelling hay.

With her spectacles perched at the end of her nose, she started on Miss Bonamy’s Young Lady’s Guide to Etiquette, a parting gift from a former extremely dull governess that her mother was always urging her to read. She tackled the first few pages. A young lady never rides out without a chaperon. A young lady always dresses demurely and protects her complexion from the sun.

‘Oh, fiddle!’ Verena had cried, and flung Miss Bonamy’s tome at the hayrick, turning instead, with almost equal lack of enthusiasm, to the treatise on agriculture that David, her brother-in-law, had lent her.

It was actually not as boring as she’d expected. She read through it, frowning at first, then with growing interest, until—

‘Oh!’

He was riding towards her along the track, and the sound of his horse’s hooves had made her start.

Lucas, Viscount Conistone. Of course, as she grew up she’d seen him from afar. Dreamed about him from afar, like her sisters, like most of the girls in the entire county, no doubt. She’d even met him occasionally, because her father had been a friend of his grandfather, the old Earl, and the Earl was her godfather. She dropped the treatise on turnips and dragged herself to her feet, snatching off her spectacles, pushing back her tumbled hair; then she just said, with utter gladness, ‘You’re safe! I was so afraid!’

He’d dismounted, and stood lightly holding his big horse’s reins, smiling down at her. He would be—yes, twenty-four years old, four years older than she was. He was hatless, and his thick black hair, a shade too long for fashion, framed a striking, aristocratic face that was tanned now by the sun. He wore just a loose cream shirt—no coat, in this heat—riding breeches and dusty leather boots.

‘Very much alive,’ he agreed heartily. ‘Did you hear news to the contrary, Miss Sheldon?’

She coloured. ‘They said you’d gone overseas, with the army. And I heard there were some terrible battles…’.

That was when he told her he was untouchable, and the bullets just flew past him. She wasn’t going to tell him that every time she read the news sheets, or overheard talk of the war, she thought of him.

‘I did not know you were coming home,’ she said simply.

He’d smiled down at her again. Since she’d last seen him—it was at a gathering of local families at Stancliffe Manor several years ago—he’d changed, become wider-shouldered, leaner, yet more powerful. His face, always handsome, was more angular, his features more defined. And there was something—some shadow—in his dark grey eyes that she was sure had not been there before. A soldier now. He would have lost friends in battles, she thought. He would have killed men.

Lucas said lightly, ‘Even my grandfather didn’t know I was returning till I turned up on his doorstep yesterday. I was intending to call on you all at Wycherley, but I’m glad to find you on your own’.

It means nothing, he means nothing, don’t be foolish….. She suddenly remembered, and her heart sank. She said, ‘You must have heard from your grandfather about—the matter with my father. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d decided not to call on us, my lord’.

His eyes were still gentle. ‘They had an argument, I’m afraid, as old friends will’.

‘It was more than an argument, I fear!’ she answered.

‘And your father’s away again? On his travels? ‘

‘Indeed, yes’.

‘And you—’ his eyes were scanning her, assessing her in a way that made her blush ‘—you, Verena, should be in London, surely, enjoying yourself, surrounded by flocks of admirers!’

At that moment, with Lucas smiling down at her, she would not have been anywhere else for the world. ‘Oh, there’s time enough for all that,’ she said airily.

‘Time enough, indeed. Though this…’. he picked up the book that lay where she had dropped it ‘.….is hardly everyday reading for a young lady’. He flicked through it, eyebrows tilting. ‘The cultivation of—turnips? ‘

She blushed hotly. He must think her a country clod, for no London lady of fashion would ever glance at such a thing!

‘It belongs to—someone else, and, yes, of course you are right, I wouldn’t dream of reading about—farming! Turnips!’ She laughed. ‘Ridiculous!’

He put his head on one side, not smiling back, and said seriously, ‘I have heard that since your father last went away, you’ve had to take on responsibility for the estate yourself, Verena’.

She bit her lip, then, ‘What nonsense people do talk!’ she declared. ‘Why, soon Mama and Deb and I will be going to London, and we will have such fun—going to the theatre, attending parties…’. She casually picked up her copy of the Miss Bonamy’s book and fanned her warm cheeks with it, so he should see it and consider her a lady.

He cut in, ‘I heard there was a bad harvest. And that you’re short of labourers to plant the winter crops’.

She was mortified. ‘It’s true that the summer rains did great damage. But by next spring all will be right again at Wycherley!’ I wish, I wish he hadn’t seen me like this, in my old print dress that must be flecked with dust and straw. He will be used to the company of such beautiful women, and I must look like a farm girl…..

He said suddenly, ‘I’m interested in the new ways of farming too. Everyone should be’.

‘Sh-should they?’

‘Indeed. Unfortunately, this war will go on and on, and it’s vital that every acre of English land should be made as productive as possible. But Turnip Townshend’s ideas are a little outdated now, you know! Have you come across Blake’s new harrow yet, I wonder? My grandfather’s agent has ordered one, for drilling seed in rows, rather than scattering. You could borrow it for Wycherley, I’m sure. Would you show me round your estate’s farms some time, Verena, and I’ll see how I can help?’

She was stunned. So he didn’t despise her after all, even though she was reduced to learning about turnips. He was actually offering to help her!

She realised the sun was beating down on her unruly hair, her cheeks; oh, Lord, her freckles would be coming back! She exclaimed, ‘The Earl, your grandfather, does not approve of my family at all, you know!’

He shrugged. ‘Then I shall tell him it’s a matter of neighbourliness and of mutual benefit. The Stancliffe estate can perhaps help Wycherley for now, but some day, in different circumstances, you might be able to help us!’

She could barely restrain an incredulous laugh. Stancliffe was a vast and rich ancestral home; its estate always ran at a profit, and it had a water-powered corn mill that minted money, David Parker said. Wycherley was paltry in comparison.

He touched her hand. A gesture of friendship, no more, but his long, lean fingers burned her; she felt that silken touch through every nerve ending.

‘Are you in a hurry now?’ he asked her suddenly.

‘No, not at all,’ she lied. Really, there was a great deal to be done: the household accounts to be sorted, Cook’s monthly order for the stores to be cut back as much as possible, Turley’s laments about the leak in the roof of the north wing to be placated….

‘Then let’s ride together,’ said Lucas, Viscount Conistone, ‘now, around Wycherley’s farms. I know the harvest has been a bad one, but there’s time yet to remedy things’.

Her eyes were wide with wonder and surprise. ‘But—you’re home on leave. You must have so many things you’d rather be doing, my lord!’

‘As a matter of fact,’ he said rather quietly, ‘I haven’t’.

Her heart leapt; her soul sang. Quietly, wonderingly, she packed her things into her saddle bag. And as he helped her on to her pony, her thoughts were in utter turmoil. For she’d fallen head over heels in love, and her world was suddenly a different, a marvellous place.

And so, during those weeks of late August and September when the sun shone as if in apology for the dreadful early summer, Lord Lucas Conistone called for her almost daily and they would ride around the Wycherley and Stancliffe estates together, with either Turley or one of her sisters accompanying them as chaperon, talking about crops and harvesting.

Verena’s complexion became golden in the sun and her mother chided her to wear a wide-brimmed sunbonnet. But Lucas laughed at her headgear and told her that he disliked ladies with pallor; he told her also that her eyes were like amber in the sunlight. ‘You must have inherited your grandmother’s colouring,’ he said.

She didn’t even realise that he knew about her father’s Portuguese mother. ‘Her name was Lucia. And yes, I am told that I look like her,’ she said shyly.

‘Then she must have been beautiful’.

She was not used to being complimented on her looks. Her mother had always bemoaned the fact that she was not blonde and blue-eyed, like Deb and Izzy. Her heart thudded. ‘You are making fun of me. I’m sure I would never gain approval at Almack’s!’

‘No, because the others there would die of jealousy,’ he answered lightly. And he added, even more softly, ‘Minha querida’.

The Portuguese endearment—my dear one—went through her like an arrow. A light aside. A frivolous compliment, nothing more, she told herself swiftly.

She also had to damp down her mother’s excited speculation. ‘Lord Conistone has no intentions towards me whatsoever, Mama, I assure you! We are friends, nothing more’.

But it seemed truly marvellous to be Lucas’s friend as they rode together that September, talking about the agricultural improvements that were needed to feed a country at war. Though Lucas never talked about the war itself.

Of course, she always knew that soon he would have to go back. She knew that the harvest festival, in the fourth week of September, would be his last night at home; he was due to rejoin his regiment the next day, he had told her. But it was easy to believe, that warm, moonlit night, that the cruel war was a whole world away.

His friend Captain Alec Stewart, whose reputation as a high liver was just starting to gather pace, was there, too, and of course there was great excitement amongst the local girls when Alec and Lucas stayed on after the supper for the dancing. Yet Lucas danced with Verena nearly all evening. When she suggested that he should ask some of the others, he answered lightly, ‘How can I not dance with someone who is a student of Turnip Townshend? How could anyone else be my amber-eyed harvest maiden?’ Somehow he danced her away from the others, into the shadows offered by the outbuildings, and there, while the music still played, he kissed her.

She’d glimpsed his dark smile seconds before he lowered his head and brushed his lips against her own. His strong arms cradled her close and soft yearning had flooded her. Nothing less than a tremor shook her body as his warm, firm mouth caressed hers, and she felt his tongue lightly trace the parting of her lips, then flicker against her moist inner mouth.

Her hands were trapped, pressed flat against the hard wall of his chest. She could feel the heat of his skin through the fine lawn of his white shirt. Feel the ridges of sculpted male muscle under her fingertips. His hips and thighs were moulded to hers, so close she couldn’t help but be aware of his desire, hard and powerful, where he held her tight. For her. He wanted her….

Verena recognised her own answering desire at the pit of her stomach. Hazy, heated images filled her mind. The whispers she’d heard, about what women and men did together; her sister Pippa’s sighs of rapture as she hinted at nights in her new husband’s arms….

It was Lucas who drew away. But he still held her hands. And whispered, ‘Verena. Remember this night, because I will’.

The sounds of music and merrymaking drifted through to her as if from a great distance. For a moment all she could do was gaze up at him. Every inch of her skin where he had touched her was aching with acute awareness, as she saw something so dark, so rawly male in his expression that it almost frightened her.

Then they were interrupted. A crowd of his friends were coming to see where he was. ‘Best get back to the others,’ Lucas said lightly. And it was over.

That kiss was nothing to him, she told herself. It was just an evening of joyous celebration, when everyone was dancing and drinking a little more than they should.

It was just a kiss. But later, as she prepared for bed, she looked at herself in the mirror; for the first time in her life she wished that she was a tantalising society beauty, from a wealthy family, because then, then, he might love her in return.

Love. She’d thought that being courted—being loved—would be sweet and pleasant—and easily resisted.

But no. What she felt for Lucas was a dark, a dangerous, a living thing. Her whole being throbbed with need. She longed to be in his arms, to feel his lips on hers, and more, for he’d awakened her body, and her heart.

Lucas called at Wycherley briefly before he left the next day. He was in uniform, and obviously in great haste, but he gave her the little music box. As she opened it, and the tender tune filled her heart, he took her hand and said, his eyes searching hers, ‘I’ll be away for a little while, Verena. Can I ask you something?’

She had been tormented by the knowledge that soon he would be sailing away to Portugal, to war with the French, to terrible danger. ‘Of course,’ she breathed. ‘Anything’.

‘Will you keep your trust in me, whatever you hear? Will you remember we are friends?’

Friends. Her heart plummeted, but she managed to say lightly, ‘Good friends indeed. And we owe you so much, Lucas! Next time you are home, you will see the Wycherley farms transformed!’

He nodded almost curtly. ‘As long as you yourself do not change, Verena. As long as you stay the same’. Then he took her hand and pressed his lips to it. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and cling to him and never let him go.

As he’d walked towards his waiting horse, he had turned to her once last time, as if he was about to say something else. But then he mounted up, gave a half-salute, and was gone.

She thought—everybody thought—that he’d gone back to the battlefields of the Peninsula. But news came a few weeks later that he’d resigned from the army and was instead living the high life in London with the Prince’s set. After that came whispers, too, of secret affaires with beautiful society women—and each piece of news about Lord Lucas Conistone stabbed Verena to the heart.

Still during that winter of anguish, there’d been no word from their father. And hard on the heels of the rumours about Lucas had come an ominous visit from Mr Mayhew, their father’s attorney. Verena’s mother had felt a migraine coming on, so it was Verena who had to listen to Mr Mayhew’s grave explanation that the loan on which Wycherley depended was being withdrawn, due, Mr Mayhew feared, to personal pressure on their bank from the Earl of Stancliffe, Lucas’s grandfather.

Verena had first thought, This must be a mistake. The Earl is my godfather. Despite his disagreement with my father, he cannot intend to harm us so! She wrote to the Earl that same day, explaining their predicament; and that was when she’d received the devastating answer:

The Earl of Stancliffe does not respond to begging letters. Especially when they are sent by a fortune-hunting harlot—yes, my grandson Lucas told me of your pitiful attempts to entrap him.

Verena had locked herself in her room on receiving that note, shaking with shock. She read it again and again, remembering every conversation, every look of Lucas’s, trying to make sense of it and failing.

She’d told Lucas that when he returned to Wycherley, he’d find it transformed; it was unrecognisable indeed, within months of his departure, for, by the January of 1809, the Sheldons, and the Wycherley estate, were starting to face the road to ruin.

Soon afterwards, the Earl made a ludicrously low offer for the entire estate, which Verena refused outright. Something would happen, she thought desperately. Her dear father would return, filling the house with his beloved presence, making everything all right….

Her father had been abroad for months, and still nothing whatsoever had been heard of him, though Verena took the gig or rode every fortnight to the shipping office in Portsmouth ten miles away to ask if there was any news.

And early in February 1809, during bitter winter weather, the news finally arrived. Sir Jack Sheldon would never be coming home again.

Chapter Four

Jack Sheldon was dead. And there was no body to bury, either. They were told he’d been exploring the snow-covered peaks on Portugal’s Spanish border when he fell into a raging mountain river and was swept away downstream, never to be found. Verena had been grief-stricken and, more than that, desperately afraid. She honestly did not see how they could go on.

The Earl of Stancliffe was in Bath when the news arrived, taking the waters for his health; they heard nothing from him, and after his insults Verena did not expect to. Then Lucas wrote to her, to send his condolences. She was horrified by his duplicity. She didn’t understand how he could pretend to care. She’d secretly fallen in love with a gallant hero, who’d asked her to trust him, when all the time he’d been planning to leave the army, and must also have betrayed her infatuation with him to his grandfather.

Of course she burned Lucas’s letter and did not reply. He wrote again. This time she did not even read it before destroying it.

Verena had her father’s letters for consolation. He was a compulsive writer, and as she leafed through them, with their vivid descriptions of the wild hills of his mother’s country where he’d felt so at home, she could almost hear Jack Sheldon’s loud voice, almost see his dancing dark eyes, which had glittered exultantly as he confided to her, on the night just before he left for the last time, that summer two years ago, that he had discovered a great secret, something that would make them all rich.

Oh, Papa. She hadn’t believed him. But how she missed him: his stories, and his zest, and his unquenchable optimism—and how secretly fearful she was as she faced life without him, under a mountain of burgeoning debt.

Lady Frances Sheldon was still determined to marry off her daughters, and wanted to take Verena and Deb to London as soon as the minimum period of mourning was over. Verena told her mother that they simply could not afford the expense of a London Season; Pippa, usually Verena’s staunch ally, was by then expecting her twins, so Verena took on the full brunt of her mother’s anger.

‘I would hate to think you are jealous of Deb’s prettiness, my dear,’ said Lady Frances.

‘Jealousy, piffle! I am not going to London, Mama!’ declared Verena. ‘And you should not either!’

But Lady Frances had insisted on taking Deb to London that autumn, for an extended stay with a rather foolish friend of hers, Lady Willoughby. Verena remained at Wycherley, trying to hold the estate together and to fend off their mounting debts. She was startled one afternoon to see a hired chaise rattling into the courtyard; when she’d hurried to see who it was, Deb and Lady Frances were climbing out.

‘Deb! Mama!’ Verena had cried. ‘I had not expected you back so soon!’

Lady Frances, hurrying towards the house, waved her hand dismissively. ‘The disappointments, Verena! Lady Willoughby is no true friend, and I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of her! Pray have tea sent up to my room while I recover from the journey!’

Deb, her pretty face clouded with ill humour, was about to follow, but Verena had barred her way. ‘Deb. What on earth’s happened?’

Deb had burst into tears.

Oh, Lord, Verena had thought, ordering the staring Turley to unload the luggage. ‘Deb. Come inside. Tell me everything’.

But Verena had rather wished she’d been spared at least some of the details when Deb told her in the parlour, between fits of tears and outbursts of anger, how she’d met Viscount Conistone at one of Lady Willoughby’s parties and that he had made severely improper advances.

Verena had been stunned. ‘No!’

Deb had started crying again. ‘Oh, yes! I thought I would be safe with Lucas! After all, last September you used to ride around the countryside with him, didn’t you, Verena? Often with only one of us for company, and no one said a thing! He—he took me into a side room, and gave me wine to drink—and then he attempted to kiss me, and murmured that we must meet, later! Oh, I would die if anyone else knew of my shame!’

Until then, there had always been the faint hope in Verena’s beleaguered heart that the stories she heard about Lucas were somehow false, and that the Earl’s comment that Lucas had called her a silly fortune-hunter was a wicked concoction.

But—this? For a start, what was Lucas doing at one of Lady Willoughby’s entertainments? He was part of the Carlton House set—he would never normally attend such a shabby affair! And—what did it matter? Any last hope had died within her. She’d felt cold, alone and afraid. ‘Deb. Deb, listen to me. Maybe Lord Conistone had been drinking—’

‘Oh, you would say that! You are jealous; I might have known!’

Verena bit her lip and tried again. ‘I’m only trying to say that you must pretend it never happened. Lucas—Lord Conistone—will say nothing either, if he has any sense of honour. Does Mama know anything of this?’

‘Mama? No, of course not! She insisted that we leave London because she fell out with Lady Willoughby over some petty business of who should pay for the theatre or some such thing. And some unpleasant people were starting to say that I should not be appearing at parties and routs, since I was not properly out…. But, Verena, listen. You don’t think—’ Deb had lifted her pretty, petulant face enquiringly ‘—that Lucas might perhaps really care for me? That if I’d stayed in London, he might have continued his attentions in a more proper fashion?’

‘I don’t,’ Verena had said flatly. ‘No gentleman of Lord Conistone’s standing initiates a serious courtship in such a way’.

Deb had burst into tears again. ‘I hate you, Verena! You are jealous, and spiteful, because I am so much prettier than you!’

‘Deb, please—’

But her sister, still sobbing, had flounced out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Verena had still refused to believe that Lucas had resigned from the army out of fear. But she was forced to believe everything else she heard about him, because the stories spread throughout the following winter and into the spring of Lucas’s high living amongst the Prince’s set, of the gambling and the parties that lasted for days and nights on end in London, Brighton and even the Channel Isles—for, like many of his aristocratic companions, he had his own sea-going yacht.

Captain Alec Stewart, his services in the Light Dragoons clearly minimal, was often his companion in these outbursts of revelry. Their female conquests were legendary; that spring, the rumour had spread that Lucas was about to announce his betrothal to one of the diamonds of the Season, Lady Jasmine Rowley.

True or not, Lucas had betrayed Wycherley. And had shattered her stupid heart.

Now, suddenly, on the day their fast-disintegrating fortunes were put on public display, Lucas was back in her life again. And she wouldn’t accept any of his offers of help, for she could not believe a word he said.

Yet the trouble was that not a night had gone by, since that magical autumn, without her thinking of him. Missing him. Wanting him so badly that it was as if her life was broken without him.

It was nine o’clock and the ordeal of the dispersal sale was almost over. The chaises and carts had departed along the Chichester road, piled high with items that had been in Wycherley Hall for centuries. Verena, feeling tired and alone, set off down the stairs. At least Lord Conistone and Captain Stewart would have gone by now.

But the day was not over yet. As she entered the great hall, that this morning had been piled with furniture and ornaments and was now almost bare, she saw Turley, looking hot and distressed.

‘Turley, what on earth’s the matter?’ Not Lucas again, causing trouble, please…..

Turley rushed towards her. ‘There’s bad doings down a Ragg’s Cove, Miss Verena! The militia, they’re roundin’ up some local men who’ve bin fishing!’

‘The militia? Fishing? Why on earth—?’

‘They’re saying our men are in league with French spies, Miss Verena! And they’re plannin’ on taking them off to Chichester gaol!’

‘This is ridiculous! French spies? I will deal with this!’

Now Turley’s kind old face was truly tight with alarm. ‘You mustn’t go down there, miss! You know as well as I there’s been strange things goin’ on around here lately! Oh, I wish I’d never told you…’.

‘This is Wycherley business,’ she replied crisply, ‘and you did quite right to tell me, Turley. Believe me, I’ll be back before anyone’s even missed me. No need to make matters worse with a general hue and cry!’

Ignoring Turley’s protests, she went to put on her cloak, glad that at least it had stopped raining, and the thunderstorm was past. It would take her very little time to hurry through the gardens and down the steep track that she knew so well to Ragg’s Cove. French spies? Martin Bryant was always muttering about them, but no one else took the notion in the least bit seriously. She would vouch for the local men and get rid of the interfering militia. And then this dreadful day would be—almost—at an end.

Waving Turley aside, she found a lantern and headed out into the darkness, towards the cliff path.

And did not see, in the black shadows beyond her lantern’s glow, the figures moving behind the trees, following her

Chapter Five

Lucas Conistone was waiting on horseback by the deserted lodge where the Wycherley drive met the toll road to Chichester. The lights of Wycherley Hall twinkled a quarter of a mile away, through the darkness.

His horse was growing restless, and so was he. He constantly scanned the long driveway back to Wycherley Hall, until he saw that someone was coming at last, trotting up the drive from the house on a stocky bay cob.

‘My God, Bentinck,’ said Lucas, urging his horse forwards to meet him, ‘you took your damned time!’

Bentinck, who had once been a prize fighter, ran his hand through his spiky black hair and grunted. He had been Lucas’s aide and valet for many years; now he looked mildly aggrieved at Lucas’s comment.

‘Done just as you asked, milord, all right and proper! I took a good look round all the books and desks and so forth that were up for sale—did pretty well until I almost got caught!’

Lucas’s face tightened. ‘Who by?’

‘The young lady of the house. The pretty one, with chestnut hair and proud eyes, and, ahem, luscious figure…. She saw me opening drawers and havin’ a good poke around and started coming over to take me to task, but I was too quick for her! A tasty armful, I’d reckon, in spite of them drab clothes—’

Lucas broke in, ‘Did you find anything?’

‘Nothing to our immediate purpose, milord. But I did find something of interest, you might say. I got into the study and took a good long look at the window that we’d heard on our way here was the one that was used to get in to burgle the place…’. He paused weightily.

‘And?’

‘Some villain did indeed ‘ave a go at that window, milord, to make it look like it had been forced. But he was doin’ it from the inside. Get my meaning?’

‘From the inside. Thank you, Bentinck,’ breathed Lord Lucas Conistone softly. ‘Thank you very much’.

‘One thing more, milord’. Bentinck frowned. ‘As I was leavin’ just now, all quiet-like, to find my nag, I heard a bit of an argument between the girl—the beauty—and a servant. Seems as if there’s trouble down at the beach, Ragg’s Cove they call it, between the militia and some fishermen. And the girl’s gone hurrying down there to investigate’.

‘Not—on her own?’ Lucas’s voice was harsh. Incredulous.

‘Sounds like it, milord. Weren’t nothing I could—’

‘I know Ragg’s Cove’. Lucas looked grim. ‘There’s a path down to it from where the Wycherley gardens end at the top of the cliffs…’. He was making rapid decisions. ‘We’ll both ride quietly back towards the house, then you must keep yourself and the horses hidden. If I’m not back in half an hour—come after me’.

‘But—’

‘That’s an order. Understand?’

Bentinck sighed. ‘Understood, milord’. And followed.

As Verena hurried down the last few yards to the shingle beach, a hoarse cry of welcome rose from the half-dozen or so figures who cowered from the militia men’s pointed muskets. ‘Miss Verena! It’s Miss Verena!’

Drawing nearer, she recognised them: old Tom Sawrey, Billy Dixon, Ned Goodhew, and two others. Wycherley tenants, they farmed smallholdings and fished to supplement their income.

She also knew the officer in charge of the militia. ‘Colonel Harrap! Yes, it’s me, Verena Sheldon! I have no idea what you and your soldiers think you’re doing! French spies indeed!’

Colonel Harrap puffed himself out like a peacock. ‘I’m afraid you aren’t acquainted with the full facts, Miss Sheldon! Are you aware, for instance, that these scoundrels—’ he pointed at the Wycherley men ‘—made a signal—a fire, up on the cliff—to lure the enemy into land? And as a servant of his Majesty, it’s my duty to arrest them!’

Her heart lurched sickly. A fire. She looked sharply at the villagers again.

Fish weren’t the only haul they landed at night. Occasionally she and her family had received good French brandy, and sometimes even a bale of silk. Tonight—yes, tonight it was all too possible that they’d lit a fire to guide in a boat—to help not French spies, but French smugglers.

Then Billy Dixon stepped forwards, desperate. ‘We didn’t light that fire, Miss Verena, honest! We’d just been out fishin’ and we saw the flames while we were out at sea!’

‘A likely story!’ snorted Colonel Harrap.

‘It’s true! We rowed back in to see what it could be, but just after we pulled our boat in, that—that officer and his men came running down from the top of the headland and told us we was all under arrest! See, there’s our boat, look!’

He pointed to the big rowing boat heaved up on to the shingle, to the folded nets and baskets of glistening fish. Verena was just starting to breathe again.

But Colonel Harrap hadn’t finished. ‘Their word against mine, Miss Sheldon! And the lighting of a signal to the enemy amounts to treason, as I’m sure you know! This will go before the magistrates, I promise you!’

Verena gave him her best frosty glare. ‘I think the magistrates, Colonel Harrap, will require more evidence than you’ve just given me!’ she declared stoutly. Oh, Billy. You’d best be telling me the truth about this, or else.

‘We’ll see! If I should find proof that some French villains have indeed landed, there’ll be the devil to pay!’ blustered Colonel Harrap. And, after muttering ‘You’ve not heard the last of this!’ he led his men surlily back to the steep path that led up to the headland.

Verena drew her hand across her eyes, feeling a little faint. ‘Billy, Tom,’ she said, ‘I really hope you’ve been honest with me’.

The Wycherley men had quickly surrounded her, their faces shining with relief. ‘Oh, yes, Miss Verena!’ said Billy. ‘But—’ and he glanced at the others ‘—there’s somethin’ else you ought to know. Something we wasn’t going to tell old Harrap and his bunch of brass buttons!’

Verena’s heart sank anew. ‘Tell me, Billy’.

‘Well,’ said Billy, ‘we were out at sea, like I said, when we saw that fire lit. We saw nothing else. But when we landed, young Dickon—he’s Tom’s lad, he’s only thirteen—he’d been watching for us, to help us in with the catch, and he saw a boat come in, saw them land, three of them, and he said they were mighty quiet about everything, but he’s got sharp ears, and he said they talked real strange!’

Verena’s heart thumped. French. Oh, no. Maybe the villagers should have told Colonel Harrap this from the start. If he found out now, Harrap would jump on the chance to accuse them all of conspiracy. If I should find proof that some French villains have indeed landed, there’ll be the devil to pay!

‘Then tell Dickon to keep quiet about it,’ Verena said swiftly. ‘You must all keep quiet about it! As long as you are innocent…’.

‘We are, Miss Verena, we are!’ said Billy. ‘Should we go with you, back up to the house?’

‘No, Billy’. She knew they’d be anxious to get their catch in safely. ‘No, I’m all right. I’ll make my own way up in a little while’.

Thanking her again, they slung their baskets of fish over their shoulders and went trudging up the steep path.

She stood there, gazing out to the moonlit sea, the only sound the gentle rasp of waves on shingle. And her heart was heavy.

They’d escaped trouble for now, whether or not their story about the mysterious French boat was true. They thought life would go on as ever. Those villagers had worked on Wycherley land and fished from Ragg’s Cove for generations. And, yes, had landed smuggled goods from time to time as well….

But soon the Wycherley estate would have a new owner, and if the Earl bought it he would be a harsh and grasping landlord who would give bullies like Colonel Harrap a free hand. The old and easy ways of her father would vanish into distant memory. What could she do? Nothing.

She picked up her lantern and started to climb slowly back uphill. It was raining again; by the time she reached the top of the path, her bonnet and cloak were sodden. She could just see the lights of Wycherley Hall, dimly shining through the mist and rain.

The Earl. Lucas. She suddenly stopped and pressed her palm to her forehead. Why had Lucas come here today of all days? Had he come to gloat? To satisfy himself that he could still reduce her to a quivering, needy mess, by just being near her?

And—her face burned anew—she had let him think she might accept Martin Bryant’s proposal! Oh, what a foolish, stupid lie! Well, soon he would be going back to his London parties, to join his friends of the Prince’s set, with his loose-living companion Alec Stewart. She would never see Lucas again, and nothing could give her greater pleasure than his complete absence from her life!

That was a lie, too. The terrible ache in her heart told her so.

The danger erupted so suddenly. One moment she was quite alone. The next, three heavily cloaked men were crashing through the thicket beside the path towards her, with pistols gleaming in the lantern light. Something like a blanket was thrown over her face, so she could not see, could not breathe. The lantern was snatched from her. Hands were grabbing at her roughly, hurting her.

She remembered in those brief, terrifying moments the sensation of so often being followed, remembered the break-in at Wycherley Hall. Fight as she might, they were pulling her, hustling her towards the trees. Smugglers? But why attack her? And she thought she heard them muttering, ‘C’est elle. C’est la fille’. Her blood froze.

Then she heard a man’s voice roaring, ‘Verena!’

She heard the sound of a gun exploding within a few feet of her and realised the restraining hands were gone. Pulling the blanket from her face, gasping for air, she saw the three cloaked men running off, heads low, into the dark woods.

‘Verena!’ The same desperate male voice, close now.

Turning, she saw Lucas, his long coat and hair glistening with the rain, standing there with a gun in his hand. At first she did not understand. At first she thought he was the one who had fired.

Then she realised that Lucas was sinking very slowly to his knees, and where he clutched his left hand to his arm, bright blood was welling through his fingers.

Chapter Six

Lucas was kneeling on the ground. She ran to crouch beside him, her heart hammering.

‘Lucas. Oh, we must get your coat off’. Her voice shook with emotion. ‘We must tie something around your injury, I must get help!’

‘They told me you’d gone down to the beach—alone!’ he grated out. ‘How could you have been so—so foolish?’

‘Foolish?’ she cried. She felt faint with fear. ‘Some militia men were threatening our villagers—was it foolish to try to protect them?’ She was striving, with trembling fingers, to ease his coat from his shoulder, but she could see the perspiration pouring from his forehead, indicating his pain. He is your enemy, she reminded herself, your family’s enemy.

‘Who were your attackers?’ he rasped.

‘I’ve no idea. Not smugglers, definitely not—’ she was thinking of the danger Billy and his friends might be in ‘—so they must have been robbers, and it was my misfortune to be in their way’.

‘I never thought they were smugglers,’ Lucas said bluntly. ‘Smugglers don’t attack innocent girls. And they were not robbers either. Verena, they were trying to drag you away. Did you hear them speak?’

Swiftly she tore aside the fabric of his shirt and pressed her clean folded handkerchief to the wound, remembering Colonel Harrap’s warning: If I should find proof that some French villains have indeed landed, there’ll be the devil to pay!

‘They sounded like Portsmouth men,’ she lied. ‘I heard a few words I wouldn’t care to repeat, I’m afraid—’ Then she realised that his blood was still welling through her handkerchief. Oh, no. ‘Have you got anything else I can bind it with?’ she asked rather faintly.

‘There’s my cravat’. He was already loosening it, with his left hand; his face was very pale, though the corner of his mouth lifted in a faint smile. ‘I didn’t realise your numerous skills extended to nursing’.

She reached for his loosened cravat. So much blood. She struggled to stay calm, to say matter of factly, ‘Oh, my sisters were for ever getting into scrapes—literally—when they were small, and my mother tends to faint at the sight of a scratch, so it’s almost a matter of necessity. Can you hold your arm up, Lucas, just a little? That’s right. Then I can bind it—it will help to stop the bleeding’. Her voice was tight with strain.

Too close. He was too close. Difficult to concentrate on her bandaging, difficult not to notice the taut, tanned skin, the underlying muscle and sinew of his warm, powerful arm. A young lady should never be nearer than two feet to a gentleman who is not a close relative…..

Miss Bonamy’s Young Lady’s Guide to Etiquette wasn’t much use here.

She tied the knot with a snap. ‘There,’ she breathed. ‘Now, if you will stay here and rest, I’ll run to the house and fetch help’.

His good arm grabbed for her. ‘No. You must not be by yourself!’ He rapped out the warning.

She shivered and retorted defiantly, because she was afraid, ‘You cannot really think that—those men will be back?’

‘Who knows? You’re not going anywhere on your own! I can walk, if you’ll let me lean on you a little! It’s not far to Wycherley’.

Her eyes jerked up to his. ‘You cannot stay at Wycherley!’ With Deb. Herself. A thousand times, no.

‘I see,’ he said quietly. ‘But I could, perhaps, make use of your family carriage to get to Stancliffe’.

She felt her stomach lurch sickeningly at the thought of Lucas, in pain, being transported along the rough road to Stancliffe Manor, two miles away.

Wasn’t it what he deserved? He had made her fall in love with him, he had betrayed her.

But then she saw that he was swaying where he stood, and his face had gone very white. ‘We’ll go to Wycherley, of course, it’s far nearer,’ she muttered. She guessed from the little she knew about bullet wounds that he must be in acute pain, and losing blood fast. ‘Put your arm around my shoulder, quickly. Can you really walk all the way there? Shouldn’t I fetch some men from the house to help you?’

‘I said—no!’ He tightened his arm around her. The close contact of his lithe, muscular body set into motion all the long pushed-aside memories that still haunted her every waking moment. ‘And anyway, who would you fetch? Captain Martin Bryant? He’d most likely cheer and put a second bullet through me, for making advances to the woman who’s to be his wife—’

She gasped. Oh, Lord, her lies. ‘Stop it,’ she breathed, ‘please stop it, Lucas…’.

‘Stop what?’

‘Talking’.

‘About Bryant?’

‘About anything,’ she whispered. ‘Anything at all’.

He was quiet for a few moments as they stumbled along. Somewhere in the woods an owl hooted. She jumped and his arm tightened around her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.

‘Sorry?’ Somehow they had come to a stop. ‘Maybe I’m the one who should apologise. My blood is ruining your gown and cloak’.

‘Do you think I care? Please, keep going…’.

His arm was heavy and warm on her shoulder. ‘You’ve already had one gown ruined tonight. Do you usually get through them at such a rate?’

She caught her breath. Those buttons. That scandalous silk chemise. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry; she wanted to nestle into the warmth of him and cherish him and never, ever let him go.

‘It’s all part of the excitement of country living,’ she said crisply. ‘We run up such a bill at our dressmakers in Chichester, you really cannot imagine. Lucas. Please hurry, it’s not far now…’.

Trudging and slipping lopsidedly, they’d almost reached the lawns—only a few hundred yards to go.

‘I’d like to buy you a new gown,’ he muttered as the night-time fragrance of the rose gardens enveloped them. ‘A new gown, in pink, or jade, or lilac, for my amber-eyed girl. You wore lilac at that harvest dance but your skin was scented with lavender. Oh, God’. He stopped suddenly. ‘I’ve missed you, Verena’.

He was wandering. He must be. Her heart was thumping. ‘Lucas,’ she begged, ‘you must stop talking. You must concentrate on getting back to the house. Please…’.

But he didn’t move. His grey eyes, suddenly molten with flecks of gold, burned down into her anxious face. Then he lifted his left hand and let his fingertips trail down her cheek. His touch was like a flame searing through her.

‘I’d rather concentrate on something else,’ he murmured, his fingertips still stroking her skin in that wicked caress. ‘And this time, you will not push me away’. Then everything faded, as he pulled her close with his sound arm and captured her mouth in a kiss that jolted the breath from her body. A whimper of protest rose, then died in her throat.

For in spite of her fear and exhaustion, there was suddenly nothing else but Lucas. Nothing but the strength of his powerful body against hers; the taste of his warm, silken mouth as he brushed his lips over her lips and coaxed them apart; nothing but her own wildly instinctive response to the sensual thrust of his tongue and all that it promised.

It could not be happening, it should not be happening, but somehow she’d wound her own hands round his neck and arched her body into his. And with a groan he was drawing her nearer, his thighs pressed against hers, as he kissed her more deeply, his tongue twining with hers. Verena felt the need spiralling from deep within as she opened to him, revelled in his hard maleness, wanting more, needing more as he withdrew, only to feel his lips trailing down to her throat, to the swell of her bosom where her cloak had fallen apart….

She dragged herself away. ‘No. Are you out of your senses?’

‘Not for what I just did,’ he answered quietly. ‘But I was mad to ever let you go’.

A sudden wave of despair all but overwhelmed her. ‘Lucas’. She struggled to make her voice steady. ‘Lucas, you did not let me go. There was nothing between us. Ever’.

‘If you say so,’ he answered in a low voice, his eyes opaque again. ‘And, of course, you’re betrothed’.

‘Stop it!’ she cried desperately.

‘Why?’ His arm was still tight around her waist.

‘Because—because I’m not marrying Captain Bryant!’

He gazed down at her, his brows gathering. ‘Not….?’

She swallowed hard. ‘I’m not betrothed to Captain Bryant,’ she muttered. ‘I—apologise if I let you think it’.

His grey eyes were hooded, inscrutable. After a long moment he said quietly, ‘And what did I do to provoke this—setting up of Bryant as a suitor?’

She sought the words, desperately. ‘He did ask me to marry him! I only told you of it, because—because you were so hateful about him!’

Because you left me, Lucas.

Because you were not there when I needed you. When I trusted you with all my heart…..

He said at last, letting his hand drop from her waist, ‘It is, after all, none of my business, I know’.

She nodded, blinking hard. ‘Indeed, my lord, it’s not!’ But inside she was shaking. He had kissed her. He had said, I was mad to ever let you go.

Silently they trudged on. It was as if Lucas Conistone had wiped the last two years from his mind, thought Verena blindly, and the wrongs he and his grandfather had done to her family.

Oh, Verena, she told herself bitterly, he only came here today by utter chance. Just passing, on his way to the vast house he will one day inherit. Yet his presence is—lethal. You are going to have to be stronger than this.

And she was not sure that she could, because once more she was fighting her own stupid physical longing for a man she should have kicked out of her heart long ago.

‘Verena! Verena!’

David Parker’s voice. Help was coming. A search party with lanterns was hurrying in their direction across Wycherley’s lawns, headed by David and Turley. As they came close, they explained they’d heard gunfire.

‘Miss Sheldon was attacked by robbers and they fired at me when I went to help her,’ she heard Lucas explain swiftly; Verena said nothing, simply glad to leave the care of the injured Lucas to David and Turley.

But there was someone else there. Someone who had materialised out of thin air as they reached the courtyard; a thickset man with roughly cut black hair, who looked faintly familiar, and who rapidly seemed to be taking charge of Lucas’s well-being with a sharp command to all and sundry. ‘Now, then. We’ll be needin’ a nice private room on the ground floor for his lordship, if you please! Some clean sheets and hot water. With a good log fire…’. Already he was helping Lucas into the house.

Where had she seen him before?

Then David was next to her. He must have seen her staring at the man, because he took her aside to explain. ‘He’s Lord Conistone’s valet, apparently. His name is Bentinck. Looks like we’ll need his help’.

‘Really?’ she breathed bitterly. ‘Really?’ Because she had suddenly remembered. He was the man who had been at the sale this afternoon. Opening drawers, looking around in an odd and shifty manner.

Oh, no. This meant Lucas had been lying to her—yet again—when he had told her he was just passing on his way to Stancliffe, because Bentinck had been here at least two hours before his master arrived! Did he take her for a complete fool?

Oh, she was so right not to believe a word Lucas said! And as to a suitable room—difficult, because most of their spare furniture had gone.

She summoned Turley. ‘There’s a day bed in my father’s study. Would you get that man—Bentinck—to help you carry it into the back parlour, please? And get a fire lit there. It will serve as a bedroom for Lord Conistone!’

‘Certainly, Miss Verena’. Turley nodded dourly at the valet. ‘Though I wouldn’t trust that one further than I can throw him’.

Verena agreed heartily.

Lady Frances appeared to be in almost as much need of attention as Lucas; she was clearly close to fainting at the thought of the Earl’s grandson being shot on Wycherley land. The fact that Verena had also been in grave danger appeared not to occur to her.

Verena somehow managed to persuade Lady Frances to retire for the night. ‘You’ll do no good here, Mama. I will cope. And Deb will bring you your headache powders,’ said Verena firmly.

Which disposed for now of Deb, also, and the likelihood that she too would have hysterics once she realised that Lucas was actually staying under their roof.

But—he kissed me. He told me he was mad ever to let me go.

One thing was for sure. Getting himself shot was definitely not part of Lord Lucas Conistone’s plan.

It was close to midnight when Turley informed her that Dr Pilkington had arrived from Framlington. Squaring her shoulders—Lord Conistone must leave as soon as possible, I will tell the doctor so!—she went downstairs to the back parlour, which Turley, obeying her orders, had converted into the patient’s room.

Bentinck was there, building up the fire with his back to her—hateful man. And grey-haired Dr Pilkington, who’d been their family physician for as long as she could remember, was bending over—

Oh, no. Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh, no. She’d thought—what had she thought? That Lucas would be sitting up, laughing, talking? No. He lay prone on the day bed that had been covered with sheets. His eyes were closed—such pain, he must have been in such pain, how did he walk all that way with me?—and a sheen of perspiration covered his haggard features. His shirt had been removed entirely; Verena felt a shock run through her, her mind blurring wildly with an image of wide male shoulders and powerfully sculpted muscles. No hint here of the dissipated gentleman of leisure that society assumed him to be.

Dr Pilkington swung round and quickly ushered her out of the room. ‘Miss Sheldon! You will want an account of his lordship’s condition’.

She’d been going to say, He really must be moved to Stancliffe Manor as soon as possible, Doctor. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s not at all appropriate that he should be here…. but all her prepared words evaporated. She cleared her throat. ‘Will—will he be all right, Doctor? ‘

‘Lord Conistone is sleeping,’ answered Dr Pilkington, closing the door on the sick room. ‘It’s only a flesh wound, but there’s always the risk that a fever might set in. I will see, of course, about getting him moved to Stancliffe Manor in your carriage, within the next hour or so; I was told by David Parker that you cannot possibly have him staying here, you clearly have a good deal already to see to, and besides, it would not be suitable—’

‘No!’ she said, too strongly.

He looked crestfallen. ‘You mean that you cannot spare your carriage? In that case, I—’

‘No! I mean he must stay here! At least—until he is somewhat recovered!’

Oh, Lord. What made her say it? Was she quite mad?

‘My dear,’ said Dr Pilkington, looking happier, ‘that would certainly be for the best! It shouldn’t be long; he’s a strong young fellow, and the bullet passed cleanly through the flesh. We can, of course, hire a nurse from the town to tend him—’

‘That will not be necessary, Doctor!’ said Verena crisply. She had seen plenty of hired nurses when she and Pippa had visited the hospital for wounded officers in Chichester. They struck her as rough and unkind. ‘I mean,’ she went on quickly, ‘that his valet, and our own servants, will be able to tend him quite adequately. That is, if it is not for long?’

‘He should recover quickly; a couple of days and he’ll be on his feet. He’s clearly a survivor. This is nothing compared to another wound he’s sustained in the not-too-distant past’.

‘Another wound?’

‘Yes, a nasty one, must just have missed his left lung; done by a French sabre, I’d say’.

Verena had been striving to be businesslike. But now she felt rather sick. ‘How can you know?’

‘Oh, I used to be an army surgeon, so I’ve seen similar injuries. They jab and twist—that’s how the French foot soldiers are trained—up through the ribs, to strike for the heart. Lord Conistone was lucky to escape with his life’.

The army, of course. He must have been wounded in the army, before he resigned.

But…

‘Well, now,’ went on Dr Pilkington, ‘I must go back in and dress his arm for the night. One more thing—though I gather Lord Conistone wants no fuss, I’ll have to make a report to the constables, but I fear those villains will be long gone by now. I will call on the patient again in the morning’.

Nodding, she turned to go up to her room, her mind churning with confusion. Those men who shot Lucas must have been French smugglers, straying from their usual part of the coast, and they’d planned, perhaps, on demanding a ransom for her. That must be the explanation. Billy and Tom and the others had been caught up unintentionally in the drama; for their sakes, Verena was more than happy for the whole frightening episode to be forgotten.

But why did Lucas want tonight’s violent incident kept quiet? And earlier, when he’d confronted her outside the house, he had said he was leaving for Stancliffe; why, two hours later, was he still so close that he had been the first to come to her rescue?

People whispered that Lucas Conistone was a coward. But he had not been a coward when he rescued her. And then he had kissed her; and all her carefully built defences had tumbled as his embrace set fire to her yearning soul.

Oh, you fool, Verena.

That night she slept badly and woke long before dawn, her heart full of despair, wondering how she would endure his presence here.

Harlot. Fortune-hunting harlot.

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