For an instant she felt the terrible cold panic of falling.

She braced herself for the pain of landing on the hard floor—only to be caught instead in a pair of strong muscled arms.

The shock of it quite knocked the breath from her, and the room went hazy and blurry as the veil of her bonnet blinded her. Willing herself not to faint, Emma blinked away her confusion and pushed back the dratted veil.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she gasped. ‘You are very quick-thinking.’

‘I’m just happy I happened to be here,’ her rescuer answered, and his voice was shockingly familiar. A smooth, deep, rich sound, like a glass of sweet mulled wine on a cold night, comforting and deliciously disturbing all at the same time.

It was a voice she hadn’t heard in a long while, and yet she remembered it very well.

BANCROFTS OF BARTON PARK

Two sisters, two scandals, two sizzling love affairs

Country girls at heart, Jane and Emma Bancroft are a far cry from the perfectly coiffed, glossy debutantes that grace most of Society.

But soon they come to realise that, country girl and debutante alike, no lady is immune to the charms of a dashing rogue!

Don’t miss this enthralling new duet from Amanda McCabe

It started with Jane’s story THE RUNAWAY COUNTESS

Already available

and continues with Emma’s story

RUNNING FROM SCANDAL

AMANDA McCABE wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA® Award, RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma, with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook.

Visit her at http://ammandamccabe.tripod.com and www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com

Previous novels by the same author:

TO CATCH A ROGUE*

TO DECEIVE A DUKE*

TO KISS A COUNT*

CHARLOTTE AND THE WICKED LORD

(in Regency Summer Scandals)

A NOTORIOUS WOMAN†

A SINFUL ALLIANCE†

HIGH SEAS STOWAWAY†

THE WINTER QUEEN

(in Christmas Betrothals)

THE SHY DUCHESS

SNOWBOUND AND SEDUCED

(in Regency Christmas Proposals)

THE TAMING OF THE ROGUE

A STRANGER AT CASTONBURY**

TARNISHED ROSE OF THE COURT

THE RUNAWAY COUNTESS‡

And in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:

SHIPWRECKED AND SEDUCED†

TO BED A LIBERTINE

THE MAID’S LOVER

TO COURT, CAPTURE AND CONQUER

GIRL IN THE BEADED MASK

UNLACING THE LADY IN WAITING

ONE WICKED CHRISTMAS

AN IMPROPER DUCHESS

A VERY TUDOR CHRISTMAS

* The Chase Muses

†linked by character

**Castonbury Park Regency mini-series

‡ Bancrofts of Barton Park

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Running

from Scandal

Amanda McCabe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AUTHOR NOTE

When I was about eight I found a battered paperback copy of Emma in a bag of secondhand books at my grandmother’s house. I didn’t know anything about Jane Austen then (except a vague thought that she’d lived a long time ago and never got married!), but I was drawn in by the two girls in white gowns and feathered bonnets on the cover and started reading. I was dragged right into the world of Emma Woodhouse and her friends and family in Highbury, and refused to do anything else until I’d finished the book! Then I ran to the library and checked out all the Austen novels. That was the beginning of my Regency love, which goes on to this day.

For a long time I’ve wanted to try writing a story in the style of an Austen novel. Not in her writing style, of course—no one can copy that—but in what I loved so much about her plots: the life of English villages and country houses, the close bonds that can form between families (especially sisters) and friends in such places, the romances that blossom even when their prospects look bleak.

I finally found the right characters in my Bancroft sisters, Jane and Emma, and the happily-ever-afters they found at Barton Park with their handsome heroes. I started to feel as if I could have lived in that neighbourhood, too—it was such a fun world to spend time in, and I was sorry to say goodbye to it all. But I know Jane and Emma go on happily there!

And watch for a little epilogue story coming soon, where we see what happens when Melanie Harding and Philip Carrington find themselves unwillingly married …

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

Prologue

England—1814

Emma Bancroft was very good at holding up walls. She grew more adept at it every time she went to a party, which was not very often. She was getting a great deal of practice at it tonight.

She pressed her back against the wall of the village assembly room and sipped at a glass of watery punch as she surveyed the gathering. It was a surprisingly large one considering the chilly, damp night outside. Emma would have thought most people would want to stay sensibly at home by their fires, not get dressed in their muslin and silk finery and go traipsing about in search of dance partners. Yet the long and narrow room was crowded with laughing, chattering groups dressed up in their finery.

Emma rather wished she were home by the fire. Not that she entirely minded a social evening. People were always so very fascinating. She loved nothing better than to find a superb vantage point by a convenient wall and settle down to listen to conversations. It was such fun to devise her own stories about what those conversations were really about, what secret lives everyone might be living behind their smiles and mundane chatter. It was like a good book.

But tonight she had left behind an actual good book at home in the library of Barton Park, along with her new puppy, Murray. Recently she had discovered the fascinations of botany, which had quite replaced her previous passions for Elizabethan architecture and the cultivation of tea in India. Emma often found new topics of education that fascinated her, and plants were a new one. Her father’s dusty old library, mostly unexplored since his death so long ago, was full of wonders waiting to be discovered.

And tonight, with a cold rain blowing against the windows, seemed a perfect one for curling up with a pot of tea and her studies, Murray at her feet. But her sister Jane, usually all too ready for a quiet, solitary evening at home, had insisted they come to the assembly. Jane even brought out some of her fine London gowns for them to wear.

‘I am a terrible sister for letting you live here like a hermit, Emma,’ Emma remembered Jane saying as she held up a pale-blue silk gown. ‘You are only sixteen and so pretty. You need to be dancing, and flirting and—well, doing what young, pretty ladies enjoy doing.’

‘I enjoy staying here and reading,’ Emma had protested, even as she had to admit the dress was very nice. Definitely prettier than her usual faded muslins, aprons and sturdy boots, though it would never do for digging up botanical specimens. Jane even let her wear their mother’s pearl pendant tonight. But she could still be reading at home.

Or hunting for the lost, legendary Barton Park treasure, as their father had spent his life doing. But Jane didn’t have to know about that. Her sister had too many other worries.

‘I know you enjoy it, and that is the problem,’ Jane had said, as she searched for a needle and thread to take the dress in. ‘But you are growing up. We can’t go on as we have here at Barton Park for ever.’

‘Why not?’ Emma argued. ‘I love it here, just the two of us in our family home. We can do as we please here, and not worry about...’

About horrid schools, where stuck-up girls laughed and gossiped, and the dance master grabbed at Emma in the corridor. Where she had felt so, so alone. She was sent there when their mother died and Jane married the Earl of Ramsay, Hayden. Emma had never wanted her sweet sister to know what happened there. She never wanted anyone to know. Especially not about her foolish feelings for the handsome dance teacher, that vile man who had taken advantage of her girlish feelings to kiss her in the dark—and tried so much more before Emma could get away. He had quite put her off men for ever.

Emma saw the flash of worry in Jane’s hazel eyes before she bent her head over the needle and Emma took her other hand with a quick smile.

‘Of course we must have a night out, Jane, you are quite right,’ she’d said, making herself laugh. ‘You must be so bored here with just me and my books after your grand London life. We shall go to the assembly and have fun.’

Jane laughed, too, but Emma heard the sadness in it. The sadness had lingered ever since Jane brought Emma back to Barton Park almost three years before, when Jane’s husband, the earl, hadn’t appeared in many months. Emma didn’t know what had happened between them in London and she didn’t want to pry, but nor did she want to add to her sister’s worry.

‘My London life was not all that grand,’ Jane said, ‘and I am not sorry it’s behind me. But soon it will be your time to go out in the world, Emma. The village doesn’t have a wide society, true, but it’s a start.’

And that was what Emma feared—that soon it would be her turn to step out into the world and she would make horrid mistakes. She was too impulsive by half, and even though she knew it she had no idea how to stop it.

So she stood by the wall, watching, sipping her punch, trying not to tear Jane’s pretty dress. For an instant before they left Barton and Emma glimpsed herself in the mirror, she hadn’t believed it was really her. Jane had put her blonde, curling hair up in a twisted bandeau of ribbons and, teamed with her mother’s pearl necklace, even Emma had to admit the effect was much prettier than her everyday braid and apron.

The local young men seemed to agree as well. She noticed a group of them over by the windows: bluff, hearty, red-faced country lads dressed in their finest town evening coats and cravats, watching her and whispering. Which was exactly what she did not want. Not after Mr Milne, the passionate school music master. She turned away and pretended to be studiously observing something edifying across the room.

She saw Jane standing next to the refreshment table with a tall gentleman in a sombre dark-blue coat who had his back to Emma. Even though Emma was not having the very best of evenings, the smile on her sister’s face made her glad they had ventured out after all.

Jane so seldom mentioned her estranged husband or their life in London, though Emma had always followed Jane’s social activities in the newspapers while she was at school and knew it must have been very glamorous. Barton Park was not in the least glamorous, and even though Jane insisted she was most content, Emma wondered and worried.

Tonight, Jane was smiling, even laughing, her dark hair glossy in the candlelight and her lilac muslin-and-lace gown soft and pretty. She shook her head at something the tall gentleman said and gestured toward Emma with a smile. Emma stood up straighter as they both turned to look at her.

‘Blast it all,’ she whispered, and quickly smiled when an elderly lady nearby gave her a disapproving glance. But she couldn’t help cursing just a little. For it was Sir David Marton who was talking to her sister.

Sir David had been visiting at Barton more often of late than Emma could like. He always came with his sister, Miss Louisa Marton, very proper and everything since his estate at Rose Hill was their nearest neighbour. But still. Jane was married, even though Lord Ramsay never came to Barton. And Sir David was too handsome by half. Handsome, and far too serious. She doubted he ever laughed at all.

She studied him across the room, trying not to frown. He nodded at whatever Jane was saying, watching Emma solemnly from behind his spectacles. She was glad he wasn’t near enough for her to see his eyes. They were a strange, piercing pale-grey colour, and whenever he looked at her so steadily with them he seemed to see far too much.

Emma unconsciously smoothed her skirt, feeling young and fidgety and silly. Which was the very last way she ever wanted to appear in front of Sir David.

He nodded again at Jane and gave her a gentle smile. He always spoke so gently, so respectfully to Jane, with a unique spark of humour in those extraordinary eyes. He never had that gentle humour when he looked at Emma. Then he was solemn and watchful.

Emma had never felt jealous of Jane before. How could she be, when Jane was the best of sisters, and had such unhappiness hidden in her heart? But when Sir David Marton was around, Emma almost—almost—did feel jealous.

And she could not fathom why. Sir David was not at all the sort of man she was sure she could admire. He was too quiet, too serious. Too—conventional. Emma couldn’t read him at all.

And now—oh, blast it all again! Now they were coming across the room toward her.

Emma nearly wished she had spoken with one of the country squires after all. She never knew what to say to Sir David that wouldn’t make her feel young and foolish around him. That might make him smile at her.

‘Emma dear, I was just talking to Sir David about your new interest in botany,’ Jane said as they reached Emma’s side.

Emma glanced up at Sir David, who was watching her with that inscrutable, solemn look. The smile he had given Jane was quite gone. It made her feel so very tongue-tied, as if words flew into her head only to fly right back out again. She hadn’t felt so very nervous, so unsure, since she left school, and she did not like that feeling at all.

‘Were you indeed?’ Emma said softly, looking away from him.

‘My sister mentioned that she drove past you on the lane a few days ago,’ Sir David said, his tone as calm and serious as he looked. ‘She said when she offered you a ride home you declared you had to finish your work. As it was rather a muddy day, Louisa found that a bit—interesting.’

Against her will, Emma’s feelings pricked just a bit. She had never wanted to care what anyone thought of her, not after Mr Milne. Miss Louisa Marton was a silly gossip, and there was no knowing what exactly she had told her brother or what he thought of Emma now. Did he think her ridiculous for her studies? For her unladylike interests such as grubbing around in the dirt?

‘I am quite the beginner in my studies,’ Emma said. ‘Finding plant specimens to study is an important part of it all. When the ground is damp can be the best time to collect some of them. But it was very kind of your sister to stop for me.’

‘I fear Emma has little scope for her interests since she left school to come live here with me,’ Jane said. ‘I am no teacher myself.’

‘Oh, no, Jane!’ Emma cried, her shyness disappearing at her sister’s sad, rueful tone. ‘I love living at Barton. Mr Lorne at the bookshop here in the village keeps me well supplied. I have learned much more here than I ever did at that silly school. But perhaps Sir David finds my efforts dull.’

‘Not at all, Miss Bancroft,’ he said, and to her surprise she heard a smile in his voice. She glanced up at him to find that there was indeed a hint of a curve to his lips. There was even a flash of a ridiculously attractive dimple in his cheeks.

And she also realised she should not have looked at him. Up close he really was absurdly handsome, with a face as lean and carefully chiselled as a classical statue. His gleaming mahogany hair, which he usually ruthlessly combed down, betrayed a thick, soft wave in the damp air, tempting a touch. She wondered whimsically if he wore those spectacles in a vain attempt to keep ladies from fainting at his feet.

‘You do not find them dull, Sir David?’ Emma said, feeling foolish that she could find nothing even slightly cleverer to say.

‘Not at all. Everyone, male or female, needs interests in life to keep their minds sharp,’ he said. ‘I was fortunate enough to grow up living near an uncle who boasts a library of over five thousand volumes. Perhaps you have heard of him? Mr Charles Sansom at Sansom House.’

‘Five thousand books!’ Emma cried, much louder than she intended. ‘That must be a truly amazing sight. Has he any special interests?’

‘Greek and Roman antiquities are a favourite of his, but he has a selection on nearly every topic. Including, I would imagine, botany,’ he said, his smile growing. Emma had never seen him look so young and open before and she unconsciously swayed closer to him. ‘He always let us read whatever we liked when we visited him, though I fear my sister seldom took him up on the offer.’

Emma glanced across the room toward Miss Louisa Marton, who was easy to spot in her elaborately feathered turban. She was talking with her bosom bow, Miss Maude Cole, the beauty of the neighbourhood with her red-gold curls, sky-blue eyes and fine gowns. They in turn were looking back at Emma and whispering behind their fans.

Just like all those silly girls at school had done.

‘I would imagine not,’ Emma murmured. She had never heard Miss Marton or Miss Cole talk of anything but hats or the weather. ‘Does your uncle still live nearby, Sir David? I should so love to meet him one day.’

‘He does, Miss Bancroft, though I fear he has become quite reclusive in his advancing age. He still sometimes purchases volumes at Mr Lorne’s shop, though, so perhaps you will encounter him there one day. He would find you most interesting.’

Before Emma could answer, the orchestra, a local group of musicians more noted for their enthusiasm than their talent, launched into the opening strains of a mazurka.

‘Oh, I do love such a lively dance,’ Jane said. Emma saw that her sister looked towards the forming set with a wistful look on her face. ‘A mazurka was the first dance I—’

Suddenly Jane broke off with a strange little laugh and Emma wondered if she had often danced a mazurka with her husband in London. Surely even though she never mentioned her husband she had to think of him often.

‘Jane...’ Emma began.

Sir David turned to Jane with one of his gentle smiles. ‘Perhaps you would care to dance, Lady Ramsay? My skills at the mazurka are quite rusty, but I would be honoured if you would be my partner.’

For a second, Jane seemed to hesitate, a flash of what looked like temptation in her eyes, and Emma felt an unwelcome pang of jealousy. Jealousy—of Jane! Loathing herself for that feeling, she pushed it away and made herself smile.

‘Oh, no, I fear my dancing days are quite behind me,’ Jane said. ‘But books are not the only thing Emma studied at school. They also had a fine dancing master.’

A horrid dancing master. Emma didn’t like him intruding on every moment of her life like this. Would she ever forget him?

‘Then perhaps Miss Bancroft would do me the honour,’ Sir David said politely. He turned to Emma and half-held out his hand.

And she suddenly longed so much to know what it felt like to have his hand on hers. To be close to him as he led her in the turns and whirls of the dance. Surely he would be strong and steady, never letting her fall, so warm and safe. Maybe he would even smile at her again and those beautiful grey eyes would gleam with admiration as he looked at her. She wanted all those things so very much.

She hadn’t felt such romantic yearnings since—since Mr Milne first arrived at her school. And look at what disasters that led to. No, she couldn’t trust her feelings, her impulsive emotions, ever again.

Emma fell back a step, shaking her head, and Sir David’s hand dropped back to his side. His smile faded and he looked solemn and inscrutable again.

‘I—I don’t care to dance tonight,’ Emma stammered, confused by old memories and new emotions she didn’t understand. She had made a mistake with Mr Milne, a mistake in trusting him and her feelings. She needed to learn how to be cautious and calm, like Jane. Like Sir David.

‘Of course not, Miss Bancroft,’ Sir David said quietly. ‘I quite understand.’

‘David, dear,’ Miss Louisa Marton said. Emma spun around to find that Miss Marton and Miss Cole had suddenly appeared beside them from the midst of the crowd. She’d been so distracted she hadn’t even noticed them approach. Miss Cole watched them with a coolly amused smile on her beautiful face, making Emma feel even more flustered.

‘David, dear,’ Louisa said again. ‘Do you not remember that Miss Cole promised you the mazurka? You were quite adamant that she save it for you and I know how much both of you have looked forward to it.’

Sir David gave Emma one more quizzical glance before he turned away to offer his hand to Miss Cole instead. ‘Of course. Most delighted, Miss Cole.’

Emma watched him walk away, Miss Cole laughing and sparkling up at him with an easy flirtatiousness Emma knew she herself could never match. She felt suddenly cold in the crowded, overheated room and rubbed at her bare arms.

‘I know you think Sir David is rather dull, Emma,’ Jane said quietly, ‘but truly he is quite nice. You should have danced with him.’

‘I am a terrible dancer,’ Emma said, trying to sound light and uncaring. ‘No doubt I would have trod on his toes and he would have felt the need to lecture me on decorum.’

Jane shook her head, but Emma knew she couldn’t really put into words her true feelings, her fears of what might happen if she got too close to the handsome, intriguing Sir David Marton. She didn’t even know herself what those true feelings were. She only knew David Marton wasn’t the sort of man for her.

* * *

Emma Bancroft was a most unusual young lady.

David tried to catch a glimpse of her over the heads of the other dancers gathered around him, but the bright glow of her golden hair had vanished. He almost laughed at himself for the sharp pang of disappointment at her disappearance. He was too old, too responsible, to think about a flighty, pretty girl like Miss Bancroft. A girl who obviously didn’t much like him.

Yet the disappointment was there, unmistakably. When she was near, she always intrigued him. What was she thinking when she studied the world around her so closely? Her sister said she studied botany, among other interests, and David found himself most curious to know what those interests were. He wanted to know far too much about her and that couldn’t be.

He had no place for someone like Emma Bancroft in his life now and she had no room for him. She seemed to be in search of far more excitement than he could ever give her. After watching his seemingly quiet father’s secret temper tantrums when he was a boy, he had vowed to keep control over his life at all times. It had almost been a disaster for David’s family and their home when he did briefly lose control. Once, he had spent too much time in London, running with a wild crowd, gambling and drinking too much, being attracted to the wrong sort of female, thinking he could forget his life in such pursuits. Until he saw how his actions hurt other people and he knew he had to change.

As David listened to the opening bars of the dance music and waited for his turn to lead his partner down the line, he caught a glimpse of his sister watching him with an avid gleam in her eyes. Ever since their parents died and he became fully responsible for their family estate at Rose Hill and for Louisa herself, she had been determined to find him a wife. ‘A proper wife,’ she often declared, by which she meant one of her own friends. A young lady from a family they knew well, one Louisa liked spending time with and who would make few changes to their household.

Not a girl like Miss Bancroft, who Louisa had expressed disapproval of more than once. ‘I cannot fathom her,’ Louisa had mused after encountering Miss Bancroft on the road. ‘She is always running about the countryside, her hems all muddy, with that horrid dog. No propriety at all. And her sister! Where is Lady Ramsay’s husband, I should like to know? How can the earl just let the two of them ramble about at Barton Park like that? The house is hardly fit to be lived in. Though we must be nice to them, I suppose. They are our neighbours.’

David suddenly glimpsed Lady Ramsay as she moved around the edge of the dance floor, seeming to look for someone. Her sister, perhaps? Miss Bancroft was nowhere to be seen. David had to agree that the Bancroft sisters’ situation was an odd one and not one his own highly respectable parents would have understood. The two women lived alone in that ramshackle old house, seldom going out into neighbourhood society, and Lord Ramsay was never seen. Lady Ramsay often seemed sad and distant and Miss Bancroft very protective of her, which was most admirable.

David thought they also seemed brave and obviously devoted to each other. Another thing about Miss Bancroft that was unusual—and intriguing.

Suddenly he felt a nudging touch to his hand and glanced down in surprise to find he still stood on the crowded dance floor. And what was more, it was his turn in the figures as the music ran on around him.

Miss Cole smiled up at him, a quick, dazzling smile of flirtatious encouragement, and he led her down the line of dancers in the quick, leaping steps of the dance. She spun under his arm, light and quick, the jewels in her twists of red-gold hair flashing.

‘Very well done, Sir David,’ she whispered.

Miss Cole, unlike Miss Bancroft, was exactly the sort of young lady his sister wanted to see him marry. The daughter of a local, eminently respectable squire, and friends with Louisa for a long time: pretty and accomplished, sparkling in local society, well dowered. The kind of wife who would surely run her house well and fit seamlessly into his carefully built life. And she seemed to like him.

Miss Bancroft was assuredly not for him. She was too young, too eccentric, for them to ever suit. His whole life had been so carefully planned by his family and by himself. He almost threw it all away once. He couldn’t let that happen again now. Not for some strange fascination.

Miss Cole, or a lady like her, would make him a fine wife. Why could he not stop searching the room for a glimpse of Emma Bancroft?

* * *

From the diary of Arabella Bancroft—1663

I have at last arrived at Barton Park. It was not a long journey, but it feels as if I have ventured to a different world. Aunt Mary’s house in London, the endless hours of sewing while she bemoaned all that was lost to her in the wars between the king and Parliament, the filth in the streets—here where everything is green and fresh and new, all that is almost forgotten.

I know I must be grateful to be brought here to my cousin’s beautiful new manor, this gift to him from the new king. I am a poor orphan of seventeen and must live as I can. Yet I cannot understand why I am here. My cousin’s wife has enough maids. I have nothing yet to do but settle into my new chamber—my very own, not shared! Heaven!—and explore the lovely gardens.

But my chambermaid has told me the most intriguing tale—it seems that during the wars one of King Charles’s men hid a great treasure near here. And it has never been found.

I do love a puzzle.

Chapter One

Six years later

Barton Park. Emma could hardly believe she was there again, after so much time. It felt as if she had been swept up in a whirlwind from one world and dropped into another, it was all so strange.

She stood at the rise of a hill, staring down along the grey ribbon of road to the gates of Barton. They stood slightly open, as if waiting to welcome her home, but Barton no longer felt like home. There was no longer anywhere that felt like home now. She was just a little piece of gossamer flotsam, blown back to these gates.

She gathered her black skirts in one hand to keep them from tossing around her in the wind. The carriage waited for her patiently on the road below, halted on its uneventful journey from London to here when she insisted on getting out to look around. Her brother-in-law’s driver and footmen waited quietly, no doubt fully informed by downstairs gossip about the unpredictable ways of Lady Ramsay’s prodigal sister.

Emma knew she should hurry inside. The wind was brisk and the pale-grey clouds overhead threatened rain. Her old dog, Murray, whined a bit and nudged with his cold nose at her gloved hand, but he wouldn’t leave her side. Murray, at least, had never changed.

Yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to go to the house just yet.

She’d left Barton five years ago as Miss Emma Bancroft, full of hopes and fears for her first London Season. She came back now as Mrs Carrington, young widow, penniless, shadowed by gossip and scandal. The fears still lingered, but the hope was quite, quite gone.

She held up her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the light and studied the red-brick chimneys of Barton rising through the swaying banks of trees. Spring was on the way, she could see it in the fresh, pale green buds on the branches, could smell the damp-flower scent of it on the wind. Once she had loved spring at Barton. A time of new beginnings, new dreams.

Emma wanted to feel that way again, she wanted it so desperately. Once she had been so eager to run out and discover everything life had to offer. But that led only to disaster, over and over. It ended in a life with Henry Carrington.

Emma closed her eyes against a sudden spasm of pain that rippled through her. Henry. So handsome, so charming, so dazzling to her entire senses. He was like a whirlwind, too, and he swept her along with him, giddy and full of raw, romantic joy.

Until that giddiness turned to madness and led them on a downward spiral through Continental spa towns where there was plenty of gambling to be had. Henry was always so sure their fortunes would turn around soon, on the turn of the next card, at the bottom of the next bottle. It only led them to shabbier and shabbier lodgings on shadier streets with uncertain friends.

It led Henry to death at the wrong end of a duelling pistol, wielded by the husband of a woman he claimed to have fallen in love with at Vichy. And it took Emma back here to Barton, when she found the scandal had blocked her escape anywhere else.

‘Let me help you,’ Henry’s cousin Philip had said, grasping her hand tightly in his when he gave her the news of the fatal duel. ‘Henry would have wanted it that way. And you know how very much I have always admired you. Dearest Emma.’

Philip had indeed always been Henry’s friend, a friend who caroused with him, but also loaned him money, made sure he made it home, visited Emma when she was alone and frightened in strange rooms with no knowledge of when Henry might return. She appreciated Philip’s kindness, even in moments when his attentions seemed to ease over a line of propriety.

In that moment, with Henry so newly dead and the shock so cold around her, she was almost tempted to let Philip ‘take care of her’. To give in to the loneliness and fear. But then she looked into his eyes and saw something there that frightened her even more. A gleam of possessive passion she saw once in Mr Milne, the dancing master, and in that villain who had once kidnapped her in the rainstorm at Barton.

The same look they had just before they violently attacked her.

So she sent Philip away, swallowed her pride, and wrote to her sister. Jane had warned her against Henry when Emma wanted to marry him, had even threatened to make Emma wait a year before she would even agree to an engagement, which led to Emma eloping and causing the first of many great scandals. And then Henry had found out that Jane and her husband had tied Emma’s dowry and small inheritance from her mother up so tightly he could never touch them and some of his passion died.

While Emma wandered the Continent in Henry’s wake, Jane wrote sometimes, and they even saw each other once when the Ramsays were touring Italy. They were not completely estranged, but Jane would never give in when it came to the money. ‘It is yours, Emma, when you need it,’ she insisted and so Henry cut Emma off from the Ramsays.

But when Emma wrote after Henry’s death, Jane immediately sent money and servants to fetch her home, since Jane herself was too pregnant to travel. Jane would never abandon her, Emma knew that. Only her own embarrassment and shame had kept her away from Barton until now, had kept her from leaving Henry and seeking the shelter of her childhood home. She wondered what she would find beyond those gates.

Murray whined louder and leaned against her. Emma laughed and patted his head with her black-gloved hand.

‘I’m sorry, old friend,’ she said. ‘I know it’s cold out here. We’ll go inside now.’

He trotted behind her down the hill and climbed back into the carriage at her side. For some months, Murray had seemed to be getting older, with rheumatic joints and a greying muzzle, but he wagged his plumy tail eagerly as they bounced past the gates. He seemed to realise they were almost home.

The drive to Barton was a long, picturesquely winding one, meandering gently between groves of trees, old statues and teasing glimpses of chimneys and walls. In the distance, Emma could see the old maze, the white, peaked rooftops of the rebuilt summerhouse at its centre peeking up above the hedges. In the other direction were the fields and meadows of Rose Hill, the Marton estate, and its picturesque ruins of the old medieval castle, which she had long wanted to explore.

Then the carriage came to a V in the drive. One way led to a cluster of old cottages, once used for retired estate retainers, and old orchards. The other way led to the house itself.

Emma leaned out of the window next to Murray and watched as Barton itself came into view. Built soon after the return of Charles II for one of his Royalist supporters, Emma’s ancestor, its red-brick walls, trimmed with white stonework and softened by skeins of climbing ivy, were warm and welcoming.

When Emma and Jane had lived there before Jane reconciled with Hayden, the walls had been slowly crumbling and the gardens overgrown. Now everything was fresh and pretty, the flowerbeds just turning green, the low hedge borders neatly trimmed, new statues brought from Italy gleaming white. Emma glimpsed gardeners on the pathways at the side of the house, busy with their trowels and shears.

So much had changed. So much was the same.

As the carriage rolled to a halt, the front door to the house flew open just as a footman hurried to help Emma alight. Jane came hurrying out, as quickly as she could with her pregnant belly impeding her usual graceful speed. Her hazel eyes sparkled and she was laughing as she clapped her hands.

‘Emma, my darling! Here you are at last,’ Jane cried. As soon as Emma’s half-boots touched the gravelled drive, Jane swept her into her arms and kissed her cheek. ‘Welcome home.’

Home. As Emma hugged her sister back, felt her warmth and breathed in the soft, flowery scent of her lilac perfume, she could almost feel at home again. In sanctuary. Safe.

But wandering anchorless around Europe, seeing the dark depths all sorts of people were capable of, had taught her there was really no place safe. And even as she wanted to hold tight to Jane now, the guilty memory of how she had hurt her sister by eloping, of Jane’s disappointment, still stung.

Emma stepped back and forced a bright smile as Jane examined her closely. Emma had learned the art of hiding her true feelings with Henry, but still it was difficult to do. ‘Barton is looking splendid. And so are you, Jane. Positively blooming.’

Jane laughed ruefully as she gently smoothed her hand over her belly. ‘I’m as big as a barouche now, I fear, and twice as lumbering. But I’ve felt much better this time than I did with the twins, hardly any morning sickness at all. I’ll feel all the better now with you here, Emma. I’ve missed you so much.’

‘And I’ve missed you.’ More even than Emma had realised all those lonely months. ‘And Barton.’

Jane took her arm and led her into the hall. Emma saw the changes to Barton were not just on the outside. The old, scarred parquet floor was replaced with fashionable black-and-white marble tiles. A newly regilded balustrade curved up along the staircase, which was laid with a thick blue-and-gold carpet runner. A marble-topped table held a large arrangement of hothouse roses and blue satin chairs lined up along the silk-striped walls.

But Emma didn’t have much time to examine the refurbishments.

‘Is that our Aunt Emma?’ a tiny, fluting voice called out, echoing down the stairs. Emma glanced up to find two little faces, with two matching sets of hazel eyes and mops of blond curls, peering down at her from the landing.

‘I am your Aunt Emma,’ she said, her heart feeling as if it would burst at this sight of the twins, who she hadn’t seen in so very long. ‘You must be William and Eleanor. You are much bigger than when I last saw you. Back then you were about as large as a loaf of bread.’

The two of them giggled and quickly came dashing and tumbling down the stairs to land at her feet. They peered up at her with curiosity shining from their eyes, eyes that were so much like their mother’s.

‘You’re much younger than we imagined,’ William said.

‘And thinner,’ Eleanor added. ‘You should eat some cream cakes.’

‘Children!’ Jane admonished. ‘Manners, please.’

They curtsied and bowed with murmured ‘How do you do’s’ before Jane sent them off to find tea in the drawing room.

‘I am so sorry, Emma,’ Jane said as they turned to follow the children. ‘Hayden and I, and their nannies, work so hard to teach them how to be a viscount and a lady, but they are at such an outspoken age.’

Emma laughed. ‘Rather like we were back then? Though I fear I have not quite outgrown it, whereas you are the perfect countess.’ Suddenly she glimpsed a pile of travel trunks near the drawing-room doors. ‘Are you going somewhere?’

‘We were planning to go to London for my confinement,’ Jane said. ‘Hayden thinks I should be near the doctors there. But now that you are here...’

‘You must still go,’ Emma said firmly, a bit relieved she might have a few days to find her feet without Jane worrying over her as well as the new baby. ‘Your health comes first. You can’t worry about me now.’

‘But you can’t rattle around Barton all alone! You could come with us to London.’

London was the last place Emma wanted to be. All those watching eyes and gossiping tongues, all too ready to stir up the old scandal-broth of her elopement and disastrous marriage. ‘Actually, I was thinking I could use one of the old cottages. They are so small and cosy, a perfect place for me to decide what I should do next.’

‘Live in one of the cottages,’ Jane exclaimed. ‘Oh, Emma dear, no. This is your house.’

‘But you said yourself, it is too big for one person. And I can’t go to London now. Not yet. You wrote that Hayden was seeing about releasing my small inheritance from Mama to me soon—I can make do on that in the cottage.’

‘But...’ Jane looked all set for an argument, but she was, luckily, distracted by the twins calling for her. ‘We will talk about this later, Emma,’ she said as they hurried into the drawing room.

Emma was sure there would be a long talk later, yet she was set. A small cottage, where she could be alone and think, would be perfect for her now. She would be out of Jane’s way, and she could decipher how not to make such foolish mistakes again.

The twins were already settling in next to a lavishly appointed tea table near the windows that looked out on the gardens. Light gleamed on their grandmother’s silver tea service and platters of sandwiches and cakes, all cut into pretty shapes and arranged in artistic pyramids.

The children eyed the display avidly, but sat quietly with hands innocently folded in their laps.

‘All this for me?’ Emma said with a laugh.

‘Hannah missed you, too,’ Jane said, mentioning the woman who had been their maid for many years. In poorer times she was their only maid, but now she was housekeeper of Barton.

‘Here, Aunt Emma, you must have this cake,’ Eleanor said, passing her a pink-frosted confection.

‘Thank you very much, Eleanor dear,’ Emma said, sure her niece was most serious now about fattening her up. As they sipped at their tea, she studied the gardens outside. The terraces of flowerbeds sloped gently down to the maze and she was sure when summer came it would be a glorious riot of colour. ‘What has been happening in the village of late? Anything interesting?’

‘Oh, yes, a great deal,’ Jane said enthusiastically. ‘There is a new vicar, an excellent gentleman by the name of Mr Crawford. He is Lady Wheelington’s son from her first marriage. I am sure you must remember my friend Lady Wheelington? She is newly home from abroad herself. Mr Crawford is sadly yet unmarried, but I am sure that will soon be remedied. His mother has hinted of a young lady from Brighton. And old Lady Firth finally won the flower show last year! It was long past time. And Sir David Marton has come back to Rose Hill at last.’

‘Sir David Marton?’ Emma said, startled by the name. She feared the words came out much sharper than she intended and quickly turned away to nibble at her cake. ‘I hadn’t realised he ever left. He didn’t seem the adventurous sort.’

‘So you do remember Sir David?’ Jane said.

Of course Emma remembered him. How very handsome he was. The way he seemed to admire Jane’s sweet ways so much. The way he would look at Emma, so carefully, so close and calm, until she feared he could see her every secret.

How would he look at her now, after everything that had happened? Would he even speak to her at all?

Somehow the thought of Sir David’s disapproval made her heart sink just a bit.

‘I do remember him,’ she said.

‘Yes. He was quite kind to us when things looked rather bleak, wasn’t he? And he was such a help that night of the fire.’

He had been kind to Jane, always. ‘Yet you say he left the village?’

‘Yes. He married Miss Maude Cole. Do you remember her as well?’

Miss Cole, who Sir David had danced with at that long-ago assembly. Pretty, vivacious Miss Cole. The perfect wife for a man like him. ‘Of course. She was quite lovely and good friends with his sister, as I recall, so such a match makes sense.’

Jane arched her brow. ‘So everyone thought.’

‘Was it not a good match after all?’

‘No one knows for sure. Lady Marton preferred town life, so soon after the wedding they went off to London and rarely came back here. Hayden and I have mostly been at Ramsay House or here at Barton, but we heard she was quite the toast.’

‘Was?’

‘Sadly, Lady Marton died last year, and Sir David has come back to Rose Hill with his little daughter. We haven’t seen them very much, but the poor child does seem very quiet.’

‘She must miss her mother,’ Emma said quietly. Surely Sir David also missed his pretty wife. She was sure he would never have allowed his marital life to grow messy and discordant as hers had. The poor little girl, how she must feel the terrible loss.

‘Miss Louisa Marton, who is now Mrs Smythe, is said to be most earnestly searching for a new sister-in-law,’ Jane said.

‘She must surely be disappointed at the lack of scope for matchmaking around here,’ Emma said, making her tone light. She didn’t want to talk or think about Sir David any longer. It only reminded her of how very different things were now from when she last met with him. ‘Tell me, William and Eleanor, do you like to play blindman’s buff? It was your mama’s favourite game when we were children, though you may not believe me now. Perhaps we could play a round later...’

* * *

From the diary of Arabella Bancroft

I think I have discovered one of the reasons I was summoned to Barton. In return for the gift of the estate, the king expects my cousin to host many parties for his court. My cousin’s wife’s health does not allow her to play hostess to such a raucous crowd, thus my place here. I know little of planning grand balls, but I confess I do love the new clothes—so much silk and lace, so many feathered hats and furred capes!

And the people who come here are most intriguing. I have seldom had the chance for such conversation before, and once I am an improved card player I shall surely fit in better.

I have been asking about the lost treasure, but beyond ever more fantastical tales I can find out nothing...

Chapter Two

The silence in the carriage was absolutely deafening.

David looked down at his daughter, Beatrice, who perched beside him on the seat of the curricle. Most of her face was hidden by the brim of her straw bonnet, but he could see the tip of her upturned nose and the corner of her mouth, unsmiling as she watched the lane go by. Her red-gold curls, tied neatly at the nape of her neck with a pink bow, laid in a glossy stream down the back of her blue-velvet spencer.

Bea always looked like the perfect little lady, a pretty porcelain doll in her fashionable clothes, with a real doll usually tucked under her arm as her constant companion. All the ladies they ever met exclaimed and cooed over her. ‘A perfect angel, David,’ his sister always crowed. ‘Why, she never cries or fusses at all! And after all she’s been through...’

Louisa was right. Bea was an angel, always playing quietly with her dolls or attending to lessons with her nanny. But was she too quiet? Too self-contained for a five-year-old?

Even now, on a lovely, warm, early spring day, when children were dashing along the lane with their hoops and skipping ropes, shouting and laughing, she just watched them with no expression on her little face.

‘After I conclude my business in the village, perhaps we could go to the toy shop and get you one of those hoops,’ David said as he guided the horses around a corner. ‘What do you think, Bea?’

She turned to look up at him for the first time since they left Rose Hill. Her grey eyes were unblinking. ‘No, thank you, Papa.’

‘It shouldn’t be hard to learn how to use it. I could teach you in the garden.’

Bea shook her head. ‘Aunt Louisa says you have a lot of business to attend to since we came back to Rose Hill and I shouldn’t get in your way.’

Of course Louisa would say that. It was his way of avoiding her gatherings, which seemed designed to introduce him to as many eligible young ladies as possible. But his heart ached that Bea took that to mean he had no time for her. Bea had been the light of his life ever since she first appeared and everything he did was for her. ‘No matter how much business I have, I’ll always have time for you, Bea. I hope you know that.’

‘I don’t need a hoop, Papa.’ She turned her attention to the scenery, to the scattered cottages that marked the edge of the village and the square, stone bell tower of the church.

It hadn’t always been like that, David thought with a feeling surging through him that felt near desperation. Once Bea had run through the house as lively and laughing as any of the village children. She had thrown herself into his arms, giggling as he twirled her around. She’d served him tea at her tiny table in her tiny porcelain cups, chattering all the time.

Until her mother died. No—he had to say it honestly, at least to himself. Until her mother left them, ran off with her lover, only to be killed with him when their carriage overturned on a rocky Scottish road. Bea knew nothing of that sordid tale. David had only told her Maude had become very ill and gone to take the waters, where she passed away. But ever since then Bea had withdrawn deep into herself, quiet as one of her precious dolls.

David hoped that leaving London permanently and coming home to Rose Hill, near his sister and her family, would bring her out of her shell again. Surely children thrived in fresh air and clear skies? Yet it only seemed to make Bea even quieter.

David liked to be in control of his world; he needed that. He was good at business, at running his estate, improving crop yields, taking care of his tenants and his family. When their parents died, he took care of his sister until she married. He had been a good son, a good brother, and he prided himself on that. He had even been a good husband, had given up his brief wild period of gambling and other women, and devoted himself to his wife. He had seen where such a rakish life led and he hadn’t wanted it for himself in the end.

Why, then, had he failed so badly as a husband, and now as a father?

As he looked at his daughter now, her little back so straight as she perched next to him on the seat, his heart ached with how much he loved her. How much he wanted to help her and could not.

The anger he had long felt towards Maude, which he had tried to shove away and forget, still came out when he saw how Bea had become. Maude—so pretty, so charming. So frivolous. In the beginning, she looked suitable to be his wife, until he found her charm masked desperate emotionalism, a heedless romanticism that made her utterly abandon her family and duties. Just as he had once come so close to doing.

‘You should marry again,’ his sister told him over and over. ‘If Beatrice had a new mother, and Rose Hill had a proper mistress, all would be well. What about Lady Penelope Hader? Or Miss King?’

He had taken Louisa’s advice the first time and married her good friend Miss Cole. He should not look twice at any of her candidates again. But she was right about one thing—some day he would have to marry again. But this time he would find a lady of good, solid sense and impeccable reputation and family. A lady who would join him in his duties and be content with a quiet, solid country life.

He was absolutely determined on that. He, and more importantly Beatrice, needed no more romantic adventurers in their lives.

The village was busy on such a fine day. The narrow walkways were crowded with people hurrying on their errands, and the doors and windows to the shops were flung open to let in the fresh breeze. There seemed to be a new energy in the air that always came with the first signs of green, growing things—an invigorated purpose.

David wished he could feel it too. That new, fresh, clean hope. Yet still there was only a strange numbness at his core.

Work was the answer. The forgetfulness of purposeful work. He left the curricle at the livery stables and took Bea’s lace-gloved hand in his to lead her out into the lane. She went with him without a murmur, her doll tucked under her other arm.

‘I won’t be long at the lawyer’s office, Bea,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want to visit the toy shop, perhaps we could get a sweet afterwards? You haven’t had one of those lemon drops you like in a while.’

‘Thank you, Papa,’ she murmured.

Their progress down the street was slow, as several people stopped David to offer him greetings or ask questions about his plans for Rose Hill. He hadn’t been home long enough for curiosity to fade about his London scandal, and he could almost feel the burn of curiosity in people’s eyes as they talked to him. He could hear the careful tones of their voices, from people he had known since he was a child.

Even here the upheaval of his life couldn’t quite be forgotten.

As they walked past the assembly rooms, he heard his sister’s voice call out to him.

‘David, dearest! I didn’t know you were coming to the village today. You should have sent me word and I would have made you dine with us before you go back to Rose Hill,’ Louisa cried.

David turned to see his sister hurrying toward him, her two little sons tumbling after her and her pregnant belly before her. The boys were shoving and tripping each other, as they so often did, and David felt Bea stiffen next to him.

‘I didn’t want you to go to any trouble, Louisa,’ he said as he kissed her offered cheek under the flowered edge of her bonnet.

‘No trouble at all. We see you too seldom,’ Louisa answered. She carefully bent down and embraced Bea, who still held her little body very still. ‘And how lovely you look today, Beatrice! My, but I do hope this one will be a girl. Boys, stop that fighting right now! Bow to your uncle.’

As the boys quickly bowed and muttered before shoving each other again, Louisa whispered in David’s ear, ‘Beatrice is looking awfully pale, isn’t she? You should leave her with me while you conclude your business, she can play with her cousins. I’m sure she is too much alone at Rose Hill.’

Beatrice seemed to hear her and gave David an alarmed glance. ‘Thank you for the kind offer, Louisa, but we must return home very soon today. Another time, I promise.’

Louisa sniffed. ‘As you like, of course. But you know what Rose Hill and Beatrice need is more children running about the halls there! New little siblings, as you and I were. Have you met Miss Harding yet? She has come to stay with her uncle, Admiral Harding, and I quite admire her already. So pretty, so steady. Just what you need.’

Bea didn’t say anything, or even move, but David felt her hand tighten on his. ‘No, I have not yet met Miss Harding.’

‘Then you must come to the assembly next week. She is sure to be there and I have sung your praises to her already.’

‘I still have so much work to do at Rose Hill...’

‘Don’t say you must work all night as well as all day! You must get out in the world again, David. It would do you so much good. And you will never find a wife if you stay alone at Rose Hill all the time. Will he, Beatrice darling?’

‘No, Aunt Louisa,’ Bea said dutifully.

‘Of course not. Now, David, let me tell you about Miss Harding...’

Louisa went on talking, but David’s attention was suddenly captured by a figure hurrying along the walkway on the other side of the street.

She wasn’t very tall, but was very straight and slender, with an elegant bearing and purpose to her step that seemed somehow familiar. Yet he was sure she couldn’t be someone he knew, for she wore a black gown and pelisse and a plain black bonnet, and there were no recent widows in the village. Still, something about her compelled him to keep watching. Something vital and almost magnetic, something—alive.

David suddenly realised he hadn’t felt alive in a very long time. Hadn’t felt captured by something as he was by the glimpses of the lady in black.

Others, too, watched her as she passed them, turned to stare at her, stopped in their tracks. But only a few actually offered her a greeting.

She stopped at the window of Mr Lorne’s bookshop and, as she turned to examine the haphazard display of dusty volumes behind the cloudy glass, David caught a glimpse of her pale profile against the black ruching of her bonnet, as pure and perfect as a Grecian coin.

‘Emma Bancroft,’ he whispered, shocked by the sight of her. Now that he saw her again, he was surprised at how completely he recalled a girl he hadn’t glimpsed in years. But where he felt a hundred years older than the man he had been at that long-ago assembly, Emma Bancroft looked exactly the same. Golden, sunny curls, a straight little nose dusted with pale amber freckles, rosebud lips curved in a smile as she studied the books. She looked just as young, just as eager to run out and grab life.

Yet she, too, must have faced a great deal since they last met, swathed in black as she was. She pushed open the door to the shop and vanished inside, and David’s strangely silent, suspended moment crashed around him. The noisy bustle of the crowd. Bea’s hand in his. The ceasing of his sister’s stream of chatter.

‘Oh, yes,’ Louisa said with another sniff. ‘Emma Bancroft. I did hear she had returned to Barton Park, though I’m surprised her sister would have her back after everything that happened. Hardly befitting the sister-in-law of an earl.’

David gave her a curious glance and Louisa smiled smugly. She always liked having gossip other people did not and David had lived buried in his own business since he came home. ‘You will remember, I am sure, David. Or perhaps you won’t, you are always so very busy. Do you not recall her infamous elopement with Mr Henry Carrington?’

David did remember vague whispers about it all. Emma Bancroft eloped with a known rake in her first Season, against her sister’s advice. Word of it had floated all the way from London back to Rose Hill, everyone saying how sad it was, but really not very surprising. Miss Bancroft, after all, had always been such an odd girl with strange fancies. Other scandals soon eclipsed it, and by the time David went to London with Maude and their new baby there were only a few titters about Lady Ramsay’s wayward sister. He assumed the rake and Miss Bancroft had settled into a reasonable marriage, away from England.

And Maude’s own scandal soon quite overtook everything else. But David felt strangely disappointed when he remembered Miss Bancroft’s—Mrs Carrington’s—true nature. For an instant there, he was actually happy to glimpse her coming down the street, felt a rush of hope. Now the sunny, lively vibrancy he had imagined seemed more hoydenish and dangerously unpredictable.

He couldn’t afford any more scandal in his life. Either his own or that of others.

‘They say Mr Carrington died in a duel somewhere in France,’ Louisa said. ‘Now I suppose Lady Ramsay has no choice but to shelter her sister.’

As David had always had no choice in his own family? Faintly irritated, he said, ‘Perhaps you think she should have left her sister in a Parisian workhouse.’

‘David! You are quite shocking today. Of course Lady Ramsay had to take Mrs Carrington in, though it would have been more politic of Mrs Carrington to stay away after the stir she caused. But family is family, I suppose. I just hope she will stay quietly at Barton Park and not embarrass anyone.’

‘I must attend to my business, Louisa,’ he said, feeling the urge to defend Emma Bancroft, even from something indefensible. ‘The lawyer is expecting me so we can go over my purchase of the lands adjacent to Rose Hill.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. I know you are so terribly busy, David dear. Just don’t forget about Miss Harding! We shall all be expecting you at the assembly next week.’

Murmuring some non-committal reply, David led Bea off down the street. She went with him quietly, leaving him to brood on that glimpse of Emma Bancroft’s face. And wanting even more of what he knew he couldn’t have.

* * *

Her papa did not need another wife. At least not one her Aunt Louisa chose for him.

Bea swung her feet from the tall chair she sat perched on as she waited for her papa to conclude his business. He and the grey-haired, saggy-faced lawyer, Mr Wall, talked on and on with words she didn’t understand and the warm close air of the office smelled of old cigars and dust, but Bea didn’t care. The more they talked, and the more they ignored her as she sat quietly in the corner, the more she could watch and think.

It was a strategy that had worked very well for her since her mother went away. Things had been so very confusing for a while, the doors of the London house slamming and people coming and going at all hours. Her Grandfather Cole shouting and red-faced. Her papa, who usually played with her and laughed with her, so quiet and serious all the time.

And every time he looked at her he seemed very sad. There were no more tea parties or quiet hours for reading books together. He would send her to the park with her nanny and lock himself in the library.

And no one ever told her anything at all. Tears and shouted questions got her nothing but pitying looks and new dolls. While the dolls were nice, she still wanted to know where her mother had really gone and when her real papa was coming back to her.

That was when she learned to be quiet and watch. When she tucked herself away in corners, people forgot she was there and talked about things in quiet, calm ways with no baby-speak. Bea hated baby-speak. Her father had never spoken to her that way and most grown-ups had long ago given it up with her, until her mother left. Then no one talked to her any other way.

Especially Aunt Louisa. Bea sighed as she smoothed her doll’s silk skirt and thought of Aunt Louisa. She was a very good sort of aunt, always kind and generous with the lemon drops, but her insistence that Bea play with her horrid sons was a nuisance. Those boys had no interesting conversation at all, and they always tried to steal her dolls. Once they even cut the curls off one, making Bea cry and Aunt Louisa scream.

Days at Aunt Louisa’s house were not much fun. Even waiting here in this dull office was better.

But what made time with Aunt Louisa even worse was that she always told Papa he should marry again as fast as possible. She even insisted Bea needed a new mother.

Bea did not want a new mother. She’d hardly ever seen the one she once had, except for glimpses out the window when her mother was climbing into a carriage to go off to a party. She’d been as beautiful as an angel, all sparkling and laughing in her lovely gowns, but not much use. Nor would a mother like Aunt Louisa be much fun, always calling for her vinaigrette when she wasn’t telling everyone what to do.

Not that Bea completely objected to the idea of a mother. Mothers in books always looked like lovely things, always tying their daughters’ hair ribbons and reading them stories. And Papa did need someone to help him smile more.

Aunt Louisa’s Miss Harding, niece of Admiral Harding, didn’t quite sound like what Bea had in mind. Anyone Aunt Louisa chose would surely be entirely wrong for Rose Hill. Bea knew she was only a little girl, but she also knew what she wanted, and what Papa needed.

She just didn’t know where to find it.

‘...in short, Sir David, the sale of the lands should go through at that price with no problems whatsoever,’ the old lawyer said. ‘Your estate at Rose Hill will be considerably enlarged, if you are sure more responsibility is what you truly desire right now.’

‘Have you heard complaints about my lack of responsibility, Mr Wall?’ Papa said, with what Bea suspected was amusement in his voice, though she didn’t understand the joke. She hoped he might even smile, but he didn’t.

‘Not at all, of course. You have a great reputation in the area as a good, and most progressive, landlord with a great interest in agriculture. Once you get those lands organised, you’ll have no trouble whatsoever leasing the farms. But there can be such a things as working too hard, or so Mrs Wall sometimes informs me.’

‘Is there?’ Papa said quietly. ‘I have not found it so.’

‘A wife, Sir David, can be a great help. The right sort of wife, of course, an excellent housekeeper, a hostess, a companion. But I fear we are boring pretty Miss Marton here! Would you care for a sweet, my dear? Sugared almonds—my grandsons love them, so I always keep them about.’

‘Thank you, Mr Wall,’ Bea answered politely. As she popped the almond into her mouth, she thought over what Mr Wall said. A hostess for Rose Hill—another thing to put on her list of requirements for a new mother.

As they took their leave of Mr Wall and stepped back out into the lane, Bea shivered at the cool breeze after the stuffy offices.

‘We should get you home, Bea, before you catch a chill,’ Papa said as he took her hand.

But Bea didn’t quite want to go back to the quiet nursery at Rose Hill just yet. Neither did she want to go visit Aunt Louisa. ‘Could we go to the bookshop first?’ she asked. ‘Maybe Mr Lorne has some new picture books from London. I’ve read everything in the nursery at least twice now.’ And Aunt Louisa and her sons never went in the bookshop. It was always quite safe.

Her papa seemed to hesitate, which was most odd, for he was usually most agreeable to visiting Mr Lorne’s shop. He glanced towards the building across the street, his eyes narrowed behind his spectacles as if he tried to peer past the dusty windows. But finally he nodded and led her across the street to the waiting shop.

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