Kitabı oku: «Bound By A Scandalous Secret»

Chapter One

Lincolnshire—December 1815

Genna Summerfield first glimpsed him out of the corner of her eye, a distant horseman galloping across the land, all power and grace and heedless abandon. A thrilling sight. Beautiful grey steed, its rider in a topcoat of matching grey billowing behind him. Horse and rider looked as if they had been created from the clouds that were now covering the sky. Could she capture it on paper? She grabbed her sketchpad and charcoal and quickly drew.

It was no use. He disappeared in a dip in the hill.

She put down the sketchpad and charcoal and turned back to painting the scene in the valley below, her reason for sitting upon this hill in this cold December air. How she wished she could also paint the galloping horse and rider. What a challenge it would be to paint all those shades of grey, at the same time conveying all the power and movement.

The roar of galloping startled her. She turned. Man and horse thundered towards her.

Drat! Was he coming to oust her from the property? To chase her from this perfect vantage point?

Not now! She was almost finished. She needed but a few minutes more. Besides, she had to return soon before someone questioned her absence—

The image of the horse and rider interrupted her thoughts. Her brush rose in the air as she tried to memorise the sight, the movement, the lights and darks—

Goodness! He galloped straight for her. Genna backed away, knocking over her stool.

The rider pulled the horse to a halt mere inches away.

‘I did not mean to alarm you,’ the rider said.

‘I thought you would run me down!’ She threw her paintbrush into her jug of water and wiped her hands on the apron she wore over her dress.

He was a gentleman judging by the sheer fineness of his topcoat and tall hat and the way he sat in the saddle, as if it were his due to be above everyone else.

Please do not let this gentleman be her distant cousin, the man who’d inherited this land that she once—and still—called home.

‘My apologies.’ He dismounted. ‘I came to see if you needed assistance, but now I see you intended to be seated on this hill.’

‘Yes.’ She shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘As you can see I am painting the scene below.’

‘It is near freezing out,’ he said. ‘This cold cannot be good for you.’

She showed him her hands. ‘I am wearing gloves.’ Of course, her gloves were fingerless. ‘And my cloak is warm enough.’

She looked into his face. A strong face, long, but not thin, with a straight nose that perfectly suited him, and thick dark brows. His hair, just visible beneath his hat was also dark. His eyes were a spellbinding caramel, flecked with darker brown. She would love to paint such a memorable face.

He extended his hand. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Rossdale.’

Not her cousin, then. She breathed a sigh of relief. Some other aristocrat.

She placed her hand in his. ‘Miss Summerfield.’

‘Summerfield?’ His brows rose. ‘My host, Lord Penford, is Dell Summerfield. A relation, perhaps?’

She knew Lord Penford was her cousin, but that was about all she knew of him. Just her luck. This man was his guest.

‘A distant relation.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’m one of the scandalous Summerfields. You’ve heard of us, no doubt.’

The smile on his face froze and she had her answer. Of course he’d heard of her family. Of her late father, Sir Hollis Summerfield of Yardney, who’d lost his fortune in a series of foolish investments. And her mother, who was legendary for having many lovers, including the one with whom she’d eloped when Genna was almost too little to remember her. Who in society had not heard of the scandalous Summerfields?

‘Then you used to live at Summerfield House.’ He gestured to the house down below.

‘That is why I am painting it,’ she responded. ‘And I would be obliged if you would not mention to Lord Penford that I trespassed on his land. I have disturbed nothing and only wished to come here this one time to paint this view.’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I am certain he would not mind.’

Genna was not so certain. After her father’s death, Lord Penford had been eager for Genna and her two sisters to leave the house.

She stood and started to pack up her paints. ‘In any event, I will leave now.’

He put his hand on her easel. ‘No need. Please continue.’

She shook her head. The magic was gone; the spell broken. She’d been reminded the house was no longer her home. ‘I must be getting back. It is a bit of a walk.’

‘Where are you bound?’ he asked.

Surely he knew all the scandals. ‘To Tinmore Hall.’ She gave him a defiant look. ‘Or did you forget that my sister Lorene married Lord Tinmore?’

He glanced away and dipped his head. ‘I did forget.’

Genna’s oldest sister married the ancient Lord Tinmore for his money so Genna and her sister Tess and half-brother Edmund would not be plunged into poverty. So they, unlike Lorene, could make respectable marriages and marry for love.

Genna had not forgiven Lorene for doing such a thing—sacrificing her own happiness like that, chaining herself to that old, disagreeable man. And for what? Genna did not believe in her sister’s romantic notions of love and happily ever after. Did not love ultimately wind up hurting oneself and others?

The wind picked up, rippling her painting.

Rossdale put his fingers on the edge of it to keep it from blowing away. His brow furrowed. ‘You have captured the house, certainly, but the rest of it looks nothing like this day...’

She unfastened the paper from the easel and carefully placed a sheet of tissue over it. She slipped it in a leather envelope. ‘I painted a memory, you might say.’ Or the emotion of a memory.

The wind gusted again. She turned away from it and packed up hurriedly, folding the easel and her stool, closing her paints, pouring out her jug of water and wrapping her brushes in a rag. She placed them all in a huge canvas satchel.

‘How far to your home?’ Rossdale asked.

Her home was right below them, she wanted to say. ‘To Tinmore Hall, you mean? No more than five miles.’

‘Five miles!’ He looked surprised. ‘Are you here alone?’

She pinched her lips together. ‘I require no chaperon on the land where I was born.’

He nodded in a conciliatory manner. ‘I thought perhaps you had a companion, maybe someone with a carriage visiting the house. May I convey you to Tinmore Hall, then?’ He glanced towards the clouds. ‘The sky looks ominous and you have quite a walk ahead of you.’

She almost laughed. Did he not know what could happen if a Summerfield sister was caught in a storm with a man?

Although Genna would never let matters go so far, not like her sister Tess who’d wound up married to a man after being caught in a storm. Why not risk a ride with Rossdale?

She widened her smile. ‘How kind of you. A ride would be most appreciated.’

* * *

Ross secured her satchel behind the saddle and mounted Spirit, his favourite gelding, raised from a pony at his father’s breeding stables. He reached down for Miss Summerfield and pulled her up to sit side-saddle in front of him.

She turned and looked him full in the face. ‘Thank you.’

She was lovely enough. Pale, flawless skin, eyes as blue as sea water, full pink lips, a peek of blonde hair from beneath her bonnet. Her only flaw was a nose slightly too large for her face. It made her face more interesting, though, a cut above merely being beautiful. She was not bold; neither was she bashful or flirtatious.

Unafraid described her better.

She spoke without apology about being one of the scandalous Summerfields. And certainly was not contrite about trespassing. He liked that she was comfortable with herself and took him as he was.

Possibly because she did not know who he was. People behaved differently when they knew. How refreshing to meet a young woman who had not memorised Debrett’s.

‘Which way?’ he asked.

She pointed and they started off.

‘How long have you been a guest of Lord Penford?’ she asked.

‘Two days. I’m to stay through Twelfth Night.’ Which did not please his father overmuch.

‘Is Lord Penford having guests for Christmas?’ She sounded disapproving.

He laughed. ‘One guest.’

‘You?’

‘Only me,’ he responded.

She was quiet and still for a long time. ‘How—how do you find the house?’ she finally asked.

He did not know what she meant. ‘It is comfortable,’ he ventured.

She turned to look at him. ‘I mean, has Lord Penford made many changes?’

Ah, it had been her home. She was curious about it, naturally.

‘I cannot say,’ he responded. ‘I do know he plans repairs.’

She turned away again. ‘Goodness knows it needed plenty of repairs.’

‘Have you not seen the house since leaving it?’ he asked.

She glanced back at him and shook her head.

The grey clouds rolled in quickly. He quickened Spirit’s pace. ‘I think it will snow.’

As if his words brought it on, the flakes began to fall, here and there, then faster and thicker until they could not see more than two feet ahead of them.

‘Turn here,’ she said. ‘We can take shelter.’

Through a path overgrown with shrubbery they came to a folly built in the Classical style, though half covered with vines. Its floor was strewn with twigs and leaves.

‘I see Lord Penford did not tend to all of the gardens,’ Miss Summerfield said.

‘Perhaps he did not know it was here.’ Ross dismounted. ‘It is well hidden.’

‘Hidden now,’ she said. ‘It was not always so.’

He helped her down and led Spirit up the stairs into the shelter. There was plenty of room. She sat on a bench at the folly’s centre and wrapped her cloak around her.

He sat next to her. ‘Are you cold?’

Her cheeks were tinged a delightful shade of pink and her lashes glistened from melted snowflakes. ‘Not very.’

He liked that she did not complain. He glanced around. ‘This folly has seen better days?’

She nodded, a nostalgic look on her face. ‘It was once one of our favourite places to play.’

‘You have two sisters. Am I correct?’

She swung her feet below the bench, much like she must have done when a girl. ‘And a half-brother.’ She slid him a glance. ‘My bastard brother, you know.’

Did she enjoy speaking aloud what others preferred to hide?

‘He was raised with you, I think?’ It was said Sir Hollis tried to flaunt his love child in front of his wife.

‘Yes. We all got on famously.’

She seemed to anticipate unspoken questions and answered them defiantly.

‘Where is your brother now?’ he asked.

‘Would you believe he is a sheep farmer in the Lake District?’ she scoffed.

‘Why would I not believe it?’ Almost everyone he knew could be considered a farmer when you got right down to it.

‘Well, if you knew him you’d be shocked that he wound up raising sheep. He was an officer in the Twenty-Eighth Regiment. He was wounded at Waterloo.’ She waved a hand. ‘Oh, I am making him sound too grand. He was a mere lieutenant, but he was wounded.’

‘He must have recovered?’ Or he would not be raising sheep.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘And your other sister?’ He might as well get the whole family story, since she seemed inclined to tell it.

‘Tess?’ She giggled but tried to stop herself.

‘What amuses you?’

‘Tess is married.’ She strained not to laugh. ‘But wait until I tell you how it was she came to be married! She and Marc Glenville were caught together in a storm. A rainstorm. Lord Tinmore forced them to marry.’

How ghastly. Nothing funny about a forced marriage. ‘I am somehow missing the joke.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘We are caught in a storm. You could be trapped into marrying me.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘So you had better hope we are not discovered.’ Then an idea seemed to dawn on her face. ‘Unless you are already married. In that case, only I suffer the scandal.’ She made it sound as if suffering scandal was part of the joke.

‘I am not married.’

She grinned. ‘We had better hope Lord Tinmore or his minions do not come riding by, then.’

No one would find this place unless they already knew its location, even if they were foolish enough to venture out in a snowstorm. If they did find them, though, Ross had no worries about Lord Tinmore. Tinmore’s power would be a trifle compared to what Ross could bring to bear.

She took a breath and sighed and seemed to have conquered her fit of giggles.

‘I am acquainted with Glenville,’ he remarked. ‘A good man.’

‘Glenville is a good man,’ she agreed.

He could not speak of why he knew Glenville, though.

He’d sailed Glenville across the Channel in the family yacht several times during the war when Glenville pursued clandestine activities for the Crown. Braving the Channel’s waters was about the only danger Ross could allow himself during the war, even if he made himself available to sail whenever needed. This service had been meagre in his eyes, certainly a trifle compared to what his friend Dell had accomplished. And what others had suffered. He’d seen what the war cost some of the soldiers. Limbs. Eyes. Sanity. Why should those worthy men have had to pay the price rather than he?

He forced his mind away from painful thoughts. ‘I had not heard Glenville’s marriage had been forced.’

‘Had you not?’ She glanced at him in surprise. ‘Goodness. I thought everyone knew. I should say they seem very happy about it now, so it has all worked out. For the time being, that is.’

‘For the time being?’

She shrugged. ‘One never knows, does one?’

‘You sound a bit cynical.’ Indeed, she seemed to cycle emotions across her face with great rapidity.

Her expression sobered. ‘Of course I am cynical. Marriage can bring terrible unhappiness. My parents’ marriage certainly did.’

‘One out of many,’ he countered, although he knew several friends who were miserable and making their spouses even more so. His parents’ marriage had been happy—until his mother died. In his father’s present marriage happiness was not an issue. That marriage was a political partnership.

‘My sister Lorene’s marriage to Lord Tinmore is another example.’ She glanced away and lowered her voice as if speaking to herself and not to him. ‘She is wasting herself with him.’

‘Has it been so bad? She brought him out of his hermitage, they say. He’d been a recluse, they say.’

‘I am sure he thinks it a grand union.’ She huffed. ‘He now has people he can order about.’

‘You?’ Clearly she resented Tinmore. ‘Does he order you about?’

‘He tries. He thinks he can force me to—’ She stopped herself. ‘Never mind. My tongue runs away with me sometimes.’

She fell silent and stilled her legs and became lost in her own thoughts, which excluded him. He’d been enjoying their conversation. They’d been talking like equals, neither of them trying to impress or avoid.

He wanted more of it. ‘Tell me about your painting.’

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘What about it?’

‘I did not understand it.’

She sat up straighter. ‘You mean because the sky was purple and pink and the grassy hills, blue, and it looked nothing like December in Lincolnshire?’

‘Obviously you were not painting the landscape as it was today. You said you painted a memory, but surely you never saw the scene that way.’ The painting was a riot of colour, an exaggeration of reality.

She turned away. ‘It was a memory of those bright childhood days, when things could be what you imagined them to be, when you could create your own world in play and your world could be anything you wanted.’

‘The sky and the grass could be anything you wanted, as well. I quite comprehend.’ He smiled at her. ‘I once spent an entire summer as a virtuous knight. You should have seen all the dragons I slew and all the damsels in distress I rescued.’

Her blue eyes sparkled. ‘I was always Boadicea fighting the Romans.’ She stood and raised an arm. ‘“When the British Warrior queen, Bleeding from the Roman rods...”’ She sat down again. ‘I was much influenced by Cowper.’

‘My father had an old copy of Spencer’s The Faerie Queene.’ It had been over two hundred years old. ‘I read it over and over. I sought to recreate it in my imagination.’

She sighed. ‘Life seemed so simple then.’

They fell silent again.

‘Do you miss this place?’ he asked. ‘I don’t mean this folly. Do you miss Summerfield House where you grew up?’

Her expression turned wistful. ‘I do miss it. All the familiar rooms. The familiar paintings and furniture. We could not take much with us.’ Her chin set and her eyes hardened. ‘I do not want you to think we blame Lord Penford. He was under no obligation to us. We knew he inherited many problems my father created.’ She stood again and walked to the edge of the folly. Placing her hand on one of the columns, she leaned out. ‘The snow seems to be abating.’

He was not happy to see the flakes stop. ‘Shall we venture out in it again?’

‘I think we must,’ she said. ‘I do not want to return late and cause any questions about where I’ve been.’

‘Is that what happens?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Her eyes changed from resentment to amusement. ‘Although I do not always answer such questions truthfully.’

‘I would wager you do not.’

* * *

Rossdale again pulled Genna up to sit in front of him on his beautiful horse. How ironic. It was the most intimate she had ever been with a man.

She liked him. She could not think of any other gentleman of her acquaintance who she liked so well and with whom she wanted to spend more time. Usually she was eager to leave a man’s company, especially when the flattery started. Especially when she suspected they were more enamoured of the generous sum Lord Tinmore would provide for her dowry than they were of her. No such avaricious gleam reached Rossdale’s eyes. She had the impression the subject of her dowry had not once crossed Rossdale’s mind.

They rode without talking, except for Genna’s directions. She led him through the fields, the shortest way to Tinmore Hall and also the way they were least likely to encounter any other person. The snow had turned the landscape a lovely white, as if it had been scrubbed clean. There was no sound but the crunch of the horse’s hooves on the snow and the huff of the animal’s breathing.

They came to the stream. The only way to cross was at the bridge, the bridge that had been flooded that fateful night Tess had been caught in the storm.

‘Leave me at the bridge,’ she said. No one was in sight, but if anyone would happen by, it would be on the road to the bridge. ‘I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

‘So we are not seen together?’ he correctly guessed.

She could not help but giggle. ‘Unless you want a forced marriage.’

He raised his hands in mock horror. ‘Anything but that.’

‘Here is fine.’ She slid from the saddle.

He unfastened her satchel and handed it to her. ‘It has been a pleasure, Miss Summerfield.’

‘I am indebted to you, sir,’ she countered. ‘But if you dare say so to anyone, I’ll have to unfurl my wrath.’

He smiled down at her and again she had the sense that she liked him.

‘It will be our secret,’ he murmured.

She nodded a farewell and hurried across the bridge. When she reached the other side, she turned.

He was still there watching her.

She waved to him and turned away, and walked quickly. She was later than she’d planned to be.

She approached the house through the formal garden behind the Hall and entered through the garden door, removing her half-boots which were soaked through and caked with snow. One of the servants would take care of them. She did not dare clean them herself as she’d been accustomed to do at Summerfield. If Lord Tinmore heard of it, she’d have to endure yet another lecture on the proper behaviour of a lady, which did not include cleaning boots.

What an ungrateful wretch she was. Most young ladies would love having a servant clean her boots. Genna simply was used to doing for herself, since her father had cut back on the number of servants at Summerfield House.

She hung her damp cloak on a hook and carried her satchel up to her room. The maid assigned to her helped her change her clothes, but Genna waited until the girl left before unpacking her satchel. She left her painting on a table, unsure whether to work on it more or not.

She covered it with tissue again and put it in a drawer. She would not work on it now. Of that she was certain. Instead she hurried down to the library, opening the door cautiously and peeking in. No one was there, thank goodness, although it would have been quite easy to come up with a plausible excuse for coming to the library.

She searched the shelves until she found the volume she sought—Debrett’s Peerage & Baronetage. She pulled it out and turned first to the title names, riffling the pages until she came to the Rs.

‘Rossdale. Rossdale. Rossdale,’ she murmured as she scanned the pages.

The title name was not there.

She turned to the front of the book again and found the pages listing second titles usually borne by the eldest sons of peers. She ran her finger down the list.

Rossdale.

There it was! And next to the name Rossdale was Kessington d. D for Duke.

She had been in the company of the eldest son of the Duke of Kessington. The heir of the Duke of Kessington. And she had been chatting with him as if he were a mere friend of her brother’s. Worse, she had hung all the family’s dirty laundry out to dry in front of him, her defiant defence over anticipated censure or sympathy. He’d seen her wild painting and witnessed her nonsense about Boadicea.

She turned back to the listing of the Duke of Kessington. There were two pages of accolades and honours bestowed upon the Dukes of Kessington since the sixteen hundreds. She read that Rossdale’s mother was deceased. Rossdale’s given name was John and he had no brothers or sisters. He bore his father’s second title by courtesy—the Marquess of Rossdale.

She groaned.

The heir of the Duke of Kessington.