‘Your low tastes are irrelevant.’ Lady Winforde contemplated the bedraggled figure in front of her with distaste, and Thea forced herself to meet those cold, colourless eyes as if it cost her no effort at all. ‘It’s not as if you have any claim to breeding, and my son will be taking a step down by marrying the granddaughter of a foundling.’

‘Your son is a gambler and a drunkard. No female with any regard for her comfort or sanity would willingly marry him, whatever her birth.’

‘Ah, but such a lady would not be shut in a gentleman’s bedchamber all night in the first place. How on earth you expect me to believe a door could stick at night and open freely in the morning I shall never know, but you have no choice but to accept my son’s offer. The poor boy thinks himself very hard done by I fear, having been trapped in such a distasteful fashion by a designing female with no pretensions to rank.’

‘No doubt unfettered access to my grandfather’s fortune will help him endure.’

‘How well you understand the matter. Now it’s high time you retired to your room to contemplate your undeserved good fortune.’

‘If you recall, Lady Winforde, my room is being refurbished. How unfortunate that such a catastrophic flood should force me to take up residence in the attics at such a time,’ Thea said drily.

‘Yes, the roof on that side is sadly neglected.’

‘How convenient.’

‘Oh, no, my dear, highly inconvenient when it puts you so far from my care and guidance, as last night’s escapade amply demonstrates. Never mind, once you are married to Granby you can join him in the master suite quite respectably.’

‘I’d rather share it with the lunatics at Bethlehem Hospital.’

‘Would you, niece? I’m sure that could be arranged, if you persist in showing such stubborn disregard for the conventions.’

‘I am not your niece.’ Thea had steadfastly refused to call the woman aunt from the day she and her repulsive son arrived under Grandfather’s much-maligned roof. ‘And my trustees would never believe such shameful lies.’

‘I think you might be surprised. Refusing such an honourable offer of matrimony, after being discovered in my son’s bedroom in such a state of disarray, will hardly convince them of your sanity. Especially when such impeccable witnesses discovered you in that dreadfully compromising situation.’

‘And just how were the vicar and his wife so conveniently to hand?’

‘What more natural in a worried aunt than to scour the countryside for her missing niece? It was hardly to be wondered at that a man of the cloth should rush to my side to offer support and succour at such a time.’

‘And his wife’s curiosity was the icing on the cake I suppose?’

‘What strange turns of phrase you possess, a legacy of your peculiar upbringing one can only suppose.’

‘There was nothing wrong with my upbringing,’ Thea was goaded into protesting and one of Lady Winforde’s plucked eyebrows rose incredulously as she let a smile fleetingly touch her thin lips.

Drat, she had let the scheming witch win another bout, and once upon a time she had thought herself so very clever.

‘Perhaps not for the granddaughter of a cit, but you are ill prepared to follow in my footsteps,’ her ladyship informed Thea haughtily. ‘Still, we must make the best of the inevitable. You will return to your room and compose yourself for your wedding to my son. A bride must prepare for such a solemn occasion.’

Thea was marched back to captivity by one of the thuggish servants the Winfordes had brought in when Grandfather was hardly cold in his grave. Somehow she must lull them into thinking her defeated; in the hope they would relax and give her a chance to escape.

Not that she feared another visit from Granby; even last night he did no more than half-heartedly molest her, until her virulent, and fluently expressed, disgust sent him back to his beloved brandy bottle. What an idiot she had been not to take the unscrupulous rogues seriously from the outset, when she might have stood a better chance of confounding them.

Thea plumped down on the narrow bed that was the only furniture in her dreary attic, apart from a broken joint stool. Tempting though it was to fall into a despairing stupor after such a night, she refused to give in. Somehow she would find a way out of this trap, even if it killed her. At least that would frustrate the conniving rogues after her fortune!

‘Confound it, Nick, I should have left you in Southampton,’ Major Marcus Ashfield, the new Lord Strensham, announced as he regarded his gaunt companion through narrowed eyes.

Even in the fading light of a March afternoon, he could see the stark pallor of his cousin’s thin face, and bitterly reproached himself for listening to the idiot’s demands to get him away from the sawbones.

‘Damn it, man, I should have let them take your arm off after all.’

‘Not losing my arm,’ his cousin mumbled, ‘nothing wrong with it.’

‘Only a festering slash from a French sabre to add to the bullet wound in your shoulder, and when did you study medicine?’

‘Know more about it than that bumbling fool,’ Captain the Honourable Nicholas Prestbury muttered darkly.

Marcus heard the slurring in his voice and noted his pigheaded relative’s feeble attempts to pretend he wasn’t about to fall out of his saddle. Evidently they could go no further today, but in the midst of this wilderness, where on earth could they safely stop?

‘Luckily even I know enough to tell you can go no further.’

‘Ride all night if I have to—never gave in when we marched over the Pyrenees.’

‘Maybe not, but you lacked two wounds and a fever to slow you down then.’

‘Won’t slow me down now.’

‘Stow it, you ass, of course they will.’

‘Sweep!’

‘Hyde Park Soldier!’

‘Always were an idiot,’ Nick muttered and finally lost the battle with his reeling senses.

Marcus was only just in time to steady his cousin’s slumped body and calm his spooked horse.

‘Thank heaven you have some manners, Hercules, old fellow,’ he murmured as his own horse stilled, obedient to the pressure of his rider’s legs, which was all Marcus could currently spare to control him.

The spirited bay snorted his disapproval of all that was going on around him, but fortunately made no attempt to gallop off when Marcus slid out of his saddle, while at the same time somehow keeping Nick in his until he could secure him.

‘We’re in the devil of a fix, old man,’ he informed himself as much as his long-time mount.

He finally managed to calm both horses to the extent where Nick’s precious black stallion was as quiet as he could ever be accused of being. Hercules nuzzled his owner’s shoulder as if to remind him there were more important things to think about than wayward cavalry officers and their restless mounts, such as oats and water, probably in that order.

Yet the woods were thick on either side of the track and it was at least a couple of miles since they had passed a rundown wayside tavern Marcus suspected must be the haunt of thieves, mainly because no one else would bother to go there. Maybe he should have insisted they stay for the night nevertheless, but he doubted his ability to guard his cousin and their horses so they could leave it again come morning. All he could do now was tie Nick to his saddle—as they sometimes had the lesser wounded on the march—and hope to find some sort of makeshift shelter for the coming night.

It was darker here than it would be in the open, and from the look of the overcast sky there would be no kindly moon to mark their path later. Marcus was contemplating making camp on the edge of the road when at last he caught a slight whiff of woodsmoke on the chill air. Used to moving in hostile territory, he was still too cautious to rush toward its source. This might not be Spain or France where hostile armies sometimes camped within yards of one another, but he wasn’t fool enough to think everyone in England a bluff John Bull, waiting to welcome the Marquis of Druro’s officers with unalloyed delight.

Cursing their vulnerability, he kept the horses as quiet as he could and listened intently. Nothing but the normal sounds of nature, which did little to help or hinder his attempts to plumb the darkness. Deciding all he could do was proceed with caution, he led the horses forward as quietly as possible. Of course it could be charcoal burners, but he was unsure they would be any better off with them than the rum company he might have found at the wayside inn. At last the scent led him down a ride and deeper into the forest, and he had no choice now but to follow it, for Nick was beginning to groan in his uneasy stupor and Marcus was desperate.

‘Idiot,’ he murmured, wishing now he had never listened to his cousin’s pleas not to be left behind in France for the surgeons to practise on when Marcus was forced to sell out and come home himself.

He was so busy wondering if there was a way to safeguard Nick’s limb from the knife that he almost missed the hut. Even in the twilight he could see how humble it was, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he rapped on the warped door. After a couple of very long minutes he grew impatient with waiting and called out.

‘We are benighted travellers and mean you no harm.’ His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the still clearing, but he was certain someone was inside pretending not to be and felt so thoroughly exasperated he didn’t much care if he frightened them. ‘Confound it, we need help!’

The householder seemed to consider his less than humble demands for shelter. ‘We ain’t got nothin’, go away!’ an anxious voice finally quavered, as if its owner was on the edge of panic.

‘Just open the door, child,’ he ordered more softly and waited with what little patience he could now summon.

Still the door stayed stubbornly closed and he finally had enough of standing outside like some frustrated lover pleading for admittance to his lady’s bower. Another groan from the direction of the now-tethered horses made him barge the warped barrier out of his way and force himself on the squatters, who must be the only ones desperate enough to want such a tumbledown shack in the first place.

‘I did say we needed succour,’ he said sharply as he stood on the threshold and surveyed the mean space within.

‘An’ I told yer we ’ad nowt,’ a surly voice mumbled in the darkness.

Instinct warned him to expect an attack of some sort, and he hastily raised his arm to take the blow from a bolt of wood instead of letting it hammer down on his head. Marcus shot out his hand to pin a slim wrist with merciless fingers until the improvised club fell to the floor and he forced his attacker’s arm up his back.

‘Ouch! You brute!’ the supposed child squeaked and he nearly let the girl go as he finally realised he had a slender and decidedly feminine body clamped against his own and not that of a scrubby youth after all.

‘Fortunately for you, ma’am, you are quite out in that assumption. Now shall we begin again?’

‘That fib would be a sight more convincing if you was to let me go.’

‘I may not be the villain you were anticipating, but neither am I a complete flat, my girl. So, do you promise to behave?’

‘Mumchance when you’m twice as big as me, your lordship.’

‘Never mind obfuscation, wench, promise not to attack again and I’ll let you go.’

‘I promise,’ she spat and the fury in her voice reassured him she meant to honour her word, as she was so furious about giving it.

Cautiously they stood like disengaged duellists, trying to assess their new positions in virtual darkness.

‘This is ridiculous, you must have the means to produce a light of some sort to have lit a fire in the first place.’

‘And wasn’t that a big mistake?’ the girl mumbled irritably as she fumbled about in the darkness to find the dark lantern that should have made him even more suspicious of her.

While it would have been a gross exaggeration to say the hut was flooded with light, the glow of a single tallow candle revealed the grim details.

‘There’s nothing here,’ Marcus exclaimed in disappointment, visions of getting Nick settled comfortably out of the cold and damp of an English spring vanishing like his breath on the chill air.

‘Told yer,’ the girl told him gleefully, arms folded across her skinny body as she nodded her triumph.

‘Which means you have naught either,’ he pointed out with excusable exasperation.

‘True,’ she acknowledged cheerfully enough and nodded in the direction from which he had come. ‘Road’s that way.’

‘I have no intention of dragging a wounded man any further along it tonight, so either you tolerate us for the night or leave yourself.’

‘I was here first,’ she said sulkily, the wind apparently taken out of her sails by the thought of a night in the open.

‘And ordinarily I should gallantly leave you to your solitude. However I have more important things to worry about tonight than a sullen runaway maid without a feather to fly with.’

On the point of impulsively informing the hateful creature that she actually had two pounds and ninepence ha’penny to her name, Thea just managed to keep her tongue between her teeth. Since that was all she had left of the few guineas she had managed to hide from the Winfordes, she had better keep quiet about her available fortune. She bit down on the urge to spark back and eyed the intruder balefully through the gloom.

She should never have given in to temptation to light that fire in the first place. Although she had let it out once her scratch meal was eaten, the damage was done. Still, she could have brought far worse down on herself than an officer in search of a billet for the night. Come to think of it, she could yet if she wasn’t more careful.

‘Am I correct in assuming that the “we” you spoke of was a lie to see off the fainthearted?’ he asked and she shivered.

Nobody would come to her aid if this man proved rather less of a gentleman than he appeared.

‘Maybe,’ she replied cautiously.

‘Either way you are the only person who can help me, so hold that lantern a little higher to guide me to the horses, will you?’ Seeing that she did not move, he made a noise of acute impatience and informed her sharply, ‘You’ll have a man’s life on your conscience before morning if you don’t help.’

‘And who says I’ve such a luxury?’

He sighed and took a shilling from his pocket and held it so it caught the poor light. ‘This does,’ he informed her so wearily that Thea almost dropped her guard and did as he bid her out of fellow feeling.

After three weeks of running and hiding and walking until she could walk no more, she had a lot of sympathy with the weary. Reminding herself she must not drop her guard, she eyed the shiny coin as if it represented nigh-irresistible temptation. It should of course, for heaven alone knew when she would have a chance to earn another one, so she nodded as if coming to a purely mercenary decision and signalled him to follow.

Complete darkness had fallen while they had stood arguing, but as her eyes adjusted to the night she saw a shadow move at the edge of the woods. Nervous of what she could not clearly see, she fought the urge to run back inside the hut and hide in a dusty corner.

‘My horse is wondering where on earth I got off to,’ the soldier’s voice reassured her gruffly.

His presence reassured her more than words and she relaxed a little as she let him lead the way. While she would find it unbearable to be ordered and bullied like a raw recruit in his regiment for long, for now it was oddly appealing.

‘Ah, but he’s a beauty, ain’t he?’ she murmured and reached out a gentle hand to the great horse so patiently awaiting his master.

‘Reluctant though I am to interrupt such a touching scene, more light would help me judge my cousin’s condition better.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ she murmured as she held the lantern aloft and saw the vibrancy of gold braid and dash that was a Hussar’s uniform, but which now only emphasised the thinness and pallor of the gentleman wearing it.

‘There’s a lean-to round the back of the hut where the charcoal burners kept their beasts,’ she volunteered and would have taken the bay’s reins, if the first soldier had not put out a hand to stop her.

‘Light the way while I lead them.’

Knowing he thought she would ride off with his horse, she flounced along the overgrown track to the hovel, where the few ancient bundles of hay might serve to bed the animals for the night, even if they could hardly eat it. The officer hitched the black’s reins to the sturdiest post he could see and untied the ropes that held his friend in the saddle. Thea forgot her anger at being so mistrusted and hung the lamp on a nail driven in for the purpose.

‘I can manage his feet if you hold his arms,’ she offered, only to step back in awe when he hefted the unconscious man out of the saddle, setting him gently on the nearest pile of hay.

She shook her head in astonishment at such mighty strength united with gentleness. It flew in the face of all her experience and she didn’t want to soften toward his sex, unless some miracle led her to sanctuary. Even then she would probably do well to avoid this abrupt gentleman. Silently she moved to soothe the restless black until he calmed down enough to let her rub him down with a wisp of hay.

‘You have a way with horses,’ the man said, and if he was expecting her to fall at his feet in delight at his compliment, he would be disappointed.

‘I like them,’ she told him, wishing she could hate him.

‘He must be able to tell. I’ve often seen the bad-tempered brute lash out when he has a mind to be awkward.’

‘Shame I can’t be a groom then, ain’t it?’ she replied lightly and went back to reassuring the restless stallion.

‘Yes, it’s a lot safer for a boy to wander about unprotected than a girl.’

‘I don’t need nobody’s protection,’ she lied as he lifted the packs the horses had carried and took out nosebags and a good supply of oats.

‘Soon as we get your friend bedded down we’ll water them,’ she observed. ‘He looks about to wake.’

‘The sooner we get him inside the better. Are you good with people?’

‘Can’t abide ’em.’

He chuckled and she tried not to smile, even if he couldn’t see her.

‘I thought not. Bring my pack along like a good girl, will you?’

She scowled and tried not to show the slightest awe when he hauled his lanky comrade into his arms and bore him as if he weighed little more than a child.

Chapter Two

‘Light the fire again,’ the tall rifleman ordered, when they were inside the hut with the door safely shut behind them.

‘It’ll give us away.’

‘I have a rifle, four pistols, a sword and a cavalry officer’s sabre at my disposal, so I think we can deal with any intruders, don’t you?’

‘I dare say Boney’s too busy to call tonight, so likely we can.’

‘A wench with a sense of humour, how refreshing,’ he said drily and Thea subsided into mutinous sulks once more.

As she reached for the precious kindling she had gathered in case she could not get through the night without the comfort of a fire, she wondered just what the pampered girl of a few months ago would have made of this ridiculous situation. In all likelihood silly Miss Hardy would have thought a dark stranger in rifleman’s green deliciously overwhelming, and fallen headlong in love with him at first sight.

‘Silly clunch,’ she murmured at the very thought.

‘Who is?’

‘Who is what?’

‘I may be a clunch, but I’m not a deaf one.’

‘I meant someone else,’ she said, surprised to find she didn’t want to hurt his feelings after all. ‘A young lady at the last house I was in. She insisted her fire must be lit three hours before she got up every morning, so there was no risk of her delicate little feet getting cold. The maids had to rise early in the winter just to do as she bid us.’

Ashamed of the memory of that unnecessary demand, Thea was glad the subdued light would hide her blush. What an inconsiderate, objectionable female she had been, before the Winfordes took a hand in her education.

‘Cold-hearted bitch,’ he growled, and, if it had not been her true self he was traducing, she might have been warmed by his partisanship.

‘I dare say she’s learnt her lesson now. They say she’s to be wed for the sake of her fortune.’

To her surprise she saw a blush fire his tanned cheeks as the fire caught properly and began to warm the room at last.

‘We need hot water. There’s probably a shaving mug somewhere in my pack if you can find nothing else to boil it in.’

‘Then you find it. I’m not putting my hands in there. They might come out without some fingers.’

His teeth flashed white in the firelight as he grinned at her maidenly refusal to search a soldier’s possessions, and for once did as he was bid.

‘You really are a most unusual female,’ he told her as he handed her the tin mug, almost as if he approved of her rather odd behaviour.

She filled it carefully from the handleless jug she had made sure was full to the brim earlier, so she would not need to venture outside until morning. A precaution she might just as easily have not bothered with, as it happened.

‘Because I like my fingers where they are?’

‘Because you don’t mind saying so.’

‘They always said I had a big mouth,’ she acknowledged with an answering grin, and for a moment felt a peculiar heat run through her like warm lightning as he laughed and his rather sombre personality was temporarily transfigured.

Suddenly she could picture him, light-hearted and welcoming as he bid guests welcome to his home. War and responsibility had made him serious, but she imagined him transformed—galloping that great horse of his through summer meadows just for the joy of it, as he laughed with the lucky female who rode at his side, matching him pace for pace. Putting herself into that very attractive picture, she knew her heart would be in the smile she returned, that earlier jag of fire that had spread through her growing ever sweeter….

‘There, and won’t you look at that!’ she exclaimed with every excuse for annoyance, as a spark flew out of the fire when she poked at it unwarily and scorched her disreputable skirts before she could slap it out. ‘They said I was clumsy as well.’

‘They?’ he asked companionably, glad of any diversion from the task of discovering the state of Nick’s wounds.

‘The folk at the Foundling,’ she improvised, fervently hoping he knew less about such charitable institutions than she did.

‘No doubt very worthy people, but not given to spoiling their charges, perhaps?’

His voice was gentle as he contemplated the privations of an orphan’s life, and Thea felt guilty once more as she considered her very privileged existence as one until just lately. Grandfather had given her everything she asked for, apart from stubbornly insisting she must wed a man with a title. He even specified it in his will, and of course Granby had a title. She shuddered at the very thought and moved closer to the warmth of the fire.

‘They didn’t hurt you, I hope?’

He had evidently seen that shiver. She felt the burden of untruth weigh heavy on her slender shoulders, but too much depended on her staying out of the Winfordes’ clutches to resort to the truth now.

‘No, but I had to run away from my last place.’

‘Considering you find this place preferable, I can only imagine that the alternative must have been dire indeed.’

‘It was,’ she replied and could not hold back another shudder as she recalled the repulsive feel of Granby’s damp hands roughly thrusting at the neck of her gown as she gagged from sheer horror.

‘Not all men are brutes, you know.’

‘No, some try honey before resorting to vinegar,’ she said cynically, recalling some of the titled suitors Grandfather had lured to Hardy House.

Those poor and desperate men had soon put her off becoming Lady This or the Marchioness of That.

‘You have been unfortunate. Somewhere there must be an honest young fellow just waiting to value your youth and wit.’

‘Yes, most of them can’t wait to stone me from any parish that might be burdened with the burying of me, after they let me starve to death within their bounds,’ she said bitterly.

‘With a chance of earning an honest living, you might meet someone.’

‘And, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, now what of this poor man you were supposed to be so concerned about?’

‘Is the water hot yet?’

‘Any hotter and it’ll do him more harm than good.’

‘Hold that light as steady as you can then, while I see what the idiot’s done to himself this time.’

Thea gulped and reminded herself that she was a soldier’s daughter, even if she could hardly remember either of her parents. Her mother had eloped with a handsome subaltern, so perhaps this ridiculous attraction to the military was in her blood. Within five years both her parents were dead and her grandfather insisted she carry his name, then made the best of a bad job.

It took all her flagging courage to do the same now, and she gasped in shock when the warm water finally soaked the poor man’s dressing off, and revealed the angry slash marring the length of his upper arm. She gazed down at the puckered wound and the number of stitches holding it closed, and wondered how the unconscious man could have borne the jarring that riding must have inflicted on his wounds.

‘He should be in bed!’ she exclaimed.

‘If I hadn’t brought him with me, he was threatening to set out alone as soon as my back was turned. He always was stubborn as a mule.’

Thinking of this man’s determination to get his own way by fair means or foul, Thea raised her brows sceptically in the useful gesture she had learnt from her bitter enemy. He flashed her an unrepentant grin, then distracted her from thinking about the leap of her heart that it had caused her by bending down to sniff the wound.

‘According to his long-suffering doctor, if it starts to smell sweet I’m to get him to a sawbones as fast as I can tie him to his horse and force him there. Otherwise the damn fool stands as much chance of keeping his beloved arm as he might if he had had the sense to stay in bed in the first place.’

‘In other words, he’s getting better?’

‘So I concluded, but when he fainted on me tonight I began to think he was as big an idiot as his physician.’

‘And instead he’s just a run-of-the-mill idiot?’

He chuckled. ‘Nothing about Mad Nick is commonplace.’

‘Nevertheless you are very fond of him, I think?’

‘Maybe,’ he said, but Thea had seen his affection for his relative in his actions tonight and perhaps he thought it was too late to pretend to mere duty. ‘We both suffered for our respective mothers’ sins, so I understand him better than most, I suppose.’

‘I don’t see how you could be made to suffer for your mother’s deeds.’ She forced bitterness into her voice by remembering her grandfather and his twin brother, abandoned on the doorstep of the foundling hospital.

‘Oh, we weren’t, at least not in the way you must have been. Anyway, I must get this mess cleaned and rebandaged, so, for the sake of Nick’s sensibilities, perhaps you could water the horses and give him freedom to swear like one of his troopers? Not even he can sleep through that, and you will inhibit him sadly.’

She hesitated, fighting her fear of the dark wood.

‘Take this if it’ll make you feel better,’ he offered, handing her an evil-looking pistol, which she examined as if it might bite. ‘It’s loaded, so just draw this back and pull the trigger when you’re close enough to disable your quarry.’

Thea gulped as she contemplated actually using a gun on her fellow man. Even if Granby was lurking out there in the darkness, she would not be able to shoot him, so she pulled back from it with horror.

‘Couldn’t I scream for you?’

‘It might be too late by the time I find you, but since this is England and black night I dare say you’ll be safe enough.’

‘Yes, I dare say,’ she said, with the oddest feeling of disappointment she had ever suffered in her life because he didn’t think her worth protecting.

‘Well, then, if you would not mind, Miss…We appear to have omitted to introduce ourselves. The gentleman on the floor is Captain Nicholas Prestbury of the 10th Hussars and I am Major Marcus Ashfield of the 95th Rifles and at your service, ma’am,’ he said with a half-mocking bow.

She bobbed him a perfunctory curtsy, copied from those long-suffering maids at Hardy House. ‘Hetty Smith, Major,’ she lied.

‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Smith.’

‘I doubt that, sir.’

‘How did you come to that conclusion, my dear?’ he asked, acute interest suddenly lighting his dark gaze.

‘I ain’t your dear.’

‘Odd how that accent of yours comes and goes, is it not?’ he mused and Thea cursed her own carelessness, even as she wondered how she could explain her lapses.

12 İz.

Housemaid Heiress

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Housemaid HeiressElizabeth Beacon

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Housemaid Heiress
Elizabeth Beacon