Anne Barbour (2 page)

The older woman smiled fondly. “Well, you’d best come in. The vicar’s wife will probably be dropping by sometime soon. She said she would stop on her way back from the village with the embroidery floss she promised she’d pick up for me.”

“I’ll stop in a minute, Larkie. I just want to finish this border.”

Miss Larkin made no response, but smiled and returned to the cottage.

Hester experienced a wave of contentment as she bent once more to her task. Her life, she thought with pardonable satisfaction, had never progressed so smoothly. The leap from her early days as an underpaid governess with a burning hunger to redress the outrageous treatment of women in England to her present position as the foremost proponent of feminism in the country had been made in giant strides. Such was her success as a writer and speaker that she was at last financially independent of her family.

Her mouth twisted as she recalled the words her brother had spoken to her not a month earlier.

“Really, Hezzie, I wash my hands of you. If you persist in making us all a laughingstock, I have no choice but to cut the connection. You can’t know what it’s like to have people point at you, saying, ‘There goes Sir Barnaby Blayne. Pleasant fellow, but his sister is demented.’”

She had replied wearily, “Barney, do what you must. I haven’t accepted a penny from you in ten years, nor do I plan to avail myself of your dubious largesse at any time in the future. If you are so concerned about what people are saying, why don’t you just leave me alone?”

Indignation had sparked in her brother’s pale gray eyes as he spoke. “Because—well, dammit, Hezzie, you’re still m’sister. I don’t like to see you making a public quiz of yourself—even if you don’t seem to mind it.”

Hester had been forced to laugh. “No, I don’t mind at all. You will be surprised to learn, Barney, that there are a number of people in this country who applaud my work.”

“Nobody who counts for anything,” replied Barney promptly, thus destroying the brief moment of amity that had flickered between then. Since that moment, she had seen nothing of him, or his wife, the officious Belinda, nor her own two sisters, both of whom were firmly planted beneath Sir Barnaby’s thumb.

Well, so be it, thought Hester. She was happy here in her snug cottage, with her books and her friends, of whom she numbered some of the foremost intellectuals of the day. And there was Larkie. God bless the day she had accrued enough money to rescue her former nurse from her dismal flat in one of London’s seamier neighborhoods.

Hester smiled, but almost immediately afterward her lips turned downward. There was one minor cloud on her horizon. Well, perhaps not so minor. Her bequest from an indulgent aunt and the money she earned from her writings and lectures paid for most of the necessities of her life but there were other expenses that were a constant worry. The cottage mortgage, for example. The payments were not heavy, but every month she found that in order to meet them, other problems were ignored. The roof had been extensively patched and now it had become evident that a new one was needed. The chimney was in desperate need of cleaning—and Larkie needed new spectacles.

She sighed. Perhaps she should have embarked on another novel instead of a work of pure philosophy. The novels, of which she had published three, had proved unexpectedly successful, and while yet another tome on the plight of women in England would garner a substantial readership, it would not be nearly so profitable. It was not too late to abandon this work, entitled Women as an Underclass, in favor of another novel, but Hester felt compelled to produce something more serious at this point.

Hester leaned back on her heels, brushing the earth from her stained fingers. She remained so for a moment, her thoughts still on her financial difficulties. She had promised her publisher to finish Women as an Underclass in record time so that she could start on another novel, one that was to be much more Gothic in nature and would, he assured her, make them both a staggering amount of money. As a rule, she abhorred the Gothic genre, but—”

“You, there! Girl! Run inside and fetch your mistress!”

In her abstraction, Hester had not heard the rattle of horse and carriage, but she jumped at the peremptory insistence of the masculine voice. Good God, was he speaking to her?

“I said, you there! I wish to speak to the mistress of the house.”

Fire building in her eyes, Hester turned to behold a very large, extremely angry man bearing down on her.

Chapter Two

The stranger, having descended from an exceedingly dashing sporting vehicle, pushed through the gate, banging it against the post. As Hester rose to face the intruder, she became aware that she had been mistaken in one of her assumptions. Though he was tall, the man was not extraordinarily large. It was his barely controlled fury that made it seem as though he were looming over her. Actually, if it were not for his expression of disdainful wrath, he would have been considered handsome. He was dressed in the height of fashion, from the top of his curly-brimmed beaver to the soles of his blindingly polished Hessian boots. His hair, dark as midnight, waved lightly over his collar and his brows were slashes of jet over eyes that were also of a pure, flinty black. At the moment, they fairly glittered in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun.

The stranger paused to stand directly before Hester. “Did you not hear me?” he demanded. “I am in a hurry, girl. I wish to speak to your mistress.”

Taking a deep breath, Hester spoke pleasantly. “Well, I am in no hurry at all. In addition, I am not a girl, sir, and I am mistress here. Now, what can I do for you?”

The gentleman took a step back. “You?” He snorted. “That is impossible. I am looking for Miss Hester Blayne.”

“Present,” said Hester.

The gentleman’s expression grew insultingly incredulous. “Hester Blayne, the, er, the feminist?”

“One and the same,” replied Hester, still in a voice of controlled calm that would have boded ill for anyone who knew her well.

“If that is the case”—the words fairly crackled with disdain—”I demand that you produce my ward at once.”

At this, Hester drew herself up to her full, if somewhat inadequate, height.

“My good man, I do not know who you are, and I have no wish to remedy that circumstance. I will merely ask you to stop raving in incomprehensible periods and remove yourself from my front garden.”

So saying, she turned her back and began to walk toward the cottage. Thorne stared after her in astonishment. Affront was evident in every line of the woman’s body, and, he noted detachedly, a fine little body it was, too. He shook himself irritably and strode after her. He grasped her arm, but released it hurriedly as she whirled on him, fist upraised.

“It’s no good your taking that attitude,” he barked. “I know Chloe is here, and I demand to see her.”

“Now look here,” said Hester, and Thorne noted that the brown eyes that had seemed so large and soft a few moments ago had turned to miniature volcanoes, spitting fire and brimstone. “You may stand there and demand till your eyes bubble, but I will tell you again, I have no idea what you are talking about. I do not know any Chloe and I do not know you, a situation I devoutly hope will prevail. Now, if you do not leave, I shall be forced to send for the constable.”

Once more she turned away from him, and Thorne, loath to repeat his mistake, did not touch her, but stopped her by the simple expedient of placing himself in front of her.

“It is I who may be forced to call the constable, Miss Blayne. I am the Ear! of Bythorne, and I have every reason to believe that you are giving refuge to my ward, Miss Chloe Venable.”

The lady did not seem impressed with either his title or his statement. For a long moment, she simply stared at him. At length, she drew a deep breath.

“Though I feel that at this point it is unwarranted—my lord—I shall do you the courtesy of assuming you are not mad, but simply misinformed. I decline, however, to stand here brangling with you before the world. Will you come inside, please?”

Without waiting for an answer, she moved past him to open the cottage door. Again without waiting to see if he followed, she entered the little house.

Growling silently, Thorne trooped in behind her, then glanced, with some surprise, about the room in which he found himself. Though small, it was comfortable and furnished with an unusual degree of elegance. Her family must be fairly well-to-do, he surmised, or perhaps she was under the protection of a gentleman of means.

Gesturing to a chair, she rang a small bell placed on a sideboard and seated herself on a small settee opposite the seat taken by the earl.

“Now then,” she began with some asperity, “what are you blithering about?”

Grasping his temper with both hands, Thorne said harshly, “I am not blithering, Miss Blayne. My ward, Miss Chloe Venable, has run away from home, and it appears that she ran to you. Now, if you would have the goodness—

“I do not know anyone named Chloe Venable, my lord. And, even if I did, what makes you think she has come here?”

Thorne gritted his teeth and pulled Chloe’s note from his pocket. He read it aloud.

Hester heard him in silence. “Well, I can certainly understand why she would not wish to remain in the same house with you, but do you actually believe,” she continued in astonishment, “that
I
am the ‘Someone Who Will Understand’?”

Thorne then drew forth the charred letter he had found in Chloe’s hearth. “I believe this leaves little doubt as to your relationship,” he snarled. “It seems quite clear that you have encouraged her in her willfulness. This is your handwriting?”

He stood to wave the paper before her nose, and she snatched it from his hand to peruse it.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “It appears to be, but, I have never—

“Do you see,” continued Thorne acidly, “where it says, ‘please do come’? If that is not encouragement, I should very much like to know what is.”

“Oh, don’t be stupid,” retorted Miss Blayne, and Thorne felt himself swell with indignation.

“I tell you, I have no recollection of ever having met your ward. Apparently, I did write to her, but I write to hundreds of people, particularly young girls, in response to letters written to me. Now, do be quiet and let me think.”

Thorne stiffened. No female in his adult life had ever spoken to him thus. “Confound it—” he began, but Miss Blayne merely lifted her hand. To his own astonishment, he subsided into his chair. He watched her, disgruntled.

“I rather think,” she said at last, “that I do remember Miss Venable. As I recall, she wrote to me sometime last spring. She told me my book had changed her life.” She broke into a wide smile, and Thorne caught his breath at the sheer magic of it. Her cheeks pinkened, her eyes sparkled, and her face was transformed instantly from that of a rather plain spinster to that of a woodland sprite.

“No writer can resist those words, my lord. She wrote that she was visiting in the area and very much wished to see me, but was being prevented from doing so by her family. In my response, I thanked her for her kind words and added something polite to the effect that I should be pleased to see her should she ever be in the neighborhood.” She paused, frowning. “Where is that girl?” Rising, she went to the sideboard and rang the bell once more. She turned again to the earl. “And that, I’m afraid, is all I can tell you about your ward, my lord. I’m sorry she has run away, but I cannot help you.”

Thorne slumped in his chair, deflated. He had been so sure he would find Chloe in the clutches of the female rabble-rouser that he could only stare at her blankly, unmoving. She cleared her throat.

“I said, my lord, that I cannot help you.”

Thorne started.

“Yes,” he said petulantly. “That’s all very well. I shall take your word for it that she is not here, but I cannot help but feel it is all your fault that she has put me in this uncomfortable situation.”

Miss Blayne gasped. “Well, of all the—” She drew herself up. “It concerns me not in the slightest what you feel, you arrogant—” She clenched her jaw, then moved to the door and wrenched it open. “I think it is high time you—”

She was halted by the hurried entrance of a young woman dressed in servant’s garb.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” said the girl breathlessly. “I did not hear the bell at first, and—

“Chloe!” bellowed Thorne. The maid whirled about, white-faced, and catching sight of the earl, uttered a sound of choked horror.

“Uncle Thorne!” she gasped.

It was a good fifteen minutes before the chaos of the ensuing scene subsided.

“All right,” said Thorne at last, sinking once more into the chair from which he had leaped a few moments before. “I will accept. Miss Blayne, that you had no knowledge that your new serving maid was my recalcitrant ward—although one would think that it would behoove a female living alone to at least question the background of a young girl who appears suddenly on one’s doorstep asking for work.”

“I told you, my lord,” snapped Miss Blayne, “it was my companion who hired her. I have scarcely laid eyes on her since she arrived this morning.”

Remedying this omission, Hester turned to survey the young girl. She was a pretty little thing, all flying golden curls and blue eyes that were presently filled with apprehension. With a pang of guilt, Hester absorbed the fact that Miss Venable could not have presented to a prospective employer the impression that here was a competent maid-of-all-work. Those slender fingers had obviously never completed a task more onerous then embroidering a fine stitch and her roses-and-cream complexion bespoke a pampered existence. How could Larkie have hired her so unquestioningly?

As she spoke the name in her mind, the lady herself appeared.

“Gracious!” she cried, wiping her hands on her apron. “I just came back into the house from the kitchen garden. Whatever is all the uproar, Hester?” She stopped short at the sight of the earl, still seated on the edge of his chair. “Oh! I did not know you were entertaining guests, my dear.”