Claiming the Chaperon's Heart (2 page)

It had been too late for Beth and Amelia. Beth had married and was happily living at her husband’s estate, and Melia was living rather less happily with her aunt. Aunt Margaret was not in the least unkind, nor did she make unreasonable demands of her niece, but she was too old to attend many parties and those she did were very dull. She’d promised Melia a season in London when she was eighteen, but a nasty bout of gastro-enteritis had laid her low and then, just as she was recovering, she’d caught a chill. Her doctor said that London was out of the question, and Melia had almost resigned herself to giving up all idea of going to town until Beth was over the birth of her child and had finished nursing the babe.

‘I shall be on the shelf by then,’ Melia had told her friend Jacqui as they walked together through the grounds of Aunt Margaret’s house. ‘I shall die of boredom before I ever have a chance to fall in love and be married.’

‘What about Viscount Salisbury?’ her friend asked slyly. ‘I thought you and he swore undying love when you stayed at Beth’s house in the country?’

‘Yes, we did,’ Melia said, her eyes dancing with merriment. ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ She laughed as Jacqui nodded eagerly. ‘Well, he has been in the district visiting friends twice since then and we walked and rode together—and he has written to me and I to him...’

‘You could not!’ her friend cried, shocked. ‘That is so forward of you, Melia. Whatever would your aunt say if she knew?’

‘Well, she does not know for Bess gets the letters from the receiving house and brings them to me without her seeing them.’

‘She would be so angry if she knew you had deceived her.’ Jacqui was in awe and yet a little censorious. ‘Mama would shut me in my room for a month on bread and water if I did such a thing.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t,’ Melia replied and hugged her arm. ‘I dare say I should not had Mama lived. She would have invited young people to the house for me and I might have been engaged by now.’

‘Has the viscount asked you?’

‘No, but he will if I wish it.’ Melia’s eyes sparkled wickedly. ‘I am not yet sure if I wish to marry him, but I do want to find out. If we were to go to London, I should have the chance to meet so many pleasant young men...’

‘Well, you must get your aunt to write to Lady March and ask if she would be kind enough to have you as her guest when she goes up to town. I know for a fact that she has chaperoned other young girls since she was widowed, for one was my cousin. As you know her brother, Viscount Salisbury, I dare say he would prevail upon her to invite you.’

Melia had thought her friend’s suggestion a good one, for the families had been close before Jane and Beth were married, but, to make certain of a favourable answer, she’d written of her aunt’s illness to the viscount. The letter had clearly done its work and now she was to visit London, as she’d hoped—and, if she could achieve it, she would be engaged before the end of her visit, either to Viscount Salisbury or another...

Having finished her letter, Melia rang the bell for Bess. The maidservant had come to her aunt’s house with her and was devoted to her. Bess would not mind walking down to the village to see the letter went as soon as the next post bag was sent off to London. However, when she answered the bell, Bess was carrying a silver salver on which resided a letter addressed to Melia.

‘Thank you,’ she said and smiled at the woman who had nursed her from a babe and now looked after her clothes and tended her hair. ‘I want this letter to go off straight away. I’m going to visit Lady March and she is taking me to London—and you’ll be coming with us, Bess. You will enjoy that, won’t you?’

‘Well, miss, I know you will and I don’t mind anything if you’re happy.’

‘You are the best friend I ever had,’ Melia said and pounced on the plump, kind woman, arms about her waist as she kissed her cheek. ‘I do love you, Bess.’

‘Get on with you, Miss Melia,’ Bess said but her face was pink and smiling. ‘I’ll take your letter for you, no need for flattery...’

‘I wonder who could be writing to me,’ Melia said as she looked at the seal and then frowned, for it was a family crest. ‘Good gracious! Can this possibly be from...?’ She broke the wax seal and glanced at the letter.

Scanning the first few lines, Melia discovered that it was from someone calling himself her Cousin Paul. Papa’s cousin, not hers, Melia thought with a little frown. A look of annoyance settled over her pretty face as she continued to read the contents of her surprising letter.

I was concerned to learn that you had been asked to leave your home. It was against my wishes and I do most sincerely apologise for it. My hope is that you will forgive the mistake and return to your home. Clearly you cannot live there alone, though on my return from India in early June I shall be living at my house in London and will pay only brief visits to Willow House.

However, it is my intention that you shall be introduced into Society under the aegis of a friend of my mother’s, Lady Moira Fairhaven. Lady Moira, widowed these eighteen months past, is preparing to take her place in Society again this year, and will live with you at Willow House until you come up to London. She will be with you by the end of May and you may become accustomed to each other before coming to the house I shall take for you in town.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Frant

Well, really! Melia could not see why he should write her such a letter—as if the fact that he had inherited Papa’s estate made him her guardian. He was no such thing and she had no intention of doing as he asked. She would keep to her intention of being Lady March’s guest, though, had she not already arranged things to her liking, she supposed she might have been grateful to her father’s cousin for his offer.

Aunt Margaret must not know that she’d received this letter. If she read the contents she would say that Melia must remain here to meet her chaperon and do as her distant cousin asked. Putting her letter carefully away in the secret drawer of her writing slope, Melia wondered uncomfortably if perhaps her father’s will had given this distant cousin power over her. Yet surely Papa would never do such a thing? Neither she nor Beth had ever met the gentleman. She knew nothing about him, and she did not wish to. It was most disobliging of him to return to England now, just when Melia had everything in hand. She knew that if she wished to marry a suitable gentleman, her aunt would be only too willing to oblige her—but this stranger might have other ideas...

Chapter Two

‘T
his is being too kind, Adam,’ Paul Frant said. ‘I never expected you to accompany me to London, my dear fellow. Your help on the ship was invaluable, for I must confess that I have never felt quite as ill in my life as I did when that fever struck. However, I am on the mend now and you might have gone to your own estates after we docked at Portsmouth. I know you must have business to attend.’

‘I’ve never before known you to have a day’s illness,’ Adam, once Captain of His Majesty’s Own Guards, serving with the Indian troops, and now, newly, Viscount Hargreaves, said with a faint twist of his mouth. ‘It was not like you, for you fought on the Peninsula in Spain and came through, despite being wounded twice. I was concerned, my dear fellow. You still look a trifle weary.’

‘I feel less than my normal healthy self,’ Paul replied truthfully. ‘It pains me to say it, but for a while there I believed it was the end. I must have been carrying the fever with me, for some of my colleagues had it at the Company offices before I left. Poor Mainwaring died of it, leaving a widow and two young sons in England. His death was a part of the reason I decided to come home. Before he died, he asked me to make sure that his family received his pension and all that was due to him. I think he’d hoped to make his fortune out there, but unfortunately he was not good at business.’

‘Unlike you,’ Adam said with a wry twist of his lips. ‘You must be as rich as Croesus, Frant.’

‘I haven’t done too badly out of the Company,’ Paul said modestly. ‘Enough to give that poor child of Bellingham’s a decent dowry. I inherited the charge of her along with the title, for which I have not the slightest use, but I must accept it, I suppose, if I choose to live here. I’m not sure yet whether I shall do so. I may return to India when I’ve seen to things in England. I’m not certain I could settle to the life of an English gentleman.’

‘Find it a trifle dull after fighting the wild tribesmen of the hills, eh?’ Adam gave him an odd look. ‘Or is it the lure of a beautiful woman that calls you back, my friend?’

‘I had little time for ladies of any description; I left that to you and the rest of the Army,’ Paul mocked him gently. ‘Annamarie was beautiful; I give you that—but she was not to be trifled with. Only if I’d decided to marry her would I have thought of trying to capture her heart. If indeed she has one; I found her charming but with little real warmth.’ Paul had thought there was something hard and cold about the woman so many men admired.

‘She is a proud beauty,’ Adam said. ‘I admired her. It must be hard to be of mixed birth as she is, Paul. Her father was an Indian prince, her mother an English lady. Annamarie says that her father was married to her mother by a Christian priest; his other wives went into purdah after he died but Princess Helena was allowed to leave the palace and bring up her daughter as she pleased in a palace of her own. One might almost say that she’d been cast out by her royal relatives. Because of her marriage, which was not in the Indian way, some of her husband’s people think her a concubine rather than a wife.’

‘Yes, that is unfortunate. Princess Helena sent her daughter to the school for the daughters of English gentlemen,’ Paul said. ‘Annamarie was brought up to believe she was legitimate and, since her maternal grandfather still lives in Shropshire and is an earl, she has been accepted by some of the officer’s ladies...but not all. If it had not been for Colonel Bollingsworth’s wife, she might have found herself ostracised, but most followed her lead and accepted Annamarie into their company.’

‘Out there, some of the ladies allow a little leeway.’ Adam nodded to himself. ‘You know as well as I do why her mother does not send Annamarie to school in England. She would not be accepted into the top echelons of Society here, I think.’

‘Then Society is a fool,’ Paul said angrily. ‘She has every right to be accepted here, but it is the same in India—her father’s people treat her as an outcast. I believe she and her mother might do better to come home to England. I am sure such beauty as Annamarie’s would find many admirers and, if she were taken up by the Regent’s set, might do well enough.’

‘Yes, perhaps...’ Adam eased his long legs as the carriage drew to a halt. ‘Ah, I believe we are here. This is your house, Paul?’

‘It was my father’s but now mine,’ Paul replied with a twist of his lips. He was a good strong man, with fine legs and broad shoulders. Seen in company with Adam, he might not be thought handsome, but there was nothing coarse or ugly in his features. His chin was square and forthright, his eyes clear, his gaze sometimes piercing, but his mouth was softer than the rest of his features, a clue to the warmth of his heart. He had warm brown eyes and light brown hair, but not the pure blond of his companion’s locks. Adam’s profile was almost beautiful, his hair short but softly curled about perfect features, his eyes a blue some called cerulean and his mouth sensuous. His body had all the proportions of a Greek god and his skin the natural tan that came from being accustomed to a life outdoors in a warm climate.

‘Ah yes, your father.’ Adam frowned, uncertain now. ‘As I recall, you did not exactly see eye to eye with Lord Frant?’

‘No, and never could after the way he treated my mother and I...’

Paul’s eyes narrowed in anger. The row with his father after his mother died had split them apart. Paul had left his home vowing never to return while his father lived, and he’d kept his word. He’d made his own way, rising first to the rank of Major with Wellington at Salamanca and then, after a wound to his leg from which he recovered well, gave up the Army that would have bound him to an administrative position and used his share of the prize money to go out to India and invest with the Company. Some shrewd business moves had made him richer than he’d expected, and a fortunate encounter with a rich Maharaja had resulted in him being made an honorary son and given lands and palaces. If he chose to return to India, he could live like a prince and marry almost anyone he chose.

Paul knew that Annamarie had hoped he would ask her to be his wife. Because he’d once saved the life of a prince, Paul had a unique position in the region. It would have suited the daughter of an English lady and an Indian prince to marry a man who had both English rank and Indian favour. Together they might have been second in importance to the present Maharaja in the district. She’d made it quite clear that she hoped for a proposal of marriage before he left for England, but Paul had not been sure what he wanted.

In England he had inherited his father’s title and estates, but he knew that his younger brother—the son of his father’s second wife, although still only in his teens, would have been delighted to step into his shoes. Paul had no need of his family estates in England—and in particular he had not needed the bother of the small estate that had come to him through a distant cousin. The young girls who were made his wards by Bellingham’s will were a part of Paul’s reason for returning. Although he’d been told the older girl had married well, that still left the younger one—at eighteen, she was ready for marriage if a husband could be found for her. To that end, Paul had written to an old friend of his mother who had recently been widowed, asking her if she would be kind enough to chaperon the young girl. She had graciously given her consent, though the exchange of letters had taken months to complete. It was imperative that the girl be chaperoned, for Paul was unmarried and could therefore not fulfil his task of guardian without female assistance.

Some years had passed since Paul had met Lady Moira. He’d been seventeen then and it had been just before his mother died of grief over her husband’s infidelity, and the terrible quarrel that caused him to leave home and become an officer in the Guards. Fortunately, he’d had some small fortune left him by his maternal grandmother and when his own father cut him off without a penny was able to survive on his pay as an officer and his allowance from the inheritance. Later, he’d won prize money and honours and life had become much easier when an uncle left him a small fortune.

Paul knew that his father had bequeathed everything that was not entailed to his half-brother. He minded that not at all, and would have been glad to pass the rest of it over had he been sure he did not wish to live in England, but some small perverse part of him clung to what his father had been forced to leave him. How it must have gone against the grain with Lord Frant to know that the son of the wife he’d married for her dowry would have his title.

Paul would have freely admitted that the woman his father had taken in his mother’s place was beautiful. Goodness knew, his own mother had been far from a beauty, but she had a beautiful nature, gentle and loving—and her heart had been broken by her husband’s cold indifference.

Watching his mother fade, become frailer and sadder, had broken the young Paul’s heart and after her death he’d railed at his father for his cruelty.

‘I never loved her,’ his father had told him bluntly. ‘I needed her money to restore my estates—but it was not the fortune I’d been led to believe. A paltry twenty thousand...’

‘Twenty thousand would have been a fortune to many,’ Paul said. ‘If you’d put it to good use instead of wasting it on gambling and women...’

‘Your mother came from trade and it has not yet been bred out of you,’ his father sneered. ‘Had I known I should get no more when the old man died I’d never have taken the silly bitch.’

Paul had tried to knock him down then, but his father was a strong bull of a man and he’d sent the youth flying. Even so, Paul had tried again and again, until his face was cut and bleeding and he could not rise.

‘Well, you can take yourself off where you came from,’ his father said. ‘Go back to the mills and dens of the North and stay where you belong...’

His taunt was a cheap one, for though his maternal grandfather’s wealth had come from the mills of the North, they had been sold two generations back and the money invested in land. However, the Martins were better mill owners than farmers and much of their former wealth had been badly invested. Paul had received a bequest of ten thousand pounds on his grandfather’s death, and was the owner of several hundred acres of farmland, but had the family still owned the mills they would have been worth more.

Lord Frant had inherited the ten thousand that would have come to his wife on her father’s death, but thought nothing of the sum and promptly lost it in a week of frantic gambling at the tables.

Paul had known nothing of this or his own inheritance for some years, by which time he was well on the way to making his own fortune. Now, on the verge of entering the house that had been his father’s, he felt chilled. Standing in the dark, unwelcoming hall, he thought of turning tail and finding accommodation in a hotel, but pride would not let him.

‘Welcome home, my lord. It’s good to see you back.’

Paul looked hard at the black-clothed footman who had opened the door to them and his brow wrinkled in concentration. ‘Is it Matthews?’ he asked at last and saw the smile on the man’s face.

‘Yes, my lord,’ he said. ‘I worked as a boot boy when you were a lad, sir, then as a man of all work. I was made up to footman six years back.’

‘Were you now?’ Paul nodded, looking him over. He glanced about him. ‘I seem to remember this hall looked different when I last stayed here.’

The smile left Matthews’s face. ‘Yes, sir. I regret to say that his late lordship sold much of the furniture and the paintings last year.’

‘In debt again, I suppose,’ Paul said and sighed. ‘Has he left me anything worth having?’

‘Not much, my lord,’ the footman replied. ‘The bedrooms are mostly the same but the silver, pictures and some porcelain pieces have been sold. Your mother’s rooms were stripped bare years ago...’ Matthews looked awkward. ‘Thought you should know, sir.’

‘Well, what are a few bits and pieces?’ Paul said and laughed ruefully as he turned to his companion. ‘I’m sorry to bring you to such a place, Adam—but I dare say we’ve a bed to offer and, I hope, some food.’

‘Oh, yes, sir. Your instructions have been followed. A new housekeeper and cook were hired and the rooms opened up and cleaned. Mrs Brooks says she’s made one room look proper for you, sir; it used to be her ladyship’s sitting room...that is to say your mother’s room, my lord. I believe a fire has been lit there for you...’

‘Thank goodness someone has some sense,’ Paul said as he led the way through to a room he knew well. Matthews was directing two other footmen to carry his bags upstairs, and a woman had appeared from the room at the far end of the hall. She hurried forward, seeming flustered.

‘We were not sure when to expect you, sir.’

‘I think we should like some wine and a light meal in the green room, Mrs Brooks.’

‘Yes, my lord. I understood it was the room you favoured as a lad—and the other room usable is what was known as the library, sir.’

‘Don’t tell me the books have been sold?’

‘Some of them, sir. However, it is quite comfortable—until your lordship decides what to do about refurbishing the other rooms...’

Paul gave a wry laugh. The Frant library had contained some rare books and the loss of those meant more to him than any silver or paintings, but he could not do anything about that loss. His father had sold everything he could without actually breaking the entail, and he supposed he ought to have expected it. Had he come home with only a few guineas in his pocket he would have been in trouble, but as it was he could afford to smile at the pettiness of the man he’d called Father.

At least his mother’s room was comfortable, though not as he’d remembered it. Nothing of hers remained, but everything decent in the house must have been placed here and the comfortable wing chairs by the fire were more than adequate, as was the mahogany desk and elbow chair, the large settee and the sideboard on which some fine glasses and decanters stood waiting.

‘At least it seems I have some wine to offer you,’ Paul said, casting an eye over the contents. ‘Brandy, Madeira or Burgundy?’

‘A glass of Madeira, please,’ Adam said and stretched out in one of the chairs. ‘Well, you’ll be busy now, my friend, though I do not envy you the task. Buying furnishings is not my idea of amusement.’