Helen Dickson (22 page)

‘I’m sure you won’t have any difficulty in doing so.’

Charles’s face was expressionless. His eyes were empty, a glacial blue emptiness that told her nothing of what he felt. He spoke only seven words.

‘I think you have said quite enough,’ he said, then turning on his heel, his composure held tightly about him, he strode from the room.

Full of anger and of a longing regret, Maria watched him leave and wanted to call him back. She felt the pressure inside her of rage and hurt and tears, which strangled the words in her throat.
I do want you—of course I do.
She lowered her head, full of panic, forcing herself to build a barricade around her.
Don’t let him in. He’ll hurt you—again and again.

It was time to leave. Settled in the shining new carriage with Ruby beside her, having said her goodbyes to Lady Osbourne, she looked at Charles. He looked so handsome with the sun casting a warm halo about his dark head—and so distant, so cold when he looked at her. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was for all that had happened between them, but an image of the woman in his arms intruded into her mind and her pride came forth, forbidding her that comfort.

Maria would have been surprised to know that as Charles stood aside to watch her go, despite his impassive expression, inside him everything was breaking up, for he could not contemplate a life without her in it.

Once the carriage had pulled away, all the emotions Maria had been forced to suppress surged up inside her. An acid feeling of helplessness swirled through her. The anguish of their parting was ferocious. She, who had until recently been betrothed to one man, had rejected him—and fallen in love with Charles Osbourne. She was savage in her anger, not just with herself for allowing it to happen, but with him for encouraging it—especially at this time when she was in a precarious position, and she felt herself torn most distressfully by a raging conflict of emotions.

Had he thought of her when he held that woman in his arms? An ache so fierce and sharp that it caught her breath shot through her, a tormenting, fierce thrust of hot female need, unfamiliar to her and shocking in its intensity.

As Charles strode back into the house, his expression was as murderous as his feelings. He told himself that Maria would come back. But the one painful and irrefutable fact that he could not ignore was that she had run from him and he hadn’t the faintest idea why.

His first thought was to go after her, demand an explanation for why she was behaving like this, but on second thoughts he decided it would be best to wait a while before following her to Gravely—if he could bring himself to do that—so that she could think over the situation in a calm and prudent fashion. For his part he realised his proposal had been made in a less than romantic fashion and he would have to find a way to remedy that.

The morning after Maria had left Grosvenor Square, another carriage pulled up outside the Osbourne residence. Lady Osbourne’s younger daughter, Georgina, accompanied by two boisterous children, alighted. She cast a concerned glance at her handsome older brother who had come to the door to receive her.

Bending his head, he kissed her cheek affectionately. ‘Good morning, Georgina. Not a word to Mother about yesterday,’ he said, pulling her arm through his and walking with her into the house, the children scampering on ahead. ‘I don’t wish to upset her.’

Georgina gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘I
wouldn’t dream of it. How is your arm, by the way? Not too painful, I hope.’

‘It’s just a flesh wound and should soon heal. I’ve suffered worse.’

‘I’m sure you have, but promise me you won’t make a habit of duelling, Charles. I don’t think my nerves could stand it. I don’t approve of grown men settling their quarrels in that way.’

‘You shouldn’t have been there, Georgina,’ Charles rebuked. ‘Little did I know when I asked your husband to be my second he would bring you along. He should have had more sense than to allow a respectable young woman to attend a duel.’

‘Michael couldn’t stop me. He did try, but I insisted. I wanted to be there. It wasn’t a fair fight, was it—Colonel Winston firing before the call? Next time choose sabres. All it takes is a good aim and a steady eye. Now, let’s forget about that wretched duel and come and introduce me to the lady whose honour you were fighting for. I’m so looking forward to meeting her.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Oh, why not?’

‘She left for Sussex—yesterday morning, as a matter of fact.’

Georgina stopped and looked at him in blank disbelief, worried by what she saw. His face looked hard and cold as granite, his attitude even to her was distant, and there were deep lines etched at his eyes and mouth. He looked as if he hadn’t been to sleep in a week. Her expression was one of sympathy and disappointment.

‘I’m sorry, Charles. Wasn’t it rather sudden?’

‘Very.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘Not a word.’

‘But—how very odd. I thought…’

He looked at her sharply. ‘What did you think, Georgina?’

‘With the amount of attention you have been showing her, that at last you might have found a woman to settle down with. Clearly I was mistaken.’

He sighed. ‘You weren’t mistaken. I asked Maria to be my wife.’

Georgina’s eyes lit up. ‘You did? And?’

‘She turned me down.’

‘Oh.’ Georgina was unable to hide her disappointment.

‘She thought I was asking her out of pity and responsibility, not because I cared for her.’

‘And you do care for her, don’t you, Charles? After all, you would have died for her. I’ve heard how you speak about her. She is the one, isn’t she? And you let her go.’

He nodded, his jaw tense. ‘I’m a fool.’

‘Go after her.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she left me. What am I supposed to do?’

‘Whatever it takes,’ his sister told him forcefully. ‘Anything is better than losing her because of your silly male pride.’

S
uspended between the North and South Downs in the high, broken patchwork of the Sussex Weald, a place of charming villages on hillsides once cloaked by the vast, prehistoric Forest of Anderida, was Gravely Manor, a splendid house, not a particularly large one, but gracious and welcoming, standing in an idyllic position among the hills.

Crossing the narrow wooden bridge that spanned a wide, slowly moving stream, when the house came into view Maria gazed at it, her eyes inspecting every aspect. Beautiful shrubs grew around the house, and sweet honeysuckle climbed in profusion up the walls. Little had changed. It was a joy to the eye, as were the horse chestnut trees, which had been a glory in the early summer with their thickly clustered brilliant cascades of pink and white flowers, and were now clothed in conkers, which would soon begin to fall.

She sighed, her lips curving in a sad smile. The years had been kind to her old home, though not so kind to her,
for she could not shake off the feeling that she would be as a stranger when she walked through the door.

She was greeted by Mr and Mrs Thomas, a pleasant couple in middle age. They assured her that she would find everything in order and, abiding by her instructions, had taken on more staff. After thanking them and leaving Ruby to take charge of their baggage, she wandered listlessly through the rooms where the furniture remained much as it had been before her departure.

Like many nabobs, her father had chosen to spend some of his fortune on a country estate and, true to form, he had decorated the interior of his house with furniture, paintings and miniatures reflecting his abiding interest in Indian culture, but now he was no longer with her these things had lost their appeal to Maria.

In despair she sank to the edge of a chair, aching inside. The elusive sound of her father’s voice shouting a lusty welcome whenever she sought him out drifted through her mind, while the faces of the past she had known in childhood passed wraithlike through her memory. She had been happy living in this house with her father, but nothing was left of the gaiety she had known here. Its charm, like the rest of her loved ones, was gone for ever—like Charles, for he, too, was gone.

Her heart beat agonisingly, despairingly, for she wanted Charles’s arms about her, wanted his hard, protecting body against hers, his lips on hers in the way of a man who loves a woman. He did love a woman, but it wasn’t her and she must find the strength to accept that.

It had been two weeks since the duel, two weeks since Maria had left his home and stormed out of his
life. Charles had gone through the following days in a state of fury, regret and a fog of desolation.

His briefings with those he had worked for in France at an end, he attended an endless round of social events, going through them all with his usual aloof, cordial reserve. But everywhere he went he had the same brooding, angry feeling that nothing could dispel.

Wandering into Maria’s room shortly after she’d left, he looked around, gently touching the things she had touched. Going to the dressing table, he picked up a rumpled handkerchief she had absently set down on a cut-glass tray. Picking it up, he placed it to his nose, smelling the sweet essence of her perfume. He was tempted to pocket the handkerchief, a treasured memento from a dark-haired angel with laughing green eyes.

Charles felt as if he was shattering into a thousand pieces as his fingers tightened convulsively around it, and then he forced himself to let it go. Just as he had forced himself to let Maria go. Bitter rage boiled up inside of him at her casual rejection of his proposal of marriage, and after casting the delicate fabric to the floor, his hand clenched into a fist with the savage urge to smash something, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

For Maria, life slowly began to take on some normality. Picking up the threads of her life, with courage and determination she devoted herself to running Gravely. At nineteen years old she was her own mistress, and despite her loneliness and the loss of the man she loved—a painful love that blurred her mind—she had come home, where she tried to convince herself she belonged.

When news of her arrival got about the neighbour-hood, people began calling and she returned their calls. As the days passed she became contented and busy, and she adamantly refused to think of Charles or the events that had driven her from London, but suddenly everything changed when she received a letter from Constance, who was a fugitive in France and begged Maria to help her.

Constance wrote how their worst fears had been realised and that the chateau had been set on fire by the mob shortly after Maria had left. Maria’s aunt had died in the flames and Constance had managed to escape and hide in the woods. A groom had befriended her and taken her to the coast, to a village close to Calais, where she was in hiding and desperate to get to England.

Maria was deeply distressed by the contents of her cousin’s letter and could well imagine how terrified Constance must be. She must do something, and immediately. There was no time to be lost. She could not go to France herself, but—but Charles could.

Charles. There was no one else.

Her cousin’s letter was not only forcing Maria to think of Charles, but to see him. She was shocked. It was unbearable to be forced to think of him so soon after the fierce battle she had fought with herself to put him from her mind and thoughts. To have to think of him now, at a time when she was feeling so vulnerable, filled her with an intense feeling of loss and grief. But who else could she turn to for help? She knew of no one. There was nothing else for it. She would have to return to London and confront him, to throw herself on his mercy.

Darkness had settled over the afternoon and the windows of the house in Grosvenor Square were aglow with lights when the coach pulled to a stop. Only then did Maria realise that such had been her anxiety over Constance and her haste to reach London that she had given little thought to what she would do if Charles was not at home. Nor had she given any thought as to where she and Ruby were to stay. She knew no one in London and she could not impose on Charles and Lady Osbourne.

It was Denning who opened the door. He stared in amazement as the beautiful young woman wrapped in an aquamarine velvet cape lined with white ermine, swept inside. When she pushed the hood back on to her shoulders, his face broke into a smile of recognition and he favoured her with a broad, welcoming smile.

‘Welcome back, Miss Monkton. You are here to see Sir Charles?’

‘I am, Denning. I apologise for my untimely and unexpected arrival. I would very much like to see Lady Osbourne, too, if I may.’

‘Lady Osbourne is away from home visiting friends, Miss Monkton, but Sir Charles is in the drawing room. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you. I shall inform him you are here.’

As Denning went towards the drawing room he was uncertain how Sir Charles would react to Miss Monkton’s arrival. Being a quiet observer of everything that went on in the house, nothing escaped his notice, not even the fact that relations had been extremely frosty between the young lady and his master on the day she
had left for her home in Sussex. Sir Charles’s mood had been black and morose ever since.

With a reassuring smile at the nervous young woman as she swept past him, Denning closed the door behind her. Charles was standing by the fireplace, drinking a glass of brandy before leaving for his club. He lifted one eyebrow.

‘Well!’ he exclaimed, giving no indication of how his heartbeat quickened or the astonishment he felt that Maria had sought him out. He held his body rigid, tense with conflicting emotions, as he struggled to master himself. He knew something unthinkable had happened to him. He had felt it, he supposed, at the start—when she had been feeding the hungry children and they had exchanged angry words. She had left the very essence of herself in the house when she had left, entering into that place that had been so sorely hurt when she had refused to become his wife—his heart, the flesh and bones of him, which had ached for her.

‘I didn’t believe Denning when he told me you were gracing us with your presence. I was under the impression,’ he said in such Arctic tones that Maria felt an involuntary shiver down her spine, ‘that everything had been said between us. So what brings you here with such urgency? No doubt you have excellent reasons.’

The tone, aggressive and deliberately offensive, would, in the normal way, have provoked Maria to an equally stinging reply. But she knew if she wanted to save Constance she must cast off her pride and humble herself. ‘Yes.’

He looked at her, the memories of their time together, the memories he couldn’t seem to stifle parading across his mind. But most of all he remembered how she felt
when she melted in his arms, the sweet generosity of that soft mouth of hers.

Furious with his weakening resolve, he shoved himself away from the fireplace, put his glass down and faced her. Maria actually flinched at the coldness in his eyes as they raked over her. ‘You are well?’

She swallowed convulsively. He was so stern, so rigid, so oppressive and yet so…breathtaking. She could feel his scorching gaze on her and bravely met it head-on.

‘I am very well, thank you,’ she replied quietly. ‘And you, Charles?’

He nodded curtly. ‘As you see. Forgive me, Maria, if I appear surprised to see you back in London so soon. I confess I am baffled by it. I imagined you would be fully occupied at Gravely putting your house in order.’

‘I am—I was. I—I have something to ask you.’ She could sense he was wary, that his guard had not dropped. There was still a distance between them that might never be closed. The startling light blue eyes rested on her ironically.

‘Of what possible help could I be to you? Have you come to tell me you have considered my proposal of marriage and have decided to accept—to use all your feminine wiles to placate me? If so, you can forget it.’

‘I—I haven’t…’ she stammered.

‘Good,’ he bit back, ignoring the painful twist to his heart. ‘When I asked you to be my wife I did so because I wanted to give you the protection of my name, to give you a life replete with every luxury within my power to grant you—and also because I thought you cared for me as much as I have come to care for you. It was an insane idea and I curse ever having thought of it.’

Maria controlled a tremor of temper as his tall, powerful frame moved from the fireplace and he stood watching her. He had not invited her to a seat and she knew he was deliberately keeping her on tenterhooks until he found out the full reason for her visit. He was treating her as if there had been nothing between them, as if they had not shared tender moments of passion.

His eyes never left hers as she walked—at the cost of a violent effort of will towards him on legs that felt like jelly—over the miles of empty desert that the room seemed to have become. A mere step away from him she paused to still the quaking of her knees. With her head bowed, she waited a moment before lifting her head and raising her shining eyes to his.

‘Charles, please listen to me,’ she begged a trifle impatiently, unable to hide the desperation in her voice, keen to get down to the business in hand. ‘I haven’t come to speak of that.’

‘Then what? Well, Maria…I am waiting,’ he demanded in a lazy, sensual drawl that always made Maria’s heart melt. He was leaning with one arm resting on the mantelpiece, dark and imperturbable, infuriatingly unresponsive to Maria’s beseeching green eyes. ‘What is it that is so important that has brought you back to this house—to see me?’

‘The purpose of my visit is because I need your help quite desperately.’

He arched his brows. ‘You do? And I was under the impression that you never wanted to set eyes on me again,’ he retorted drily.

Maria drew a tortured breath, trying not to show
her fear. ‘Please, Charles, I have not come here to argue with you.’

‘No, of course you haven’t. So what is it you want me to do that you cannot do yourself? Why have you come to me?’

‘Because you have connections that are not available to most men—and besides, I didn’t know who else to turn to.’

His eyebrows crawled slowly upwards. ‘Really?’ Despite his resolution not to give a damn what her problems were, he was a little unnerved by her visible anxiety. ‘What is it you want?’

‘I want you to rescue Constance.’

‘Constance?’ Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t this.

‘Something dreadful happened when we left the chateau, Charles—something frightful. It was burned and my aunt, along with many of the servants, died in the fire. According to Constance, the mob showed no mercy.’

Charles’s expression softened and he nodded sombrely, studying Maria with an enigmatic expression in his eyes. ‘I’m truly sorry, though it comes as no surprise. The Countess was a stubborn woman. I gave her strong warning of what might happen.’

‘I know you did and if only she had heeded your warning and come to England with us she would still be alive. But there is nothing to be done now except to help Constance. She managed to escape with the help of a groom and made it to the coast. It cannot have been easy for her and she must be suffering dreadfully. She says she has been ill and is very weak from her journey and having to constantly conceal her identity. The
people who are hiding her are kindly folk, but she lives in constant fear that she will be discovered.’