Regency Innocents (26 page)

He'd spent a sleepless night, remembering how she had looked reclining on that bank of pillows and wishing he could be beside her. Racking his brains to think of some way he could achieve that goal.

While he had been shaving, he'd had a brainwave. For a couple of days he would have Heloise to himself, while Robert was recovering. He could make a start by showing her over the house. And while he was doing that he would persuade her that it might be a good idea to learn to drive the estate gig. The narrow seat of the two-wheeled vehicle could only accommodate a driver and one passenger. They would have to go out on their own. He would have to take hold of her hands to teach her how to use the reins. She would get used to him touching and holding her, under the guise of accepting instruction, and slowly she would cease to feel threatened by him. When they reached that point
he would slide his arm about her waist, or her shoulder. He would inform her that her bonnet was most becoming, and drop a kiss on her cheek …

A less contained man than he would have whistled on the staircase as he went down to breakfast.

And would then have thumped Giddings for informing him that his bailiff was already waiting for him in the estate office.

Why had he forgotten that he always spent his first day at Wycke going over the estate accounts? And damn the place anyway, for its relentless routine which ground any hope of spontaneity into the dust!

Heloise checked on the threshold of the breakfast room when she saw the thunderous expression on his face. A stickler for good manners, he got to his feet and bade her a gruff good morning, but it was evident he had not expected her presence at the breakfast table.

The room was far nicer than the one where they had dined the night before. It was smaller, for one thing, and the floor-to-ceiling windows gave a view over a gravelled parterre in the centre of which an ornamental fountain played. The table was round, and lacked formal place-settings. If Charles had not retreated behind his newspaper, indicating his preference for solitude, she could have sat next to him.

‘I had thought you might like a tour of the house this morning,' he said, as she helped herself to some chocolate from a silver pot which stood on a sideboard. ‘Unfortunately I have pressing estate business to see to, else I would have taken you around myself.'

‘It is of no matter.' Heloise shrugged. She would have years to explore this horrid house, and would probably come to detest every inch of it. ‘I will go and make a visit
with Robert, see how he does. And after I shall take a walk through the gardens.'

‘I have another suggestion,' he put in hastily. He had to wean her from the habit of turning to Robert. ‘Have Mrs Lanyon take you over the house this morning. She knows far more about its history than I, in any case. She has made quite a study of it. And, you know, it would be a good opportunity to get on terms with the woman.' They had not got off to a good start. ‘You are going to have to deal with her on a regular basis …'

Yes, Mrs Lanyon was to be her jailer! Breaking open a bread roll with rather more force than was necessary, Heloise considered her husband's advice. It was bad enough that she was going to have to live in this wilderness, let alone with a woman who despised her. One who wielded such immense power over the staff as well.

‘You are right,' she sighed.

‘Then I shall arrange it. Also,' he added in a deceptively casual tone, ‘one day soon, since the estate is so large and you do not ride, I shall teach you to drive a gig. Then you will be able to get around more independently.' He studied her downbent head with a growing feeling of disquiet. It was almost as if she sensed his suggestion was merely a ruse to get her alone, and was thinking of excuses to put him off. ‘It would be a great pity to be restricted to the house when there are so many delightful vistas just a short drive away,' he went on, in some desperation. ‘Once you become proficient I should not object to you driving yourself into the village on occasion—provided, of course, you took your maid.'

Heloise could hardly swallow her bread and honey for the lump which formed in her throat.

He might not be able to feel any affection for her, but
he was clearly not going to leave her here until he was fairly sure she had the means to be comfortable. He was intent on smoothing her way with the formidable Mrs Lanyon, and had come up with a plan to ensure she had a degree of freedom when he was no longer there.

Though he did own a village, and held the lives of so many people in the palm of his hand, he was by no means a tyrant. His strict sense of duty ensured he looked out for the welfare of all his dependants, be they tenants or injured and estranged brothers, or ill-chosen wives. How could she help loving him?

She sighed. It would take a remarkable woman to earn his regard. She did not know why she had even thought it was worth trying.

There was no point in her wearing transparent nightgowns and dousing herself with perfume to try to titillate his manly impulses. Or trying to worm her way into his busy life by interrupting him at the breakfast table when he clearly would much rather be reading his paper. She would revert to the routine they had set in London and keep out of his way, as she had initially promised.

She lifted her chin, laying what remained of the honeyed crust on her plate.

‘You do not need to teach me to drive. I shall get Robert to do it. It will do him good to get out in the fresh air. Besides, I am sure he wants to explore the estate, but nothing would let him admit as much. If he has the excuse of having to look after me, it will mean he can get out as often as he wants.'

He was still groping for some objection to her very logical suggestion when she rose from her chair and glided from the room without a backward glance. Somehow she had managed to slip through his fingers yet again.

* * *

‘And now we come to the portrait gallery,' Mrs Lanyon intoned.

She certainly knew a great deal about Wycke, and the family who had lived there since it had been built, in the latter days of Queen Elizabeth. She liked nothing better, she had confided on collecting Heloise from her rooms, than showing interested parties around.

Wycke was mentioned in guidebooks, and visitors to the county always put it at the very top of their itinerary, she had further declared, with pride.

‘This is the first Earl,' she said of a life-sized portrait of a man with a ruff round his neck and a fierce expression on his face that put Heloise in mind of Robert.

Each successive Earl and Countess Mrs Lanyon introduced her to gazed down at her with varying degrees of disdain.

‘The late Countess of Walton,' Mrs Lanyon said, jerking Heloise out of her introspection.

‘Which one?' she dared to ask, her interest reviving for the first time since 1724.

‘I mean to say, is it the Earl's mother, or his stepmother?'

Mrs Lanyon drew herself up to her full height before saying frostily, ‘His mother, naturally. She was the granddaughter of the Duke of Bray.'

She looked as though she might have been, Heloise mused. The weight of generations of breeding sat heavily on the slender shoulders of the young woman who looked out of her gilded frame with a somewhat pained expression. The glossy curls which peeped from under the brim of her hat were of a similar colour to Charles' hair, and her eyes were blue, but her mouth had a petulant droop to the lips that she would never associate with him.

‘My grandfather,' Heloise blurted in a spirit of rebellion, ‘was among the very first to go to the guillotine.' Her father might be only a government functionary, but her mother's blood was as blue as any of these ancestors of Charles'.

‘Dreadful!' gasped Mrs Lanyon, her hand flying to her throat.

‘Yes, he was. He doubled the taxes during a period of famine, causing great hardship to the peasants. Something that Charles,' she declared with conviction, ‘would never do.'

Having finished her tour of the house, Mrs Lanyon handed her over to Bayliss, the head gardener. Thoroughly oppressed by so much history, and aware she had spoken too controversially for Mrs Lanyon's comfort, Heloise was glad to get out of doors.

To her dismay, the Walton family, and in particular the ladies, pursued her through the grounds. A knot garden was the work of the first Countess; a rose garden was the inspiration of the third. She could see why the place attracted visitors, for it contained a great deal that was beautiful. But it was more like a museum than a home.

Spying a familiar figure lounging on a south-facing stone terrace, Heloise escaped from her guide.

‘Robert!' she cried, running up the steps and bounding to his side. ‘You are better today, yes?'

‘Just sitting out enjoying the fresh air,' he groused. ‘Don't go pestering me to go anywhere today, because I have no intention of stirring from this terrace. Which is mine, by the way.'

‘How do you mean, yours?' She sat on a wooden bench next to him, her eyes alight with curiosity.

‘I mean just that. The windows behind me lead directly into my rooms. Nobody is supposed to disturb me out
here. Do you know you have to walk across I don't know how many lawns to get to those steps you ran up?'

‘Only too well!' she snorted. ‘For I have walked across them. Oh,' she said, suddenly registering what he had said, ‘you wish me to leave you alone.' From his eyes she met the hostility of generations of Waltons. ‘I understand.'

Leaping to her feet, she ran back down the steps and, without knowing where she would end up, headed away from the house. Anywhere, she fumed, blinking back tears, as long as she was out of everyone's way! She blundered through a dense shrubbery to emerge on the lip of an embankment. To her amazement she discovered she had come out just above the curving carriage drive, and that beyond it a flower-sprinkled meadow undulated down to the lake.

Perhaps the grounds were not so large as she had first assumed. She would never have guessed, when she had driven along this particular stretch of the drive the day before, that she was so near the house.

She eyed the ruined tower on the island in which she had imagined Charles might lock her away. He might just as well. The servants had despised her on sight, and now even Robert, whom she thought of as a brother, had said he wanted her to stop pestering him.

Very well! She would not pester Robert to teach her to drive after all. She would get one of the grooms to do it. And prove to Charles that she did not need him—no, not for anything.

And then he could go back to London and forget all about her.

And she … no, she would never forget Charles. She would spend every minute of her long, lonely exile wondering what he was doing.

And who he was doing it with.

C
harles paused in the doorway of the state dining room, which tonight was looking its most magnificent. The staff had polished the massive epergnes to mirror-brightness, filling them with banks of freshly cut flowers that filled the air with their perfume. A footman was going round lighting the candles already. Once he had finished, the china and crystal would glitter like jewels set against the yards of spotless damask linen tablecloth.

‘It all looks splendid—as ever,' he said to his housekeeper. Within a week of his arrival Mrs Lanyon had reminded him that he always sent out cards of invitation to his neighbours. It was just one more tradition he wished he had never allowed to become set in stone. ‘Though in future you should expect Lady Walton to oversee events of this nature.'

Fortunately for her, Mrs Lanyon refrained from making the comment which would have brought her instant dismissal. Though the way she pursed her lips told him exactly what she was thinking. Heloise had played no part in the organisation of this dinner whatsoever. Whenever Mrs
Lanyon had consulted her, she had replied she must do exactly as she wished.

Though it hurt to think she disliked him so much she could not even pretend to show an interest in his social life, he could not be angry with her. Being on display for his neighbours would be an ordeal for a woman of her shy, retiring disposition. If he could only have thought of a way to cancel the dinner without insulting his neighbours he would have done so. But in the end he had decided it would be better to just get the thing over with as soon as possible. Far better for them to find out that his wife was a little gauche than for them to imagine she was unfriendly.

He had never been so irritated by the number of obligations his position brought him before. But since they had come down to Wycke every chance he might have had to get closer to Heloise had been thwarted by estate business in one form or another.

Still, he had dealt with all the most pressing business now. And once this annual county dinner was over he could devote himself almost exclusively to wooing her.

As he went along the corridor to the red salon, he wondered what lay behind her decision to get Grimwade, the head groom, to teach her to drive rather than Robert. Strolling to the window that overlooked the carriage drive, he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. To his knowledge, Robert had not stirred from his rooms since his arrival, although Linney assured him his master was recovering nicely from the journey. He barely repressed the urge to fling the window open. Though the room felt stuffy, the air outside was even hotter, and heavy with the threat of an approaching storm. He hoped it would not break too soon. The last thing he wanted was for his guests to be stranded, so that he would be obliged to offer them hospitality.