That was all the standing on ceremony that June could bear. With a little sigh she propelled herself into her fiance's embrace. He hugged her tight. 'I don't think I can endure another day without you, let alone three weeks,' he whispered hoarsely against her soft hair.
June happily disengaged herself, took his arm and led him towards the morning room. 'Well, you must,' she said archly. 'And you will probably be quite disappointed to have left London. A friend for you was on her way into the city, just as you were heading here. Rachel is not long ago returned to Beaulieu Gardens. She will be upset to have missed you. Perhaps you passed each other on the road, unawares.'
Soon they were ensconced in the morning-room chairs with the warm sun slanting to beatify their faces. Sylvie had wandered off to change her clothes and take a ride on her pony. Thus, just Mrs Meredith played gooseberry to the lovers.
'More tea, William?' Gloria called, holding up the pretty pot.
'Yes, thank you, Mrs Meredith.'
Gloria attended to his cup, slid a glance between the •
couple. The young man seemed to have trouble detaching his eyes from her daughter's sweet countenance. I have one child settled, she stressed for herself before her anxious thoughts again returned to Rachel.
She just wished she'd come home, for no good would come of chasing what was lost. She knew that her eldest daughter was pursuing her inheritance rather than her friendship with the Saunders. Her husband knew it too. Not that they had spoken of it; in fact, since the day he had returned to tell them of his grossly selfish behaviour, they had spoken little at all. Just essentials, over the running of the household or the wedding preparations brought them close enough to exchange a few frosty formal words. Gloria sighed depressively. It went unnoticed. With a murmured excuse about seeing to the luncheon, she withdrew.
William sipped from a delicate china teacup that looked imperilled by his big fingers. He frowned. 'Why has Rachel gone back to London so soon?'
June sent a circumspect look towards the door as though fearing they might be overheard. 'It's the business with Windrush: Papa losing it to Lord Devane,' she informed little above a whisper. 'Rachel was furious. I've rarely seen her so angry. She and Papa were at terrible loggerheads. She insists we be married here and has gone to do battle with Lord Devane over it all. I told her that it would not matter if we married instead in London...'
William's frown deepened. 'Well, I'd rather be married here at Windrush and told Devane so. He wasn't put out by allowing us to keep to our arrangements. He has no use for the place, after all.'
'What do you mean?' June asked in surprise. 'That Rachel is gone on a fool's errand? Had you already approached Lord Devane over it all?'
'He
approached
me...
and your father. As soon as Edgar was lucid enough to understand what was being said we all met the next day. Why did your father not tell you that, I wonder?'
June looked shocked. She shook her fair head. 'I don't know. Surely it would not have slipped his mind. Perhaps the alcohol affected his memory.'
William's curious expression turned bleak. 'I hope there is not some deviousness in it all.' He sighed. 'It seems strange to me, for unless I'm much mistaken, I'd wager a fortune that Devane is still much taken with Rachel.'
'I think so too,' June agreed. 'And can't see why he'd be mean enough to ruin things for us.'
'I'd as soon start married life without being central to all this skulduggery, my love.' William sighed. 'No good ever comes of such underhand behaviour: withholding information and harbouring secrets and so on. It is something I cannot abide...'
June looked alarmed at his vehemence. Her large hazel eyes attached to his for so long that he rose and, crouching by her chair, asked, 'What is it, dear?'
'I don't want us to have secrets either. There's something I must tell you, William...about Isabel...'
'Faith, it's .you back. Now, what might you be after wanting this time?'
The same as last time.' The repartee was ready but there was little confidence in Sam Smith's demeanour today. In fact he barely raised a smile and twitched a bit beneath the steady glare directed at him from beneath brows like rusty arches.
Noreen Shaughnessy crossed her arms over her starched bosom and pointedly examined two sets of scuffed boots planted on her recently scrubbed steps. Her eyes belligerently widened, daring the young couple not to scarper.
The brash whippersnapper was easily recalled from the time he'd delivered that letter from Himself. The small female tucked behind him was a stranger.
As Noreen slyly cocked her head to get a better look at his timid companion, she noticed there was a fancy- crested coach at the kerb with a solitary battered travelling box atop it. It was a rich man's rig bearing a poor man's luggage, and she recognised the coachman. He'd been driving the vehicle that brought her mistress home—with the earl of Devane escorting her—the first night they arrived in town. This was his lordship's coach and this, she'd believed, was one of his lordship's servants. So why was he here, with his chattels, delivered to their door in such style?
Noreen had her hunches. In fact, she'd done little els& but brood on her suspicions for weeks past. Since they'd arrived in town and Miss Rachel insisted on immediately confronting the Major, Noreen knew something big was brewing. When he'd come back the following morning, looking like the handsome prince from a fairy tale, and her mistress acting for all the world like an excited girl set on hooking her beau, Noreen had put her faith in dreams: Windrush regained, things back as they should be. As they
would
be, but for the master acting like a proper fool. Then the front door had slammed like it was surely coming off its hinges and she'd been summoned by her white-faced mistress to sweep up the bits of clock and best china that marked the dream's departure.
Yet she'd seen the way the Major looked at her; and she'd seen the way Miss Rachel looked right back, with her chin high and her nose high...and that hunger in her eyes, as though something miraculous was just within reach but she was scared to reach out and grab lest it turned right round and bit her.
Now he was a hero and a lord to boot, but he was a man first. An influential man. And Noreen guessed a lesser fellow might feel entitled to impress all that on a woman who'd left him, practically at the altar, looking like every sort of fool. No one could deny Major Flinte had had cause to feel bitter and angry six years ago. And if he were biding his time for the perfect opportunity for tit-for-tat, it wouldn't come any sweeter than now. With Windrush gone to him, and Miss •
Rachel determined her sister's wedding go ahead as planned, he sure enough held the whip hand...
But Noreen knew the Major was a decent man, an honourable man. It was one thing, she realised, that she and the master had in common: their lasting faith in the Major's honest goodness. He wouldn't ruin a woman he'd once loved. He just wouldn't, Noreen would stake her life on it...
'Your mistress is expecting us,' Sam Smith announced proudly, erasing the contemplative grimace from Noreen's countenance. 'We're taken on, Lord Devane says so...'
Gently he drew forward the girl from where she hovered behind him. 'I'm Sam Smith and this is me sister, Annie. I'll introduce you to Noreen, Annie...'
'Don't you be after taking liberties! And how is it you know me name?'
Noreen barked.
'Sure and it was your mistress said it, Noreen,' he drawled in a fair approximation of her brogue. 'Miss Meredith called you that last time I was here with that letter from my master. My master as was, that is.' He rocked high on his toes, expanding his chest, keen to appear unconcerned about this abrupt downturn in his and Annie's prospects.
Noreen blushed again at the memory of him teasing her that day. 'It's Miss Shaughnessy to you. Or you can call me ma'am. God's own truth! It's a jackanapes you are. You're naught but a kid!'
A few days ago Noreen had tried not to look too relieved...or offended...when Miss Rachel told her new staff were to be taken on. But, in her heart, relief reigned, for she knew she was doing too much. Vera and Bernard Grimshaw, the old retainers who oversaw the place when the family were away, were as much help as a sack on the back. He was afflicted with arthritis so badly he could scarce move out of a body's way, and she was deaf as a post and too fat to do much more than loll about eating what she'd just took out the oven. Which left herself working dawn till dusk, and then some, which was more than a mortal could stand.
But she'd never have guessed this cheeky devil might some day be a colleague at Beaulieu Gardens. He looked big and ugly enough to do a full share, but that sister hiding behind looked like she might be as much use as fat Vera when it came to getting down and putting black on a grate or a scrubbing brush on a step. Noreen found herself again trying to peer beneath the girl's lowered bonnet brim. Weak and weary or shy and retiring, it cut no ice with Noreen. If she was here to work, work she would.
Sam recognised the inquisitiveness levelled at his sister and smiled thinly.
Women never liked Annie. Poor little cow never had to say or do anything.
They just never liked the look of her.
'Say hello to Miss Shaughnessy, Annie,' Sam ordered gruffly, tilting up her head to cure Noreen's curiosity.
His sister obeyed him, and solemn eyes set in a perfectly sculpted oval face regarded Noreen.
Noreen gawped, entranced for a moment by the wistful child. Then she slid a suspicious glance at the youth who was by no stretch of the imagination a looker.
The girl had a clear, pale countenance. The wispy tendrils of silky hair that had slipped free of her bonnet glowed like rich thick sherry. Her eyes, or what could be seen of them beneath those dropped black lashes, were huge and velvet brown. Sam had a good mop of chestnut hair, it was true,. but there any similarity ended., .His eyes were a shade of grey and his skin was lightly dusted with freckles; something else to hold against him. Why should his be unremarkable whereas hers were ugly blemishes? 'Your sister, is she now?' was directed snappishly at Sam.
He sighed at the sarcasm; automatically a protective arm curled about Annie's shoulders. He proffered their references, penned that very morning by Joseph Walsh. On the master's instruction, of course, burned like acid into his consciousness. 'She's me sister,' he stated curtly. 'Go and tell your mistress we're here.'
With a sullen, sideways look Noreen did as she was told.
Thankfully Rachel found it easy to be kind and gracious to this couple who had been forced upon her by her enemy. She'd feared she might snap and snarl at them. But now they were here, in her morning room, she felt more curiosity than irritation. She also felt an overwhelming sense of shame as she studied the girl. The idea that this awkward, nervous child might be any man's mistress, let alone likely to tempt the urbane Earl of Devane, now seemed utterly ludicrous. Yet she had accused him of being perversely interested in her!
A better presumption would have been that the Italian soprano would risk laughing herself hoarse at the very idea that this gauche maid was her rival.
Annie was indeed exquisitely pretty, but excruciatingly shy. Her brother seemed to be her rock...her universe. On being ushered, by Noreen, to an audience with her, one of Annie's small hands had latched on to one of Sam's sleeves. Still the girl stood slightly behind him, gripping, as a talisman, that piece of dark material.
Her sad eyes were lifted to his face, unwaveringly seeking reassurance.
Once in a while, she darted a look at Rachel, flinching if their glances grazed, as though expecting a blow or a harsh word. As their eyes skimmed together again, Rachel gave her a welcoming smile. Annie looked startled and shuffled further behind her brother.
'Your sister seems very...nervous. Do I frighten her?'
'All ladies frighten her, m'm.'
'Why is that?' Rachel asked, astonished.
Sam felt ill at ease. He should have kept his bitter comment to himself. Too late. Bluntly he expanded on it. "Cos of their gentlemen liking the look of her, which case they don't...'
Rachel studied him in silence for a moment, then transferred her attention to the girl's pure, pale face. Perhaps she had been a little hasty...or naive in thinking no woman would view the child as a threat. Sam's cynical attitude spoke volumes: he was drawing on experience. 'Do you mean that your sister sometimes receives unwanted attention from gentlemen? And that their ladies resent it? Blame Annie for it?' Rachel asked gently, aware the youth already regretted his candour.
Sam's lips skewed into a travesty of a smile. One of his hands comforted the bloodless fingers biting into his arm. 'Yes, m'm,' was all he prudently allowed himself to admit this time. He looked directly at Rachel; guessed that a woman's suspicion might soon be kindling in her mind. Much as he hated Lord Devane for crushing his dreams, he had to be fair. If it wasn't for him, Annie would by now be beneath Arthur Goodwin's paltry protection for a time. And after that time...then what?
All of it was his fault. Her own brother had put her at risk from that fat lecherous pig. He'd lost his temper that day the carriages collided and stupidly drawn attention to himself. But for that folly, Arthur Goodwin might never have bothered them. So he'd tell the truth. Put his lordship straight with this woman he loved. Then never think of him or wolfhounds or a new life in Ireland, ever again. 'Lord Devane was kind and good to both of us. Annie liked him. We both did. We would have stayed with him.'