The Heart That Lies (11 page)

“The work is going well,” he
said when he joined her.

“You
are a good landlord,” she said.

“I am a sensible landlord. I live from their labours. If I want that relationship to continue I must play my part
.”

This time he helped her mount and
Anna did not object. It was the first time he had touched her since she had sat with him in the coach.

“D
o you wish to return to the house or may I show you more of Meldon?”

“I should like to see more, please.”

If he was aware of the ambiguity of what they said, he gave no sign, but Anna saw more of the man that morning than she saw of his land.

The man she had met in London was but a shadow of the
man she saw now. His reserve disappeared and she saw the passion that gave his life meaning.

He reigned in his horse at the top of a
hill and she followed suit.

“All this land has been in my
family for generations. Edward III gave it to us in gratitude for our support against Queen Isabella and Mortimer and we have held it ever since. Royal houses have come and gone, but we have remained. One day I will hand this over to my son as it was handed to me by my father.”

Here again was an echo of James.
Their family did not have quite the same history as Meldon’s, but James had had the same feeling of holding something in trust for future generations, not just his own descendants, but those of his tenants. Now it all belonged to someone else, to a man who had not been brought up in the same way and Anna suspected there would not be much of the estate left for future generations when he was finished with it.

“Until then,” continued Meldon, “I will protect it to the last drop of blood in my body.”

“Against the French?”

“Or anyone else who threatens harm. At the moment, though, that does seem to be the French,” he conceded.
“Come, we should return or my mother will think I have been press ganged.”

“May I come out with you again?”

“Of course.” He seemed surprised that she could think he would refuse her request.

“And you will not try to make me ride side saddle?”

“Don’t you think I have already learned that it is futile to try to make you do something you don’t wish to do?”

He smiled, then frowned. “But will you trust me where your safety is concerned?”

“Yes.” It was an easy enough promise to make, but she wondered how hard it would be to keep.

Meldon wondered how sensible it had been to bring Anna here to Meldon Hall. His mother was polite to her, but cold. He could not spend as much time with her as he wished, for there was estate business to be dealt with and his neighbour to be investigated. Carstairs had left the county the day before he and Anna had arrived. Meldon refused to put Anna and himself through the trials of another journey by returning to London, so he had set about finding out as much as he could about Carstairs from his neighbours and tenants. He had just received a message from Finch to say that Carstairs was expected to return towards the end of October.

Meldon started planning his ball for
the end of October to take advantage of the full moon. By then Anna would be well enough to join in, was probably well enough now, if her prowess in riding was anything to go by. She had seemed enthusiastic enough when he had mentioned the ball to her.

He would invite some friends from London who would stay in the house
as well as all the local gentlemen and their families. Whilst Meldon hated balls in London, he enjoyed them here in Hampshire. In addition to the ones he gave he attended those given by his neighbours. He did not dance, but passed the evenings pleasantly talking about crops and yields and whose bull was the most potent.

Lady Meldon had also greeted the news of the ball with enthusiasm. If Miss
Smith was not to marry her son, and she was determined that she would not, the young woman would surely meet someone presentable enough at the ball. Meldon foresaw a real danger here. Many of his neighbours were wealthy and at least four of them were looking for wives to his certain knowledge. Anna’s lack of fortune might deter them, as would rumours of her riding around the estate in breeches like a man. Meldon still saw no sign that his own courtship would be well-accepted, quite the reverse, as he remembered her tears as she had spoken of the man she loved. No wonder he had not been able to work out which woman Jonas Smith had favoured at the supper in his house. It also explained why Smith had spent more time with him and the other men. Even though he now knew that the object of Anna’s affections was unmarried, it did not help to narrow the possibilities, as most of the men he had invited that evening were unmarried.

T
hey went riding together each morning and passed each evening drinking whisky and playing cards together, much to his mother’s horror, but he still felt that he didn’t know Anna. There was so much that she kept back from him and it was more than simply the reason why she had wanted to kill him.

When he had asked if he might read what she was writing, she had refused and had asked him for somewhere where she might lock
her poems away and retain the key. He had protested that he would never read them without her permission, but she had replied that it was for her own protection as she might be tempted to show them to him.

His response was to be more open to her. He shared his hopes and dreams with her until he was certain that she knew everything about him except that he was a spy and that he was in love with her.

Knowing
that Anna would probably come to the library at some point during the morning, Meldon waited for her there. It had become her habit lately to spend the morning and the early afternoon here and the late afternoon sewing with the countess. He glanced idly at her supply of ink and paper and made a mental note to send someone to Southampton to buy more for her. He understood that she would get through a great deal of paper with errors and rewriting, but the high consumption of ink could not be explained.

After he had arranged her materials for the fourth time
, he sat in the chair by the fire. He felt as if he were invading her sanctuary. He had given orders that when Miss Smith was in the library no one was to enter unless sent for. Each morning the fire was laid and lit and enough wood left for her to manage it herself.

Tea was
brought to her when she rang for it, but otherwise the library was her territory. She wrote here morning and afternoon, except when he told her he was going for a ride, calling on his neighbours or when he took her to Botley in the carriage to visit the few shops there. However much she might prefer life pretending to be a man, she could still be won over by a pretty bonnet or some ribbon. She had not wanted to accept his gifts and he had understood this, but he had explained that she could not walk around his house or his estate naked and he was wealthy enough that her few needs barely made a dent in his funds. He would gladly have bought her diamonds and pearls, but contented himself with gloves and ribbon and bonnets. She had good taste and he found that he was dressing in accordance with it. Perkins approved of her influence in this at least and Meldon was spending more on his own clothes than she would let him spend on hers.

“Oh! Lord Meldon, I didn’t expect...”

Anna stood in the doorway.

“I apologise for invading your sanctuary, Miss Smith, but I have to leave for a few days. Is there anything you need before I
go?”

“Oh. I don’t think so.”

Perversely, her disappointment cheered him.

“Will you be gone long?”

“A week or two. I shall be back in time to greet my guests when they arrive.”

Finch had been clear that this would only be a short mission.
He was, himself, on the guest list and could not afford the comment his late arrival would cause.

“
You leave it to your mother to finish the arrangements for the ball.”

Meldon snorted. “The
arrangements are made. My mother is under orders not to interfere, but,” he said thoughtfully, “if you should see anything that needs to be done, Simpson will see that your requirements will be met.”

This was as close to a
declaration of love as he dared go. Anna blushed prettily and he was encouraged.

“Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t want to change any of your arrangements.”

“Nonetheless, I trust your good taste and good sense. One thing only I would ask while I am gone.”

“Don’t leave the house alone?”

He nodded, afraid to look at her. She was so certain of her invulnerability that he was sure she would refuse and he could not leave if he thought she might not be here on his return.

“I am not a fool,
my lord. You may have faith in my good taste, but I have a greater faith in your desire to protect me.”

“Truly?” He took a step closer to her.

“It was hard to believe that you cared for my safety after you shot me, even though it was an accident. Ah, you blush.”

Meldon felt the heat on his face, no wonder she had refused his advice.

“I regret more than I can say that I caused you harm.”

“I know.”
He had not noticed her move closer to him, but now she was only inches away. “I am sorry that I ever doubted your desire to protect me. While you are gone, I shall not leave the house alone. You know I have not left it unaccompanied since I arrived?”

He nodded
. In this, at least, she had been true.

“
You will be here when I return?”

“I think I just promised that, but just to be absolutely clear, I promise that I will still be here when you
get back.”

“You could leave, if you wanted,” he persisted.

She smiled at him. “If I had been willing to steal one of your horses and bear the pain, I could have left almost from the moment I arrived. Now, please leave. I am working on a poem that you should be able to read when you return.”

“A good poem?”

“I have always written some good poetry. They were the poems that weren’t always suitable for publication or another’s eyes.”

As
Meldon followed her orders and left, he understood that she had told him something important about herself, if he could only work out what it was.

Anna spent more time with the countess while Meldon was away. She felt that the older woman missed her son, so she trimmed her bonnets and embroidered her gown for the ball whilst they sat together. Her poem for Meldon was finished. She had tried to describe the landscape she saw through Meldon’s eyes. It was a new style of poetry for her and it did not come easily, but she thought he would enjoy it. She had searched the poetry books in the library to find which ones were the most worn for these must be the ones that he enjoyed. There were few enough of them. He often read aloud to them in the evening while they sat in the drawing room, but it rarely seemed to be for his own enjoyment. She, however, took great pleasure from what he read. He could change his voice to match the mood of the poem and he always brought out more than just the words on the page. The outpourings of her own heart were safely under lock and key and Meldon would never see them. They were her best work and would never be published. She didn’t understand how Mr Wordsworth and the others allowed their love to be sullied by allowing their poems to be viewed by others. Anna wrote for Meldon’s eyes alone and he would never see them.

From the first she had known that Jonas Smith must starve if he relied on his poems. No man could publish poetry that so obviously showed his affection for another man. Disguising Meldon as a woman had proved impossible. He was so completely masculine that he had become unrecognisable to her
when she had represented him as a woman in her poems and thus impossible to love. She had even tried imagining how he might write about her, but in these poems Meldon’s affections were so clearly for the boy he believed her to be that she had ended by crying for a love that could never be.

Admitting to herself that she loved Meldon had caused further complications. He had killed James over a woman, that’s what his letter informing her of James’ death had said. He had been vague about the reason, but James could not have done anything to make Meldon call him out, so
Meldon must have insulted James. Meldon, therefore, was at fault and should be punished. Her plan had been good. She had imagined Meldon to be a rake of the worst kind, forgetting that James had called him friend and had trusted him. In person he had turned out to be amiable, respectable and even honourable. His good character was told to her by anyone she spoke to about him. So she had loved him and despaired.

The battle between her love and her desire to avenge James
had kept her awake at night, until she had known that she would become ill if she did not challenge him soon. Her only hope as she had met him that morning was that they would both die. Anything else would be meaningless. Yet they had both survived and she was still in love with him. Since she was certain she had not mistaken his affection for Jonas Smith, she could only conclude from his recent behaviour that Anna Smith did not appeal to him as much. Meldon was both kind and remote. She reflected that her confusion whenever she thought about Meldon had not been relieved by revealing her identity as a woman and living in his own house.