About the Author

LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember, and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise lives in Bedfordshire and works as a property manager, but spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating on the north Norfolk coast, or travelling abroad. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website – www.louiseallenregency.co.uk – for the latest news!

A Regency Christmas Treat

Moonlight and Mistletoe

Louise Allen

A Mistletoe Masquerade

Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08537-3

A REGENCY CHRISTMAS TREAT

Moonlight and Mistletoe © 2013 Melanie Hilton A Mistletoe Masquerade © 2008 Louise Allen

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2018-08-23

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Moonlight and Mistletoe

Praise

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

A Mistletoe Masquerade

Dear Reader

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

About the Publisher

Moonlight and Mistletoe

“You know, Hester, once you have reached the stage of sitting on a gentleman’s knee, I do feel the time for formality is past.

“Will you not call me Guy?”

She looked startled, producing yet another shade of gold in those fascinating eyes. “I could not possibly!”

“Well, you are sitting on my lap. I think calling me by my given name is a minor informality compared to that.”

“So I am! My lord…Guy…please let me go.”

“But of course.” He opened his arms wide and added wickedly, “A pity. I was enjoying it.”

Praise for Louise Allen

The Earl’s Intended Wife

“…well-developed characters…an appealing sensual

and emotionally rich love story.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“If you’ve a yen for an enjoyable Regency-set

romance that takes place somewhere other than London,

pick up The Earl’s Intended Wife. Louise Allen

has a treat in store for you, and a hero and heroine

you’ll take to your heart.”

—The Romance Reader

“I liked the unusual location of Malta in this sweet book.

I look forward to what Ms. Allen will write next.”

—Rakehell

“A sweet romance and an engaging story…the sort

of book to get lost in on a lazy afternoon.”

—All About Romance

Chapter One

December 4th 1814

The inhabitants of Winterbourne St Swithin prided themselves upon their village. It was no mere rural backwater, no sleepy hamlet full of rustics and yeomen whose social hierarchy was topped off by a red-faced squire and whose amenities consisted of the church and a tavern or two.

Theirs, they boasted, was a bustling community straddling the post road to Aylesbury with a glimpse over the meadows to the waters of the new canal ordered by the crazy old Duke of Bridgewater, up in his mansion on the Chiltern crest. There was the Bird in Hand, a large coaching inn, to serve the stage and the mail and the carriages of the gentry going to and from London and Oxford. There was the fine Winterbourne Hall with the Nugents to preside over local society and half a dozen gentry houses in the vicinity to fill the pews of the grey stone church with the living, and the marble monuments with the dead.

And there was even a shop, a superior emporium selling haberdashery and lengths of cloth, the London and Oxford papers a day late and snuff, tea and Hungary water.

The life of the village centred around the church, the Bird in Hand and the Green, the grassy heart of the community with its duck pond, decaying stocks, venerable oak tree and ring of fine houses and half-timbered cottages.

On a raw, damp Thursday morning three respectable housewives made their way around the Green, deep in discussion of new and fascinating intelligence. It seemed there was no doubt that the gentleman who had taken the Old Manor—the one architectural blot upon the village centre—was none other than an earl.

‘Or, as it might be, a duke,’ Mrs Thorne hazarded hopefully, lifting her skirts to negotiate a puddle. ‘Whichever, ’tis a fine thing for Winterbourne. He’ll bring down all his society friends, you mark my words, and he’ll be hiring on staff and wanting eggs and milk and bacon.’

‘If he wanted his society friends, what’s he doing in Winterbourne in December?’ her bosom enemy Widow Clare enquired tartly. ‘The nobs are all off visiting, or at their big country houses. What’s an earl doing hiring that old barn of a place? Outrunning his creditors, that’s what. I tell you, ladies, it’ll be cash on the nail for any eggs that household wants to buy from my hens!’

‘Oh, and nobody’s seen him,’ Mrs Johnson squeaked, her eyes popping at the thought of an earl in the village, even one fallen upon hard times. ‘I’ve seen his butler, mind—I thought it was his lordship himself for a minute, so grand and starched up he was—talking to poor Bill Willett. “I will trouble you, my man,” he said, all frosty-like, “I will trouble you to remember that only the freshest milk and cream is fit for his lordship’s table and that cream is fit only for the cat.” And have you seen the horses?’

The other ladies nodded. Not only had they seen them arrive three days ago but had been bored to death at dinner by their husbands and sons carrying on about the splendour of his lordship’s stable. But, to everyone’s chagrin, it seemed that his lordship had driven himself down from London and had managed to arrive at the one moment of the day when not a single curious eye was focused on the Green, but instead was watching the spectacle of the Mail sweeping through.

‘He’ll have to come out sooner or later,’ Mrs Thorne prophesied comfortably. ‘Even if the bailiffs are after him.’

She broke off as a gig turned off the main road and was driven at a spanking pace around the far side of the Green. It was a modest but somewhat rakish vehicle—the sort that a sporting curate might favour, perhaps—drawn by a neat Welsh cob.

The ladies stared as best they could from the shelter of bonnets and hoods as the gig turned through the gates of the pretty little house that faced the red brick façade of the Old Manor.

‘Well, did you see that?’ the Widow demanded unnecessarily. ‘That was driven by a female!’

‘With a groom by her side,’ Mrs Thorne added. ‘And she’s gone into the Moon House.’

‘Then the rumours are true,’ Mrs Johnson concluded, quite unashamedly craning her neck now. But the vehicle and its occupants had vanished through the gate posts and the house had resumed its air of empty neglect. ‘Sir Edward did sell it before he died. But who is she?’

Fascinated, the three continued on their way to the end of the Green, but the high wall of the Old Manor defeated their avid stares on one side and the dirt-streaked, empty windows of the opposite house stared blankly back at them from the other.

With infinite slowness, another ivy tendril curled out to cover even deeper the carved crescent moon that crowned the front door of the little house, a single star caught in its horns.

In the muddy yard behind the house, Miss Lattimer accepted the hand her groom held out and hopped neatly down from the gig, quite oblivious to the puddles. Pushing back her veil with a careless hand she stared around her with proprietary interest. ‘Here we are, Jethro. The Moon House!’ It was hard to keep a grin of pure pleasure from her face despite the air of neglect the yard radiated. A home again. Her home and a new start.

The groom, a gangling, solemn-faced youth not much above sixteen, glanced dismissively around and observed, ‘So we are, Miss Hester. And your hair’s coming down at the back again.’

‘Oh, bother.’ Hester put up her hands and made an ineffectual attempt to push the brown curls back into their confining net. ‘Never mind, there’s no one here to observe it. Now, Jethro, you see to stabling Hector and have a look at the rooms over the stable. I understand from the agent they are suitable and should have a bed and other furniture but I am certain they’ll need a good clean before you sleep there, and certainly a fire… What is it?’

‘Hector, Miss Hester?’

‘The cob. I thought I had better give him a name and Hector seems appropriate. It is a good name, do you not think?’ She regarded the animal hopefully: she had never had to buy a horse before, but she felt confident that she had made a good choice two days ago.

The boy’s solemn face grew longer behind its mask of freckles and the occasional pimple. ‘I could not say, Miss Hester.’

Hester smiled suddenly, a flashing smile that gave her an unexpected air of pure mischief. ‘Now do not practise your butler’s voice out here, Jethro! In the house you can buttle as much as you like—when you are not being boot boy, kitchen hand and footman. Out here you are the groom and the gardener—if it ever stops drizzling. We are all going to have to learn to be many things—I, for example, am about to go inside and become the housekeeper.’

She reached into the back of the gig and lifted out a small portmanteau, her reticule and an umbrella, adding as she turned away, ‘And cook too, unless a miracle occurs and Miss Prudhome and Susan arrive in time before dinner.’

‘I doubt it, Miss Hester,’ Jethro observed gloomily, beginning to unbuckle the cob’s harness and lead it out of the shafts. ‘I’ll bring the hampers in a minute and get the range going.’

Hester doubted it too. Her companion suffered so much from motion sickness that the chaise could move only at the slowest speed the postilion could be held to; goodness knew when she, Susan and the light luggage would arrive. Hester would doubtless have to see to dinner tonight as well as making up the beds and fires and chasing the worst of the spiders out.

But these lowering considerations vanished as she drew the large key from her reticule and set open the back door of the Moon House. Hester stepped slowly over the threshold into a dim, chill room, a little knot of anticipation and excitement in her stomach as she relished the moment. The air was still, redolent of dust, of old ashes and, regrettably, of mice. Then, as she stood there letting her eyes adjust to the shadows, it seemed as though a faint zephyr of a warm breeze filled the space whispering of laughter, roses, happiness—and as suddenly was gone.

Hester smiled at her own fancy; it seemed that pure happiness could take tangible form. Oh, yes, this was a happy house—she had known that from just a few minutes’ observation over a year ago. She had stood at the gate, staring entranced at the overgrown rose-filled garden, the ivy-hung façade, the felicitous arrangement of doors and windows, the ineffable, indescribable air of charm that hung over the neglected little house. And then she had hurried back over the Green to the Bird in Hand and to John, her friend and protector, who was waiting patiently in the private parlour while she shook the stiffness from her limbs.

He should never have undertaken that journey to Oxford; it marked the sharp deterioration in his condition, which had led to its inevitable end three months ago. They had only been together eighteen months, yet she still ached for his company, for their friendship and intimacy. If he had not protected her, in the face of scandal and family opposition, goodness knows what would have become of her after her father’s death.

Hester shook herself briskly. John had known how short a time he had—better to do what he wanted than to purchase a few weeks at the expense of inaction and boredom. That part of her life was over now and she must learn not to brood upon memories and to stand upon her own two feet. She had learned from it and it had left her a legacy in both experience and scandal, as well as just enough money for genteel independence.

She had never been inside the mysteriously named Moon House, never seen it again after that one brief encounter. All her lengthy negotiations had been undertaken by an agent and she had simply placed her trust in his diligence and her own instinct. Now she pushed the door shut behind her and saw she was in the kitchen. Well, that was just as described— equipped with an old range and pine table, some chairs and dressers, the dulled glint of unpolished copper catching the light from the cobwebbed window. The next job for Jethro would be trying to light the range, if the chimney could be persuaded to draw. Hester smiled wryly: she was beginning to suspect they might have to take themselves over to the Bird in Hand for dinner.

Hester dumped the portmanteau and umbrella unceremoniously on the table, pulled off her bonnet with scant regard for the further chaos it wrought with her hair and tossed her pelisse on the chair. A rummage in the portmanteau produced a shawl, which she tied around her shoulders, a voluminous apron, which she struggled into, and a handful of soft rags ideal for dusting or giving spiders the rightabout.

Setting herself to explore, she emerged through a green baize-covered door into an alcove formed by the gracious upwards sweep of the staircase—somewhat marred now by dangling cobwebs. Hester swiped at them, sneezed, rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, transferring a large smudge on to nose-tip and cheek in the process, and stepped out into the hall.

‘Oh, yes.’

She was unaware of speaking aloud, only conscious of the airy proportions, the elegant staircase, the quality of the cold light filtering through the fanlight over the door, despite the curtain of ivy that hung across it.

The walls were dingy with dust, marked here and there with ghostly oblongs where pictures or mirrors had once hung. The marble floor, chequered in an unusual grey and white, was grimy—but she could see none of the faults. The feeling of welcome and of belonging swept over her again and Hester walked slowly down the hall, then turned to lean back against the deep-cut panels of the front door.

‘This is mine,’ she said aloud, her tone wondering, then more strongly, ‘Mine.’

The blow on the door behind her was so unexpected, so abrupt, it sounded like thunder. With a shriek Hester leapt away and turned gasping to face it. Effortfully she dragged a breath up from the depths and clasped her trembling hands together while she composed herself. Someone had knocked on the door, that was all. If she had not been mooning like an idiot instead of doing some useful dusting or lighting a fire, it would have sounded perfectly normal.

The knocker fell again. Hester scrabbled in her pocket where she had transferred the keys and found the largest. This must be for the front door. She turned it, struggled for a moment with the bolts and finally dragged the door open.

Guy Westrope tapped one foot irritably on the step and cursed himself for a sentimental fool. What the devil was he doing here when he could have joined Carew’s party in Rutland? Now he was stuck in a muddy Buckinghamshire village in a hideous house, the target of every prying yokel and gossiping goodwife. He raised an impatient hand to the knocker again, then dropped it as the door began to open.

The dishevelled figure revealed by the part-open door regarded him silently. She was of medium height with an oval face, big brown eyes, a wide and solemn mouth and quantities of ill-controlled brown hair. The dirty smudge across the apparition’s face and the voluminous apron indicated that this particular housemaid had been engaged in dusting, a supposition confirmed when she hastily thrust the hand holding a bundle of rags behind her.

Guy realised he was probably scowling and pulled himself together; his unfamiliar inner turmoil was no excuse for treating subordinates rudely. This particular one appeared to have been cowed into speechlessness by his appearance. For some reason he had an almost irresistible urge to lean forward and rub the smudge off her cheek. He clasped his hands behind his back.

‘Good morning. Is your mistress at home?’ Parrott had reported a woman arriving alone, save for a groom. Presumably he would be dealing with a widow.

Something he could have sworn was mischief flashed into the maid’s eyes and was gone. Her voice emerged in a whisper. ‘No, sir. Leastways, she’s not receiving, sir.’ She appeared to pull herself together a little. ‘Would you be wishful of leaving a message, sir?’

Guy extracted a card and held it out. A remarkably delicate hand, the knuckles smeared with cobwebs, took it. ‘Will your mistress be at home tomorrow?’

‘Er…yes, sir…my lord, I should say.’

This was hard work. Was this brown-eyed girl afraid of him or just naturally shy? He tried a smile and saw her eyes widen a little. He entertained the sudden fancy that her thoughts showed in her eyes, but in a language he could not read. ‘And at what time might it be convenient for her to receive me, do you think?’

‘Three o’clock.’ That was unexpectedly decisive, especially as it was not the conventional time of day to receive visitors.

‘Very well, then. Please tell your mistress that I will do myself the honour of calling upon her at three tomorrow. Good day.’

‘Yes, my lord. Um…good day, my lord.’ There was the merest suggestion of a smile on that solemn mouth. It made the swell of the lower lip seem almost pouting.

The door swung shut before he had half-turned on the step. Guy walked slowly back down the overgrown path. A quaint little creature, that maid. Fetching brown eyes and the piquancy of that solemn mouth—it would be interesting to make her smile again. He shook himself briskly and quickened his pace. This would never do—two days in the sticks and he was already eyeing the servant girls. He would take the curricle and the new greys out this afternoon and give himself something to think about other than the Moon House and its present occupants.

In the silent hall Hester leaned against the closed door in the same position she had assumed before and regarded the card in her hand while her heartbeat returned to something approaching normal.

Guy Westrope, Earl of Buckland. Monks Grange, Buckland Regis, Wiltshire and an excellent London address. What on earth was an earl doing calling upon her, especially as he presumably had no idea who she was? Hester pulled herself together and ran into the room to her right to peer through the window. She could just see the top of his tall hat passing the wall of that hideous house opposite.

What was an earl, who one might well expect to be wintering at his own or his acquaintances’ country estates, doing calling upon an unknown lady in a Buckinghamshire village? With the memory of those very blue eyes vivid in her mind, Hester indulged a moment’s fantasy that he had followed her from London, infatuated by her beauty and charm, which he had glimpsed from afar. The thought of being pursued by someone that powerful, that masculine, made her heart race again.

With a laugh at her own foolishness, Hester rubbed her handful of dust cloths over a cracked mirror hanging by the window and peered into its mottled depths. The vision revealed there cut any thought of laughter quite dead.

‘What a fright!’ There was a dark smudge right across her nose and one cheek, her hair was coming down, her collar was marked and a hasty glance down at hands and apron confirmed the picture of a slatternly housemaid. ‘Oh, my goodness.’ That would teach her to entertain fantasies about strange men.

She gazed around what had obviously once been a delightful reception room in horror. Her suggestion that the earl might call at three the next day had assumed that it would be simple to produce a civilised room to receive him in by then, and that he might be no more than mildly surprised by the eccentricity of a lady who did her own dusting and pretended to be her own housemaid.

Now she could see they would have to labour all day to make this room and the hall decent—and what he would think of such an abandoned creature as she must have appeared did not bear thinking about.

‘What does that matter?’ Hester asked herself briskly, marching across the hall to see if the opposite room was any better. It was not. ‘He is probably just an acquaintance of John’s.’ That was not much comfort. If that was so he must already regard Miss Lattimer as an abandoned hussy.

‘I must stop talking to myself,’ she chided, promptly ignoring her own advice as she made her way back to the stairs. ‘Bedrooms next.’ It would be as well to find out the worst about those before the day was much older. The agent’s description of the house as ‘partly furnished’ was proving somewhat over-optimistic.

‘And what do you care what some earl thinks about you, Hester Lattimer?’ Not much in general, her inner self answered, but that particular man…

The first bedroom yielded a decent-enough-looking bedstead with dust sheets over the mattress, which appeared dry and mercifully free of mice. Hester peeped into three other rooms, each with bedstead and mattress, thank goodness, and then opened wide the door into the room overlooking the front garden.

‘Oh! How lovely.’ This room had two generous windows, each with a window seat. Silk draperies marred with dust hung at each casement and between them stood a chaise-longue with a little table beside it. The bed was a charmingly feminine confection with slim posts festooned with embroidered silk. Hester touched one fall carefully, hastily withdrawing her hand as some of the silk shattered where it had been folded for so long. Again, enough care had been taken to protect the mattress and the room appeared habitable, if dirty and bone cold.

This chamber would be hers and Prudy and Susan could have their choice of the other rooms. Doubtless there were servants’ rooms in the attic, but they had too much to do to contemplate putting those to rights for quite a while. Susan would be much more comfortable down here.

There was another door in the corner of the room. Hester crossed to it, pausing for a moment to look at the ugly house opposite. In the summer it would be screened for the most part by a spreading elm tree; now it showed gaunt through the bare branches. Several windows were visible on the first floor, but there were no signs of life. Who lived there? Would they make congenial neighbours? She flicked over the catch on the window and after a tussle managed to push up the lower sash. Sharp, clear air flowed into the musty room and she smiled, taking a moment to enjoy it.

There was the sound of voices opposite and a gate in the high wall to the rear of the house opened. A curricle drawn by a pair of dark greys turned sharply out and headed away from the Green and out of the village. Unmistakably it was the earl who was driving and her own front wall was low enough for Hester to have an uninterrupted view of Guy Westrope’s profile.

Hester realised that she had been far too flustered to have more than a muddled impression of him from their encounter. Blue eyes, those she did recall, although at this distance they could not be discerned. She could not say what colour his hair was, but she remembered those eyes and the size of him—tall, broad-shouldered and powerful. To that she could now add the impression of a determined chin. He did not look like a man to be trifled with and the scowl with which he had greeted her, and the coolly polite tones he had used to address her, left her more than a little apprehensive over how he might react to discovering the deception she had practised on him. But when he had smiled, there was the glimpse of quite another man.

At least she now knew who her neighbour was, although congenial was hardly the word she would use to describe him. And it only added to the mystery: to find he was staying at the Bird in Hand while he conducted whatever business he had with her was one thing—but why was he staying here?

If she didn’t stop idling about and get on with making this house fit to receive visitors, she’d lower herself even further in his estimation, she scolded herself mentally, getting to her feet and pushing open the remaining door.

It opened into a dressing room and on to a scene of violence. Hester halted, appalled, on the threshold. The shield-shaped mirror that had stood on the dressing table was face down upon the floor, its glass smashed into shards that still lay where they had fallen. The doors to the clothes-presses hung open with the empty shelves pulled out and the chair before the dressing table was thrown on its side. One curtain hung from its last two rings, seemingly dragged down by some clutching hand.

A mass of filmy cloth lay at her feet. Automatically Hester stooped and picked it up, shaking it out to reveal an outrageously pretty nightgown of Indian muslin. It had been ripped from neck to hem. She moved abruptly backwards and something skittered out from beneath her foot. Under the blanketing dust the floor was strewn with pearls, enough to have made a veritable rope when strung.

What had happened in this chamber? Abduction? Rape? Murder? The calmly happy atmosphere of the house seemed to freeze here into anger and fear. Behind her the curtains flapped as the outer door opened and the door at her back slammed shut with enough force to propel her into the desecrated room.

Hester swung round, suddenly afraid, her feet scrabbling on the treacherous pearls, her grasp on the door handle hampered by the nightgown. Against her own hands it began to turn. Someone was outside.

Chapter Two

‘Jethro! You gave me such a fright.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Hester, but I brought in the hampers and I couldn’t see you. I called, then I thought I’d better come and find you.’ He glanced over her shoulder and went pale under the freckles. ‘Gawd, Miss Hester, what’s happened in there?’

‘Do not blaspheme, Jethro,’ Hester said automatically, turning to let him see in. ‘I have no idea, but it does not look as if it were anything good.’ She twisted up the nightrail in her hands. Jethro was only a lad for all his size and his growing awareness of girls, and she did not want him seeing that violated, intimate garment.

‘That’s blood, Miss Hester.’ He was already into the room, his feet crunching on broken glass and leaving clear tracks through the undisturbed dust.

‘Oh, no, please, not that.’ Hester followed him more cautiously and stared at the brown splashes on the wall. ‘It is not so very much. Perhaps it is red wine, or maybe whoever broke the mirror cut himself?’

‘That’ll be it, no doubt about it, Miss Hester,’ Jethro said comfortably. He was not as innocent as his young mistress thought him and the images that came to his mind when he saw the room chimed very much with hers. ‘It’ll have been burglars, to be sure,’ he continued, walking firmly out so Hester had to give way in front of him. ‘Throwing all the doors open and knocking things around when they found the cupboards empty, I’ll be bound.’

He shut the door. ‘Will this be your room, Miss Hester?’

‘Yes…’ Hester heard the hesitation in her own voice and said firmly, ‘Yes, it will, and Susan can have the one to the right at the top of the stairs. I expect Miss Prudhome will like one of the rooms at the back.’

The unconscious glance she cast at the dressing-room door was not lost on the boy. ‘I’ll sweep those rooms out then, shall I, after luncheon, and light the fires? Then I can bring the bags up without your things getting dusty.’ And there was a pot of whiting in the stables, he could soon mix some whitewash up and cover that stain, she’d feel better about the room with that gone and the broken things tidied away.

‘The rooms over the stables are right and tight, Miss Hester,’ he continued, firmly leading the way downstairs. ‘There’s a pot-bellied stove, so I’ll be snug as a bug in there.’

‘That is good news, Jethro,’ Hester said briskly. Everything was perfectly all right, except for that disturbing room. Try as she might, she could not believe Jethro’s explanation of burglars. The thick carpet of dust had been even, as though it had been left undisturbed as a whole. Surely the intruders’ footprints would have shown, even through the later falls? And why would burglars tear a nightgown or break a valuable string of pearls and leave them?

‘I was going to run over to the inn to order a cask of ale, Miss Hester. Do you want me to wait until the others get here?’

‘No, the ale is a good idea and you may as well go now. Goodness knows how long it will take them to get here from King’s Langley if Miss Prudhome’s persuaded the postilion to go slowly the entire way.’

He shot her an anxious look, but took the coins she handed him and went out. Of course it is all right being here alone, Hester told herself firmly. What are you afraid of? Ghosts?

Her stomach rumbled at that point, effectively putting paid to all thoughts of spectres or earls. What time was it? The old longcase clock in the kitchen had last been wound years ago, but her pocket watch said clearly that it was two of the clock and that breakfast at the inn at King’s Langley where they had stayed overnight was many hours away.

Jethro had thoughtfully drawn a bucket of water, which stood in the slate-lined sink. Hester dipped some out into a bowl, found an ancient scrubbing brush on the window ledge and attacked the kitchen table. It would need hours’ more work before it became white again, but at least they could eat luncheon off it without a qualm.

She spread a cloth from the top of one of the hampers, found bread, cheese, a jar of pickles and a packet of butter, then turned her attention to the contents of the kitchen cupboards.

Jethro returned after half an hour with a vast earthenware pitcher of ale, heavy enough to make him gasp with relief when he set it down on the table. ‘That’s a ploughman’s pot, that is,’ he remarked, mopping his brow. ‘Part of the ploughman’s wages is his daily ale and his lad goes to fetch it for him. Often as not he’ll empty it down, then break it on the plough handles and send the boy back for another one with a cuff on the ear for being so careless.’

Hester put down the stack of plates she had been scouring in cold water and regarded him, head on one side. ‘That is interesting, Jethro. How did you know that?’

‘Don’t remember,’ he muttered, opening the other hamper and starting to lift things out. ‘They’ll send the cask over later today, but I thought we’d need some for now.’

Hester sighed. She had found him unconscious in the gutter in Old Holborn over a year ago, starved thin as a rake and with the marks of old beatings on his back. Taken back to the house in Mount Street, he had been quiet, polite and obdurately silent on anything but his name. He attached himself with dogged devotion to Hester and obeyed her in everything but the request to tell of his past. His accent had a burr, which had largely vanished under the influence of London speech and Hester’s cultured tones, but she suspected country origins and that little story seemed to confirm it.

‘Here is some cutlery.’ She pushed it over the table, abandoning any thought of probing further. If and when he wanted to tell her he would do so. She had enough bad memories and secrets of her own not to pry into his.

Finally they sat down to eat in front of the range, which was slowly beginning to take the chill off the air. Hester put down her ale, which she was drinking out of an earthenware beaker for want of any more suitable vessel, and observed, ‘I hope the glassware arrives safely with Susan. We are having a gentleman caller tomorrow and I must offer wine.’

‘At least we’ve got some good wine,’ Jethro remarked. The disturbing memory had faded, leaving him bright eyed and interested.

‘Yes, and fortunately I put a few bottles of the Madeira and port into the baggage that is on the chaise. The rest will be coming with the carrier.’

Bless John for having left her his wine cellar. An unconventional thing to leave to a woman, but they had enjoyed a glass of wine together so often. Of course, it was only one of the numerous scandalous things that could be laid at her door. And his relatives had not hesitated to enumerate every one.

This time it was Jethro who pulled her out of painful reverie. ‘What gentleman is it, Miss Hester?’

‘No mere gentleman…an earl, no less.’ Hester pushed the card across to him. Jethro read it, eyes wide.

‘You won’t have Susan answering the door, will you, Miss Hester? Not in the afternoon?’

‘No, Jethro. A female servant in the afternoon? That would never do.’ Hester repressed a smile. ‘I shall require you to put on your best suit and be the butler.’

His wide grin was not in the slightest reduced by the intelligence that, as well as setting the bedchambers and kitchen to rights today, they must all work tomorrow to clean the hall and make one of the front reception rooms decent before their visitor arrived.

‘It will take all the furniture we can find to furnish up the one room.’ Hester bit her lip thoughtfully. ‘The carrier’s cart will not arrive tomorrow and what there is here is sparse, to put it mildly.’

‘And old-fashioned.’ Jethro’s ambitions in life caused him to be surprisingly aware of such details.

‘Good quality, though, and very feminine. Perhaps the last person to live here was an elderly single woman, or a widow.’

Further speculation was cut short by the arrival of the post chaise in the yard. Susan Wilmott—plump, good natured and just now looking delighted to have arrived—jumped down and held up her hands to assist an older woman. Miss Prudhome, Hester’s companion of two weeks’ standing, and decidedly green in the face, tottered from the vehicle and into Hester’s arms. ‘Never again, Hester dear, not if I have to walk a hundred miles! Never again in one of those yellow bounders.’

‘There, there.’ Hester patted her back while trying to ignore the postilion’s rolling eyes. ‘You made very good time considering,’ she added placatingly to the man. ‘Jethro, show the postilion where he can water his horses while we unload the chaise.’

Hester placed her companion firmly in a chair in the kitchen with a glass of water and joined her two staff to bring in the contents of the post chaise.

Susan dumped an armload on the table and looked around her with interest. ‘Nice house, Miss Hester, but it’s awful big for just two staff. Are you going to hire in anyone else?’

‘I hope so, Susan.’ Hester lowered her end of a hamper of house wares. ‘But I need to find out how much I must spend to get the house in order first and then I will see what we can afford. Until then we will just keep the downstairs and three bedchambers in order.

‘Now, you find yourself some luncheon and then we will decide what to do first.’ She regarded Miss Prudhome dubiously. ‘Do you think you could manage a little luncheon, Prudy?’

A pitiful groan greeted the question. Miss Prudhome was thin, forty-eight years of age and, Jethro was unkind enough to remark, closely resembled a hen. ‘One of those worried-looking brown ones, you know, Miss Hester.’

Hester did know, and unfortunately could not get the image out of her head whenever she looked at her recently engaged companion with her pointed nose and anxious little eyes behind precarious pince-nez.

She was, in fact, a governess but, as Hester’s limited budget had ruled out all the superior companions who presented themselves in answer to her advertisement, she was the only affordable candidate. Her halting tale of being dismissed from her employment of ten years because the youngest boy had gone to school wrung Hester’s kind heart and she had accepted her application against her better judgement. She had even yielded to Miss Prudhome’s wistful request that she call her ‘Prudy’.

Jethro marched in, arms loaded with broom, mop and bucket and clanked past. ‘I’ll just get the worst of the mess sorted upstairs, Miss Hester, and light the fires.’

By seven o’clock the four of them were collapsed in a semi-circle of chairs by the range, which Jethro had managed to keep going, although with an ominously smoky chimney. ‘Full of nests, I guess,’ he observed. ‘I’d better find a sweep tomorrow and have all the fires done.’

‘Never mind,’ Hester said cheerfully. ‘We each have a comfortable bed to sleep in and a clean kitchen to cook and eat in. And tomorrow we can see to the hall and front room.’

Prudy twittered nervously, Susan sighed gustily and even Jethro looked a little daunted, presumably at the thought of all the other rooms, to say nothing of the garden, the stable yard and the outbuildings. But Hester felt nothing but peace and a sense of home. If she had been a cat she would have turned round several times and curled up in front of the fire with her tail over her nose; as it was she got to her feet, rolled up her sleeves and reached for a saucepan.

‘Dinner and bed for all of us. If we do not eat soon, we will be beyond it,’ she said bracingly. ‘You peel the potatoes, Jethro. Susan, shred some of that cabbage and slice the onions and I will fry up those collops of veal. Prudy, please lay the table and put some bricks in the lower oven to warm up for the beds.’

The meal was good, filling and savoury, and the eyes of her three companions were soon drooping. Hester sent Susan and Prudy to bed, each clutching a flannel-wrapped brick, assuring them she had no further need of them that night, and even Jethro was persuaded to take himself and his lantern off to his bed over the stables after faithfully checking the windows and front door.

Hester twisted the key in the back door after him, dragged the bolts across and gave the fire a final riddle before taking a chamber stick and making her way through the now-silent house.

The darkness closed in behind her softly like a velvet curtain as she climbed the stairs. There was no light from the other rooms. She hesitated on the threshold of her chamber, her eyes on the door leading to the dressing room. In the firelight it seemed to move.

The silence enclosed her, friendly no longer. ‘No,’ Hester said firmly. ‘This is my room and I am not going to be frightened by some broken glass and a stain on the wall.’

She marched over to the table by the chaise-longue and lit the candles in the three-branched stick that stood on it. Her own face reflected in the panes of glass in the unshuttered windows. It was the dark of the moon and only lights from the houses and cottages around the Green punctuated the night.

As she tried to pull the silk curtains closed they crumbled in her hands, rotten from years of neglect. On one window the shutters unfolded and closed easily enough, but on the other they would not shift, even at the cost of a broken fingernail. Hester shrugged; she would undress on the screened side of the room.

In her nightrail and shawl she bent to blow out the branched candlestick and found herself staring at that door again. Was she going to sleep or was she going to lie awake, staring at it in the dark and imagining goodness knows what?

Slowly Hester walked towards it, the single chamber stick in her hand, and finally turned the handle. ‘Oh, bless the boy!’ Jethro had swept and dusted. The glass was gone, the stained patch of wall gleamed newly white. The pearls had been collected up into a bowl on the dressing table and the doors of the presses were shut. He had even opened the window an inch and the chill air had driven away the musty smell. It was an empty, unthreatening room once more. He was a good lad, sensitive beyond his years sometimes. Hester smiled, recalling John’s doubts when she had returned home with her filthy waif. ‘You will regret it,’ he said, studying the lad with a cynical soldier’s eye, but she never had.

She drifted back to bed, reassured and suddenly too tired either to plan or to remember. As she snuggled under the sheets her thoughts flickered to tomorrow’s encounter. What would the earl think of her? she wondered. Strange that it was not his wife who had made the first call. Perhaps he was unmarried…

Hester slept. Across the road in the red brick house Guy Westrope stood in his dark bedchamber, the book he had strolled upstairs to fetch in his hand. He could see in the dark uncannily well and had not troubled to pick up the branch of candles from the landing table when he entered. Now he stood waiting to see whether that slender ghost of a figure in white would cross the room opposite his again. But the window in the Moon House went dark as a candle was extinguished.

Who was she? Not that quaint maid, not in what must be the best bedchamber. The lady of the house? Or simply a phantom of his imagination? No, not that, for the ghost he would expect to conjure up would have blonde hair, not a tumbling mass of brunette curls.

Cursing himself for a fool, not for the first time that day, Guy strode out of the room and downstairs to a solitary meal. The most entertainment he could hope for would be his attempts to catch his butler Parrott betraying by so much as a quiver his utter disapproval of the village, the house and the entire enterprise. His valet was far more vocal on the subject and on the ruination of his hopes of seeing his master outshining every guest at Major Carew’s house party. Guy smiled grimly: he was an extremely generous and considerate employer, but he was not going to be criticised by his own staff for whatever whim he chose to indulge. In this particular case he could do that quite effectively himself.

At ten to three the next afternoon Hester called her household into the newly garnished reception room and surveyed both it and them. They had scoured the room clean and then stripped the house of suitable furnishings. The chaise-longue from her bedroom, a dresser from the other front chamber and side tables from all over dressed the room and a large, if smoky, fire blazed on the hearth. There were two imposing armchairs, which she placed one each side of the fireplace, and a chair set to one side for Prudy to sit upon. It looked a little like a rented room in an unfashionable part of town, but it would have to do.

At least she and her staff were suitably clad to receive a caller: Jethro in his best dark suit with horizontally striped waistcoat, his hair neatly tied back, Susan in a respectable dimity and Prudy looking every bit the governess in sombre grey with a black knitted shawl. For herself Hester had chosen a gown of fine wool in a soft old gold colour, with a fichu edged with some of the good lace she had inherited from her mother and her best Paisley shawl. Her hair was ruthlessly confined in its net at the back with just a few soft curls at the temples and forehead.

Hester gave her hem one last anxious twitch. ‘I think we look admirably respectable,’ she announced firmly. It was the impression she was striving for, the impression it was essential to convey if she was to hope to have any kind of social life in the village or nearby towns. It was odd enough for a young lady of four and twenty to live alone save for a companion, but to produce the slightest suspicion of anything ‘not quite the thing’ would be fatal.

The effort it had taken to transform the front room and the hall had succeeded in distracting her from the nagging feeling that she might already have sunk herself beneath reproach when she answered the door to the earl yesterday. But now it returned. Would he be very affronted when he realised who the maid was? Or, even worse, would he consider it a great joke to be spread around his acquaintance? Being thought to be eccentric was not Hester’s ambition either.

He was most certainly prompt. Hester had hardly settled herself before the fireplace with a piece of embroidery in her hand when the knocker sounded. Jethro tugged down his coat, straightened his face and strode out.

There was the sound of voices in the hall, then Jethro reappeared. ‘The Earl of Buckland, Miss Lattimer.’

Hester rose to her feet, put down her embroidery, looked up and felt her breath catch in her throat. Somehow she retrieved enough of it not to croak as she stepped forward with outstretched hand. ‘Good afternoon, my lord. I am Hester Lattimer.’

How could she not have realised yesterday? Had she been so overwhelmed by the house, so frightened by his sudden knocking? The man standing in front of her was not just extremely attractive—quite simply, he was her ideal. She had no need to do more than to look into those dark blue eyes with their crinkle of laughter lines at the corners, the lurking mixture of intelligence, humour and frank admiration in their depths, to feel a surge of heat in her blood and an indefinable sense of recognition.

He took her hand and her pulse began to thud so that she thought he must have felt it as he touched her. Hastily she retrieved her hand. ‘My lord, may I make known to you my companion, Miss Prudhome?’ He inclined his head with a smile and Prudy produced a gawky curtsy and an unintelligible twitter. Hester sighed inwardly and gestured towards the other chair. ‘Please, my lord, will you not sit down?’

Goodness, he was tall, and broad and…male. Not good looking, she decided, for his nose had definitely been broken, the planes of his face were strong rather than beautiful, his dark blond hair was too long…

‘Harrumph.’

Hester started. How long had she been staring at her visitor? Not too long, surely, for he did not appear discommoded. Jethro was standing by the door, looking abashed. His intended quiet throat-clearing had emerged as rather more of a foghorn than a tactful signal from a butler.

‘Ackland, please fetch us some refreshment. Would you care to take tea, my lord? Or perhaps some Madeira?’

‘Tea would be delightful, thank you, Miss Lattimer.’ She nodded to Jethro, who effaced himself silently.

The earl’s voice exactly suited him, she decided. So often a voice was a sad disappointment, but his was deep, pleasant and carried a hint of authority. He was watching her with composure, those blue eyes resting on her face, betraying no sign that he recognised her from the day before. To refer to it or not? Suddenly Hester felt she would make herself ridiculous in his estimation if she was missish about this.

‘I am sorry I could not receive you yesterday when you called,’ she began. ‘We had only just arrived and it was necessary to do more than I had anticipated to set the house to rights.’

‘My sister frequently tells me that the servant shortage is a difficulty,’ he observed urbanely. Yes, no doubt about it, he did recognise her as that dishevelled ‘maid’.

‘Oh, it is not that, my lord. I have chosen to bring only a skeleton staff from London and I will hire locally. But just now we are a small household.’ Hopefully that sounded as though she was used to commanding a staff of four times the number.

‘But, until then, it is intolerable to have to put up with cobwebs?’ The corner of his mouth quirked and Hester could feel her own twitching in response. There was nothing for it but to be frank and trust to his goodwill.

‘Indeed. It was most remiss of me to have opened the door without thinking. Goodness knows what you must have thought.’ Now that was a foolish thing to have said, inviting him to agree with her.

‘I thought that the new arrival in the village had excellent taste in domestic servants.’ Now what did he mean by that? Surely not that he considered her attractive? She found she had no objection to the earl holding that opinion, but for him to say so was the outside of enough.

‘I should have called my butler,’ she said repressively.

‘Your butler? Surely you do not mean that youth who showed me in?’

‘But certainly, my lord. I should tell you that Ackland has the intention to become the best butler in England,’ Hester retorted warmly as the door opened. ‘Ah, thank you, Ackland, please put the tray here. I was just telling his lordship that you have great ambitions to rise in your profession.’

‘To be the best butler in England, I understand.’ The earl half-turned in his seat to regard the gangling youth, showing no sign he had noticed the freckles, the pimples or the fact that the coat sleeves were already half an inch too short. Hester, who had been holding her breath, expecting him to snub the lad and wishing she had kept her mouth shut, could have kissed him.

‘Yes, my lord.’ Jethro blushed, but managed to keep his face and voice in order.

‘Well, Ackland, I have to tell you that the best butler in England is Mr Parrott and he is in my employ.’

‘Here, my lord? In this village?’ Now he sounded fourteen and not the seventeen Hester guessed him to be.

‘Certainly he is here. I shall mention you to him; perhaps one day, when he is not too busy, he will unbend enough to give you some advice on your chosen profession.’

Jethro had gone so white Hester was certain he was about to swoon. ‘That is most kind of his lordship, Ackland. You may go now.’ Bless him, his feet would not touch the ground for a week.

‘That was most kind of you, my lord,’ she said as the door closed behind the youth. ‘He is so very serious about this, despite his age. A single lady’s household is no training ground for him and I suppose he should be seeking a footman’s post as a start.’

‘But you need him here,’ the earl said with a smile. ‘Let us see what Parrott advises.’ He saw the question in her eyes and nodded. ‘Yes, I will make sure he spends some time with the lad.’

Hester poured the tea and wondered when her visitor was going to broach the reason for his call. Surely it was not purely social? ‘Is the countess with you, my lord?’ she enquired, passing the tea cup.

‘My mother died some months ago.’ Her eyes must have flickered over the dark blue long-tailed coat he wore, for he added, ‘She abhorred mourning, so after the first month we all left it off. I do not feel that wearing unrelieved black for months on end helps one remember the departed any more fondly.’

‘No, indeed,’ Hester agreed. ‘I myself—’ She broke off. This was one area she did not wish to explore.

‘You have suffered a recent loss too?’ His voice was sympathetic and she almost said more than she should.

‘Yes. I was a companion to an invalid for almost two years. The end was not unexpected.’ If that left the false impression that she had been the companion to an elderly lady, then so much the better.

‘It does not lessen the loss.’ He put down his cup and saucer and recrossed his long legs. ‘That was most refreshing. Miss Lattimer, I cannot pretend that this is a social call; I wish to discuss with you a matter of business.’

‘Business?’ Hester made no effort to hide her surprise.

‘Perhaps I should address myself to your man of affairs? If you would give me his direction, I will be happy to do so, although I feel this is a matter upon which he would immediately have to consult you in any case.’

‘Then perhaps you can broach the matter and I will refer you to him if necessary.’

‘Very well. Miss Lattimer, I wish to purchase your house.’

Chapter Three

‘You wish to purchase my house?’ Hester echoed blankly. ‘Which house?’

‘Why, this one.’ His lips quirked again. This time Hester felt no inclination to smile back. ‘Do you have another?’

‘No! And I have absolutely no intention of selling the Moon House. I have only just bought it myself and I have been resident in it but one night, my lord.’

‘I am aware of that, which is why I have called so close upon your arrival. I have no wish to disrupt your life, but you will not have had time to grow attached to the place and, as your heavy luggage has not yet arrived, I imagine you are far from settled.’ He sat back more comfortably into the chair, his hands clasped, a picture of ease.

Hester was beginning to move from bemusement to anger. He was keeping a close eye upon her movements indeed! ‘I am firmly attached to this house, my lord, which is why I bought it.’

‘I agree it is a very pretty place,’ he acknowledged sympathetically. ‘You show admirable taste in selecting it, Miss Lattimer.’ Hester narrowed her eyes, she was not going to be charmed, patronised or cozened out of the Moon House, it was ridiculous for him to try. ‘I will put another house at your disposal until you have decided where you want to live. I have houses in London—’

‘I have just moved from London.’

‘Or Oxford, if you prefer another town. Or I am sure my agents can find you a country home you would be charmed with.’

‘But I am already charmed with this one, my lord. I have no need, no desire and absolutely no intention of moving from it.’ Hester took a reviving sip of tea and set her cup down with emphasis. Why did she feel Guy Westrope would quite happily take root here in her drawing room and persist until she gave in out of sheer weariness? The flame of attraction she had felt for him was rapidly becoming quenched under a douche of puzzlement and irritation. And he was so uncompromisingly large and male it was very difficult to ignore him.

‘I will naturally pay you well in excess of your purchase price to compensate for the inconvenience, and my agents will undertake all the arrangements for you.’

Lord Buckland was regarding her calmly as though he had not the slightest doubt that she would eventually agree with whatever he wanted. Presumably if one was a wealthy, titled, personable aristocrat with one’s fair share of self-esteem, one normally experienced little difficulty in obtaining what one desired. It was time he learned this was not an inevitable state of affairs.

‘My lord, I have said no, and no I mean.’ That appeared to make no impression. ‘Why do you want the Moon House so badly?’ she asked abruptly and was rewarded by a sudden flash of emotion in those blue eyes. Ah, so he was not as unreadable as perhaps he liked to think.

‘I am not at liberty to say, Miss Lattimer. Might I ask why you are so attached to a house you scarcely know?’

‘I am perfectly at liberty to tell you that, my lord,’ Hester said, matching her cool tones to his. ‘But I have absolutely no intention of doing so.’

His expression this time was of amusement and, she thought, a grudging respect. ‘Touché. I shall just have to see if I can change your mind, Miss Lattimer. Doubtless some of the inconveniences of the house will become apparent over the next few days as the first charm wears off. All old houses have their…peculiarities.’

A little shiver went through Hester. The dressing room— could that be described as a peculiarity? To hide her sudden apprehension she continued to attack. ‘And meanwhile you intend to camp out in that hideous barracks of a house opposite while you attempt to wear me down?’

‘How do you know that is not a favourite family home?’ he enquired, steepling his fingers and regarding her over the top of them. Hester could not help but admire their length and the restrained taste of the heavy gold signet that was their only adornment.

‘Because I looked at your card and then I checked the Peerage,’ she retorted tartly, dragging her eyes away from his hands.

He nodded in acknowledgement of her hit. ‘Most wise of you, Miss Lattimer. But my hideous barracks has one great advantage.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘The view is so much better from my windows than from yours.’ He got to his feet with the natural elegance of a very fit man. ‘Thank you for the tea, ma’am. It was a pleasure meeting you.’

Exasperating man. How could she ever have thought him attractive?

Hester rose and reached out to tug the bell pull sharply. It resisted, then the whole thing came away in her hands, showering her with a light dusting of plaster and dead flies. Prudy gave a cry of alarm. Hester stood stock still, clutching the fraying rope and trying to resist the temptation to swipe at the dust covering her gown. It would be undignified and would most certainly make marks. Possibly the floor would open up and swallow her, but she doubted anything so helpful would occur.

The earl stepped forward, an immaculate white handkerchief in his hand. ‘Please allow me, Miss Lattimer, you have plaster dust on your lashes. It will be most painful if it goes in your eye.’

It appeared that nothing was going to stop him. With a noise like an cross kitten Hester closed her eyes and let him flick the fragments away. She opened her eyes again cautiously, only to find him still standing close in front of her.

‘Did you know your eyes change colour when you are angry?’ he asked conversationally. ‘It must be those gold flecks.’

Taken aback, Hester spoke without thinking. ‘They also change when I am happy.’

‘I am sure they reflect your every emotion,’ his lordship rejoined. ‘A fascinating phenomenon; I must watch out for it. Closely.’

A series of possible retorts ran through Hester’s brain, each one censored by good manners. She was going to hang on to the character of a gentlewoman if it killed her. ‘I am sure you would rapidly become bored, my lord. I imagine I have exhibited my full range of emotions this afternoon.’

‘Do you think so, Miss Lattimer?’ He regarded her quizzically. ‘I so very much hope you are wrong. Good afternoon. Miss Prudhome, ma’am.’

Jethro must have been standing with an ear to the door, listening for approaching footsteps, for he whisked it open before the earl reached it. ‘Your hat, my lord.’

The door closed and Hester plumped down in the chair, the unwise force raising a cloud of dust. ‘Infuriating man!’

‘Oh, Hester!’ Prudy hurried over and looked nervously from Hester’s stormy face to the white-spotted gown. ‘Shall I fetch the clothes brush?’ She hesitated. ‘Was the earl flirting with you?’

‘Yes, do please call Susan to fetch the clothes brush, but wait until his lordship has gone. And I am not sure what he was doing other than trying to throw me off balance so that I sell him this house. If he thinks he can do it by flirting, then he is in for a big surprise.’

‘Well, I do declare!’ Susan bustled in unsummoned as the sound of the front door closing reached them. ‘Look at the state of you, Miss Hester.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ Miss Prudhome was staring at Hester aghast, her pince-nez crooked. ‘He was flirting with you and I should have stopped him, hinted him away. My first duty as a chaperon and I have failed!’

‘The nerve of the man! And him an earl too—is he one of those London rakes they talk about, Miss Hester?’

‘Probably,’ Hester said vaguely. ‘Fetch me the clothes brush, please, Susan. Prudy, do sit down and compose yourself, no harm has been done.’

The maid hastened out, leaving Hester regarding her own clasped hands. Slowly she raised them, bent at the wrists in a gesture to push away an unseen figure. He had been so close. Her palms tingled as though from the imagined friction of superfine cloth against skin.

Hester rubbed her palms together briskly. That cool, polite manner and then that moment of quite shocking intimacy as he had gazed into her eyes! His closeness—the implication of his words—if not his tone—was suggestive of his desire for even greater closeness. Hester shook herself; he had wanted to throw her off balance and he had succeeded, that was all. It was nothing she was not perfectly capable of dealing with. Why, then, did she feel so disturbed, so…apprehensive?

Jethro reappeared, looking pleased with himself, Susan at his heels. ‘That was very good, Jethro. Your first member of the aristocracy and you carried it off well. Oh, thank you, Susan, I think it will brush away easily enough.’

‘I didn’t drop his gloves nor nothing.’ Jethro met her eye and carefully corrected himself. ‘Or anything. Do you think his lordship meant it when he said I could talk to his butler? I mean, that wasn’t something he just said because he was making up to you, was it, Miss Hester?’

‘That is a most unsuitable expression, Jethro. I am sure Lord Buckland will be a man of his word.’ Again that ripple of apprehension lapped at her nerves. He had said that he wanted the Moon House and somehow that had seemed not a request, but a statement of what was going to happen. Surely he would not stoop to attempting to suborn her staff? Oh, if only Prudy would stop snivelling; she could hardly think.

Susan was whispering urgently to Jethro. When they realised she was looking at them they fell silent and regarded her apprehensively. Finally Jethro said, ‘Are you going to sell the house to him, Miss Hester?’

‘Certainly not. This is our home now and I am not going to be turned out of it by some town buck because he has a whim to own it.’ Their relief was palpable: already they were beginning to put down roots here.

Lord Buckland’s departure left a flat feeling of anticlimax behind it, but Hester could not find the energy to change her clothes again and tackle any more housework.

‘We will take the rest of the day as a holiday from housework,’ she announced briskly. ‘The heavy luggage should arrive tomorrow, so let us explore outside and look at the garden and yard. Yes, you too, Prudy, I know it is cold, but at least the rain has stopped. Some fresh air will do us all good.’

Susan ran for their bonnets and cloaks, Jethro swathed himself in a vast baize apron to protect his finery and they set to exploring the back yard.

Hector the cob watched them curiously over his stable door as they poked about in the outbuildings lining the yard, one or other of them emerging from time to time with a treasure from amidst the cobwebby jumble. A coal scuttle, a flower basket, a large bag of clothes pegs full of woodworm.

‘It is too dirty to move anything, and it is getting dark,’ Hester announced after they had investigated the last lean-to. ‘I think we must definitely find a man to do the rough work and clear the garden and perhaps two women to finish the cleaning in the house. If they prove suitable, perhaps we can retain one of them as cook. I do wish the vicar would call, then I can ask his wife if she could recommend anyone.’

Jethro cleared his throat meaningfully and Hester turned to find a portly man in clerical black regarding her benevolently over the folds of a heavy scarf. He doffed his hat. ‘Good day, madam, I trust you will excuse my calling without notice and at rather a late hour, but my parish duties have kept me somewhat occupied today. However, I could not let the sun set without welcoming a new parishioner to Winterbourne St Swithin. My name is Bunting, Charles Bunting, and I am the vicar of this parish.’

Hester spared one despairing thought for the state of her skirts after dragging the coal scuttle out, and held out her hand. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Bunting, how very kind of you to call. I am Hester Lattimer, this is my companion, Miss Prudhome.’

She was aware of his quick downward glance at her ringless left hand as he took her right.

‘Then welcome to St Swithin’s, ladies. I do hope you will be able to join us in church on Sunday; I have taken the liberty of bringing a small pamphlet with our hours of service to which I have appended a few notes on the history and antiquities of the parish. Others have been kind enough to say they found it of interest.’ Hester took the proffered leaflet with suitable expressions of thanks and assurances that her household would most certainly be attending services. ‘And is there any other matter with which I may assist you, ma’am?’

‘Well, yes, in fact there is. But please, do not let me keep you standing out here, Vicar, may I offer you refreshment? A cup of tea, perhaps?’

‘No, no, Miss Lattimer, thank you. I must decline the pleasure today as I have a sick parishioner to visit shortly. In what way may I assist?’

‘I was hoping that perhaps Mrs Bunting might recommend some reliable women for the heavy cleaning work and perhaps a man for clearing the grounds and outbuildings.’

‘But of course! My wife will be most pleased to call with some names; there are many deserving families hereabouts who would welcome the work. And as for the outdoor duties, there is no one better than Ben Aston—he does odd jobs all around the village. I will send him along to see you. Good day to you, ma’am.’ And with a neat doff of his broad-brimmed hat he was off into the twilight at a surprisingly quick pace for such a rotund gentleman.

As he reached the gate he stopped and hurried back. ‘Forgive me for asking, Miss Lattimer, but are you quite comfortable in the Moon House? If you are taking on staff, I assume you intend to stay? I only ask because it has been empty for so long and, well—’ He broke off in confusion. ‘I should not have said anything, the villagers do gossip so. Good day, Miss Lattimer.’

‘Well,’ Susan said roundly as he vanished from view, ‘and what did he mean by that, other than to make us all uncomfortable?’

‘I have not the slightest idea.’ Hester’s brow wrinkled. ‘I think he spoke without thinking, then realised that the direction he was taking led to something he could—or should— not discuss.’

‘But you are staying, Miss Hester?’ Jethro persisted. ‘I mean, you said you weren’t sure yet whether we could afford any staff?’

Hester suppressed a smile at Jethro’s unconscious use of ‘we’: he and Susan were ‘family’ indeed. ‘Certainly we are,’ she said firmly, marching towards the back door. ‘I do not care whether I can afford the extra help or not; I intend demonstrating to my lord the earl that I am here to stay and an increased household will make that point very plain.’

Chapter Four

‘No good, Miss Hester, this dratted stuff won’t shift. I’ll need a longer stepladder and some shears.’

Jethro jumped down from the folding steps set somewhat askew on the flags before the front door and glowered up at the mass of ivy, which obscured half of the façade of the house. ‘Why don’t we wait until that chap Vicar said he’d talk to comes round? I ’spect he’s got his own ladders.’

Hester stood beside him, hands on hips, head tilted back to regard the frosted green tangle. ‘Ben Aston? Yes, he can do all of the rest of the front, I just want to see what is over the door. There is something, you can just glimpse the odd bit of carving.’

She had woken that Saturday morning with a restless urge to imprint herself on the house that even the prospect of the heavy luggage arriving did not satisfy. Prudy had agreed to venture into the village with a shopping list of considerable length (looking as though she was setting forth for deepest Africa, as Jethro whispered to Susan). Susan had set to with a broom to sweep the front path and then polish the brass knocker and door handle and Hester had put Jethro to cutting back the mass of dead foliage that overhung the path and crowded the front door. With that clear, the weight of ivy over the transom was even more apparent.

Of course, finishing off cleaning inside and deciding where everything should go was far more important than getting cold and dirty in the wintry garden, but there was something very satisfying about being here in plain view of passers-by—whoever they might be—making it quite clear she intended to stay.

Hester had spared not a single glance at the house over the road, had ignored the creak of the gates opening earlier and even disregarded the sound of trotting hooves. Two horses, her sharp ears told her. The earl and a groom or two grooms out exercising his hacks?

If she were his lordship, she would stay well away from the Moon House for a day or so, build up the suspense over what his next tactic would be. Being able to see this so clearly was surprisingly no help in suppressing that suspense. When would the earl call, and what would his approach be? And how was she going to react to him if he tried to flirt with her again? She was annoyed that she was looking forward to the prospect. Doubtless it was simply the anticipation of an intellectual battle of wits.

‘Do you want me to try and find some shears, then, Miss Hester?’ Jethro was still waiting patiently, the tip of his nose red in the cold.

‘Yes, please.’

‘I’ll likely be some time.’ Jethro made off round the side of the house, leaving Hester trampling briskly on thoughts of Lord Buckland. She stepped closer to the door to try to see what peering up from beneath would reveal. Yes, there was definitely a carving.

Without thinking, Hester hitched up her skirts and climbed the first two steps of the ladder. With outstretched arms she could catch hold of some trailing strands of ivy, but not enough; all that happened when she pulled was that it broke off short. With a mutter of irritation she climbed one step higher to the top of the ladder and reached up again.

‘That’s better!’ Now she could get a good double handful. Hester gripped, tugged and suddenly a mass about a foot square came away in her hands. The stepladder rocked on the uneven flags, she teetered, gripped harder on the ivy and felt it give way as she did so.

Should she jump? Or lean forward? Or… The ivy gave completely and she fell backwards to be caught neatly and lowered to the ground, her back to her rescuer.

Hands still gripped her securely, but gently, around the waist and Hester stood stock still. She could feel the man’s body steadying her—his thighs were hard against her and his hands were warm even through her clothing. To wrench away would be undignified. Mysteriously she had not the slightest doubt who it was who had rescued her. In a moment he would release her, but for the moment it was wonderful to be held and supported, for she was utterly breathless, no doubt from shock. It seemed a very long time since anyone had held her.

Hester’s hands went to her waist, overlapping the large ones that encircled it. This really had to stop—at any moment someone might pass.

‘My lord!’

She was freed and spun round to face him, mingled indignation and embarrassment on her face. What was she thinking of? She should have freed herself instantly, not stood there letting him take liberties. No, that was not fair, all he had done was hold her steady.

A rangy bay was standing at her gate, the reins carelessly tossed over the gatepost. The earl was attired for riding— cream buckskins, boots, a heavy dark coat carelessly open— his hat, gloves and whip were lying on the path where he must have dropped them as he saw her start to fall.

In the open air he was even more attractive than inside, she decided, still searching for the right words to thank him and at the same time convey that his behaviour had overstepped the mark. His hair was ruffled by the wind, his skin was more tanned than she had realised, the riding clothes flattered his broad shoulders and long legs.

‘Thank you, my lord, but really…’ What was she going to say if he asked her how she had known it was him? That she just sensed it?

‘Really you would have preferred to break your head on the flags? Good morning, Miss Lattimer. It is naturally delightful to see you in the garden, but surely that lad of yours would be better suited to removing the ivy than you?’

‘I know,’ Hester agreed with a rueful shrug. He was quite right, she had been very foolish and extremely undignified. It seemed she was fated to present a thoroughly unladylike impression every time they met. ‘Jethro has gone for the shears. But there is something carved over the door and I wanted to see what it was.’

Lord Buckland stepped past her and looked up at the wall where the ivy was partly torn away. ‘You are quite right, but was it so urgent?’

‘When I want something, I am afraid I am usually somewhat impetuous,’ Hester admitted.

One dark brow quirked upwards and Hester was left with the flustered impression that she had said something provocative. ‘Very well, let me see what I can uncover.’ Before Hester could protest she found herself holding his coat while the earl stood on the top step and investigated the ivy.

His balance was really extremely good, she thought, staring absently at the play of muscles in his thighs and back as he shifted his weight to allow for the unstable steps. Then she realised what she was doing, blushed hectically and fixed her eyes on his hands instead. With a hard downwards yank a whole curtain of ivy and root came away, revealing the bare stone behind.

Unmistakable, despite the marring remnants of stem and birds’ nests, was an oval panel carved with a crescent moon, a solitary star caught on its lower horn.

‘The Moon House! Oh, how charming.’ Hester stared entranced at the carving. It was a simple thing, but somehow elegant and feminine like the little house itself.

‘Yes, work by a good carver.’ There was something in the earl’s voice that made Hester look sharply at his profile, but she could read nothing there besides interest as he ran a hand lightly down the curve of the moon. ‘Someone took pains with this house.’

‘I know, it feels loved,’ Hester remarked as he climbed down, tossing the armful of ivy to one side. ‘Goodness, look at the state of your clothes, my lord. I will go and get a clothes brush, I will not be a moment.’

She had thrust his coat into his arms and whisked inside before Guy could argue, leaving him on the doorstep. Somewhat impetuous! Yes, that was certainly one way to describe Miss Lattimer. And determined with it. Not that he could criticise either trait; it was impetuosity that had brought him down here and stubborn determination that was keeping him. That, and a speaking pair of golden brown eyes.

The newly polished door knocker caught his attention and he raised a hand to it. It was an unusual design: a bow, pivoted at the top and hung so that it would strike against a quiver of arrows at its base.

A crescent moon and a hunting bow—Diana’s symbols.

The cry from the casement above his head was sudden and short, cut off on a choking gasp. Guy took a rapid step backwards to stare up, but the window was almost closed and there was nothing to be seen. The silence that followed was almost as alarming and he shouldered his way through the door and took the stairs two at a time without conscious thought.

The room above the door was a bedchamber and to his relief Hester was there, alone and on her feet. She was staring through an open door, her clasped hands raised to her mouth as if to push back any further sound.

He reached her side and looked past her into a perfectly normal-seeming dressing room. ‘Miss Lattimer? Hester, what is it? What scared you?’

‘The pearls,’ she said with some difficulty. She unclasped her hands and pointed at the floor, which was strewn with small white globes.

‘You have broken your necklace,’ Guy soothed. Hers seemed a disproportionate reaction, it must be a much loved heirloom. ‘They will easily be restrung, there is no harm done. Let me call your maid to gather them up.’

‘She has gone to the nearest farm for eggs,’ Hester said stiffly. ‘I did not break it. I found it on the floor, broken, the first night we were here. The pearls were picked up and put in that bowl there.’ She pointed at a delicate china bowl on the dressing table. ‘That has not moved. How did they come to be spilt again?’

‘Perhaps your maid knocked them over this morning and neglected to replace them.’ She was shivering with reaction. Concerned, Guy put out a hand and touched her shoulder.

‘No, she came downstairs when I did, then went out without coming back up.’

‘Young Ackland? Your companion?’

‘He would not come into my chamber without asking first, whether or not I was here, and I know Miss Prudhome has not been upstairs since before breakfast.’

Guy looked at the window, closed almost to the top. No breeze stirred the heavy curtains; besides, what flapping curtain could scoop the pearls from a bowl, but leave it untouched?

‘Have you a cat?’

‘No.’ He felt her shoulder move under his palm, almost as though she was bracing herself. ‘I must pick them up.’ She took a step forward, then stopped on the threshold and froze.

To hell with the proprieties. Guy swept her off her feet, heeled the dressing-room door closed and took her to the chaise where he sat down, Hester on his knee, and demanded, ‘What was all that about? You are quite safe now.’

For answer there was a muffled hiccup from the region of his shoulder where she had buried her face. ‘I am not crying, and I am merely very cross with myself for being a ninny.’

‘No, of course you aren’t crying.’ Guy knew better than to agree with remarks about being a ninny. He had a sister.

Then, more clearly, ‘I am such a coward, I was not going to let it prey on my mind and at the first little thing I go to pieces.’

Now what to say? If he agreed that the pearls were a little thing, he was agreeing with her own self-criticism. If he said that, in fact, it was a mystery—and apparently a disturbing one—that would only frighten her more. It might suit his purpose for her to take a dislike to the house, but this was not the way to achieve it. Guy contented himself with gently rubbing her shoulders and murmuring, ‘There, there.’

It was a curiously pleasant occupation. Hester Lattimer fitted very nicely on his lap, her weight a positive thing. She was not heavy, but not frail either. His free arm tightened slightly around a slender, strong frame. She must ride, or walk a lot, he decided. Against his thighs and his chest she was deliciously soft and her hair tickling his nose smelt of rosemary.

With a sudden defiant shake she sat up straight and met his eyes. ‘I am sorry, my lord, you must think me a poor thing indeed, and a foolish one at that, starting at shadows.’

‘You know, Hester, once you have reached the stage of sitting on a gentleman’s knee, I do feel the time for formality is past. Will you not call me Guy?’

She looked startled, producing yet another shade of gold in those fascinating eyes. ‘I could not possibly!’

‘Well, you are sitting on my lap. I think calling me by my given name is a minor informality compared to that.’

‘So I am! My lord…Guy…please let me go.’

‘But of course.’ He opened his arms wide and added wickedly, ‘A pity, I was enjoying it.’

Hester, on the point of scrambling to her feet with more haste than dignity, caught his eye and twinkled back. ‘So was I. What a truly shocking thing to admit, but you know, it was so nice to be looked after again, just for once.’

Guy found himself smiling as she sat down again next to him, arranging her skirts primly around her legs as she did so. She was enchanting. That frankness, the mischievous look in her eye. But she was, he would stake a thousand sovereigns on it, no hoyden or flirt. She was simply honest, impetuous and had sustained an unpleasant shock. Now was not the time to pursue that remark about being looked after, but he stored it away for later thought.

Her hands moved convulsively in her lap before she made an obvious effort to still them and sit calmly. ‘Thank you for running to my rescue twice in one morning, my lord. Guy.’

‘It is my pleasure. Will you not tell me what frightens you so much about that room?’

She hesitated, then said calmly, ‘I had better begin with a little history.’

‘You know the history of the house?’ Guy prided himself on his self-control, but the sharp question was out of his mouth before he could stop it and he cursed inwardly at the surprise on Hester’s face.

‘No, not at all. I was only going to explain that it has been empty, unoccupied for about fifty years. I was surprised, for it has been well kept up in all the essentials—the roof is sound, the windows have been cleaned from time to time and, from the evidence of the hearths, regular fires have been lit to keep the damp at bay. But no one has lived here—which I do not understand.’

‘Were you given no explanation when you bought it?’

‘None.’ She shook her head, a little line of puzzlement between her dark brows. ‘Sir Edward Nugent was ailing when he agreed to sell and my man of business dealt entirely with his agent. We asked, of course, but the reply was that he had chosen not to sell it, yet could not find a suitable tenant.’

‘That did not make you curious?’ It would have made him as suspicious as hell.

‘A little, but by all reports Sir Edward was somewhat reclusive and eccentric, so I assumed that accounted for it. And anyway, I wanted the house too much to be put off, despite the length of time the negotiations took.’

Damn it, he had only just missed buying it. If only he had known sooner what those old papers revealed. ‘Go on,’ Guy prompted, enjoying the concentration on Hester’s face as she recounted her story.

‘We were therefore not at all surprised to find the house in such a state. There was dust everywhere and an odd assortment of old-fashioned furniture.’

‘I suspect I saw most of it yesterday.’

‘Indeed,’ Hester agreed ruefully. ‘So much for attempting to look respectably established for callers! Anyway, although it was dirty, the house was tidy, with everything in its correct place. Except for that room.’ She nodded towards the dressing room door and Guy saw her go a little pale.

‘What did you find?’ He took her hand. Hester appeared not to notice. Under his light grip her pulse fluttered and raced.

‘It had been ransacked. The doors of the presses stood open with the drawers pulled clean out. A chair was overturned and the mirror smashed on the floor. A curtain was part torn down, as though by a clutching hand. The pearls were strewn everywhere and there was a torn nightgown by the door. And…’ Her voice trailed away.

‘And what?’ Guy pressed gently.

‘There was blood on the wall.’

It was not until his fingers closed tight on her wrist that Hester realised that Guy had been holding her hand. Now she had told the most shocking part of her tale she felt curiously better, half-expecting him to say it must have been some other stain, wine perhaps. She was not prepared for the suddenness with which his eyes went hard and the colour ebbed under his skin.

‘My lord?’

‘I am sorry. That must have been an unpleasant discovery indeed. Whereabouts is the stain?’ He released her and got to his feet, apparently recovered from whatever shock she had dealt him.

‘Jethro whitewashed over it. We put the room to rights and I have used this bedchamber for two nights now. I had thought myself quite sensible about it, certain there must be some innocent explanation. Until now.’

‘I am sure there is.’ Guy Westrope smiled at her. Surely it was only her overheated imagination that made it seem that the curve of his lips found no reassuring echo in his eyes. ‘Are you sure you are feeling all right now? I had better remove myself from your bedchamber before your companion returns and reads me a lecture on propriety.’

‘She would certainly do that, and me too, quite deservedly.’ Hester got up and joined him in the doorway. ‘Jethro is probably back with the shears and a proper ladder and wondering what on earth a horse is doing tethered at the gate and a gentleman’s hat and gloves lying on the path.’

‘An apparent mystery with a perfectly rational explanation, as I am sure the pearls will prove to have,’ Guy remarked, following her down the stairs and out of the front door. ‘No, no sign of your very junior butler; I may make my escape unremarked. Good day, Miss Lattimer.’

Hester watched as he bent to pick up his belongings from the path, put on his hat and gloves and led the patient horse across the road, then looked around her for some distraction from her disordered thoughts and emotions, none of which she had the slightest desire to examine just now.

‘Jethro! Where has the boy got to?’ Hester walked through the house to the back door, only to see him coming across the yard struggling under the weight of a long ladder with a pair of somewhat rusty shears pinned under his arm.

‘There you are,’ she said mildly. ‘Whatever kept you?’

‘Gentleman called.’ Jethro grounded the ladder with a grunt of relief. ‘He rode over from the fields and through the back gate into the yard. Said he was passing and wanted to know if you were receiving. I said not today because of the heavy luggage arriving, but I thought you might be at home after that. Was that all right, Miss Hester?’

‘Yes, of course. Who was he?’

‘Sir Lewis Nugent of Winterbourne Hall.’

‘He must be the son of Sir Edward who sold me the house and died soon afterwards.’

‘Must be, Miss Hester, he was wearing mourning. Good tailor,’ Jethro added critically, ‘but not as good as the earl’s. Mind you, his lordship has the figure for it.’

‘And doubtless the money,’ Hester retorted tartly. The less she thought about Guy Westrope’s admirable form, the better it would be. Quite how he had managed it she was not sure, but in the space of two days he had inveigled his way into her bedroom, had established first-name terms between them and had succeeded in mystifying her about his character and motives. The sooner she widened her social circle the better; perhaps Sir Lewis and his family would prove the means.

‘Jethro, you have not been in my dressing room this morning, have you?’

‘Certainly not, Miss Hester. Why, is something amiss?’

‘Those loose pearls are all over the floor again, but the bowl is still exactly where it was on the dressing table.’

She had been hoping that Jethro would immediately produce some convincing explanation, but all he did was stare at her, wide eyed. Eventually he said, ‘That’s strange, Miss Hester.’

‘Could anyone have got in? Perhaps a chance thief found his way up there, picked the pearls out of the bowl, then dropped them when he heard something.’ It was the only explanation she could think of other than the supernatural.

‘Suppose so.’ Jethro wrinkled his nose in thought. ‘Back door was open and Susan and Cluck…I mean, Miss Prudhome are out. Someone could have come in the back way while we were out the front.’

‘It would be a bold thief to do that. Oh dear.’ Hester sighed. ‘It seemed such a nice village. Now we will have to be suspicious and lock our doors. I must speak to Susan about it.’

Chapter Five

Miss Prudhome arrived back at the same time as the vicar’s wife called, so Hester had no opportunity to ask her about the pearls before she greeted her visitor. Mrs Bunting was as well rounded as her husband and equally as welcoming to the newcomers to her parish.

She settled in the front room in a rustle of skirts and beamed cheerfully on Hester and Prudy once the initial exchange of introductions and greetings was done with. ‘Now, my dear Miss Lattimer, I understand you require some respectable women to do the rough cleaning. I can thoroughly recommend Mrs Dalling and Mrs Stubbs. They are both widows; decent women who are bringing up their families by thrift and hard work.’

‘Then by all means I must follow your recommendation. May I offer you tea, Mrs Bunting?’

‘Thank you, Miss Lattimer. I will speak to both women when I leave you and ask them to call this afternoon, if that is convenient. I am glad to be able to say that the inhabitants of this village are as honest and hard-working as may be found anywhere. You have certainly found a most pleasant place to settle and I hope you find it so.’

Hester smiled back, delighted to have found approval from the vicar’s wife. She would go a long way to establish Hester’s credit in the neighbourhood. ‘I am so glad to hear that, Mrs Bunting. I had been somewhat concerned, for it seemed that someone had made their way into the house this morning.’

Prudy gave a squeak of alarm, then subsided with a nervous glance at Hester. Hester sighed inwardly; somehow she was going to have to teach Prudy to be a more self-assured companion and not keep nervously in the background as a proper governess must.

‘Oh dear, surely you are mistaken?’ Mrs Bunting looked quite amazed. ‘No one here would behave in such a way and I would have heard if there were any tramping fellows about. The churchwardens are very alert for that sort of thing, you know. The last thing they want is any vagrant settling in and attempting to claim parish support.’

‘Oh, it is a relief to have you say so.’ It was anything but. A sneak thief was a familiar London nuisance that could be guarded against. Now she was left with no explanation again—and no defence.

‘What made you think something was amiss?’ Mrs Bunting asked.

‘Perhaps it was nothing after all. It was just that some pearls that had been in a dish were scattered all over the floor and I could think of no other explanation,’ Hester said lightly.

‘Oh.’ Mrs Bunting looked both thoughtful and somewhat disturbed. ‘How very…odd. Has anything else out of the ordinary occurred?’

‘No.’ Hester was not going to describe the state of the dressing room again. ‘Nothing.’

‘Well, that’s all right then.’ The vicar’s wife looked relieved. ‘There will be a perfectly rational explanation.’ She sipped her tea, then added vaguely, ‘I never think it a good idea to listen to village gossip.’

Hester decided to ask right out. ‘Mrs Bunting, is there some rumour circulating about this house? Only the vicar said something that made me wonder, and now you mention village gossip.’

The older woman looked distressed and flustered. ‘My foolish tongue! It is inexcusable of me to alarm you. The villagers will talk so, but I am sure it is only because this house has been empty for so long. They tell a silly tale of blighted love or some such nonsense concerning the lady who last lived here. But that was such a long time ago.’ She fanned herself with her lace handkerchief and took another sip of tea. ‘There is a local story of the scent of roses—although how anyone could know I have no idea because Sir Edward Nugent never allowed anyone in except for his agent and the occasional workman.’

Hester shivered. She had smelt roses as she had entered the house for the first time—roses on a warm breeze in a cold airless room. ‘The garden is full of them, quite untamed and half-wild. There are even a few now with a flower or two despite the season. It is no wonder that the scent is noticeable here.’

‘A very sensible observation, my dear Miss Lattimer,’ Mrs Bunting remarked. ‘My husband and I have only been in the parish for four years so we know little of the earlier history. However, there has been talk of lights being seen here at night, quite recently. That seems to be a new rumour. I think it would be sensible to check all the window catches, just in case someone has started using it as a shelter. Although with you in occupation they would soon be scared away, I am sure.’

‘Yes,’ Hester said slowly. ‘That would be a wise precaution. How recently were the lights seen?’

Mrs Bunting cocked her head on one side and thought. ‘Two or three days before you arrived, that I heard of. But it will have been some tramping fellow I am sure, now long gone—or imagination.’

Hester turned the conversation and began to talk about the garden and her plans for it. In Mrs Bunting she found she had another enthusiast for horticulture and was soon overwhelmed by offers of plants and cuttings in the spring. ‘Thank you so much, ma’am, but I had better not accept anything until I have the front garden under control somewhat or I will have nowhere to put the plants. I suppose I should be concentrating on plans for the house, but I confess that I look to the garden to distract my eye from the Old Manor opposite.’

‘Hideous, my dear, I quite agree. And such a pity when one considers how perfectly charming the rest of the houses around the Green are. Even the humblest cottage has some picturesque merit to it.’

‘I wonder that a gentleman should wish to take it at such a time of year,’ Hester said, hoping that she was not sounding too interested.

‘Indeed!’ Mrs Bunting settled more comfortably into her chair, reminding Hester of a broody bantam sitting snugly on her nest. ‘After Boxing Day for the hunting, perhaps—but now? The villagers will have it that the earl is avoiding his creditors, but that must be nonsense, one only has to look at his horses to see he does not want for money.’

Hester thought of the casual way he spoke of not only buying her house, but resettling her wherever she wanted to go. No, Lord Buckland was not in want of a fortune. Naturally she could not tell Mrs Bunting this.

‘How long has he been here?’ She poured tea and placed the biscuits within reach.

‘Why, not much longer than you have yourself, Miss Lattimer. Three or four days before, I cannot quite recall.’ She began to tick off on her fingers. ‘He was not in church last Sunday, that I know. Mr Bunting called on him on Wednesday I think, in very heavy rain. Yes, I recall now. He arrived on Monday.’

Hester put her cup down with a little clatter. Lord Buckland had been in the village three days before she had arrived and during that time mysterious lights had been seen in the Moon House for the first time. She racked her memory for signs that anyone had been there, but the floors had been roughly swept in all the main rooms and there had been no betraying footprints in the dust. The dressing room had been unswept, of course. That had certainly not been entered—the dust had lain unmarked like grey snow.

Could he have been in the house? To what end? If, as it seemed, his purpose for staying in Winterbourne St Swithin was to persuade her to sell the Moon House, why should he need to enter it clandestinely and prowl about by candlelight? She did not like feeling this suspicion, it went against her instinctive liking for him.

Mrs Bunting was speaking again and Hester hastily composed her mind and her face and listened attentively. ‘…a small afternoon party only, you understand. Just the intimate circle of ladies in the village. We do not have a large social group actually in the village, although when one includes all the families in outlying houses and estates there is a not inconsiderable throng whenever someone holds a dance.

‘However, I am keeping it small because I hope to persuade Miss Nugent to attend. She is still in mourning, of course, it is only two months since her father died, but it will do her good to enjoy a little feminine company.’ She beamed at Hester. ‘Will you and Miss Prudhome be able to join us?’

‘Thank you, we would be delighted to. Um…which day did you say, I am afraid I did not quite catch…?’

‘Wednesday next week. At three. You cannot miss the vicarage, it is just up the lane next to the church.’

Shortly after she departed, leaving Hester prey to some very mixed emotions. It was excellent that she had been invited to Mrs Bunting’s At Home, for the sooner she met and began to mix with the local ladies, the sooner she would find her feet in this small community. And some more callers coming and going would certainly help to make visits by Lord Buckland less conspicuous. But the prospect of such an exclusively feminine society was somewhat daunting. She had become so used to male company. But repining about that was pointless. She had needed a new home, a home of her own, and it was up to her to make this a success and to learn to put the dangerous pleasures of masculine company out of her mind.

Prudy hovered anxiously, wringing her hands. ‘Oh, Hester dear, has there really been a burglar?’

‘I have no idea,’ Hester responded briskly. ‘But if there was, he’s gone now. We must just be careful of the doors.’ Prudy was still looking wretched. ‘What is it, Prudy?’

‘Did…did Mrs Bunting truly invite me as well?’

‘Yes, Prudy,’ Hester said firmly. ‘You are my lady companion, it is only proper that you go about with me. We will look at your gowns, I am sure one of the afternoon dresses we bought will do admirably.’

‘Thank you, Hester,’ the little woman responded, looking terrified.

What was I thinking of, employing her? Hester wondered, then reproved herself. A chaperon, however ineffectual, was essential; without one she would be socially unacceptable, and she knew only too well what that was like. ‘You will soon become familiar with local society,’ she said kindly. ‘And I would be so grateful if this afternoon you could look over the hampers of linen and make me an inventory. I am sure you will do a much better job of it than Susan,’ she added mendaciously, rewarded by the tremulous smile she received.

Once alone, there was nothing to distract her from her imaginings. Hester carried the tea tray out to the kitchen with an abstracted air, trying to convince herself that her qualms about his lordship were simply because of his mysterious desire to buy her house and not because she believed for a moment that he had been creeping about the place at night.

There was also the complication that he showed an alarming tendency to flirt with her and that she showed an even more worrying susceptibility to that flirting. She had even allowed herself to be held on his knee, for goodness’ sake! Only…he was so very attractive, and there was something in his expression when he looked at her that made her want to trust him. And he had only taken her on his knee to comfort her, hadn’t he?

‘Oh, bother men!’ She set the tray down with more force than judgement, setting the fragile cups jumping.

‘And so say I, Miss Hester.’ Susan emerged backwards from a cupboard on one side of the wide fireplace, tugging at a large wicker hamper by its rope handle. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve asked Jethro to drag this out so I can use this cupboard for my brooms and brushes, but he’s off setting the china to rights in the dining room, which is much more important than me trying to get this dratted kitchen straight.’

‘What is in it?’ Hester enquired, deciding from long experience it was not worth getting in the middle of one of Susan and Jethro’s periodic fallings-out.

‘Just old pots and pans and some cloths. I’ll have a look later and see what is any use.’ Susan gave the hamper a last vicious shove into a corner of the kitchen and attacked the now empty cupboard with her broom.

Hester dodged the cloud of dust that emerged and opened the door on the other side of the hearth. It appeared to be the mirror image of the one Susan was attacking and was quite empty. Why on earth she could not use that one for her brushes Hester could not imagine, unless, once she had asked him, she was determined that Jethro must empty the first one. But it was dark and dank and a large spider was sitting firmly in the middle of the floor. Hester shuddered, shut the door and went in search of Jethro.

She found him in the other front reception room, which he had decided should be the dining room. It was now graced with Hester’s dining table, four chairs and a dresser, giving an effect she was more than pleased with. Jethro was unpacking the good china, rinsing it in a bowl of water, drying it and setting it on the dresser.

‘Jethro, I wish you would give Susan a hand for a little while, I found her dragging the most enormous hamper out of a cupboard in the kitchen.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He put down his cloths obediently and got to his feet. He showed Hester a willing face, but as she entered the kitchen on his heels he did not hesitate to continue the dispute that he and the maid had obviously been stoking all morning. ‘What’s wrong with the cupboard on the other side, then?’

‘It’s damp, I told you.’ Susan looked up red-faced from her position hanging over the hamper. ‘Must be a crack in the wall or something, letting the water in. This side’s dry as a bone. Faugh!’ She flapped a hand in front of her face. ‘Look at the state of this cloth. Give me a hand to drag it into the yard, Jethro, it’ll all have to be burned.’

Disinclined to chase spiders around the kitchen, Hester wandered back to the front of the house. ‘Find something useful to do,’ she castigated herself. ‘Stop mooning around wondering about Guy Westrope’s motives.’

As absolutely nothing was more absorbing than considering his lordship, ideas about helping with the inventory of the linen, doing some mending, creating a plant list for the spring garden or thinking about menus for the week paled into insignificance.

Hester found herself curled up on the sofa, chin in hand, brooding not unpleasurably on the sensation of sitting upon the earl’s knee. It had felt safe…no, not safe, that was the wrong word. She had felt protected, but at the same time vulnerable and flustered. It was an intriguing feeling and when the knocker banged she grimaced with annoyance at the break in her train of thought.

She waited, but obviously Jethro and Susan were out of earshot. A glance in the glass was reassuring: at least this time she was not going to appear a complete hoyden, opening her own front door.

It was a footman, tall and dressed in a subdued livery suitable for country use. ‘Good day, madam. His lordship asked me to deliver this. Would you wish me to wait for a reply?’

Hester took the proffered letter and gestured the footman into the hall as she broke the seal. ‘A moment, please…yes, if you will wait.’

It was an invitation. Hester spread it open on her writing table.

Lord Buckland requests the pleasure of the company of Miss Lattimer and Miss Prudhome at dinner… It went on to give a time of seven on Monday evening. Hester’s eyes widened at the fashionable hour; if she was invited for seven, it was unlikely they would sit down before eight, a daringly late hour for country society.

Across the bottom of the formal note, in a bold, less disciplined version of the same hand, he had written, I have invited a most respectable company, so you need not be alarmed at an invitation to a bachelor’s table. Tell your stickler of a butler that I will make sure a footman walks you home and bring your dragon of a companion. The letter G filled the remaining corner of the sheet in an arrogant scrawl.

Should she go? Such short notice meant that the rest of the ‘respectable company’ might not be present to lend her countenance and poor Prudy was hardly a defence against an earl with a whim to flirt or worse. Then she smiled at her own naivety; everyone in the neighbourhood would be agog to be invited by such a host and her presence would fade into insignificance. Any previous engagements would be ruthlessly broken, she felt sure. Was it arrogance on his part, she wondered, or simply a shrewd knowledge of human nature? Probably the latter.

Without giving herself time to think, she pulled a sheet of paper towards her and dipped her quill in the standish. Miss Lattimer thanks Lord Buckland for his kind invitation…Miss Lattimer and Miss Prudhome would be delighted…

The footman took the finished note with a respectful bow and marched back across the street, leaving Hester prey to sudden qualms. Should she have done that? she wondered as she went back to pick up the invitation. What would local society say to an unmarried lady accepting—even if there were other guests?

‘Did someone call, Miss Hester?’ Susan popped her head round the door.

‘Look, Lord Buckland has invited me for dinner on Monday. He says he has invited other people, so I suppose I should not concern myself, but do you think it will cause talk?’

‘You being a single lady?’ Susan came into the room, revealing that she was wrapped in a vast sacking apron. ‘I was just about to start on that range,’ she explained, seeing Hester’s expression. ‘Soot everywhere, I’ll be bound. It wouldn’t have mattered in Portugal,’ she said, applying her mind to Hester’s question. ‘No one thought anything of it if you went out to dinner or dances when your papa was away. Don’t know about London, though…’

‘Neither do I,’ Hester admitted. ‘I was hardly in a position to go out into society when I was living with Sir John.’ She pushed down the memory of the snubs and the scandal and focused on the present. ‘I think I can risk it; after all, everyone is going to be so agog to receive an invitation that they will probably assume that I am just the same. Safety in numbers,’ she added ambiguously.

‘Oh, Miss Hester! You don’t think he would…?’

‘Certainly not,’ Hester said, wondering guiltily what Susan would have said if she’d seen her cradled on his lordship’s knee in her own bedroom. ‘After all, Miss Prudhome will be with me. Now, what am I going to wear?’

‘You’ve got several good gowns. Any of them would do.’ Susan undid her apron strings. ‘I’ll just go and shake them out so you can decide. I’ll need to press something for church tomorrow in any case.’

‘You do not think they might be too fashionable for local society?’ Hester worried out loud as they went upstairs. ‘I would not like to seem forward.’

Although in her time living with Colonel Sir John Norton she had never been able to go out in public with him, he had liked her to dress well and enjoyed their evening meals together with her well gowned, her hair coiffed and with jewels at her throat. Dear John, she thought wistfully as they entered the bedroom. Marriage had been out of the question, she had finally made him accept that, but the venomous dislike of his distant relatives at his funeral and the scandal that had sent her fleeing from London still made her cringe inwardly.

‘They’ll be interested to see what’s in vogue,’ Susan prophesied. ‘And in any case, all the ladies will be wearing their finest, I’ll be bound. What about Miss Prudhome?’ she added dubiously.

‘Prudy!’ Hester called down the landing. ‘We are invited to dinner at his lordship’s! Come and talk about gowns.’ She exchanged a rueful smile with Susan at the sound of Prudy’s shriek of dismay.

Sunday proved to be a welcome respite from housework, thoughts of Lord Buckland and lurid imaginings about the house. Even Prudy stopped working herself into a state worrying about her modest dinner gown, the fact that she would be expected to make conversation and the knowledge that she must guard Hester from the advances of a Dangerous Man.

They arrived in good time for matins, and Hester found herself escorted courteously to a pew by the verger. ‘Here you are, Miss Lattimer, ma’am, the Moon House pew.’

And sure enough, there was the crescent moon carved on the panelled door of the highbox pew. Hester entered with Prudy on her heels, hoped that Susan and Jethro had found themselves suitable seating in the gallery and composed herself to pray.

When she resumed her seat she looked around with some interest. Most of the congregation were now in their places. Bonnets and an assortment of male heads could be glimpsed. Near the front she could see the jet-black rim of a heavily veiled bonnet next to a dark head: the Nugent brother and sister, possibly. On the other side there was one blond crown of hair she would recognise anywhere; his lordship was dutifully attending church. Hester felt her heart give an odd little skip and tightened her hands on her prayer book; it was unseemly to even think about a man under these circumstances.

After the service Hester waited, eyes modestly upon her prayer book, until the front pews had emptied before stepping out. Their occupants had vanished and she let out a sigh of relief. What if Lord Buckland had decided to renew his pressure on her to sell in such a very public place?

Mr Bunting greeted them warmly at the church door and received her compliments on the efforts of the choir with enthusiasm. ‘One of my interests, you know, Miss Lattimer. It had been sadly neglected before my time, but I flatter myself it is as tuneful a gathering as any in the county now.’

He turned to the next parishioner and Hester made her way back across the Green, musing aloud to Prudy that they must embroider new pew-seat cushions and kneelers. The cushions were thin and offered little protection against hard old oak, the kneelers sagged under the weight of her knees, bringing them into contact with cold stone. That would be a most suitable occupation for a young lady, and one where she could exercise both her artistic sensibilities and also concentrate her mind upon suitably reverent religious symbolism.

Yes, entirely suitable and far more respectable than any of the ways she had been occupying her time recently.

Chapter Six

The remainder of Sunday and the intervening night gave Hester more than enough time to wonder just what she was about, accepting the invitation to Guy’s dinner. Sketching designs for the cushion and kneeler did little to distract her. She was a single lady attempting to establish herself in local society and here she was, agreeing to dine with a single nobleman, chaperoned or not. The lowering thought that she would probably not have been worrying about it if she were not so attracted to him did not help lift her anxieties.

‘I am going to indulge in an absolute whirl of social activity,’ she observed with assumed brightness to Susan as they retreated to the bedchamber for her to change. ‘I forgot to say that the vicar’s wife invited me to a ladies’ afternoon tea party on Wednesday afternoon.’

Susan giggled. ‘All the ones who weren’t at tonight’s dinner will be agog and jealous, and all those who were will be dying to brag about it, really, but wanting to appear unimpressed.’

Hester smiled back. ‘I am afraid you are right. I confess to finding the idea of a party of ladies more intimidating than tonight’s dinner.’

‘That is not surprising.’ Susan ran a critical eye over a gown of pale primrose silk. ‘This has hung out rather well.’ She flicked at a piece of lint on the hem, then added, ‘After all, you are more used to the company of gentlemen, aren’t you, Miss Hester?’

‘Yes, I may be,’ Hester agreed drily, ‘but I certainly do not want to give that impression! That is lovely, thank you, Susan. Please can you go and see if Miss Prudhome needs any help with her hair?’

Jethro kept a sharp eye on the arrivals across the lane and finally called up from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Mr and Mrs Bunting have come, and a lady and gentleman I don’t know.’

It was ten past seven and Hester decided it was time she left. She had wanted to avoid being first, but at the same time she did not want to make a late arrival, which could appear as though she was attempting to make an entrance.

She descended the stairs with Susan behind her, making last-minute attempts to stop her back hair falling down, and arrived in the hall feeling quite pleasantly fluttered.

‘Oh, stand still, Miss Hester, do! Now, that should stay up,’ Susan added doubtfully. She stood back and regarded her mistress from top to toe, head on one side, pin cushion in hand. ‘Very nice, Miss Hester. About time you got all dressed up again.’

Jethro meanwhile picked up a stout walking stick from beside the door and stood by while Hester tied the strings of her heavy winter evening cloak.

‘What on earth are you carrying that for, Jethro?’

‘You’re wearing the diamonds, Miss Hester,’ the lad said, eying the cold blaze at Hester’s throat and in her ears. Miss Prudhome produced a predictable gasp of alarm.

‘I hardly think I am going to be beset by footpads in the village street,’ Hester retorted with a chuckle. ‘I do hope they won’t seem ostentatious, but Papa did like me to wear them.’

‘Now, stop worrying.’ Susan urged her towards the front door. ‘Go and enjoy yourself.’ She glanced at Jethro. ‘We did wonder, Miss Hester…’

‘You want to go out too? Yes, of course,’ Hester agreed readily. ‘Where to?’

‘Only to the Bird in Hand. They have a skittle alley out the back.’

‘And a local team who are playing the next village,’ Jethro chipped in. ‘Seeing as how I’m a dab hand with the skittles, I did wonder if I might get a chance to try my luck.’

Hester suppressed the remark that playing skittles in the local hostelry was hardly the recreation of choice of fashionable butlers and agreed. ‘Just be back by ten, please, for I do not expect to be much later than that.’ She stepped through the door and added, ‘And do remember to lock up before you go out.’

A different footman from the one who had delivered the invitation opened Lord Buckland’s front door to them. She entered, suppressing a flutter of nervous anticipation. It was simply the unfamiliarity of English social life, nothing else, she told herself, sending Prudy a reassuring smile. Where she had been so confident, mingling with Wellington’s officers in Portugal, acting as a very young hostess at her father’s side whenever he was home on furlough, now she had to learn how to act as a well-bred single lady in provincial England. She suspected it would place her under far more searching scrutiny than she had ever had to endure before.

Still, she must study to adapt quickly. London, or at least respectable society there, was closed to her now.

‘Good evening, madam.’ It was Guy’s very superior butler, Parrott. Hester smiled, inwardly contrasting the gauntly correct figure with her Jethro. She wished now that Guy had not promised to speak to Parrott about the lad, he was sure to have forgotten and Jethro would be so disappointed.

The butler cleared his throat. ‘If it would not be inconvenient, I had hoped to invite your man Ackland to call in the next day or so. His lordship mentioned that he might find it interesting to view our arrangements here.’

She had been wrong to doubt Guy; the warmth of pleasure touched her. ‘Thank you, Parrott, I am more than happy for Ackland to call. He is an ambitious young man and will appreciate the opportunity to observe the running of a superior household.’

The butler inclined his head at the compliment and threw open a door. ‘Miss Lattimer, my lord. Miss Prudhome.’

Guy turned from his conversation with Mrs Bunting and her bosom bow Mrs Redland to greet the new arrivals and almost stopped in his tracks. This could not be Hester Lattimer, the young lady with her hair half down her back or full of ivy stalks and dust. This was certainly not the impetuous harum-scarum miss who balanced on rickety ladders because she was too impatient to wait for help or who answered her own front door in an apron.

This was an elegant lady dressed in the first stare of London fashion, her hair coiffed, her jewels sparkling. As he reached her and bowed to her answering curtsy, Guy also recognised with what skill she had chosen her ensemble. The gown was modestly high across the bosom and relied more on cut and fabric than on ornamentation to make its impact. Her diamonds, though fine, were simple, and her skin and eyes were innocent of any aids to beauty.

She appeared exactly as she no doubt had fully intended— a single lady of respectable means, breeding and good taste. Nothing here to put up the backs of the local dowagers or scandalise the critical.

He was equally careful how he greeted her. Any hint of familiarity would set tongues wagging and scandal-broth brewing. He was aware of her sharp-nosed companion regarding him nervously.

‘Miss Lattimer, Miss Prudhome. Good evening. Now, I believe not everyone here is yet known to you? Mr and Mrs Bunting you know, of course. May I introduce Mrs Redland, Miss Redland and Mr Hugh Redland of Bourne Hall? Major Piper and Mrs Piper of Low Marston.’

There were nods and greetings, then Mrs Bunting took Miss Prudhome firmly under her wing and drew her into a discussion about the village school.

Guy watched Hester without seeming to as she passed from one guest to another. Whoever this mysterious young woman was—and he was finding her an increasing mystery and contradiction with every encounter—her social skills were immaculate. She had a pleasant deference to the older guests, but without the slightest hint of shyness. With the Redland son and daughter she was warm and friendly.

Yet he felt a suppressed watchfulness about her, a wariness as though she was expecting to be challenged or snubbed. Was anyone else aware of it? It seemed not, the group was absorbing the newcomer comfortably. There was curiosity, certainly, and on the part of the gentlemen those subtle changes that come over any group of men in the presence of beauty.

Startled at his own thought, Guy shifted his position as he stood talking to the major so he could watch Hester. Indeed, she was beautiful. Not conventionally so—and he was sure she would deny any such description—but her skin was creamy, her hair soft and full of springing waves, her figure slender yet womanly. His own body stirred as he recalled the feel of her in his arms. Then she turned, smiling at something young Hugh Redland was saying and he saw the laughter in her eyes and with the movement caught a hint of her scent.

An unusual scent for a woman, he thought. Almost woody, or perhaps mossy with a hint of citrus. He had not noticed it before; in fact, if anyone had asked him to describe the scent of Hester Lattimer he would have replied, ‘Plain soap and dust.’ This fragrance suited her soft brown looks and the amber lights in her eyes.

She was becoming more of a puzzle the more he knew her. There were young ladies of his acquaintance who would have fainted rather than get dirt on their hands and others who thought nothing of saddling their own horses or going on long scrambling walks with muddy boots and tousled hair. But he was not used to young ladies who would knuckle down to cleaning the house alongside their servants and yet take the care to dress so exquisitely or choose their scent with such taste.

Hester Lattimer was becoming dangerously close to preoccupying his thoughts and that was folly. To achieve his aim in coming to Winterbourne St Swithin she had to be removed from the Moon House, and soon. He was already spending too long on this obsession. So far it seemed her discomfort with the mysteries of the house were not sufficient to make her reconsider her vehement rejection of his more than generous offer. He must think again, adjust his tactics.

‘Sir Lewis Nugent, my lord.’ His last guest. Guy turned to greet the young baronet, not failing to notice that the attention of the ladies in the room had been instantly caught.

A personable enough young man he had thought on his first encounters with Nugent, but he certainly appeared to advantage in the formality of evening wear and Miss Redland was positively fluttering. Guy suppressed a smile, then saw Hester regarding the newcomer with well-bred interest. He wondered at the stab of irritation he felt. Of course, if she formed an attachment that would make it considerably harder to dislodge her from the neighbourhood. It would be necessary to distract her; not such a hard task for a man with his experience of women.

‘Nugent, good evening! I am sure you know everyone except Miss Lattimer, perhaps? And her companion Miss Prudhome.’

Hester shook hands with the young man as Guy presented him, finding it hard to resist the look of admiration he directed at her. It would be a rare woman indeed not to be susceptible to those dark good looks or the frank admiration in his green eyes. Jethro had been right: Lewis Nugent did not possess Lord Buckland’s fine physique, but then he was younger and perhaps had some filling out to do still. There was something faintly familiar about him; she sought for it, but it was gone.

She found her hand was still in his and withdrew it. ‘I must offer my condolences on the loss of your father, Sir Lewis. I understand your sister does not go about much yet, although I have hopes of meeting her the day after tomorrow at Mrs Bunting’s small gathering.’

‘Thank you. We do both feel it very much still, my father was a man of considerable character. However, Sarah is gradually getting about more; in such a small and friendly community it is easier, although she does not feel yet that she should go to such a formal occasion as this. You must excuse us for not calling upon you.’

He hesitated, then asked, ‘And are you comfortable at the Moon House? We wondered that anyone would buy it after it had stood empty for so long.’

Miss Redland had drifted across to join them. Hester admired the casual way she achieved it. ‘Oh, yes, Miss Lattimer, are you not afraid of the ghost?’

Hester admired less her rather too obvious flutterings of mock-horror and they certainly did not seem to provoke the protective instincts she had hoped for in Sir Lewis. He frowned and said repressively, ‘You should pay no attention to superstitious village gossip, Annabelle. Just because of a number of strange incidents, there is no need to build up some fantasy of hauntings.’

‘So how do you explain them?’ Miss Redland demanded, suddenly reduced from grown-up young lady to the girl who had doubtless played and argued with the Nugents all her childhood. ‘You cannot, can you?’

‘Just because I cannot explain something does not mean it is anything to be afraid of.’ Sir Lewis was looking somewhat harassed. ‘I am sure it is quite safe. But you must let me know if you are regretting your decision, Miss Lattimer: I would always repurchase the house. In fact, I feel it my duty.’

‘Thank you, but I am perfectly comfortable,’ Hester said firmly. ‘I pay no attention to gossip—why, I am sure any house that is empty for some time attracts some such nonsense.’ All the same, she did wish people would stop trying to reassure her about it—their very words seemed to conjure up phantoms where none had existed before.

Guy Westrope was within earshot and she realised he was watching her, his face serious. She seemed to read a warning in his eyes. Did he think there was something to be worried about? But in her bedchamber he had said he was sure there was a perfectly rational explanation for both the pearls and the state of the dressing room. Hester gave herself a little shake. Perhaps he was warning her about taking this nonsense too seriously. Which was generous of him, considering that nothing would suit him better than for her to decide to sell up and move. The creeping anxiety about him returned.

‘Dinner is served, my lord.’

The small dinner party sorted themselves out with the ease of old acquaintances, despite being in the home of an unfamiliar host. Hester realised that Guy must have taken considerable pains to make himself known in the neighbourhood in a very short time. He had apparently asked Mrs Bunting to preside at the foot of the table while he took the head and Hester found herself being taken in by Major Piper and seated at Guy’s left hand opposite the formidable Mrs Redland.

For the first remove she devoted herself to Major Piper as convention demanded. He was thin, apparently rather shy, which made him gruff, and, she estimated, in his fifties.

With patience she extracted the information that he was a major of Marines and had been invalided out of the service after receiving a bullet in the chest. He now devoted himself to breeding the perfect spaniel and the management of his small estate.

Hester realised she must have sounded more knowledgeable than she had intended whilst talking about military matters when the major enquired whether she had relatives in the armed forces. Cautiously she explained that her father had been a major in the Peninsular Army and had been killed in 1812.

Why she should have been aware of Guy listening to their conversation she could not say. His head did not turn and she was conscious of him maintaining a constant flow of small talk with Mrs Redland, yet somehow she was sure he was listening to what she was saying.

And what if he is? she scolded herself. Nothing you are telling the major would arouse anyone’s interest. England is littered with the orphaned offspring of military men. To assume that anyone in this inward-looking community would have knowledge or interest about one disgraced young woman was to place her own importance far too high. And eligible, noble bachelors would certainly have not the slightest knowledge of the gossip surrounding insignificant young ladies. What did it matter anyway if a certain sector of society shunned her as the mistress of the late Colonel Sir John Norton?

As the staff cleared the first remove with silent proficiency, she acknowledged yet again that it did matter and that she had been left scarred and humiliated by the slurs of Sir John’s relatives. Telling oneself over and over again that the opinion of such blinkered, uncharitable persons could not be regarded by a rational person of clear conscience seemed not to help at all.

Firmly fixing her social smile on her lips, Hester turned to Guy, only to find him watching her with such intensity that she had a sudden qualm that her back hair had escaped again.

‘It hasn’t, has it?’ she hissed.

‘What?’ he hissed back, laughter suddenly lighting up his eyes.

‘My hair—you were looking so…’

‘I can assure you it is the picture of perfection, Miss Lattimer. Does it escape so frequently that it is the only reason you can think of why a gentleman might stare at you?’

Hester blushed, darting a quick glance at Mrs Redland in case she had overheard this blatant piece of flirtation. Fortunately she was intent on a spirited conversation with Mr Bunting about some detail of the church flowers with Miss Prudhome silently listening to their exchanges.

‘It is the despair of my maid,’ she admitted candidly, deciding to ignore the latter part of his question.

‘Perhaps it is the outward sign of your impetuous nature,’ Guy suggested, carving the wing from a capon and placing it on her plate. The glitter of laughter was there again and something else, which touched her skin as a flicker of warmth.

Suddenly breathless, Hester looked away and found diversion in thanking Major Piper for the offer of the timbale of rice. It was back, that shiver of recognition that this man was the embodiment of an ideal. It was insane to think like that; it would be madness even if she was the possessor of an unspotted reputation. Not only was Lord Buckland a peer of the realm, far above her socially, he was also a man she knew she could not wholly trust, much as she wished she could.

Eventually she could find no excuse not to turn back and resume their conversation. ‘Thank goodness the weather has turned drier, constant drizzle is so dispiriting, do you not think?’ she enquired. She was not in the slightest interested in Guy’s opinion of the weather, but it was the safest topic she could think of.

‘Indeed,’ he agreed with a gravity which told her he knew exactly what she was about. ‘I did not know your father was in the army.’

‘But why should you?’ Hester replied, smiling to remove the sting from her brisk answer. Then her stomach performed an uncomfortable lurch—had he been having her investigated, all the better to dislodge her from her home? No, a moment’s thought told her. He had been genuinely surprised to find a young single woman in possession of the Moon House. Aware that she was verging on being rude, she added, ‘He was with Wellington in the Peninsula and was killed at Vittoria.’

Guy sent her a look of sympathy, which conveyed more than any amount of trite condolence could have, and said simply, ‘You must be very proud of him.’

‘I am,’ Hester agreed. ‘We were close. My mother died when I was fifteen and we had always followed him on campaign when we were able. I just continued doing so, for there were always officers’ wives to chaperon me. I was in Portugal when he was killed.’ She stopped somewhat abruptly, not wanting to go into any more detail that would lead him closer to her life in London.

‘So what happened then?’

Hester glanced around, but both Mrs Redland and Major Piper were absorbed in conversation with their neighbours. ‘I came back to England. My father had made arrangements years ago in case anything happened to him, but of course by then I had no need of a guardian. Fortunately I secured a position as a companion to an invalid very quickly.’

Guy gestured to a footman and they fell silent as the man refilled their wine glasses and withdrew. ‘Why did you not need a guardian?’

‘Because I was of age, of course.’ Hester laughed and picked up her glass. Perhaps one more sip, it was such a pleasure to drink good wine in a man’s company again. She caught the teasing twinkle and could not resist an answering smile. ‘And do not look like that, my lord. You are not going to cozen me into revealing my age. Suffice to say I had been out and acting as Papa’s hostess for years.’

‘Years?’

‘Years,’ she said firmly. She was not going to tell him that she had put her hair up on her seventeenth birthday and five days later had been hostess at a dinner where two generals and an admiral had been amongst the guests. Let him think her older than her twenty-four years if it helped make her seem less vulnerable.

Fortunately he asked her nothing about her late employer, which was a relief, for Hester was unhappy at the thought of lying. Dissembling as she was already made her uneasy.

‘So how are you occupying your time, Miss Lattimer? After London I should imagine that Winterbourne, however delightful, has far less to offer in the way of diversion.’

‘On the contrary, my lord, I was never in a position to enjoy London diversions. I have my books and sewing, a house and garden to restore, lovely countryside all around and most congenial company.’

Conversation was becoming more general as dishes were removed and replaced with sweetmeats and nuts. Mrs Redland had obviously overheard, for she turned with her somewhat glacial smile and remarked, ‘I am glad to hear you say so, Miss Lattimer. So many young people despise country life, but here we have a most respectable yet active society. I hope I may interest you in some of my favourite charitable causes.’

‘I am sure you can, Mrs Redland. May I enquire what they are?’

‘There is the village school for the children of the labouring classes, the Society for the Relief of Limbless Servicemen Passing through the Parish, the Ladies’ Sewing Circle—we produce shirts and infant clothes for the deserving poor— and…’ she lowered her voice ‘…the Home for Fallen Women in Aylesbury.’

Two of those enterprises struck a distinct chord with Hester, but she felt it politic to mention only one of them. ‘A most interesting collection of charitable aims, Mrs Redland. I feel great sympathy with the plight of the limbless soldiers, having spent time in the Peninsula myself, but naturally I will do my best to assist with all of them.’

Mrs Redland beamed and turned to inform the lower half of the table that she had secured a willing recruit to their charitable groups. Guy lowered his voice and remarked, ‘Very worthy and a dead bore. I cannot imagine you sewing endless infant garments for the products of the Home for Fallen Women. Do you ride?’

Hester flashed him a reproving glance. ‘One cannot blame the infants for the sins of their mothers.’

‘No, indeed,’ he said with such emphasis that she blinked. ‘Nor the mothers, either, in most cases. You did not answer my question.’

‘Yes, I ride, but I have had no riding horse since returning to England, only Hector the Welsh cob who pulls my gig. I have not ventured to put a saddle on his back—I doubt he is used to a side saddle in any event.’

‘So you drive? But only a gig?’

‘I will have you know that it is a most dashing vehicle, my lord,’ Hester retorted.

‘Could I tempt you to try a curricle?’

‘Very easily indeed,’ she replied frankly. ‘But I should not.’

‘Even with a groom up behind?’

‘Single ladies have to be very careful of appearances, my lord.’

To her surprise, it was Major Piper who intervened. ‘Our local ladies are very partial to driving, Miss Lattimer, I am sure there would be no question of censure. My wife is a most accomplished whip and Miss Redland also. Carriage picnics are an established summer recreation amongst us.’

At this point Mrs Bunting rose, collected the other ladies’ attention and announced, ‘We will leave the gentlemen to their port.’

The ladies followed the vicar’s wife out, leaving behind them the scraping of chair legs as the men resumed their seats.

‘How lucky you are, Miss Lattimer,’ Miss Redland exclaimed as the door was closing. ‘Fancy Lord Buckland offering to teach you to drive a curricle! Mind you, he is not so good looking as Sir Lewis.’

‘Annabelle!’ Her mother turned, clucking in disapproval, the sound finding an echo in Miss Prudhome’s audible agitation.

‘Well, I think it is most unfair of Miss Lattimer to arrive just when another eligible gentleman comes to Winterbourne,’ Annabelle said with a joking air that Hester suspected was only partially genuine. ‘And with such lovely London gowns as well.’

‘Nonsense, child, you will give Miss Lattimer a most unfortunate impression of you.’ Mrs Redland turned an approving eye upon Hester as they took their seats in the salon. ‘I am sure Miss Lattimer’s intentions are far removed from such frippery trifles as gowns and flirtations.’

Hester smiled back modestly, but with a sinking heart. It was going to be akin to walking a tightrope to maintain one’s reputation in such a small society and with such ineffectual chaperonage. Especially when one’s heart yearned to be seated beside Guy Westrope as his curricle bowled along the road with not a groom in sight.

Chapter Seven

Hester spent the next half-hour in a state of nervous suspense, negotiating the social minefield presented by a group of well-bred and curious ladies all intent on extracting as much information as possible about her and speculating upon their host.

She answered all their personal questions with modest reserve, but with as much frankness as possible, correctly judging that not to do so would create an air of mystery and draw unwanted attention. Fortunately Miss Prudhome knew next to nothing about her new employer’s background. Hester told herself that if she could survive the first few weeks then she would cease to be a novelty and would feel much safer.

Apparently satisfied by her explanation that she found London noisy and unhealthy and yearned for a return to the rural life she had enjoyed in Portugal, the ladies moved on to genteel speculation about their host.

‘Why do you think he is here, Miss Lattimer?’ Mrs Piper enquired. ‘You are his nearest neighbour, after all.’

‘Perhaps he is looking for property in the area?’ Hester suggested, snatching at a part-truth.

‘Possibly,’ Mrs Redland agreed. ‘But why not send his agent?’

Eventually they speculated themselves to a standstill and moved on to discuss the arrival in Aylesbury of a modiste reputed to be lately of London. Hester took her part in the conversation, aware from movement outside that the gentlemen, or some of them, had gone out into the garden.

Why she could not imagine, for it was far too dark to walk around and must be decidedly cold, then she saw the glow of a cigarillo end and guessed that at least one of them was enjoying blowing a cloud before rejoining the ladies.

For a moment she glimpsed a flash of light from one of the Moon House windows; Jethro and Susan must have returned early. Although why they should have needed to go into the dining room…

‘I do beg your pardon, Mrs Bunting. My attention was caught by something outside and I missed what you just said.’

‘Only that I hope the village women I recommended are proving satisfactory, Miss Lattimer.’

‘Indeed, yes,’ Hester agreed warmly. ‘They are making great inroads into the cleaning, which allows my people to concentrate on setting the rooms to rights. I have yet to decide on whether I will employ one of them as a cook.’

‘I do hope you are not troubled by rats and mice, after the house has stood empty for so long,’ Mrs Piper interjected. ‘Horrid things—and the nearest reliable rat catcher is at Tring.’

Stepping into the room with his male guests, Guy caught the last sentence. ‘Is anyone plagued with rats?’ he enquired.

‘Oh, no, my lord,’ Mrs Piper assured him. ‘I was just warning Miss Lattimer that should she be so troubled we do not have a rat catcher in the village.’

A flicker of an idea came to him and at the same moment he caught Hester’s eye. Her level gaze said as plainly as if she had spoken, And do not think of introducing them! He smiled inwardly, enjoying the wordless exchange. He felt a sense of affinity with Miss Lattimer, which was rare in his acquaintance with women. It was a feeling both pleasurable and unsettling.

No, Hester Lattimer was too intelligent—something as simple as a few rats was not going to work. If Miss Lattimer was not going to be frightened away from the Moon House— and that might still happen—then she would have to be seduced away, and that before she became any more comfortable in the neighbourhood.

In fact, he decided, settling in a chair next to Mrs Bunting and appearing to take an interest in the drama of the choir-master’s falling-out with the churchwardens, he was not at all sure he had not made an error in inviting her this evening. It was a gesture that cemented her social position in the village faster than perhaps anything else could have done and it brought her into all too close a proximity with young Nugent.

Eventually the clock struck ten and the party began to break up. In the hall Hester was helped into her cloak by a footman.

‘If you will excuse me, Miss Lattimer, I will just fetch a lantern to light you across the road.’

The Redland family made their way out leaving Major Piper and the vicar waiting patiently whilst their wives recalled a matter that they simply had to discuss there and then. Hester looked up to find Guy by her side. ‘Thank you, my lord. It was most kind of you to invite me—such a pleasant way to get to know my new neighbours.’ His smile seemed somewhat wry, which was a puzzle. Hester saw the footman emerging from the back regions and held out her hand. ‘Goodnight, my lord.’

To her surprise, instead of shaking it, he turned it and kissed the gap over her pulse just before the buttons began. His lips were dry and warm and she felt them curve against her skin as though in a smile. ‘Goodnight, Miss Lattimer. I hope you will reconsider the driving. And my other suggestions.’

Flustered, Hester retrieved her hand, hoping that none of the other guests had noticed the unusual gesture. She did not know what to make of it, only that her pulse was fluttering in a shamefully pleasant manner.

‘Goodnight,’ she called to the others and went out with the footman, Miss Prudhome hurrying at her heels. Guy was flirting, of course, that was all; pursuing his course of trying to unsettle or charm her enough to agree to what he wanted. It would serve him right if she pretended to fall for his wiles and take him at face value. It might be amusing to flirt back and see him beat a hasty retreat at the thought of an ineligible young woman appearing to accept his advances.

Unless, of course, he assumed she would go as far as to accept a carte blanche from him. Hester flushed in the darkness: that would be too humiliating.

Another lantern was approaching around the edge of the Green, moving very fast. The footman slowed and positioned himself between it and Hester, but she had recognised the faces it illuminated and called out, ‘Susan, Jethro, I thought you were home.’

Jethro came to a halt in front of her, his breath visible in puffs on the chill air. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Hester. I got to playing and what with one thing and another I only noticed the time when the clock stuck the hour.’

Hester turned to the footman. ‘Thank you. I will be all right now.’

‘His lordship told me to see you to your door, ma’am,’ the man responded stolidly. Hester sensed Jethro bristling.

‘Very well, I would not wish to countermand his lordship’s orders. And we are nearly there.’

Jethro made great play of producing the front-door key and ushering Hester and Susan in before nodding dismissively to the footman who towered over him by a good foot.

Hester suppressed a smile, then suddenly remembered why she had thought they were already home. ‘I was sure I saw a light, some time ago. I assumed it was you returned from the inn.’

Jethro turned from lighting the hall sconces. ‘No, Miss Hester. That’s an odd thing.’

‘Must have been the moon reflecting in the glass,’ Susan said sensibly. ‘Look.’ And sure enough the thinnest sliver of new moon shone clearly through the transom glass over the door.

‘Of course,’ Hester murmured with relief; the thought of the mysterious lights seen in the Moon House before she had arrived had been unsettling. Perhaps reflected moonlight was the answer to those as well. ‘Well, I am for my bed, you can tell me all about your adventures at the Bird in Hand tomorrow.’

Susan was agog to hear about Hester’s experiences and sighed gustily at her description of exactly what had been served at dinner, the gowns of the other ladies and even what his lordship had worn.

‘None of the gowns were as fine as yours, then,’ she said with satisfaction as she untied Hester’s stay laces. ‘That Miss Redland sounds a bit worrying, though; her mama will be off ordering her new gowns before the week’s out, I’ll be bound.’

‘Nonsense. You speak as though there was some sort of competition.’ Hester met Susan’s eye in the mirror and added, ‘And that is ridiculous.’

‘Yes, Miss Hester. Is there anything else?’ Susan paused in the doorway of the dressing room and suddenly Hester’s heart was in her mouth, but she only stooped to pick up a stray ribbon and continued in to fold away Hester’s clothes without any further check.

Hester climbed into bed and blew out the candle as the door closed behind the maid. ‘Foolish,’ she chided herself as she lay back against the pillow. The new moon was clear through the glass on the unshuttered window and she made a mental note to remind Jethro to get the hinges mended.

But it was soothing to lie watching the slender white crescent in the dark velvet of the sky, the stars twinkling around it. Hester snuggled down, searching for the flannel-wrapped brick with her toes. She let her mind wander over the events of the evening, but all her treacherous memory would do was dwell on the sound of Guy’s deep voice, the flash of humour in his eyes, the touch of his lips on the soft skin of her inner wrist.

The curtains stirred slightly in the breeze and the room was suddenly filled with the sound of rustling branches. Hester slept. In the darkness outside a pair of calculating eyes rested thoughtfully on her window.

She was halfway downstairs the next morning when Hester recalled the broken shutter. ‘Susan, do remind me to ask Jethro to get that shutter in my bedchamber repaired.’

‘You need new curtains too before the weather gets much colder,’ the maid remarked. ‘But fixing the shutter will be quicker. Jethro’s in the drawing room, I think. I’ll go and put the kettle on.’

Susan disappeared towards the kitchen, singing what seemed to Hester to be a new song. She just caught the tail of the chorus: ‘Never say me nay, my lusty lad.’ It hardly seemed a suitable ditty and was doubtless the result of an evening spent in the public bar of the Bird in Hand.

With an indulgent smile Hester looked round the drawing-room door: no Jethro. She crossed the hall and stepped into the dining room. Again it was empty, but on the table lay a dark, spiky bundle of something next to a chamber stick.

Puzzled, Hester approached the table and peered at the bundle. It was a bunch of roses. Dead roses. Cautiously Hester poked them with her finger tip and the bunch fell apart. They were very dead, brown and perfectly crisp. There seemed to be fourteen of them and beside them on the table an ordinary chamber stick with a burnt-out candle in it.

Hester took an involuntary step backwards, recalling the light she had seen the night before in this room. Not moonlight but the light of this candle placed on the table by whoever—whatever—had left the dead roses there.

She stopped her instinctive retreat by calling up all her rational good sense and made herself step forward again. The front door had been locked. So had the back door, for Jethro would certainly have raised the alarm if anything had been out of order when he left to go to his bed above the stables. And, reliable as the church clock, he made his rounds of all the windows before leaving every night.

Something had got in. Or it had already been inside. Hester realised she was scanning the corners of the room as if expecting some spectral presence to be lurking there. That was as terrifying a thought as her first assumption of an intruder.

She ran her tongue over lips that were completely dry. She could not leave that sinister bouquet there; she must move it before the others saw it. Cautiously Hester gathered it up, just as there was a brisk knock at the front door.

‘I will get it!’ It was Susan, running along the hall before Hester could slip out of the dining room door. ‘Oh. Goodness…I mean, good morning, my lord. I’m not sure if Miss Lattimer is receiving yet.’

‘I would not wish to disturb Miss Lattimer, only to return this handkerchief, which, from the initials, I believe must be hers.’

‘Thank you, my lord, yes, it is Miss Lattimer’s, I am sure of it. Will you not step in and I will see if she—oh, there you are, Miss Hester.’

Left with no option but to put a good face on it, Hester stepped out into the hallway. ‘Good morning, my lord, how kind of you to take the trouble.’ Conscious of her unpleasant burden already crumbling into brown flakes in her hands she chatted on determinedly. ‘Such a pleasant dinner last night; I meant to ask you if you had lured your London chef down to the country or whether you have been fortunate in finding local staff.’

It was hopeless. The blue gaze was fixed on the roses as he said lightly, ‘I am glad you enjoyed it, I will tell Maxim; he insists on accompanying me, apparently in the belief that I would starve else. Not that that devotion to duty prevents him from moaning almost continuously about the conditions into which I have dragged him.’

‘That must be very tiresome,’ Hester said.

‘It is not I who has to listen to him,’ Guy responded. ‘You appear to have an admirer with a very strange taste in flowers, Miss Lattimer.’ Was it her imagination or was there an odd note in his voice?

‘They are dead, my lord.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Flowers do die,’ Hester stated briskly.

‘Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered,’ Guy murmured vaguely. ‘I wonder where that comes from? The Bible, possibly. But flowers in water do not die like that; these are uniformly crisp and brown and have been deliberately set to dry, or possibly hung up.’

‘These had been put aside and forgotten,’ Hester retorted, knowing she was becoming flustered. ‘Susan, take them, please, and throw them away.’ She thrust the tattered bunch into her maid’s hands and confronted Guy as Susan made her way down the hall, trying to keep the crumbing stems intact.

‘As I was saying, my lord…’

‘Guy. I thought we had agreed on Christian names when we were alone. Hester, those flowers have been dead a long time, in a house I know you have been turning out very thoroughly indeed—and you are afraid of something. Where did they come from?’

His voice was very gentle and his eyes concerned. Hester found herself being drawn in, taking one step towards him. She was a little frightened, it would be foolish to deny it. To tell him, to be held safely in those strong arms as he had held her in her bedchamber—the thought was powerfully seductive. And, after all, she knew where he had been all the time she had been out of the Moon House. It could not possibly be any doing of Guy Westrope’s.

‘I found them in the dining room just now…’ she began hesitantly. Something sparked in that deep blue gaze and she realised that she did not know where he had been for every minute of yesterday evening; at least one of the men had been strolling in the darkened gardens after the ladies had retired. It would have taken a matter of minutes to cross the road in the glimmer of moonlight and leave the dead bouquet, provided you had access to the house. And someone had, of that she was increasingly convinced; thoughts of ghosts were absurd. Someone could come and go in the Moon House, just as they wished.

And no one else had any reason for wanting to scare her away. Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face, in her unfinished sentence. Guy’s eyes narrowed and he said, almost roughly, ‘If you will not confide in me, then take care, Hester. I do not like the symbolism of those roses.’

She gathered her tumbling wits, her voice cool. ‘And I do not like attempts to scare me away from my home. I told you Guy, I will not be bought out, and I would tell whoever is behind this that I will not be scared away either.’

He caught up her meaning with a directness that astonished her. ‘You think that I would attempt to frighten you away?’ Those expressive blue eyes showed nothing but concern that she could misjudge him.

Flustered to be taken up so directly, Hester returned to the attack. ‘I did not say so. But who else wants this house?’

‘No one who has made their wishes clear, apparently.’ His voice was dispassionate. ‘But that does not mean they do not exist.’ He had moved towards her slightly and Hester stepped back into the dining room. ‘I would remind you that I made my intentions perfectly clear—and made you a generous offer of compensation.’

‘Because you thought I was an elderly lady who might be cozened by a gentleman of your standing into complying with your desires,’ Hester retorted. Her breath was coming very short and for some reason she felt quite uncomfortably hot.

Guy chuckled. ‘I thought perhaps you would be a middle-aged widow,’ he admitted. ‘But as for my desires…’ Hester knew she was blushing. Of all the foolish words to have used! ‘Within one minute of seeing you I formed a strong desire to do this.’ And he took her very firmly in his arms and lowered his mouth to hers.

Hester gasped, then realised her mistake, for he took instant advantage of her parted lips to deepen the caress. Her hands clenched against his chest and she realised faintly that she might as well be pushing against the wall. Without her conscious volition her fingers opened and her palms pressed against the fine broadcloth of his coat.

He seemed to consume every sense; the taste and the scent of him were novel and dangerously male. Her hearing was blurred by the sound of her own heartbeat, fast and excited. The feel of his mouth gently, but inexorably, roused her to trembling, yielding surrender in his arms. Her eyes fluttered open and she was hazily aware of the texture of his skin, the curl of his hair at the temple.

How long she might have stayed there in Guy’s arms she had no idea. There was a crash from the kitchen region and a wail from Susan and the next thing she knew Hester was standing unsupported against the dining-room door frame. Guy regarded her with eyes that seemed to spark sapphire fire and she hastily dropped her gaze to find herself staring at his mouth. The sensual curve of that was even worse. Anger seemed the only way to retrieve the situation.

‘My lord! That was outrageous!’

‘I thought it delightful,’ Guy remarked, taking a precautionary step backwards as Hester advanced towards him wrathfully.

‘I know exactly what you are about, my lord,’ she snapped, now too angry and flustered to be cautious. ‘You think you can flirt with me until I become too befuddled to resist your proposals and agree to sell the Moon House to you. Or else until I compromise myself in the eyes of local society and have to sell.’

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