“Keep your distance!”

“You need not imagine that your identity gives you any rights concerning me.”

Despite himself, Hal felt his temper rising. “What do you take me for? I have no intention of—”

“I am glad you chose to bring up the subject of your intentions, sir, because I am excessively interested to know what they might be.”

Hal tried for a calmer note. “Annabel—”

“Mrs. Lett to you, sir.”

“Oh, the devil!” he snapped, exasperated. “I am supposed to be your husband.”

“Not by any will of mine.”

The Captain’s Return
Elizabeth Bailey

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH BAILEY

grew up in Malawi, then worked as an actress in British theater. Her interest in writing grew and soon overtook acting. Instead, she taught drama, developing a third career as a playwright and director. She finds this a fulfilling combination, for each activity fuels the others, firing an incurably romantic imagination. Elizabeth lives in Sussex.

THE STEEPWOOD SCANDAL:

Lord Ravensden’s Marriage, by Anne Herries

An Innocent Miss, by Elizabeth Bailey

The Reluctant Bride, by Meg Alexander

A Companion of Quality, by Nicola Cornick

A Most Improper Proposal, by Gail Whitiker

A Noble Man, by Anne Ashley

An Unreasonable Match, by Sylvia Andrew

An Unconventional Duenna, by Paula Marshall

Counterfeit Earl, by Anne Herries

The Captain’s Return, by Elizabeth Bailey

The Guardian’s Dilemma, by Gail Whitiker

Lord Exmouth’s Intentions, by Anne Ashley

Mr. Rushford’s Honour, by Meg Alexander

An Unlikely Suitor, by Nicola Cornick

An Inescapable Match, by Sylvia Andrew

The Missing Marchioness, by Paula Marshall

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

July 1812

It was what he had anticipated. But the confirmation did not make the news any more acceptable to Captain Henry Colton. There had been little hope of finding Annabel’s circumstances to be otherwise. But to hear her spoken of as Mrs Lett!

The Captain took a hasty turn about the bare room. It seemed large in its barren state, empty of all furnishings. But Hal Colton’s six-foot frame dwarfed the place.

Even in civilian clothes he was impressive, the green frock-coat of plain cut moulding across broad shoulders, and the muscle in his thigh evident under the buckskin breeches. His cravat was simply tied, and his boots decently polished. An air of command belied his six-and-twenty years, and from his bearing no one could mistake his calling, even without the dashing military moustache. Like his hair it was red-gold, in keeping, so his elder brother Edward maintained, with his temper.

He came to a halt in front of his informant. “You’re sure of this, Weem? She is indeed married?”

His batman, a stunted individual upon whose enterprise and cunning Hal had relied heavily in the past, nodded vigorously. But there was a glint of mischief in his sharp eyes, and the Captain’s blood quickened.

“What is it? Tell me at once, lunkhead, or I’ll have your guts for garters!”

Weem grinned cheekily, arms akimbo over the rough serge coat he had donned by way of disguise, together with a slouch hat now crushed in one hand.

“Lunkhead, is it? And me an intelligence agent of the highest order!”

Captain Colton started threateningly across the room, and his batman threw up a hand in surrender.

“Keep yer hair on, guv’nor. I mean to tell you it all, yer know that.”

“Then cut line! I’m in no mood for your funning.”

From the window opposite, the Captain’s brother broke in. “Have patience, Hal. After all, you’ve waited three years and more. A couple of minutes can’t make much difference.”

It made a deal of difference to Hal. And it had been by no wish of his that the intervening years had furnished no news of Annabel Howes. Ever since that appalling night, when their last hideous quarrel had culminated in his losing all claim to call himself a gentleman, the Captain had spared no pains to try to make all right. Despite being recalled to Spain, and leaving with his regiment the very next morning.

Annabel had resisted his every attempt to contact her. His letters had been returned unopened. Twice he had spent his hard-earned leave of absence in fruitless searching. Twice he had been turned away by old Benjamin Howes—first in London, and again at the family estates. No surprise there. Howes had been against him almost from the start, causing Annabel to break off their engagement.

Then had come this windfall, an estate bequeathed to him by his godfather. It was a modest place, but with a decent enough income derived from rents to encourage Captain Colton to sell out. He and his brother had driven across to look it over, travelling in the old-fashioned phaeton he had left at the family home during his long absence. It was, he averred, in good enough condition for general use.

“I’m not wasting my blunt on a new one yet a while.”

But horses were another matter. He had brought his own and Weem’s mounts back from the Peninsula, but a pair had to be purchased to go between the shafts of the phaeton. He had chosen to try their paces on this journey, rather than make it in his brother’s flashy new curricle.

Weem had followed his master on horseback from the Colton estates some fifty miles distant. His batman had known full well how important was this news to him!

“Well, Weem?”

The batman glinted up at him engagingly. “It ain’t so bad as you think, guv’nor. The lady was married, but seemingly she’s a widow.”

A huge weight rolled off Hal’s chest. He gave Weem a light buffet. “Rascal! I ought to darken your daylights!”

“Then you wouldn’t nowise hear the rest of it, guv’nor.”

Edward Colton strolled over to his brother’s side. In bearing, no two men could be more dissimilar. His frock-coat of mulberry was cut rather for comfort than for elegance. His boots were serviceable, his cravat neat, and he was as countrified as the Captain was military.

“What is the rest of it, Weem? You’re being damned mysterious!”

The Captain turned his head, and the June sun, slanting in from the window, glinted off his bright curling locks. “It’s his stock in trade, Ned. The fellow’s a sly trickster and should have been locked up years ago. I don’t know why I bear with him.”

“’Acos I gets results, that’s why, guv’nor. Does yer want to hear what I’ve got to say, or not?”

He neatly dodged a large avenging hand, and slid out of reach, cackling. But upon the Captain’s promising signal vengeance presently, he desisted and gave forth his tale.

Hal listened with growing dismay as he heard that Annabel was living in a quiet style, in a rural backwater somewhere in Northamptonshire. The village, Steep Ride, was apparently tiny, and the cottage Annabel was inhabiting was one of only three houses of any size in the immediate neighbourhood.

“She lives in a cottage? What the devil was this fellow she married—a pauper?”

“It’s by way of being on the large side for a cottage, guv’nor, judging by those o’ the labouring men roundabouts. But the lady’s place goes by the name of End Cottage.”

“Cottage!” reiterated Hal disgustedly. “In the back of beyond, too!”

“No such thing, guv’nor,” protested the batman. “Plenty o’ what you might call society round about. Only this here Steep Ride is the smallest o’ the villages. Though there’s the big house, in an estate owned by a nob by the name o’ Tenison. And o’ course in the middle there’s this Abbey what everyone talks of where that there markiss were murdered.”

“Murdered?” A sudden, if irrational, fear for Annabel caught at Hal’s chest.

“Happened only a week or two back. Not that no one round there is cryin’ over him. A bad ’un he were, they say, be he never so much a markiss.”

“Lord, is he talking of Sywell?” cut in Mr Colton.

“What do you mean, Ned?”

“What’s the name you said, Weem? Steep something?”

“Steep Ride, sir.”

“Then it must be the same. Steepwood Abbey was Sywell’s seat. Lord, Hal, it’s the most appalling scandal! The whole town was talking of it. Not that it’s anything new. The fellow has been notorious for years.”

Captain Colton frowned deeply. “I’ve never heard of him.”

His brother waved this aside. “You’ve been more or less out of the country for the last seven years. I’m telling you, there’s been the devil’s own work in Steepwood. First Sywell’s wife ran away. That was a few months back. Disappeared without trace, and had half the tabbies rumouring that he’d killed her. Then it was found there was gold missing. And now the fellow’s been slashed to pieces in his own bedchamber!”

Hal breathed somewhat heavily. “And this is where Annabel is living! What in Hades was the fellow about to bring her to such a hole?”

“What fellow?”

“This fellow she married. Lett, or whatever his name is.” The Captain paused, arrested by a sudden thought. “Wait a minute. Why does that name ring a bell?”

“Does it?”

“There’s something about it.” He pondered it in his mind. Had he heard it before? Was it possible he had known Annabel’s husband? “Who was Lett, Weem? Did you find out anything about him?”

“Seemingly he was of our cut, guv’nor.”

“You mean he was a soldier?”

“Aye. Nor he ain’t chose Steep Ride for his missus.”

Edward Colton leaned back against the wall, where clung remnants of a brocaded paper, faded and peeling. “What in the world is he talking about, Hal? And if Lett was an army man, you might well have met him.”

Hal shook his head, intent upon his batman. “What do you mean, he didn’t choose Steep Ride?”

Weem shrugged. “Seemingly the lady and the babe come there after he was killed.”

“Babe?”

A sudden dread premonition seized Captain Colton. He reached out an unsteady hand to grasp at his brother’s shoulder, but his blue-grey eyes were fixed on his batman.

Weem was looking smug. “Ah. Wondered as how you’d take that bit of it, guv’nor. Nor you won’t like it when I tells you that this here babe has a noddle o’ red hair.”

“Good God!”

Hal hardly heard Ned’s comment. A heavy pulsing entered his chest and his brain felt as if it were going to explode. His throat tightened, and his voice seemed not to wish to obey him.

“How—how old? The babe. How old is it?”

Weem considered the question, trouble gathering in his sharp-featured face. “Just a toddler, guv’nor. I’d say not much more’n two—three at most.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” groaned Ned.

Captain Colton could not speak. What havoc had he wrought that fateful night? Had he not dreaded this very outcome, lying sleepless night after night in a crude cot in cantonments in Spain? Or bivouacking by an impromptu fire, supping on stewed rabbit, augmented by a potato or two filched from a nearby field? Weem had always been expert at ferreting for food to eke out the most meagre of rations. Would he had long ago had the sense to send him ferreting after this.

The nightmare of his worst fears realised! Yet when Annabel had so steadfastly refused to answer his letters, he had at length supposed that fortune had favoured them. But it had not been so. Had Annabel turned to him in the extremity of this unlucky accident? No, she had not. Hurt rose up, as sharp and bitter as when she had first rejected him.

“Well, that explains the locality,” said his brother musingly, recovering from his first astonishment. “I wonder if it was Howes who set her up at Steep Ride.”

“Who else?” said Hal bitingly. “Why the devil couldn’t the old curmudgeon have come down off his high ropes? If he’d only sent me word—”

He broke off, becoming aware of his batman’s steady regard. Useless to suppose that Weem had not already guessed the sum of it. But there was no need to bandy words in his presence that must necessarily wreck Annabel’s reputation.

“You’ve done well, Weem. I’ll want every last detail, mind, but that can wait.”

Dismissed, the batman withdrew, leaving Hal confronting the accusing eyes of his senior. He threw up a hand.

“You need not look like that, Ned! I did everything I could to make it right. I promise you, I have a stack of letters to prove it.”

“Returned unopened,” agreed Mr Colton. “I know. You told me. What you didn’t tell me—”

“I know. Devil take it, do you think I meant to do it?”

He crossed the parlour, as if he must avoid his brother’s gaze, and went to stare out of the window upon the unkempt lawns. Only a short time ago he had been agreeing with Ned upon the number of gardeners required to return them to a semblance of order. His godfather had been old and ailing for some time, and the place had been allowed to deteriorate. How little he now cared!

“It was at a ball that it happened,” he disclosed, without turning round. “We had not met since she broke off our betrothal. We quarrelled mightily. We were both too much empassioned to have any rationality left. Inevitable, I suppose. So much hot air.” He turned suddenly, the blue-grey eyes afire. “And she did love me, Ned. I swear she still loved me!”

“Then, perhaps,” agreed his brother meaningfully.

An obstruction lodged in Hal’s chest. “You need not say it. What woman could continue to love the man who ruined her?”

Mr Colton came across the room. He was not near as tall, nor as broad in the chest as his brother, and his hair was less vibrant, tending more to gold. But he had the advantage of him in both years and temperament. Hal’s tempestuous personality had ever been his undoing.

“You can’t be absolutely sure, Hal, that she was ruined.”

Hal’s tone was bleak. “Can’t I?”

“She is not precisely living in obscurity. Weem says there is some society there. Evidently she has acquired respectability.”

“Respectability!”

“It’s not lightly won, Hal. It is possible that Annabel did marry. Even if the child is yours, Annabel may have taken refuge under another’s name.”

“The devil she did!” Something clicked in the Captain’s brain. He slammed a fist into his open hand. “No. Annabel didn’t marry a man called Lett. There is no such man.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’ve remembered why it sounded familiar.” Grimness settled in his chest. “Lett was the maiden name of Annabel’s mother.”

His brother was silent for a moment. But Hal’s first shock was fading. Not for nothing was he a soldier. He was a captain, in command, given to swift decisions. What was needed now was not regret, but action. He stiffened his shoulders.

“What will you do?” asked Ned frowningly.

“Oh, I know what to do!”

His brother began to look alarmed. “Now, Hal—for the Lord’s sake, think before you act!”

“I’ve thought for three years. I’m done with thinking.”

“Oh, dear Lord! Hal!’

But Captain Colton was already on the move. Before he reached the door, his brother caught his arm. “Wait, Hal!”

He turned. Removing the hand that imprisoned him, he grasped it strongly. “Ned, I’m coming home with you, so you’ll have every opportunity to argue. But let me advise you not to waste your breath. You can say what you like, but you won’t change my mind.”

Mr Colton grinned. “You always were a headstrong devil.”

Hal’s smile was twisted. “So I may be. But in this case, Ned, there’s a matter of honour at stake. I have no choice.”

The kitchen bench and two of the dining chairs had been brought out and set under the shade of a great chestnut. It was situated just upon the boundary, but it obligingly spread its branches to encompass a good part of Annabel Lett’s garden. A circumstance that enabled her to receive her two visitors in a much pleasanter setting on a hot Saturday in early July than was to be had in the tiny formal parlour within the cottage.

The visitors occupied the chairs, while Annabel took the bench. She was dressed in a sprigged gown of a soft green lawn that brought out the colour of her eyes, although its cut and style were far from fashionable. Its modest neckline, round and plain, and its three-quarter sleeves, together with the frilly cap that covered much of Annabel’s dark hair, gave her an air of respectability.

It was a pose that Mrs Lett had cultivated with care and diligence. And if she had not entirely succeeded in subduing the restless spirit that lurked deep within—which now and then broke out, to her regret, in hasty words—she flattered herself that she had fooled most of her acquaintances in their reading of her character.

But the two ladies present were such particular friends that Annabel felt able to relax her strict guard. She would not have hesitated to entertain them in the larger family room, where Rebecca was permitted to run wild and all was generally at sixes and sevens. But this arrangement allowed little Becky to dash about the garden under her mother’s eye, leaving Janet free to pursue her numerous chores.

Which was as well, for Annabel thought her visitors would have burst with frustration if they had felt themselves obliged to hold their tongues in the presence of the maid. The subject under discussion was far too interesting. Especially since it concerned the man most people had settled upon as having done away with the dissolute Marquis of Sywell up at the Abbey.

“Can it be true, do you think?” asked Charlotte Filmer.

Jane Emerson, a slim brunette with little countenance except a pair of soft brown eyes, gave her characteristic gurgling laugh.

“I should think it all too likely, Mrs Filmer. Have we not all been puzzled as to why Solomon Burneck should have remained loyal to that wretched man? Nothing could more surely explain it than if he had indeed been Sywell’s own son. Don’t you think so, Annabel?”

“Yes, if only it had come out before the Marquis was murdered,” agreed Annabel, accepting with a word of thanks the pebble pressed into her palm by her daughter, who ran off again to find another. “To put it about only when Burneck himself has fallen under suspicion seems to me in itself suspicious.”

“Very true,” agreed Charlotte, and a little shudder ran through her. “I have always found him sinister.”

Mrs Filmer was a gentle female, a great many years Annabel’s senior, but they shared a common bond in the isolation of an existence without the support of a husband. Charlotte’s daughter was grown up now, and had last season gone to London as companion to the Tenison chit—a piece of good fortune for which Mrs Filmer was still thanking Providence.

“Oh, I am perfectly happy to have Solomon for the villain,” said Jane merrily. “Why, he looks a very devil, with that hooked nose, and his horrid black clothes. Thin lips are a sign of meanness, you know, and he has the horridest eyes of anyone I’ve ever met. Set so narrow and close.”

Annabel could not help laughing as she placed the pebble among the growing pile beside her on the bench. “Jane, you are outrageous. What appalling prejudice! I pity your pupils, who are obliged to look to you for example.”

“Fiddle! I am responsible only for their deportment and their performance in the dance. I have nothing to do with the formation of their minds.’

In fact, as Annabel knew, Miss Emerson was one of the more popular teachers at the Guarding Academy in nearby Steep Abbot. Jane had a deceptively demure manner in social situations, but among friends—which term wholly encompassed her students—she exhibited a liveliness of mind, and an endearing warmth that made Annabel sorry for her circumstances. But Jane would have none of it.

“Don’t waste your pity on me, Annabel, for I am perfectly content with my lot,” she had said gaily. “I learned early to be so. I was ever a “plain Jane”, and it is unlikely I should have caught myself a husband, even had it been possible for me to make a come-out.”

Annabel might doubt this privately, but she had said no more on the subject, feeling the more thankful for their friendship that permitted Jane these small respites on her one free Saturday each month. Her company was a boon to Annabel, who could only admire the generosity of heart that left Jane with neither malice nor envy towards others, in particular the more flamboyant and adventurous of the Guarding teachers—like Desirée Nash, who had broken away earlier this year and ended by marrying Lord Buckworth.

“But don’t you think, if Solomon Burneck had been Sywell’s son,” asked Mrs Filmer, bringing the conversation back to the point at issue, “that the Marquis would have got rid of him?”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Jane, setting one graceful leg over the other so that the soft white muslin slithered, “if Sywell knew. You don’t suppose he counted up his by-blows, do you, Mrs Filmer? They must be all over the countryside!”

“Jane, you shocking creature!” protested Annabel. “Pay no heed to her, Charlotte.”

But Mrs Filmer was plainly amused, though she tutted in a fretful way, too. “She is right, of course. Oh, dear, how wretched it is that that dreadful man should be able to scandalize everyone even from beyond the grave!”

“What I want to know,” said Jane more seriously, reaching absently for one of Becky’s pebbles and playing it between her fingers, “is whether you had this from your usual source, Annabel. You get all the news before the rest of us only because Aggie Binns tells it to your Janet. It is too bad!”

Aggie Binns was a wizened diminutive creature who lived a short way from Annabel in a cottage near the village pump. Aggie had been taking in laundry for around thirty-five years, and was the main source of all the gossip emanating from the Abbey. This was because she had for years now been the only female willing to set foot in the place.

“It is not Janet. Janet would scorn to listen to Aggie’s gossip. It comes to me through Young Nat’s mother. You know she helps Aggie with the laundry.”

Young Nat, who inhabited with his mother one of the little workman’s cottages across the green, was by way of being Annabel’s handyman, although he spent a part of each day working the smithy at Farmer Buller’s place at Steep Abbot.

“Yes, but if Aggie had known a tidbit like this,” pursued Jane, “she would not have kept it to herself for so long.”

“Very true,” agreed Charlotte. “The wretched woman does nothing but spread evil everywhere she goes, dragging that little laundry cart.”

The conversation was suspended for a moment as the diminutive Miss Lett, coming up with another treasure, spied the theft perpetrated by Jane Emerson and set up a protest.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Becky,” uttered the culprit contritely, holding out the errant pebble.

“Say thank you,” reproved Annabel as her daughter snatched it away.

A pair of big blue eyes peeped defiantly up at Miss Emerson under the red-gold mop of hair, which young Miss Lett invariably refused to allow to be confined under the mob cap suited to her years.

“I don’t think Becky feels that I deserve to be thanked,” commented Jane on a tiny laugh, “and I’m sure I don’t blame her. It is a pretty pebble, Becky, and I am very sorry for taking it away without asking you.”

Rebecca cast a doubtful glance up at her mother’s face.

“There now,” said Annabel. “Miss Jane didn’t mean it, you see. Now say thank you politely.”

Instead, Becky’s gaze came back to “Miss Jane”. With a sudden bright smile, she offered her the pebble to hold. It was accepted with becoming gratitude. Matters now being settled to everyone’s satisfaction, little Miss Lett thought proper to return to her labours, leaving the ladies free to pursue their interrupted discussion.

Jane was vehement in her suspicions of Solomon Burneck. “If Aggie Binns had it from Solomon that he is Sywell’s by-blow, it is certain that he intended for it to be repeated.”

“Yes, but she didn’t have it from Solomon,” objected Annabel. “She got it from his cousin.”

“What cousin? I didn’t know he had a cousin.”

“Had you not heard? Apparently this female cousin came to the Abbey in a panic, having heard that Solomon had fallen under suspicion of the Marquis’s murder. It was she who let it out to Aggie.”

“How foolish! Or doesn’t she know what Aggie is like?”

“That’s just what makes me think Solomon intended for it to be spread abroad,” said Annabel.

Charlotte was instantly convinced. She nodded wisely under the frill of her cap that rippled with the movement. “Yes, I see what you mean, Annabel.”

“No, I think we must vindicate Solomon,” decided Jane, in an abrupt about-face, dropping Becky’s pebble back among its fellows. “Unless his cousin has a reason to lie for him, it must be true. And one can scarce blame him for concealing it before this. I mean, if one had a father whose conduct was so excessively shocking, one would be at pains to hush it up. And Solomon Burneck has always condemned the Marquis. He has forever been quoting that piece from the Bible which instructs us that every dog must have his day. Yes, Solomon is certainly innocent.”

Annabel could not help laughing. “You are readily convinced, Jane. I only hope you may not be made to look nohow by yet more dreadful revelations that prove him guilty beyond doubt.”

Before either of her visitors could answer this, a call from the kitchen interrupted them. A woman of dour aspect, tall but sturdy of figure and clad in the grey low-waisted gown of a servant, came hurrying towards the group under the tree.

“What is it, Janet?”

“It’s the reverend from Abbot Giles, ma’am. He’s got a gentleman with him.”

Annabel rose. “Mr Hartwell? Here in Steep Ride? I wonder what he wants with me?”

The other two ladies were looking equally puzzled. Beyond one welcoming visit, when Annabel first came into the neighbourhood, she had usually seen the Reverend Mr Edward Hartwell only on Sundays. And that at his church in Abbot Giles, when she attended the service. Indeed, she had the intention of going there tomorrow. Otherwise, Mr Hartwell had called upon her only on the occasion of Rebecca’s birthday, bringing a gift—a most kind attention—but she would not celebrate her third until November. Yet here he was.

“I had better go in to him. Is he in the parlour, Janet?”

“He said not to disturb yourself, for he’s coming out.”

And indeed, the vicar was to be seen coming around the corner of the house at that moment. He was a man in his forties, dark-clad as befit his calling, who walked with an energetic step and had usually a cheerful air about him. But as he approached, Annabel thought he was looking a trifle solemn, and a shaft of dismay shot through her.

It was evident that his demeanour had struck her guests just as oddly. Charlotte sounded fretful.

“What can have happened?”

“Lord, is someone dead?” muttered Jane.

Annabel’s instant thought was of her daughter. But that was ridiculous. Becky had been with them throughout. Besides, she was still happily engaged in locating pebbles to add to the trove on the bench.

Then it must be Papa. Heaven forbid it was his untimely demise! They had been at outs, but she could not cease to love him. Only surely it would be Mr Maperton who came to break such news. The lawyer was in her father’s employ. Or was it indeed Mr Maperton who had asked Mr Hartwell to break the news? Had not Janet said that the vicar had a gentleman with him? Only there was no gentleman in sight at this present.

These rapid thoughts had barely passed through her mind when the reverend gentleman was upon her, bowing to the other two ladies, and then fixing Annabel with a gaze of gentle austerity as he took hold of both her hands.

“I had hoped to find you alone, Mrs Lett.”

Instantly, both Jane and Charlotte were up.

“Shall we—?”

“I am perfectly ready to—”

“No, no,” said Mr Hartwell, turning briefly in their direction. “On second thoughts, it may be as well for her friends to be at hand in such a situation as this.”

Annabel was silent, unable to think beyond the impending horror of what she was going to be told. The vicar’s eyes came back to hers, and then passed on to Janet.

“Ah. Perhaps it would be sensible for your maid to remove the infant? Your attention, my dear, cannot be upon her well-being in this extremity.”

“Extremity?” It was both sharp and low.

Mr Hartwell smiled his reassurance. “There is no cause for alarm, Mrs Lett. I am the bearer of tidings more shocking than distressing.”

These words did nothing to allay Annabel’s fears. She turned with that automatic action which drives one through emergencies.

“Janet, take Becky into the house.”

She watched her maid walk across the grass and scoop up her daughter. Rebecca protested, and a slight delay was occasioned by her insistence on Janet’s gathering up the carefully selected store of pebbles from the bench. When the maid had slipped them into the pocket of her apron, there was yet recalcitrance. But Janet murmured soothingly—of cake, Annabel suspected—at which her daughter’s protests ceased abruptly and she allowed herself to be borne away.

“Sit down, Mrs Lett.”

Annabel sat down, vaguely aware that her two friends did likewise. She stared up into the vicar’s face, noting that his air of solemnity had been replaced with an edge of excitement.

“Pray tell me quickly,” she uttered rapidly. “This suspense is more than I can endure.”

He dropped back a pace, letting go her hands. “Mrs Lett, I have been requested to break to you a piece of news which may, in its production of joy, prove overwhelming.”

Benumbed, Annabel repeated it. “Joy?”

“Dear me, this is harder than I thought for,” said the reverend gentleman, his portentous air deserting him. “Nothing in my experience has prepared me for such a situation as this. I hope I may be forgiven if I mangle the task. Mrs Lett, my news is nothing short of miraculous. Your husband is alive.”

Annabel hardly heard the murmured expressions of astonishment. Her voice was faint.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your husband, Mrs Lett!”

Annabel stared at him, blank with incomprehension. What husband? She had never been married, for she was a fallen woman. Rebecca was the nameless product of an act of lunatic passion. What in the world could the man be talking of?

He seemed to read her thought. “I am speaking of Captain Lett.”

“Captain Lett?” repeated Annabel stupidly. But there was no Captain Lett!

“You believed him dead,” went on Mr Hartwell earnestly, and with growing eagerness. “But it appears that the report was false. He had been severely wounded, and taken prisoner. He was able to get a message to his regiment, and negotiations were begun which ultimately ended with his release.”

“Oh, Annabel, how fortunate!” came from Charlotte. “I am so happy for you.”

Annabel’s eyes turned towards her. Had she gone mad? Of all people in this village, Charlotte surely knew that she was not who she said she was. They had never overtly spoken of it, but hints enough had been passed for Annabel to know that Mrs Filmer had guessed the true situation, which had made it abundantly clear that her own was just the same.

“It is indeed miraculous!” said Jane Emerson warmly, and Annabel saw that her soft brown eyes were misted.

Annabel’s gaze returned to the parson’s face. “I don’t understand.”

“No wonder!”

“It is as he feared,” agreed Mr Hartwell worriedly. “It is just why the Captain requested my intervention. I wonder if perhaps I should—”

He had taken a few paces towards the corner of the cottage as he spoke, but he broke off. With a wide gesture indicating the way he had first come, he turned back to Annabel.

“But here he is—in person. Now perhaps you will believe what I am saying, Mrs Lett.”

A gentleman came into sight. A tall, broad-shouldered gentleman, clad not in scarlet regimentals, as might have been expected, but in frock-coat and breeches. He carried his hat in his hand, and the sun fell upon his head of bright red-gold hair, which was matched by a clipped moustache.

Annabel sat rooted to the spot. She heard nothing of what was said around her, for shock deprived her of everything but recognition of the stark, bare fact.

This was no husband—and no Captain Lett. It was Captain Henry Colton, the father of her illegitimate child.

Chapter Two

For a few breathless moments, Hal’s poise near deserted him. He had made a dreadful mistake! Was this whey-faced creature—this demure little matron, becapped and respectable—was this his fiery Annabel? She had never been a beauty, but she’d been spirited. She’d had a special magnetism that had haunted his dreams, along with those flashing green eyes.

Then he realised that they were staring at him in both shock and bewilderment. That there was a gauntness in her cheeks where there had once been bloom. But recognition surfaced just the same. This was Annabel.

Disappointment thrust at Hal, driving down the guilt, and he was conscious of a craven wish that he had not come. But his scheme—designed to thwart the inevitable defiance of the remembered Annabel—was fairly embarked, and he was as well trapped himself as he had thought to trap his quarry.

He became aware of the cleric at his elbow, the innocent Mr Hartwell, whom he had suborned into establishing his claim in a bid to make it impossible for Annabel to repudiate him.

“Mrs Lett is a good deal overcome, sir.”

An understatement. She was clearly near swooning with shock. There were two females fussing to either side of her, the younger of whom was despatched by the other to fetch a glass of water. He had not intended Hartwell to make so public an exhibition of the affair.

“I feared that it would prove overwhelming,” he responded, and noted with dismay that Annabel’s silent figure flinched at the sound of his voice. She evidently knew him.

The vicar’s expression was expectant. It flashed through Hal’s mind that his assumed role demanded more of him. He hesitated. Should he go to her? Would a true husband at this juncture seize her in his arms? He could not bring himself to do it! Not to the female staring at him in so bemused a fashion. He did not even know what to say to her.

In truth he had not planned beyond the softened presentation by a local man of the cloth. But then it had not occurred to him that he would find so altered a creature in the woman he had loved and wronged. Nor that he would meet with anything other than a rebuff. Hence Mr Hartwell.

“If Jane will only hurry with that water,” came worriedly from the older female, who was chafing one of Annabel’s hands. “I fear she may faint away, Mr Hartwell!”

“I never faint.”

Hal felt his guts go solid. Annabel’s voice was a thread, but he would have known it anywhere. Its clear tone was in his head in too many recollected utterances to be mistaken. Deep inside the stranger he was confronting lurked the woman he had known.

He knew that it behoved him to consolidate the position he had adopted, but some quality in Annabel’s dull green gaze—it had used to be anything but lacklustre!—made him pause.

His soldiering instincts came to his rescue. When baulked by the enemy, retreat and regroup. He set his shoulders and summoned a hearty air.

“Perfectly true. To my knowledge, she never has fainted.” He turned to the vicar. “All the same, I believe it will be best if we withdraw for a space, my dear sir, and allow my wife a little time to recover.”

Annabel stared after his retreating back. Wife? His wife? She became aware of coolness against her lips.

“Drink, Annabel.”

She did so, bringing up a wavering hand to clasp the cool glass. There her fingers encountered Jane’s, bringing her a little more alert.

“I think I can manage.”

“Very well, but I will remain close by.”

The glass came into her full possession and Annabel drank deeply. Her head began to clear. But an odd sensation, as if she were living in a dream, possessed her.

If she was not asleep, then Hal was here! Hal, whom she had last seen on that fatal night which had shattered her then known life, casting her adrift in this alien sea. Forced to hide her identity under a living lie, that a false cloak of respectability might be cast over the shadowed little creature that was her innocent daughter.

Hal, whom she had been unable to forget—unable to forgive!—reminded daily by the growing likeness in Rebecca’s face and hair. How had he traced her here? Why had he done so? Foolish question! The answer was in Mr Hartwell’s announcement.

Murmurs above her head reached vaguely through the cloudy thoughts that roamed her mind.

“He is so extremely handsome, don’t you think?”

He had ever been so, and he had changed little—if she had been in any condition to judge. A dashing red-coat, who had returned her deep regard—inexplicably! Many had been her rivals, and no one had been more surprised than Annabel when he had sought her out.

“And so like Rebecca. There can be no doubt of his being her father.”

No doubt at all. And so everyone must suppose who saw him. Oh, she was undone indeed!

A faint protesting sound escaped her, and the two ladies immediately bent towards her.

“Poor Annabel, are you a little recovered?”

She turned her eyes on Charlotte Filmer’s anxious features. “I think I shall never recover.”

“Oh, don’t say so!” exclaimed Jane Emerson. “You are shocked, of course, and have not yet had time to realise—”

She was cut off with unusual curtness by the gentle Mrs Filmer. “Hush, Miss Emerson! She has time enough for realisation. Dear Annabel, take one little step at a time, I urge you. To be so suddenly re-united with your husband must be a severe disorientation.”

“Oh, yes, and he clearly saw it,” agreed Jane eagerly. “It shows such delicacy of feeling in Captain Lett to have brought Mr Hartwell to pave the way.”

Captain Lett! She had forgotten. Hal had come here posing as her husband, revoking her pretended widowhood. She was not ruined, but rather vindicated—but by a further lie. And one which gave him rights he did not have!

Abruptly, the implications of his action leaped into her mind. A surge of warmth overtook her as a memory—long thrust away as too painful to be contemplated—burst into life.

That little summerhouse! She had gone there, dragged by his impatient hand, only to indulge in a quarrel so empassioned that the deep-seated emotions that had bound them together had flamed, disastrously consuming them both.

Annabel had not blamed him for it, though he had bitterly condemned himself. She had been as much at fault, had owned as much to Papa. Only—

Her chest locked as the long-buried hurt rushed up to taunt her. Only Captain Henry Colton, in whom she had believed so implicitly, had failed her. And now—more than three years too late!—he dared to return in a mockery of that role he should rightly have assumed at the outset, as her husband.

Wrath burned as she recognised how he had trapped her. Before three witnesses, no less. It would be all over the area before the cat could lick her ear! Useless to beg her friends to keep silent. They would, if she required it, she knew. But to what avail?

Mrs Amelia Hartwell was probably already in possession of the news. From the vicar’s wife to the world was but a short step. And what hope had she of hiding anything when Aggie Binns was living not one hundred yards from her own door?

All vestige of that earlier shock had left her, replaced by fury such as Annabel had not felt in years. At his arrogance. At his sheer audacity!

Gripped by impatience, she rose abruptly. “I must thank you both for your kindness. Will you think me rude if I ask you to leave me now?”

Her voice was shaking, and Jane instantly picked up on it.

“My dear Annabel, you are in no condition to be left alone!”

“Indeed, my dear, I am persuaded you ought to lie down upon your bed for a little,” added the anxious Charlotte.

It was only by a supreme effort of will that Annabel prevented herself from shouting at them to go. But the habit of these last years reasserted itself. She was used now to suppressing the volcano of her feelings! She managed to summon a smile.

“Truly, I am over the shock now. But you will understand that the situation demands a degree of privacy.” Her tone became vibrant, despite that tight control. “I must speak with Hal alone!”

“Hal? How charmingly that suits him!” exclaimed Jane Emerson.

Annabel could have screamed. It was plain that her friend had been carried away by the romance of it all. Well, if she was determined to approve the bogus Captain Lett, let her do so. She might sing another tune if she knew the truth!

To Annabel’s relief, Charlotte Filmer intervened. “Come, Miss Emerson, we must take our leave. There must be so much to be said, and we are abominably de trop.’

Even as she spoke, the two gentlemen were seen to be returning around the corner of the house. The sight of Hal in person threw Annabel back into a degree of disorder, so that she scarcely took in the varied remarks of the well-wishers through the leave-taking. Yet in no time at all the murmur of voices died away, and she was left standing under the overhang of the chestnut tree, confronting a ghost from the past.

The silence lengthened. Hal knew not what to say. Almost he wished he had taken the sage warnings of his brother to heart. His determination, in the face of the apparent stranger that Annabel Howes had become, seemed to him now the product of that reckless temperament Ned had so often deprecated.

Regret his hastiness he might, but having taken this fatal step, he would stand buff. Only how to open communications with the creature he now faced utterly defeated him.

He drew a breath. “I have taken you by surprise.”

An abrupt spurt of mirthless laughter escaped Annabel’s lips. “To say the least.”

Hal stiffened. “It was meant for the best.”

Sudden fire from the green eyes took him aback. Annabel—much more the Annabel he remembered!—threw back her head, thrusting a defiant chin into the air.

“It was meant, Captain Colton, to ensure my acquiescence. It has not been so long that I am unable to recall your skill with tactics.”

Hal let out a reluctant laugh. “The devil! And I thought you’d changed beyond recognition.”

Annabel’s fire died, and she tried to recover her rapidly slipping control. It was like a nightmare. Standing here in his presence, hearing his voice, a prey to every outraged feeling he had ever made her feel, so that she knew not what to feel or think. She barely knew that she answered him.

“I have changed, yes. Circumstance has a way of making one do so.”

“So I see.”

He received a bleak look that struck him between the ribs. Her voice had taken on coldness. She blamed him for the change! Why would she not? Guilt rose up. He took a pace towards her.

Annabel drew back. “Keep your distance! You need not imagine that your usurped identity gives you any rights concerning me.”

Despite himself, Hal felt his temper rising. “What do you take me for? I have no intention of—”

“I am glad you chose to bring up the subject of your intentions, sir, because I am excessively interested to know what they might be.”

Hal found it necessary to set his teeth against unwise utterance. He tried for a calmer note. “Annabel—”

She cut him short again. “Mrs Lett to you, sir.”

“Oh, the devil!” he snapped, exasperated. “I am supposed to be your husband.”

“Not by any will of mine.”

“That I concede.”

Annabel put a hand to her forehead, kneading it painfully. This could not be happening. If only she could think straight! She felt as if she had lost command of both her reason and her tongue. She did not want to bandy words with him. She wanted to fly across the intervening grass and batter at him with her fists! How dared he come here like this? How dared he presume so far? He, whose perfidy had brought her to this pass.

“I cannot talk to you,” she managed, her hand falling to her side. “There is too much confusion—too much pain.”

Hal watched her move unsteadily to the bench and sink down upon it. Compunction seized him. What had he done? Blundering in upon an ill-considered impulse. Devil take it, Ned had been right! He had taken an extreme measure that suited his own conscience, without thought to what distress it might cause at the other end.

Yet one thing spurred him. The short glimpse of that Annabel of his memories. She lay dormant, perhaps, but she was there. She had survived!

He dared to approach within a couple of paces of the figure that sat with bowed head, one hand pressed below her breast where an agitated motion was visible.

“Annabel.”

Her eyes opened, and she looked up at him. Her eyes were dim with incomprehension. Her voice was an anguished whisper.

“How could you serve me so?”

Hal shifted his big shoulders uncomfortably. “I acted without thinking it through. I thought you would refuse even to see me, let alone allow me to make reparation.”

The expression in her eyes became bleaker still. “Reparation. Is that what you came for?”

He dropped back a pace. “I came to take on responsibility for my actions. It is what I would have done a long time ago, as you must very well know.”

Annabel’s confusion deepened. “Must I? I have lived three years and more without knowing it!”

Hal stared at her for a moment, more puzzled than angry. “Oh, this must be to punish me. You cannot accuse me of deserting you, Annabel. It was you who vanished without trace. My regiment was posted away, it’s true, but—”

She thrust a hand up to stop him. “Pray do not make me any pretence of this kind. It is more than I can endure.”

He frowned deeply. But the solution leaped to the eye. “I see your father’s hand in this.”

At that she flared again. “Don’t dare speak hardly of my father! He has done more for me than you would have done.”

“Sending you here? What sort of a life is this?” He waved an impatient hand. “But let that pass. You wrong me, Annabel. I see what it is. Even in this extremity, your father would not unbend from that haughty arrogance that first parted us.”

Annabel got up abruptly. “It was not my father who took me in the summerhouse that night!”

Hal’s hot temper flared. “You need not taunt me! Do you suppose I have not suffered agonies of remorse? Do you think I have not tried by every means in my power to make amends? Devil take it, Annabel! Have I no honour in your eyes?”

“Is it honour then that has brought you here today?”

She strode restlessly away across the grass, moving in a jerky fashion that spoke clearly the agitation of her spirits. In movement and in voice, she resembled more and more the woman of Hal’s remembrance. But her words pricked him.

“It is precisely that! I wronged you, and I have wanted ever since to right you in the eyes of the world.”

Annabel turned on him. “Indeed? And so you have chosen to do so by ensuring that I live with you in sin!”

Hal’s indignation deserted him. This aspect of the matter had not occurred to him. He lifted his fingers and smoothed at his moustache.

It was a characteristic gesture, and a shaft of affectionate memory gave Annabel a sensation as of melting. Just so had he always stood, caressing the short red hairs, whenever he had been disconcerted.

“Well, no one knows that,” he said, recovering. “And once we are truly married—”

“How?” struck in Annabel. “When we are thought to be already married?”

He worked on his moustache for a moment or two in silence. Then he flung up a hand in a hopeless gesture.

“I had not thought of all this. You will think me a fool, I suppose. But the truth is that when I heard of your predicament, I acted instantly upon the knowledge with no thought for the consequences.”

Yes, it had been ever his way, she remembered. Then the substance of his remarks penetrated. “How did you hear of it? Did you go to my father? No, he would not have told you!”

Hal pounced. “Aha, you see! I knew he had thwarted me.”

But Annabel’s gaze was accusing. “How did you know?”

“I set a man to find you. He was here for some days not long since. He discovered not only your whereabouts, but your circumstances too. He thought you were a widow, but I remembered that Lett was your mother’s name, and I knew it wasn’t so. That is why I came.”

But the realisation that Captain Colton had spied upon her was the crowning insult. Her voice shook.

“You took too much upon yourself, sir. You think you have out-jockeyed me, but you are mistaken. A man may be seen to return from the dead, I grant you. But he may equally be seen to be recalled to his regiment! And that, Captain Lett, is precisely what is going to happen.”

With which, she turned on her heel and left him flat, heading for the rear of the little cottage.

Sleep eluded Annabel, despite a deadness of sensation that consumed her body. It had been a fatiguing day. When she had escaped from Hal, she had found herself so plagued by conflicting emotions that she had run past Janet and her daughter in the kitchen, startling them both, and had fled upstairs to indulge in a hearty bout of weeping.

This had proved so efficacious that she had been able at length to descend again, determined to present Captain Colton with a list of distinct rulings by which he might remain for a short time in his usurped status. In this she had been immediately balked on discovering from Janet that Hal had departed with Mr Hartwell, who had apparently waited for him.

“Gone? He has gone—and without a word said?”

“He’ll be back, he said,” the maid had responded, adding in the curt way habitual to her, “It’s him, isn’t it?”

Annabel had sighed out the abrupt sensation of renewed shock that had attacked her, and had plonked down on the sofa. Rebecca had promptly climbed into her lap, and Annabel had received her automatically, her eyes on Janet’s thin-lipped disapproval.

“He’s calling himself Captain Lett.”

Janet had snorted. “And where are we to put him, ma’am, if I may make so bold?”

Annabel had flushed. “You need not set your imagination to work, Janet! You had best make up the truckle bed in the back room.”

The maid had sniffed. “If I can set aside the bits and bobs of your sewing tackle.”

This had been speedily dealt with. “Put them in my room for the time being.”

Annabel had not doubted of its being only the first of the many inconveniences occasioned by the advent of a man into the little cottage. She had appropriated the smaller room behind the parlour for use as a workroom, ostensibly for the purpose of sewing clothes for herself and the infant, and for Janet too. But having begun by taking in a little mending to help a friend, Annabel had gradually acquired a small circle of clients among the more needy of the local ladies for whom she fashioned gowns, often out of old ones which she refurbished in the current mode. It was not an occupation that she cared to advertise. However, both Charlotte and Jane had used her services, along with others of the Guarding teachers and a gossipy spinster in Abbot Giles by the name of Lucinda Beattie.

It had been imperative to Annabel to conceal this activity from Hal. She did not wish him to think her reduced to such straits. Bad enough that she must tolerate his hateful condescension. He had come to make reparation indeed!

By the time he had returned, driving his own phaeton, and bringing with him a batman—whom Janet immediately stigmatized as the Jack-at-warts she had encountered hanging about the village green not long since—the light was fading and Rebecca had been long abed. Annabel, having resented Hal’s arrival, had been for several hours in a fume at his prolonged absence.

“Since you left word you would come back, it would have been a courtesy in you to have said what time we might expect you,” she had complained angrily.

“I couldn’t because I didn’t know,” Hal had responded briefly, his bulk dwarfing even the large family room of Annabel’s cottage.

Since it offered the most space, she had furnished it both with a sofa and one chair about the fireplace and a dining-table next to the window. A judiciously placed screen shut off the draught from the front door, which opened directly on to the room. So used to its inconvenient restrictions was Annabel that she no longer noticed them. Until tonight, when Captain Colton’s appearance had made her all too aware of the shortcomings of her accommodation.

Balked of her complaint, she had sought another weapon with which to belabour him. “If you are expecting dinner, you will be disappointed, for we ate hours ago.”

“I had a bite at the Hartwells before I left.”

Annabel’s frustration had deepened. “Janet says you have a man with you. Where you expect us to put him, I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Oh, I’ve arranged for that,” Hal had announced, infuriatingly offhand. “He’s to put up at a farm nearby, along with the phaeton and horses. I knew you could not have stabled them. And it was imperative that Weem remain with them, for I value my cattle too highly to leave them in charge of a farmhand.”

There had been a pause. In the light of the few candles Annabel had left burning in one small candelabra, Hal’s blue-grey eyes had glinted down at her from his superior height. Annabel’s had met them defiantly, almost daring him to ask the question that hovered between them.

“Where have you put me?”

She had felt her colour rush up. “I dare say you will find it excessively uncomfortable.”

Hal had smiled grimly. “I’m a soldier, Annabel. I’ll sleep on the floor in the kitchen, if need be.”

Annabel had swept to one side, avoiding his gaze. “We are not reduced to quite that extremity. Janet will show you the room.” Without looking at him, she had offered grudgingly, “If you are hungry, I dare say she can find you bread and cheese, or some such thing.”

He had refused it, and Annabel had murmured a gruff good night and escaped, leaving Janet to see to his needs. After she had heard the maid take herself to bed in the small room adjoining Becky’s, Annabel yet could not sleep.

The unseen presence below stairs seemed to pervade the house, and her wandering thoughts were distressing enough to keep her wakeful. Inevitably, they drifted back to that fateful night at that last fashionable ball…

Without meaning it, her eyes had strayed automatically to every scarlet coat, discarding each broad-shouldered back as she did not find the familiar red-gold hair above it. In the event, Hal had found her instead. A touch on her shoulder, and as she turned, the familiar rush of warmth engulfed her as she encountered his serious gaze.

“I must speak with you alone!”

The low tone was anguished, and Annabel longed to give in. But in honour bound, she protested, her voice equally muted.

“To what avail, Hal?”

“Come with me, Annabel, I beg of you!”

He grasped her arm. Resistless, she allowed herself to be drawn through the motley crowds and out at the French windows. He took her hand, and pulled her across the terrace.

“For heaven’s sake, Hal! If anyone were to see us!”

Hal’s hurrying pace did not waver. “There’s a summerhouse of sorts. We can talk there.”

Her heart was beating like a drum, and Annabel knew she ought to turn back. But so dearly had she longed to see him again that she could not fight the impulse that drove her to match swift steps to his.

Night swallowed them up as the light that spilled on to the terrace fell further behind them. Hal slowed, guiding her silently across the grass. A shadow loomed ahead, and Annabel found herself stepping up into an arboured place, of circular structure, lit only by the stars and a splatter of moonlight thrusting through a patterned fretwork to lie unevenly upon the flagged floor.

Breathless, and not altogether from the chase, Annabel felt herself released. She shifted away from the large silhouette that was her discarded love, her pulses in riot. She broke into shaky speech.

“Why have you brought me here? There is nothing to be said between us, Hal. It is finished.”

She could hear his uneven breath, and knew that his tempestuous nature was aroused.

“Yes, so you said a week ago. I was too upset, too angry to think then, Annabel. But I’ve had time enough since. You acted under your father’s commands, I know it.”

“Under his guidance,” she corrected. “How could I marry you when he is so much opposed to it?”

“Even when his opposition is dictated by unreasoning obstinacy?”

Her eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, and Hal’s big frame was becoming more visible. His nearness was torture to her. Yet she must adhere to that resolve that had driven her to reject him.

“Hal, we have had all this out. I am his only child. It is natural that he should wish a better future for me than—”

“Than is to be had with a younger son who has only just acquired a captaincy,” he finished bitterly. “Don’t tell me it again, for I don’t believe it! Mr Howes knows well that I am a full-pay officer with a promising future.”

“He will not have me follow the drum, Hal.”

“If you don’t care for that, why should he?”

“If Papa had forbidden me, or had treated me badly over this, I would not have hesitated,” she uttered, low-voiced. “He has tried instead to overcome his scruples—”

“Scruples!” burst from Hal. “His unreasoning prejudice rather.”

“Nothing of the sort. I assure you, he tried to hide his disappointment from me, but I could see his unhappiness. It was that which has been my undoing.”

“Emotional blackmail!” scoffed Hal.

“Don’t say that! How dare you say that? Papa would never use me so. He allowed our betrothal. It is I who chose to break it off. How can you abuse him?”

Hal gave a laugh in which bitterness sounded. “With ease, Annabel. My darling, he is using your affection for him, don’t you see? He may have given his consent against his will, but he gave it! And you have allowed him to twist you away from your own heart.”

“Oh, stop!” cried Annabel, thrusting away as far as the small space would allow. “This is all so useless! Why can you not see how you hurt me with this persistence?”

“And what of my hurt, Annabel? I love you!”

Her heart twisted. “Don’t, Hal!”

He moved swiftly, catching at her shoulders and pulling her to face him. “I must! Annabel, there is so little time. I can’t leave England, knowing that you care for me, only to be tortured every moment by the thought of you marrying someone else.”

Annabel tried to drag away. “Let me go! Can’t you see that you are pulling me in half? Hal, this is so unfair! Do you think it cost me nothing to reach that decision? I love you too, but—”

“That’s all I wanted to hear!” he said gutturally.

Next instant, Annabel found herself jerked against his broad chest as his mouth sought hers. Warmth flooded her, and for a moment she clung to him, answering the hunger of his lips with a desire as fervid as his own.

But the image of Papa’s distressing upset thrust rudely into her mind. She wrenched back, the force of her motion breaking his hold.

“You must not! Hal, for heaven’s sake, let me be! I cannot marry you. I cannot!”

He did not pursue her as she backed away, but his ragged breath gave her audible evidence of his unabated passion. It had the opposite effect to the one she ought to experience. She could feel her limbs trembling, and a desperate yearning opened up in those hollows that she knew to be most vulnerable to his need.

“You belong with me, Annabel. This is ruining both our lives, and you know it. And for what? For the ravings of an obstinate devil, who is so eaten up with prejudice that he sacrifices the happiness of his own daughter!”

Annabel flew at him then, her hands curled into fists. She tried to hit at him, raging.

“Be silent! Beast! Brute! How I hate you!”

He had caught her wrists, holding them fast.

“Wildcat! Stop it!”

But Annabel was crying with rage, and her protests became the more vehement. She knew not what she said, only that she wanted to kill him for hurting her so…

How it had happened, Annabel had never afterwards been able to recall. Even now, wakeful in her bed, all this time later. But she had found herself lying upon the flagged stone of the summerhouse, in a tangle of legs and panting breath, with the man who slept tonight in the room below.

And when Hal, coming for an instant to his senses, would have stopped it, Annabel was guiltily aware that she had been the one so lost in love and desire who had plunged them back into that total consummation.

Only afterwards, as she lay in his arms, her mind hazy with fulfilment, had the enormity of the proceeding gradually seeped into her consciousness.

Hal had cursed himself with a will. But Annabel, horrified by the realisation of what had happened, had begged him to go and alert her coachman that she might make a hurried and unseen exit from the ball.

He had done as she wished, and by the time he had returned, Annabel had been too overwrought to listen to anything he may have said. She could remember nothing of his words, although she knew that he had addressed her in tones of earnest agitation as he had escorted her to the coach.

What she did remember was the tearful confession she had poured into Papa’s ears. He had been distressed, but not angry—not then. But he had hustled her out of town that very night, and into the country. A tale had been put about by the lady who was sponsoring her that she had been taken suddenly ill, but Annabel had no means of knowing whether it had been believed.

She had not been seen in fashionable circles since. Like the fictitious Captain Lett, Annabel Howes had disappeared without trace. And until he had thrust himself back into her life this afternoon in her little garden in Steep Ride, Annabel had neither heard from nor set eyes on Captain Colton from that night.

Chapter Three

In the small ground-floor room, Captain Colton lay as wakeful as his reluctant fictitious spouse. He had thrust the casement open as far as it would go, but it was still stuffy. The truckle bed could scarcely be said to accommodate his large frame with any degree of ease, but it was not this discomfort that was keeping sleep at bay. He had been in far worse situations, and had slept like the dead—or so Weem claimed. But he had much to ponder.

He had set himself a task that looked likely to prove well-nigh impossible. There was little of the Annabel he had been pursuing in the creature who had accorded him such resentful acceptance this day. Acceptance? It could scarce be called that! Had he not carried out his plan of campaign, she would certainly have thrown him out.

Whether he was glad of having done it was another question entirely. He had thought—naïvely, he was forced now to admit—that the feeling he had for Annabel would be with him unto death. Certainly the intervening years had done nothing to dim its strength.

But in ruthless honesty, Hal conceded that it had been dealt a severe blow by his first sight of the stranger Annabel this afternoon. Had he driven himself through battles and arduous campaigns in Spain and Portugal, holding her image sacred in a determined bid to win her in the end, only to find at the last that he had mistaken his own heart?

Where was the girl who had given herself to him in the torrid heat of mutual passion when last he had seen her? Had he carried a false picture of that night, building in his imagination upon the actuality so that he cherished an exaggerated memory? The sequel he remembered all too well.

Returning distraught to his lodgings, he had discovered orders to rejoin his regiment in Dover the next day, from there to embark at once for Spain. He had chased like a demented fool in the early hours to the Howes town residence, only to find the knocker off the door and the shutters up. A sleepy retainer had been roused at last to his furious banging, from whom he had learned that the master was gone out of town.

There had been nothing he could do but write—letter after letter. And for months nothing had come. He had thought that Annabel was punishing him by her silence. Until the letters came back in a package, unopened except for the first. That had been torn in two.

For a while Hal had given up. But when nearly a year had gone, his heart as desperate as ever, he had again written. And the letter came back with its seal intact. After that, he must now suppose, Annabel had been established here in this village. Had he written, she would probably not have received the letters.

From her hasty words today, he must suppose that she never had received them. Howes had played him false! No doubt leading Annabel to suppose that he had never made any attempt to contact her. Small wonder that she had reacted to his arrival with resentment.

He must show her the letters. At the least let her not think him basely treacherous.

Only that seed of doubt lingered. Hal wished he had not been so hasty. If Annabel no longer loved him—if he, let it be said, could not love the woman she had become—then of what use was his presence here? Perhaps he ought, after all, to pretend that he had been recalled to his regiment. It had been Annabel’s suggestion. Thrown at him in anger it was true, yet it had merit.

His arrival would establish her respectability in the neighbourhood. He would meet his obligations, whatever happened, with any financial aid Annabel thought proper. He might remain a few weeks, put on a pretence of familial harmony, and withdraw again with no harm done.

His hardened honesty gave him a mental kick. No harm done! Was there not harm enough in his throwing Annabel back into an episode in the past which he had no doubt at all she had done her best to forget? No, he must face it. He had compounded his original fault by appearing in this way.

On this painful thought, he began to drop asleep, a half-formed resolve in his mind to talk bluntly to Annabel the following day, and assure her that he intended to withdraw from the vicinity as soon as was decently possible.

In the morning, however, in search of hot water with which to wash and shave, he blundered sleepily into the large room, looking for the kitchen, dressed only in shirt and breeches. Here he encountered a small child playing on the floor.

The infant was dressed in a nightgown, and a pair of large blue eyes regarded him solemnly out of an adorable little face surrounded by a mass of curling locks that matched almost exactly the colour of his own.

Hal’s heart lurched. The babe! A girl? Devil take it, why had no one said it was a little girl? Something seemed to kick him in the chest. His daughter. This was his daughter!

The child continued to gaze up at him, the wooden horse and cart motionless under her still hands. She did not appear to be afraid. Hal dropped to his haunches.

“Hello! What’s your name?”

At that, she looked coyly, and one small hand reached up to her mouth, slipping a finger inside.

Before Hal could repeat his question, the gaunt woman who seemed to be Annabel’s only servant appeared in the doorway behind. Her gaze was anything but friendly, her tone sour.

“Her name’s Rebecca.”

The infant removed the finger from her mouth, and piped up. “Becca.”

“She can’t say it right, so we call her Becky mostly.”

Hal smiled at the child, and held out his hand. “How do you do, Becky?”

His daughter looked at the hand, and back up to his face. Then she scrambled up, and ran to embrace the dour maid’s legs.

“She’ll be shy of you to start with, sir,” volunteered the maid, leaning down to pick up the child.

Hal rose. “No doubt.”

The woman clearly knew his identity. And strongly disapproved of him, if he was any judge. He changed his tone to one of command.

“I’ll be glad of some hot water, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Annabel’s clear voice spoke from the stairway to one side. “It is a great deal too much trouble. Janet has enough to do without fetching water. You’ll find a tin jug on the stove in the kitchen.”

She came down the stairs. Without glancing at Hal, she went to Janet and took Rebecca. “I’ll see to her. Has she had breakfast?”

“No, ma’am. There’s eggs on the boil. I’ll show the Captain his water, and then bring them in.”

Hal thanked her, and followed her through the doorway, glancing once at the little girl as he went. A warm glow filled his breast. Hardly did he notice the reflection that passed through the back of his mind. That the resolve he had made in the night had been abruptly shattered.

By the time Hal had performed his ablutions, there was no sign in the house of either Annabel or Rebecca. He was requested to sit at the table in the window where a cover had been set for him, and was regaled with eggs and ham by the grudging maid. She informed him, upon enquiry, that the mistress was gone out.

“To church perhaps?”

He received a look that would have been insolence in any subordinate of his. “It’ll be a while yet before she does that now, sir.”

It was said with meaning, and Hal gritted his teeth. The implication was plain. Now that her alleged husband was home, it would be thought odd indeed if the “Letts’ did not attend church as a family. Hal guessed that the Reverend Mr Hartwell would assume Annabel to be yet too much overcome by his arrival to be at service today. It struck him—not without a degree of self-blame—that it would have been hard indeed for Annabel to confront the inevitable gossip.

“Where is she then?” he asked of the maid.

Was that thin smile one of satisfaction? Had the wretched woman fathomed his discomfiture?

“She’ll be tilling the soil in the vegetable patch, sir.”

“What?’

“Or gathering up some produce. I’m not much for planting myself, but I think it’s too early for seeding.”

Hal did not bother to hide his feelings. He guessed it had been said to taunt him, but he was too upset to care. To what was Annabel reduced? To what depths of drudgery had he condemned her? Had she so little money at her disposal that she must forage for food like a pauper?

The meal abruptly turned his stomach, and he laid down his knife and fork with a clunk.

The maid tutted. “Waste not, want not.”

Hal gave her a look that had made strong men quail. “Don’t try me too far!”

The woman was not flustered. She gave him back look for look, placing her arms akimbo. “I know what I know, but I’ve stood by her, Captain.” She nodded at his plate. “And it might be otherwise in the army, but we don’t waste food. Not in this house!”

It was touch and go for an instant, but then Hal’s sense of humour came to the fore. He relaxed, smiling a little.

“I see that Mrs Lett is lucky to have you. What is your name?”

“Janet, sir. And you needn’t think you can worm your way around me!”

“I don’t,” said Hal cheerfully. “But if we’re to be at outs, Janet, let it be in the open.” He took up his knife and fork again. “However, you need not imagine I intend to add to your burden of work. I can fend for myself, and I’ll do my share as long as I’m here.”

It was plain that he had disconcerted the maid, but she eyed him suspiciously. “As long as when?”

“That I don’t yet know.”

For a moment or two, the woman was silent while Hal ate. Then she sniffed, losing some of her acerbity.

“We’ve a boy comes in to do the heavy work. Lazy he is, if you don’t watch him. But there’s no need I can see for you to bestir yourself.”

Hal gave her a grim look. “Think of me as you choose, Janet, but wait and learn.” He reached for the coffee-pot and filled his cup. “If you want to serve Mrs Lett, you can tell me just what the situation is as regards income.”

Janet drew herself up. “The mistress can tell you all you need to know.”

“But she won’t.”

“Then I won’t neither,” asserted Janet, folding her arms. “But if you want my say-so, that there curmudgeon has behaved shabby to her, and no mistake!”

Taking this to refer to old Mr Howes, Hal nodded as he dug a fork into a chunk of ham. “More shabbily than you are aware of, I suspect, Janet.”

He received a disparaging snort in reply. “And you’re the one to say so, Captain!”

Hal glanced up, his mouth full. “If you mean by that to imply that I have behaved shabbily, you’re telling me nothing I don’t already know.”

This was subjected to an even more comprehensive snort. “And I don’t doubt you’ll use the same means of turning her up sweet an’ all!”

With which, the woman turned towards the kitchen. Retreating upon the point of fraternising with the enemy? Hal stopped her nevertheless.

“One moment. Just where is this vegetable patch, if you please?”

He had not far to look. From the back entrance to End Cottage, one could go two ways. To the garden situated to one side where he had first encountered Annabel yesterday. Or, in the opposite direction, to a much larger area, fenced off high with hedging all around and entirely given over to planting.

Hal could see several fruit trees, a collection of climbing peas or beans supported by a cane fretwork, and rows of beds, plentifully stocked with a variety of greenery. From lean times on the Peninsula, Hal was familiar with the look of certain growing vegetables. Many a Spanish farmer had he been obliged to compensate for the ravaging of his stocks by hungry troops. Often enough he had entered into negotiations with locals, haggling over a few straggly turnips to enhance a meagre broth.

It might have been these experiences that caused a surge of passionate indignation to rise up in him when he spied not only Annabel on her knees, but his little daughter too, jabbing into the earth with spade and fork.

“This is intolerable!”

Annabel jumped, quickly turning her head. The sight of Captain Colton’s large person posed threateningly in the middle of her kitchen garden threw a shaft of dismay into her breast. It was swiftly succeeded by a rise of that resentment which she had not yet had an opportunity to discharge.

She sat back on her haunches, lifting her chin, the fork poised in mid-air. “What is the matter? Are you shocked to see a gently bred female thus engaged? If you mean to remain here, you will have to accustom yourself to such sights.”

“I am shocked to realise the extent of your father’s malice. That he should have condemned you to this!” Hal swept an arc with his hand that was meant to encompass the whole of her life.

“Instead of exposing me to the rigours of following the drum with a campaigning army?” countered Annabel. “Between you, I had little to choose.”

Hal compressed his lips upon a sharp retort. It had not been his intention to provoke her. Instead, he glanced to where Rebecca, with concentrated attention, had returned to her task of shovelling earth from a growing hole. A pink tongue protruded between her lips as she hefted the spade, which was over-large for her small hands, and dribbled the small load it contained on to a pile to one side of the bed being worked.

Her errant father’s disapproval was not lost on Annabel. Her voice took on sarcasm. “Child labour. It is never too early to start when one’s future is going to depend upon one’s own efforts.”

She received a look that chilled her, and his tone was gruff. “That was uncalled for.”

Annabel felt herself falling into remorse, and quickly rallied. “As was your untimely appearance upon the scene in the guise of my dead husband.”

Hal toyed with the tempting notion of dragging her up from the grass where she sat and shaking her until the teeth rattled in her head. That, or turning abruptly from her and kicking the dust of this place from his heels! Regretfully, either course was ineligible. He knew he had bought into this, and must take the consequences. It would not help to give rein to his unruly temper. He drew in his horns.

“When you are free, I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss our situation.”

“Your situation. It has been none of my creating.”

“Devil take it, Annabel, come down off your high ropes! May we not call a truce?”

The exasperation in his voice had startled Rebecca into dropping her shovel. She began instantly to cry.

“Now see what you’ve done!”

But Annabel’s attention shifted quickly to her daughter. It had not been, she at once guessed, the loud voice that had upset the child, but the consequent ruin of her careful efforts. Rebecca was notoriously sensitive concerning any little task she undertook. She would tolerate neither interference nor destruction in any part of what she had achieved.

The earth had scattered, spoiling the neatness of her arrangements. It did not matter that her own unsteady hand had left a trail between the hole and the dirt pile, for that was part of the pattern. But her complaints, which were largely unintelligible through her sobs, evidently encompassed that area which had been dirtied by the little accident, for her small fists were beating at the ground.

“Come now, Becky, that is enough!” said Annabel with authority. “See, I will clean it for you, and it will be as good as ever.”

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