Claiming The Chaperon's Heart

The older woman sighed and sniffed the lace kerchief soaked in lily of the valley perfume. ‘You have so much energy, Amelia. It’s no wonder I find your company tiring, especially when I feel a little fragile. However, I should not wish to disappoint you in this matter, and of course you may go to Lady March. I would have preferred you to be in your sister’s care, but poor dear Beth is increasing and cannot entertain you. You must write a pretty letter to Lady March and thank her.’

‘She says she will send her carriage to bring me to her at home in the country, and then we may travel to London together. I must write my reply at once because otherwise she will not get my letter in time...’

‘Child, you are always in such a hurry,’ her aunt said and waved the heavily scented kerchief at her. ‘Please go away now and send Miss Beech to me. I need quiet companionship.’

Melia skipped away, only too happy to be set free of her duty to her aunt. Aunt Margaret had been good to her and Beth, though Beth had not needed much from their long-suffering aunt for she’d been eighteen when their parents were lost at sea on what was meant to be a pleasure trip to Papa’s estates in Ireland. Such a storm had blown up that the yacht had been buffeted on to the rocks far off its course on the wild Cornish coast and both crew and passengers drowned in the terrible storm.

Grieving and not knowing what to do, the sisters had been taken in by their kindly aunt, for they had little choice but to leave their home. Papa’s estates were naturally entailed and fell to a distant cousin they had never met and who presently resided in India. The girls both had small dowries, put aside by their father, and two thousand pounds each left to them by their maternal grandfather. Had it not been for the kindness of Aunt Margaret Bellingham, they would have been forced to live in a small house in a village somewhere—or so the very formal solicitor had informed them soon after the funeral.

However, six months later, when they had both removed from their home and Beth was already married, a letter had come to say that they might remain at the house for as long as they wished. It seemed that their father’s cousin had no intention of returning from India at present and even when he did so would not wish to deprive the sisters of their home. He had written to an agent who would look after the estate and would let them know when the new owner was thinking of returning to England.

It had been too late for Beth and Amelia. Beth had married and was happily living at her husband’s estate, and Melia was living rather less happily with her aunt. Aunt Margaret was not in the least unkind, nor did she make unreasonable demands of her niece, but she was too old to attend many parties and those she did were very dull. She’d promised Melia a season in London when she was eighteen, but a nasty bout of gastro-enteritis had laid her low and then, just as she was recovering, she’d caught a chill. Her doctor said that London was out of the question, and Melia had almost resigned herself to giving up all idea of going to town until Beth was over the birth of her child and had finished nursing the babe.

‘I shall be on the shelf by then,’ Melia had told her friend Jacqui as they walked together through the grounds of Aunt Margaret’s house. ‘I shall die of boredom before I ever have a chance to fall in love and be married.’

‘What about Viscount Salisbury?’ her friend asked slyly. ‘I thought you and he swore undying love when you stayed at Beth’s house in the country?’

‘Yes, we did,’ Melia said, her eyes dancing with merriment. ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ She laughed as Jacqui nodded eagerly. ‘Well, he has been in the district visiting friends twice since then and we walked and rode together—and he has written to me and I to him...’

‘You could not!’ her friend cried, shocked. ‘That is so forward of you, Melia. Whatever would your aunt say if she knew?’

‘Well, she does not know for Bess gets the letters from the receiving house and brings them to me without her seeing them.’

‘She would be so angry if she knew you had deceived her.’ Jacqui was in awe and yet a little censorious. ‘Mama would shut me in my room for a month on bread and water if I did such a thing.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t,’ Melia replied and hugged her arm. ‘I dare say I should not had Mama lived. She would have invited young people to the house for me and I might have been engaged by now.’

‘Has the viscount asked you?’

‘No, but he will if I wish it.’ Melia’s eyes sparkled wickedly. ‘I am not yet sure if I wish to marry him, but I do want to find out. If we were to go to London, I should have the chance to meet so many pleasant young men...’

‘Well, you must get your aunt to write to Lady March and ask if she would be kind enough to have you as her guest when she goes up to town. I know for a fact that she has chaperoned other young girls since she was widowed, for one was my cousin. As you know her brother, Viscount Salisbury, I dare say he would prevail upon her to invite you.’

Melia had thought her friend’s suggestion a good one, for the families had been close before Jane and Beth were married, but, to make certain of a favourable answer, she’d written of her aunt’s illness to the viscount. The letter had clearly done its work and now she was to visit London, as she’d hoped—and, if she could achieve it, she would be engaged before the end of her visit, either to Viscount Salisbury or another...

Having finished her letter, Melia rang the bell for Bess. The maidservant had come to her aunt’s house with her and was devoted to her. Bess would not mind walking down to the village to see the letter went as soon as the next post bag was sent off to London. However, when she answered the bell, Bess was carrying a silver salver on which resided a letter addressed to Melia.

‘Thank you,’ she said and smiled at the woman who had nursed her from a babe and now looked after her clothes and tended her hair. ‘I want this letter to go off straight away. I’m going to visit Lady March and she is taking me to London—and you’ll be coming with us, Bess. You will enjoy that, won’t you?’

‘Well, miss, I know you will and I don’t mind anything if you’re happy.’

‘You are the best friend I ever had,’ Melia said and pounced on the plump, kind woman, arms about her waist as she kissed her cheek. ‘I do love you, Bess.’

‘Get on with you, Miss Melia,’ Bess said but her face was pink and smiling. ‘I’ll take your letter for you, no need for flattery...’

‘I wonder who could be writing to me,’ Melia said as she looked at the seal and then frowned, for it was a family crest. ‘Good gracious! Can this possibly be from...?’ She broke the wax seal and glanced at the letter.

Scanning the first few lines, Melia discovered that it was from someone calling himself her Cousin Paul. Papa’s cousin, not hers, Melia thought with a little frown. A look of annoyance settled over her pretty face as she continued to read the contents of her surprising letter.

I was concerned to learn that you had been asked to leave your home. It was against my wishes and I do most sincerely apologise for it. My hope is that you will forgive the mistake and return to your home. Clearly you cannot live there alone, though on my return from India in early June I shall be living at my house in London and will pay only brief visits to Willow House.

However, it is my intention that you shall be introduced into Society under the aegis of a friend of my mother’s, Lady Moira Fairhaven. Lady Moira, widowed these eighteen months past, is preparing to take her place in Society again this year, and will live with you at Willow House until you come up to London. She will be with you by the end of May and you may become accustomed to each other before coming to the house I shall take for you in town.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Frant

Well, really! Melia could not see why he should write her such a letter—as if the fact that he had inherited Papa’s estate made him her guardian. He was no such thing and she had no intention of doing as he asked. She would keep to her intention of being Lady March’s guest, though, had she not already arranged things to her liking, she supposed she might have been grateful to her father’s cousin for his offer.

Aunt Margaret must not know that she’d received this letter. If she read the contents she would say that Melia must remain here to meet her chaperon and do as her distant cousin asked. Putting her letter carefully away in the secret drawer of her writing slope, Melia wondered uncomfortably if perhaps her father’s will had given this distant cousin power over her. Yet surely Papa would never do such a thing? Neither she nor Beth had ever met the gentleman. She knew nothing about him, and she did not wish to. It was most disobliging of him to return to England now, just when Melia had everything in hand. She knew that if she wished to marry a suitable gentleman, her aunt would be only too willing to oblige her—but this stranger might have other ideas...

Chapter Two (#ulink_276c1993-574c-5d34-b319-e8723673bfa0)

‘This is being too kind, Adam,’ Paul Frant said. ‘I never expected you to accompany me to London, my dear fellow. Your help on the ship was invaluable, for I must confess that I have never felt quite as ill in my life as I did when that fever struck. However, I am on the mend now and you might have gone to your own estates after we docked at Portsmouth. I know you must have business to attend.’

‘I’ve never before known you to have a day’s illness,’ Adam, once Captain of His Majesty’s Own Guards, serving with the Indian troops, and now, newly, Viscount Hargreaves, said with a faint twist of his mouth. ‘It was not like you, for you fought on the Peninsula in Spain and came through, despite being wounded twice. I was concerned, my dear fellow. You still look a trifle weary.’

‘I feel less than my normal healthy self,’ Paul replied truthfully. ‘It pains me to say it, but for a while there I believed it was the end. I must have been carrying the fever with me, for some of my colleagues had it at the Company offices before I left. Poor Mainwaring died of it, leaving a widow and two young sons in England. His death was a part of the reason I decided to come home. Before he died, he asked me to make sure that his family received his pension and all that was due to him. I think he’d hoped to make his fortune out there, but unfortunately he was not good at business.’

‘Unlike you,’ Adam said with a wry twist of his lips. ‘You must be as rich as Croesus, Frant.’

‘I haven’t done too badly out of the Company,’ Paul said modestly. ‘Enough to give that poor child of Bellingham’s a decent dowry. I inherited the charge of her along with the title, for which I have not the slightest use, but I must accept it, I suppose, if I choose to live here. I’m not sure yet whether I shall do so. I may return to India when I’ve seen to things in England. I’m not certain I could settle to the life of an English gentleman.’

‘Find it a trifle dull after fighting the wild tribesmen of the hills, eh?’ Adam gave him an odd look. ‘Or is it the lure of a beautiful woman that calls you back, my friend?’

‘I had little time for ladies of any description; I left that to you and the rest of the Army,’ Paul mocked him gently. ‘Annamarie was beautiful; I give you that—but she was not to be trifled with. Only if I’d decided to marry her would I have thought of trying to capture her heart. If indeed she has one; I found her charming but with little real warmth.’ Paul had thought there was something hard and cold about the woman so many men admired.

‘She is a proud beauty,’ Adam said. ‘I admired her. It must be hard to be of mixed birth as she is, Paul. Her father was an Indian prince, her mother an English lady. Annamarie says that her father was married to her mother by a Christian priest; his other wives went into purdah after he died but Princess Helena was allowed to leave the palace and bring up her daughter as she pleased in a palace of her own. One might almost say that she’d been cast out by her royal relatives. Because of her marriage, which was not in the Indian way, some of her husband’s people think her a concubine rather than a wife.’

‘Yes, that is unfortunate. Princess Helena sent her daughter to the school for the daughters of English gentlemen,’ Paul said. ‘Annamarie was brought up to believe she was legitimate and, since her maternal grandfather still lives in Shropshire and is an earl, she has been accepted by some of the officer’s ladies...but not all. If it had not been for Colonel Bollingsworth’s wife, she might have found herself ostracised, but most followed her lead and accepted Annamarie into their company.’

‘Out there, some of the ladies allow a little leeway.’ Adam nodded to himself. ‘You know as well as I do why her mother does not send Annamarie to school in England. She would not be accepted into the top echelons of Society here, I think.’

‘Then Society is a fool,’ Paul said angrily. ‘She has every right to be accepted here, but it is the same in India—her father’s people treat her as an outcast. I believe she and her mother might do better to come home to England. I am sure such beauty as Annamarie’s would find many admirers and, if she were taken up by the Regent’s set, might do well enough.’

‘Yes, perhaps...’ Adam eased his long legs as the carriage drew to a halt. ‘Ah, I believe we are here. This is your house, Paul?’

‘It was my father’s but now mine,’ Paul replied with a twist of his lips. He was a good strong man, with fine legs and broad shoulders. Seen in company with Adam, he might not be thought handsome, but there was nothing coarse or ugly in his features. His chin was square and forthright, his eyes clear, his gaze sometimes piercing, but his mouth was softer than the rest of his features, a clue to the warmth of his heart. He had warm brown eyes and light brown hair, but not the pure blond of his companion’s locks. Adam’s profile was almost beautiful, his hair short but softly curled about perfect features, his eyes a blue some called cerulean and his mouth sensuous. His body had all the proportions of a Greek god and his skin the natural tan that came from being accustomed to a life outdoors in a warm climate.

‘Ah yes, your father.’ Adam frowned, uncertain now. ‘As I recall, you did not exactly see eye to eye with Lord Frant?’

‘No, and never could after the way he treated my mother and I...’

Paul’s eyes narrowed in anger. The row with his father after his mother died had split them apart. Paul had left his home vowing never to return while his father lived, and he’d kept his word. He’d made his own way, rising first to the rank of Major with Wellington at Salamanca and then, after a wound to his leg from which he recovered well, gave up the Army that would have bound him to an administrative position and used his share of the prize money to go out to India and invest with the Company. Some shrewd business moves had made him richer than he’d expected, and a fortunate encounter with a rich Maharaja had resulted in him being made an honorary son and given lands and palaces. If he chose to return to India, he could live like a prince and marry almost anyone he chose.

Paul knew that Annamarie had hoped he would ask her to be his wife. Because he’d once saved the life of a prince, Paul had a unique position in the region. It would have suited the daughter of an English lady and an Indian prince to marry a man who had both English rank and Indian favour. Together they might have been second in importance to the present Maharaja in the district. She’d made it quite clear that she hoped for a proposal of marriage before he left for England, but Paul had not been sure what he wanted.

In England he had inherited his father’s title and estates, but he knew that his younger brother—the son of his father’s second wife, although still only in his teens, would have been delighted to step into his shoes. Paul had no need of his family estates in England—and in particular he had not needed the bother of the small estate that had come to him through a distant cousin. The young girls who were made his wards by Bellingham’s will were a part of Paul’s reason for returning. Although he’d been told the older girl had married well, that still left the younger one—at eighteen, she was ready for marriage if a husband could be found for her. To that end, Paul had written to an old friend of his mother who had recently been widowed, asking her if she would be kind enough to chaperon the young girl. She had graciously given her consent, though the exchange of letters had taken months to complete. It was imperative that the girl be chaperoned, for Paul was unmarried and could therefore not fulfil his task of guardian without female assistance.