Courtship In The Regency Ballroom: His Cinderella Bride / Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss

‘Of course,’ Lionel replied, bowing stiffly to Hester. He escorted Em from the room, Stephen Farrar trailing moodily along behind them.

It was only once he had gone that reaction set in, and Hester began to tremble violently. She could not have got up and left the piano stool had her life depended on it. Head bowed, she waited till the trembling subsided, and it was not till she looked up that she discovered Lord Lensborough was waiting patiently some few feet away.

‘I…’ Her face flushed. She felt she owed him some explanation, but he curtailed her, shaking his head and merely holding out his arm with a rueful smile.

‘No explanations necessary. Allow me to escort you to the drawing room. You look as if you could do with a refreshing glass of lemonade.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ She placed her hand on his arm, and rose shakily to her feet. ‘That would be most welcome.’

Lord Lensborough contented himself with walking Hester along the passage to the supper room in sympathetic silence. It would be crass to allude to the exchange he had overheard, unfeeling to talk of anything else as if he was unmindful of her emotional state.

They paused on the threshold, and he watched her face intently as she scanned the occupants of the room, her fingers tightening convulsively on his sleeve.

She looked at Julia and Phoebe, giggling together in a corner, cock-a-hoop because they had each waltzed with their intended. How little it took to set them in alt! There sat Henrietta, gazing up at her husband with foolish, untrammelled devotion, basking in the glow of impending motherhood.

Even her aunt and uncle were locked in a little world of their own, side by side on a sofa, sipping tea from matching china cups.

Never had she felt so excluded, so utterly alone.

She sighed, exhaustion washing over her. She was glad that her family were all too content to probe into her life. If any of them were to guess what lay beneath the carefully maintained mask she wore…She shuddered. Pray God nobody would ever guess the secrets she harboured.

‘Will you excuse me, my lord?’ She looked full into eyes that once she had thought were dark with menace. They held no fear for her now. He might not want anybody to know it, but Lord Lensborough could be kind.

‘I find suddenly that I am very tired. It has been a busy day.’

She needed her sanctuary. She would feel far less lonely up in her attic than down here with people who were oblivious to her lacerated feelings.

Lord Lensborough hesitated for only a fraction of a second before bowing and bidding her goodnight. He was content with the progress he had made tonight. Snelgrove had played right into his hands. Twice the fool had pushed her too far, and she had accepted his offer of help. Before long she would be eating out of his hands.

Chapter Eight

Hester was too worked up to fall asleep for a very long time. And when she did, the nightmare came back.

Even though thick smoke was blinding her, she knew she was in the summerhouse. She could hear the rain thundering on to the roof. The smoke was getting thicker, choking her. She tried to get to the door, but he caught her round the waist and dragged her to the floor, crushing her beneath the weight of his body. The harder she struggled to free herself, the louder he laughed. Then he was grinding her cheek into the rough floorboards with one hand and leaning down to open his breeches with the other. The blackened hem of her muslin gown crumbled to ashes in his hands as the flames licked up her legs. If she couldn’t stop him, she would burn to death.

She took as deep a breath as she could, her mouth opening wide.

The sound of her scream, thin and reedy at first, quickly grew to a howl that was loud enough to wake her.

Her heart pounding, she fought free of the blankets that were tangled round her thrashing limbs and rolled from the bed to land on all fours on the floor. Sweat was pouring from her body. Kicking the blankets away, she reached up and grabbed a glass of water from the bedside table, gulping it fast to try to wash the acrid taste of burning flesh from her mouth.

There was no way she was going to lie back down on that bed again tonight. She shook the eiderdown free from the rest of the bedding that littered the floor, wrapped it round her shoulders and padded barefoot from her windowless bedroom. Taking the lighted lantern from her hall table, she went down the stairs to make sure the only door that gave access to her rooms was locked. Then she climbed on to a straight-backed chair and pushed at the latch on the skylight. It was secure. She was safe. Nobody could get in.

Not physically. But her imagination—oh, that was a differ-ent matter.

Lionel had come back, and his return had stirred up all the memories she had fought so long and hard to suppress. She padded into her sitting room and stoked up the fire, then settled into the armchair, knowing from bitter experience there was no point in trying to get any more sleep.

That was why she was so grateful she had these attic rooms. Nobody could hear her up here, when she woke screaming. Nobody could see her obsessively checking and rechecking the locks. Nobody would urge her back to bed, when she knew the only way to get any rest was to doze, propped upright in a corner somewhere with a poker in her hand.

She rubbed her creased forehead with two fingers. Fortunately the house party was breaking up tomorrow. Saying farewells and tidying up would provide plenty of activity. By the time night fell again, she would hopefully have worked herself to a state of exhaustion that would ensure she got at least a few hours of deep, dreamless sleep. Hard work had always proved an effective remedy in the past.

But the quieter the house became, as the guests departed one by one, the more vulnerable Hester felt. By early after-noon her nerves were so jittery, she decided her only recourse was to find some work to do in a room where the presence of at least a couple of other people would give her an illusion of security. She knew her cousins would be in the library, discussing how to while away the rest of the day. So she gathered up the books that various guests had left in their rooms to return them to their proper places.

Lord Lensborough and Mr Farrar were there too, but for once she was glad of their presence. Her cousins would concentrate all their conversational efforts on impressing Lord Lensborough. She would have the advantage of company without needing to dredge up a steady flow of chatter herself.

She was doubly glad of their presence when, not long after arriving in the library, Fisher announced that Lionel Snelgrove had come to pay a call.

Why had he come here so soon after she had refused him? Did he think he could make her change her mind? That he could bully her into submission? Well, he could think again! She would not even speak to him.

Seizing a random selection of volumes, she strode to the farthest corner of the room and began to thrust them into any vacant slot she could find.

After making the appropriate greetings, Lionel turned to Lord Lensborough.

‘I was a little surprised that you did not ride over this morning, my lord. I trust you are well?’

Hester slammed a copy of The Monk into a gap between two improving works penned by Hannah More.

‘I thought it might be more appropriate if we were to make up a party including the ladies next time we ventured out.’

Hester’s ears pricked up at Lord Lensborough’s icily civil tone. Lionel had somehow managed to offend him.

Julia clapped her hands in glee. ‘Oh, yes, I should love that, and so would Phoebe. How clever of you to think of it, my lord.’ From the corner of her eye, Hester could see her batting her eyelashes at him quite shamelessly. ‘Everything always seems so flat after guests leave.’

‘And, Lady Hester, perhaps we can persuade you to leave your household duties for one afternoon and join the party?’ Lord Lensborough said.

‘Yes, do come with us, Hester.’ Julia rose from her chair impulsively and crossed the room to stand beside her. Turning to Lord Lensborough, she added, ‘Lady Hester is a much better rider than either of us, but then she goes out so much more often.’

‘And Lady Hester knows the country even better than I, since I have been so long away.’ Lionel added his weight to Lord Lensborough’s invitation. ‘I am sure she will know of a delightful route we could take, suitable for less experienced riders than us, my lord.’

Lionel had followed like a shadow in Julia’s wake, rendering her tactic of making for the far corner of the library quite useless. Still, she had the table between them, and Julia at her side. Taking a volume from the pile, she cleared her throat, saying, ‘That will not be possible. Strawberry is stabled over at Lady’s Bower. It would take an age to send for her.’

Damn. Lord Lensborough had forgotten that her riding privileges had been withheld because…He frowned—that could not be right. He had assumed that she was being punished for dallying with him, whereas in fact her family were shielding her. Was she so averse to being alone with a gentleman that she would voluntarily have her horse sent to a neighbour’s stables?

Apparently, he thought glumly, since he knew Lady’s Bower was the manor that Snelgrove had pointed out to him, laughing, because it was so inappropriately named. The eccentric Captain Corcoran, the current tenant, would only employ men, particularly ex-seamen like himself.

‘You must all go, though,’ she continued. ‘I would not like to think of his lordship forgoing his daily ride on my account.’

Damn again. The whole purpose of suggesting this expedition was to make Lady Hester a part of it.

‘Oh, come on, Hetty.’

Lord Lensborough bristled at the familiarity with which Snelgrove addressed Lady Hester, at the way he leaned his hands on the table, thrusting his face towards hers. ‘A bruising rider like you? You could manage any of the mounts Sir Thomas has in his stables, or even one of his lordship’s, if you put your mind to it. Borrow a horse, Hetty, and come out with us. It will be just like old times.’

She flinched. Instantly, Lord Lensborough forgot all about his own desire to spend some time in her company, in the more urgent need to protect her from a situation she would clearly find intolerable.

‘Perhaps Lady Hester is a little tired after all the work she has put in over the past weeks for our benefit, and is too polite to say so, Snelgrove.’

Julia put out her hand, taking hold of Hester’s. ‘Now that his lordship mentions it, you do look dreadfully worn, Hester. I am so sorry, I did not notice before. Are you quite well?’