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

The fleeting look of gratitude Lady Hester flashed him more than made up for Lord Lensborough’s disappointment at her refusal to come out. At last. She had recognised that he was deliberately defending her from Lionel’s unwelcome pursuit.

‘I admit I do not feel up to racketing about on horseback today.’ Hester shamelessly grabbed at the lifeline Lord Lensborough had thrown her. ‘And I have been neglecting Em—that is, Miss Dean,’ she explained to his lordship, the germ of an idea causing a surge of wild excitement to go winging through her, ‘during the past week or so. I may walk across the park to visit with her.’

Lionel shot her a glance loaded with such malevolence that the words died in her throat. It shook her for a moment, until she realised that, with his back to the rest of the occupants of the room, she alone was able to see it.

Lord Lensborough remarked, ‘Let us hope you return refreshed from your visit, my lady. And do you dine with us this evening, now that you are released from your duties towards the nursery party?’

‘I…’She frowned, dragging her gaze from Lionel’s spiteful countenance. Truth to tell, having a tray alone in her room was the last thing she wanted in her present state of mind. And she no longer felt the need to avoid the marquis. He could be pleasant enough when it occurred to him to bother. She had already come to the conclusion that once he’d made up his mind which of her cousins should have the honour of taking his name, he might even make a fairly kind sort of husband, in an offhand way. He would want the mother of his children to be content in her role, and though she could not imagine him doing anything as vulgar as actually developing a tendre for his wife—Abruptly she brought her woolgathering to a halt, and, with flushed cheeks, murmured, ‘Yes, my lord, I will.’

She missed the exultant gleam her response brought to his eyes as she hurried from the room. All she could think of was escaping Lionel. If he was here at The Holme, she would be safe to go and fetch Em from the vicarage. Not that she had any intention of staying there, and risking being there when he returned.

Because Lionel had more or less told her where he was going to ride—he planned to revisit their childhood haunts. The tarn where she and Gerard used to swim would offer Julia and Phoebe a gentle enough ride, or perhaps along the course of the beck where they had fished, or through the park to the copse where there were trees they used to climb. In any event, all those destinations lay in the opposite direction from the gypsy camp on The Lady’s Acres.

In no time at all, she was ensconced in Jye’s caravan, a mug of hot sweet tea in her hand, her beloved little girl sitting at her feet with her head resting on her knee. Once she had drunk the tea, and the half-dozen or so children who were squashed together on the caravan floor had devoured the macaroons Hester had purloined from the kitchens on her way out, she opened her satchel, and distributed sheets of coloured paper and crayons.

In spite of the fact that the children only had instruction from her, just once a year during the time when they camped in The Lady’s Acres, at least a couple of the boys had clearly been putting the intervening months to good use.

‘Any advantage we can get over Gorgi,’ one of them cheekily remarked, knowing full well that Lady Hester had not a drop of Romany blood in her veins, and so qualified as Gorgi herself, ‘is worth a bit of effort. If we can read their writing, when they still can’t know our signs and ways, well, we got the edge over ’em, don’t we?’

She was on the point of gathering up the primers and rounding off the session, when Jye, who never stayed within hearing when she was playing the part of school ma’am, came clattering up the steps and put his head through the top half of the door.

‘Gorgi,’ he panted. ‘Men. A bunch of them on horseback. Could be trouble, Lady Hetty.’

Their eyes met. Trouble not just for the gypsies, who were prey to all sorts of oppression by suspicious locals, but for her too, if she was found here. She drew herself up, ‘I’ll come at once, Jye,’ she assured him. ‘They won’t attempt anything while I am here.’

‘I’ll finish off in here.’ Em began to gather up the primers and crayons that were scattered about the floor. Hitching Lena on to her hip, Hester nodded to show she understood Em’s reluctance to show her face. Though people fully expected the vicar’s daughter to visit the poor of the parish, most would also feel she ought not to be encouraging a band of rogues and vagabonds to linger in the parish either.

Just as Hester began to clamber down the steps of the caravan, the party on horseback broke through the trees at the perimeter of the tan.

Her breath froze in her lungs as she saw Lord Lensborough, Mr Farrar, Julia…

They were all staring at her in as much stupefaction as she felt herself.

‘Hester,’ Julia squealed. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

As Hester stiffened in horror, Lena reacted to the threat these strangers represented by winding her arms more tightly about Hester’s neck. What was she to say? Her uncle had made her promise that his daughters would never find out about her relationship to the gypsy clan. And now, seeing the expression of utter disgust on Lord Lensborough’s face, she could understand why. Tonnish people did not mingle with the offscourings of society, nor did they permit their womenfolk to do so. In his eyes she had overstepped the boundaries of propriety so far she could never find a way back.

She wondered briefly why she felt so crushingly disappointed by his reaction.

‘I could ask you the same question,’ she replied defiantly, giving Lena a reassuring kiss on the cheek so that she would know the anger was not directed at her. When Hester set her down on the ground, Lena grabbed hold of her skirts, clinging to her side, though she kept her eyes trained warily on the intruders. While the other menfolk about the tan slowly began to shift into defensive positions, Jye climbed down from the steps of his own caravan, coming to stand next to Hester, with Lena between them.

‘Friends of yours, Lady Hetty?’ he asked in a voice that was meant to carry across the frosty air of the clearing, as he stooped to gather Lena’s free hand into his own.

‘Yes, Jye, but I didn’t invite them.’ Her eyes came to rest on the malicious smirk on Lionel’s face. Of course. He had known she would come straight here given the chance. He had dropped veiled hints from the first that he could make trouble if she did not play along with him. She had resisted him. So now she would pay.

‘Those ladies are my cousins,’ she explained to Jye and Lena. ‘Miss Julia Gregory, and Miss Phoebe Gregory. The gentlemen, Lord Jasper Challinor, Marquis of Lensborough, on the bay gelding, and his friend Mr Stephen Farrar are guests at The Holme. I am sure they mean you no harm.’

‘You have left Mr Snelgrove out,’Julia cried. ‘It was he who brought us here. He said he had a surprise for us, but I never expected it would be anything like this. This is the surprise, Mr Snelgrove?’she half-turned in her saddle to ask him. ‘This quaint little gypsy camp?’

Hester did not bother to wait for his reply. Lena had been tugging at her skirts to get her attention, and as she bent, the little girl whispered, ‘Is that the marquis you told us about? The one wot knocked you into a ditch and left you standing there in the road all muddy?’

‘Yes, dear,’ Hester confessed, ashamed now that she had spoken so heatedly about him that day, less than a week ago. But she had still been angry with him, and she had needed to explain to Jye, and the other gypsy elders, why she had come to them empty-handed. She couldn’t have borne it if they had refused her access to Lena.

‘But he didn’t mean to do it, you know. You don’t need to be afraid of him.’

‘I ain’t afraid,’ Lena declared, glowering at the offending horseman. Lady Hetty held one of her hands, and Jye the other, and she had complete confidence that these two could shield her from the wickedest of marquises.

One of the women sashayed across to where the girls sat their docile mounts, and held her hand out, palm upward.

‘Tell your fortunes, pretty ladies?’ she wheedled.

‘Oh, how thrilling,’ Julia trilled. ‘That is why you brought us down here, isn’t it, Mr Snelgrove? To have our palms read by a genuine gypsy fortune teller. How clever of you to think of such a diversion when we confessed how dull we all felt today.’

Phoebe cleared her throat nervously. ‘Do you think we ought, Julia? I am not quite sure Papa would like it. Lord Lensborough, what do you think?’

Lord Lensborough could not repeat out loud what he was thinking while Julia and Phoebe, in their innocence, could hear. There stood the woman he had thought he would marry, holding the hand of a little girl with a riot of dull copper curls that exactly matched hers, a sharp little nose spattered with freckles just like hers, while the expression of wary defiance matched that of the sullen, dirty gypsy who held her other hand. His lips curled into a derisive sneer. What a charming family tableau.

This resolved so many of the mysteries surrounding her behaviour. The guilt he had read on her face when he had encountered her in the stable yard, her resentment at his suggestion he ride with her and those flowers she had about her hat, that he had thought so girlishly whimsical—why, they were nothing more than a fanciful token from a penniless lover to his high-born mistress.

That was why her uncle had her horse removed and stabled with a neighbour, to prevent her from succumbing to the temptation of sneaking down here to meet with her gypsy lover and her illegitimate child.

‘I think,’ he finally managed to growl through clenched teeth, ‘that you should do just as you wish.’

How would the deceitful hussy brazen her way out of this situation? Did she think she could look to him for aid now? Let her think again!

‘Then I am going to have my fortune told,’ Julia declared. ‘After all, Hester is already here, so I am sure Papa can have no objection. Why should we not go where she does?’

Jye turned to Hester and gave her a look that his lordship could only interpret as a reaction to their guilty affair having been found out. And Hester’s face, as she gazed back at him, was deathly pale.

For all she cared, he might as well not be there—all her attention was on this other man, this dirty ruffian. This…this nobody!

He became dimly aware, through the darkness that seemed to be swirling round him, blotting out everything but the sight of the two guilty lovers, that Snelgrove was leaning over to take hold of Julia’s reins so that the silly chit could dismount.

‘Come close to the fire, then, pretty lady,’ the gypsy woman said, ‘and I will see what is writ in your hand.’

Julia giggled. ‘Oh, this is so exciting. I had no idea you got up to such larks under the pretext of visiting Em. Have you had your fortune told already?’

‘No.’ Hester darted forward. ‘Nor do I ever wish to.’

‘Why not?’ Julia’s brow wrinkled with perplexity.

‘If something good is going to happen to me, I would rather it came as a lovely surprise. And if something bad is to befall me, I would not want to live in permanent dread of its advent.’

Emily chose this moment to emerge from Jye’s caravan with the remnants of their ragged pupils and hurry to Hester’s side.

‘I must side with Lady Hester on this matter, Julia,’ she said sharply. ‘It would be the height of folly to do such a thing without your father’s permission. Does he even know you are here?’

‘Well, of course not. We did not even know there were gypsies camping on The Lady’s Acres until Mr Snelgrove brought us, so how could we have told him?’