Lord Hunter's Cinderella Heiress

‘Why don’t we sit down, have something to eat and then talk this over sensibly?’

Her eyes glinted at him.

‘There is a pattern forming here. You appear to think I will be more amenable once fed.’

‘I certainly will be. I’m useless without my morning coffee.’

Her smile widened, but she nodded and went to the sideboard. He kept the conversation light as they ate, telling her about Petra’s and Pluck’s successes at the racing meets, a topic which she clearly was happy to explore until she had finished her last finger of toast.

‘I’m so happy they are content with you. I still miss Pluck, but I knew Father would never let me keep her, so I’m glad she is with Petra. Well, now that we’ve eaten I admit to being impatient to hear what you are planning.’

‘What makes you think I am planning anything?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m quite certain you are. You have a look.’

Hunter, who had a reputation for being unreadable at the piquet table, barely refrained from asking what this ‘look’ was, drummed his fingers on the table and wondered how to play his cards. This was not precisely how he had imagined his dealings with a near-schoolgirl would progress. For better or worse she was a bright young woman and he had better start treating her as such.

‘May I ask what you plan to do once you are freed of this engagement?’

She considered him, clearly debating whether or not to confide in him.

‘I will probably go to Bascombe, but first I will find someone respectable to act as companion or Father or...or my aunt will think they have a duty to come...’

Her voice faded and the haunted look he had seen at Tilney returned. The last time he had seen that expression before her had been on Tim’s face. Every day since he rescued him from that French hell and until the day he killed himself. Hunter uncurled his hand from the cup before it shattered. He was right to run. He didn’t need this.

‘Bar the gates, then,’ he said, a bit more roughly than he had intended. ‘Bascombe’s gates are flanked by two portly gargoyles which make the point quite vividly.’

Her eyes focused back on him and he relaxed as the edge of a smile returned as well.

‘Gargoyles?’

‘Your grandmother’s idea. At least if they were decent sculptures it might be forgivable, but they look like drunken gnomes about to fall off toadstools.’

The smile widened.

‘Then my first order of business shall be to remove them. I don’t think they would intimidate Aunt Hester anyway. She might even like them. She has the most awful taste.’

‘I remember she told me the horrific banquet room at Tilney Hall was her design. Send her the gargoyles as a gift, then.’

She half-laughed and covered her mouth to stop the sound.

‘I’d just as happily drop them on her,’ she said daringly and he smiled. ‘Meanwhile I shall write to a schoolmistress I know to come stay with me.’

‘And then?’

She smoothed the tablecloth with her finger.

‘I haven’t decided yet. But I do know I don’t want a marriage of convenience without affection or love.’

He managed to stop his expression from exhibiting what he thought about that last statement. Of course the girl would be dreaming of love. She came from a girls’ school, for heaven’s sake. The place must be a hotbed of silly novels and soulful sighs.

‘Those are two very different qualities. What people call romantic love is not much more than a glorified term for mundane physical passion and tends not to outlive it.’

She flushed, but met his gaze squarely. ‘I concede that passion is important, but love is an entity in itself. You are completely wrong to dismiss it so cavalierly.’

He raised a brow at her dismissive tones.

‘Of course I am, being so very green,’ he said quietly. There was a limit to the abuse he would take from this young woman.

‘No, you’re not green, just wrong. I may have had very little experience of the world, but I have also been very lucky. When I lost my mother I thought I would never find anyone else who would care for me as much, but now I have other people I love, really deeply love, like Mrs Petheridge and my best friend Anna, and it would be devastating to lose them. I may not expect to find that depth of feeling with a husband, but there must be elements of that for it to be worthwhile marrying. That is what I mean by love. Working in a girls’ school where children can’t help but mirror the joy or pain of their families is a fairly good arena to explore that particular topic. I have had excellent opportunities to observe the products of the kind of union this betrothal might lead to and I have excellent reasons for refusing. I grew up knowing what it is like to be insignificant and powerless and I will never put myself in that position again.’ She leaned back, her Nordic sea eyes narrowed and challenging. ‘But this discussion is pointless. Why don’t we discuss what you are really interested in—the Bascombe water rights. Well, I promise I won’t be in the least unreasonable. I don’t want to be at war with my neighbours. There is no reason why we cannot come to an agreement that is fair for all parties.’

Hunter shifted in his chair, battling the urge to give her as thorough a lecture in return. It would be cruel to take from her anything that had been so painfully won by pointing out that relations between men and women were substantially different than the kind of familial friendships she had thankfully developed away from Tilney. He knew the value of friendships all too well and he knew the pain of loss that came with loving someone who was brutally snatched out of reach, and those, thankfully, had nothing to do with the institution of marriage. To point this out would not only be churlish but counterproductive. He focused instead on her statement about the water rights.