A Regency Christmas Treat: Moonlight and Mistletoe / A Mistletoe Masquerade

Startled at his own thought, Guy shifted his position as he stood talking to the major so he could watch Hester. Indeed, she was beautiful. Not conventionally so—and he was sure she would deny any such description—but her skin was creamy, her hair soft and full of springing waves, her figure slender yet womanly. His own body stirred as he recalled the feel of her in his arms. Then she turned, smiling at something young Hugh Redland was saying and he saw the laughter in her eyes and with the movement caught a hint of her scent.

An unusual scent for a woman, he thought. Almost woody, or perhaps mossy with a hint of citrus. He had not noticed it before; in fact, if anyone had asked him to describe the scent of Hester Lattimer he would have replied, ‘Plain soap and dust.’ This fragrance suited her soft brown looks and the amber lights in her eyes.

She was becoming more of a puzzle the more he knew her. There were young ladies of his acquaintance who would have fainted rather than get dirt on their hands and others who thought nothing of saddling their own horses or going on long scrambling walks with muddy boots and tousled hair. But he was not used to young ladies who would knuckle down to cleaning the house alongside their servants and yet take the care to dress so exquisitely or choose their scent with such taste.

Hester Lattimer was becoming dangerously close to preoccupying his thoughts and that was folly. To achieve his aim in coming to Winterbourne St Swithin she had to be removed from the Moon House, and soon. He was already spending too long on this obsession. So far it seemed her discomfort with the mysteries of the house were not sufficient to make her reconsider her vehement rejection of his more than generous offer. He must think again, adjust his tactics.

‘Sir Lewis Nugent, my lord.’ His last guest. Guy turned to greet the young baronet, not failing to notice that the attention of the ladies in the room had been instantly caught.

A personable enough young man he had thought on his first encounters with Nugent, but he certainly appeared to advantage in the formality of evening wear and Miss Redland was positively fluttering. Guy suppressed a smile, then saw Hester regarding the newcomer with well-bred interest. He wondered at the stab of irritation he felt. Of course, if she formed an attachment that would make it considerably harder to dislodge her from the neighbourhood. It would be necessary to distract her; not such a hard task for a man with his experience of women.

‘Nugent, good evening! I am sure you know everyone except Miss Lattimer, perhaps? And her companion Miss Prudhome.’

Hester shook hands with the young man as Guy presented him, finding it hard to resist the look of admiration he directed at her. It would be a rare woman indeed not to be susceptible to those dark good looks or the frank admiration in his green eyes. Jethro had been right: Lewis Nugent did not possess Lord Buckland’s fine physique, but then he was younger and perhaps had some filling out to do still. There was something faintly familiar about him; she sought for it, but it was gone.

She found her hand was still in his and withdrew it. ‘I must offer my condolences on the loss of your father, Sir Lewis. I understand your sister does not go about much yet, although I have hopes of meeting her the day after tomorrow at Mrs Bunting’s small gathering.’

‘Thank you. We do both feel it very much still, my father was a man of considerable character. However, Sarah is gradually getting about more; in such a small and friendly community it is easier, although she does not feel yet that she should go to such a formal occasion as this. You must excuse us for not calling upon you.’

He hesitated, then asked, ‘And are you comfortable at the Moon House? We wondered that anyone would buy it after it had stood empty for so long.’

Miss Redland had drifted across to join them. Hester admired the casual way she achieved it. ‘Oh, yes, Miss Lattimer, are you not afraid of the ghost?’

Hester admired less her rather too obvious flutterings of mock-horror and they certainly did not seem to provoke the protective instincts she had hoped for in Sir Lewis. He frowned and said repressively, ‘You should pay no attention to superstitious village gossip, Annabelle. Just because of a number of strange incidents, there is no need to build up some fantasy of hauntings.’

‘So how do you explain them?’ Miss Redland demanded, suddenly reduced from grown-up young lady to the girl who had doubtless played and argued with the Nugents all her childhood. ‘You cannot, can you?’

‘Just because I cannot explain something does not mean it is anything to be afraid of.’ Sir Lewis was looking somewhat harassed. ‘I am sure it is quite safe. But you must let me know if you are regretting your decision, Miss Lattimer: I would always repurchase the house. In fact, I feel it my duty.’

‘Thank you, but I am perfectly comfortable,’ Hester said firmly. ‘I pay no attention to gossip—why, I am sure any house that is empty for some time attracts some such nonsense.’ All the same, she did wish people would stop trying to reassure her about it—their very words seemed to conjure up phantoms where none had existed before.

Guy Westrope was within earshot and she realised he was watching her, his face serious. She seemed to read a warning in his eyes. Did he think there was something to be worried about? But in her bedchamber he had said he was sure there was a perfectly rational explanation for both the pearls and the state of the dressing room. Hester gave herself a little shake. Perhaps he was warning her about taking this nonsense too seriously. Which was generous of him, considering that nothing would suit him better than for her to decide to sell up and move. The creeping anxiety about him returned.

‘Dinner is served, my lord.’

The small dinner party sorted themselves out with the ease of old acquaintances, despite being in the home of an unfamiliar host. Hester realised that Guy must have taken considerable pains to make himself known in the neighbourhood in a very short time. He had apparently asked Mrs Bunting to preside at the foot of the table while he took the head and Hester found herself being taken in by Major Piper and seated at Guy’s left hand opposite the formidable Mrs Redland.

For the first remove she devoted herself to Major Piper as convention demanded. He was thin, apparently rather shy, which made him gruff, and, she estimated, in his fifties.

With patience she extracted the information that he was a major of Marines and had been invalided out of the service after receiving a bullet in the chest. He now devoted himself to breeding the perfect spaniel and the management of his small estate.

Hester realised she must have sounded more knowledgeable than she had intended whilst talking about military matters when the major enquired whether she had relatives in the armed forces. Cautiously she explained that her father had been a major in the Peninsular Army and had been killed in 1812.

Why she should have been aware of Guy listening to their conversation she could not say. His head did not turn and she was conscious of him maintaining a constant flow of small talk with Mrs Redland, yet somehow she was sure he was listening to what she was saying.

And what if he is? she scolded herself. Nothing you are telling the major would arouse anyone’s interest. England is littered with the orphaned offspring of military men. To assume that anyone in this inward-looking community would have knowledge or interest about one disgraced young woman was to place her own importance far too high. And eligible, noble bachelors would certainly have not the slightest knowledge of the gossip surrounding insignificant young ladies. What did it matter anyway if a certain sector of society shunned her as the mistress of the late Colonel Sir John Norton?

As the staff cleared the first remove with silent proficiency, she acknowledged yet again that it did matter and that she had been left scarred and humiliated by the slurs of Sir John’s relatives. Telling oneself over and over again that the opinion of such blinkered, uncharitable persons could not be regarded by a rational person of clear conscience seemed not to help at all.

Firmly fixing her social smile on her lips, Hester turned to Guy, only to find him watching her with such intensity that she had a sudden qualm that her back hair had escaped again.

‘It hasn’t, has it?’ she hissed.

‘What?’ he hissed back, laughter suddenly lighting up his eyes.

‘My hair—you were looking so…’

‘I can assure you it is the picture of perfection, Miss Lattimer. Does it escape so frequently that it is the only reason you can think of why a gentleman might stare at you?’

Hester blushed, darting a quick glance at Mrs Redland in case she had overheard this blatant piece of flirtation. Fortunately she was intent on a spirited conversation with Mr Bunting about some detail of the church flowers with Miss Prudhome silently listening to their exchanges.

‘It is the despair of my maid,’ she admitted candidly, deciding to ignore the latter part of his question.

‘Perhaps it is the outward sign of your impetuous nature,’ Guy suggested, carving the wing from a capon and placing it on her plate. The glitter of laughter was there again and something else, which touched her skin as a flicker of warmth.

Suddenly breathless, Hester looked away and found diversion in thanking Major Piper for the offer of the timbale of rice. It was back, that shiver of recognition that this man was the embodiment of an ideal. It was insane to think like that; it would be madness even if she was the possessor of an unspotted reputation. Not only was Lord Buckland a peer of the realm, far above her socially, he was also a man she knew she could not wholly trust, much as she wished she could.

Eventually she could find no excuse not to turn back and resume their conversation. ‘Thank goodness the weather has turned drier, constant drizzle is so dispiriting, do you not think?’ she enquired. She was not in the slightest interested in Guy’s opinion of the weather, but it was the safest topic she could think of.

‘Indeed,’ he agreed with a gravity which told her he knew exactly what she was about. ‘I did not know your father was in the army.’

‘But why should you?’ Hester replied, smiling to remove the sting from her brisk answer. Then her stomach performed an uncomfortable lurch—had he been having her investigated, all the better to dislodge her from her home? No, a moment’s thought told her. He had been genuinely surprised to find a young single woman in possession of the Moon House. Aware that she was verging on being rude, she added, ‘He was with Wellington in the Peninsula and was killed at Vittoria.’

Guy sent her a look of sympathy, which conveyed more than any amount of trite condolence could have, and said simply, ‘You must be very proud of him.’

‘I am,’ Hester agreed. ‘We were close. My mother died when I was fifteen and we had always followed him on campaign when we were able. I just continued doing so, for there were always officers’ wives to chaperon me. I was in Portugal when he was killed.’ She stopped somewhat abruptly, not wanting to go into any more detail that would lead him closer to her life in London.

‘So what happened then?’

Hester glanced around, but both Mrs Redland and Major Piper were absorbed in conversation with their neighbours. ‘I came back to England. My father had made arrangements years ago in case anything happened to him, but of course by then I had no need of a guardian. Fortunately I secured a position as a companion to an invalid very quickly.’

Guy gestured to a footman and they fell silent as the man refilled their wine glasses and withdrew. ‘Why did you not need a guardian?’

‘Because I was of age, of course.’ Hester laughed and picked up her glass. Perhaps one more sip, it was such a pleasure to drink good wine in a man’s company again. She caught the teasing twinkle and could not resist an answering smile. ‘And do not look like that, my lord. You are not going to cozen me into revealing my age. Suffice to say I had been out and acting as Papa’s hostess for years.’

‘Years?’

‘Years,’ she said firmly. She was not going to tell him that she had put her hair up on her seventeenth birthday and five days later had been hostess at a dinner where two generals and an admiral had been amongst the guests. Let him think her older than her twenty-four years if it helped make her seem less vulnerable.

Fortunately he asked her nothing about her late employer, which was a relief, for Hester was unhappy at the thought of lying. Dissembling as she was already made her uneasy.

‘So how are you occupying your time, Miss Lattimer? After London I should imagine that Winterbourne, however delightful, has far less to offer in the way of diversion.’

‘On the contrary, my lord, I was never in a position to enjoy London diversions. I have my books and sewing, a house and garden to restore, lovely countryside all around and most congenial company.’

Conversation was becoming more general as dishes were removed and replaced with sweetmeats and nuts. Mrs Redland had obviously overheard, for she turned with her somewhat glacial smile and remarked, ‘I am glad to hear you say so, Miss Lattimer. So many young people despise country life, but here we have a most respectable yet active society. I hope I may interest you in some of my favourite charitable causes.’

‘I am sure you can, Mrs Redland. May I enquire what they are?’