Regency High Society Vol 1: A Hasty Betrothal / A Scandalous Marriage / The Count's Charade / The Rake and the Rebel

‘Oh, no, sir,’ replied Harriet, mirthfully aware that she had won the round. ‘You have persuaded me that I must seize every opportunity to discourage such vanity!’

‘Hoist by my own petard, dammit!’ he laughed, pulling in the reins.

The curricle had reached a fork in the lane and Sandford had slowed the horses to negotiate the narrower of the two ways. This smaller track led down to a row of ramshackle dwellings, the furthest of which had obviously been destroyed by fire.

‘Mr Potter’s cottage, I collect?’ said Harriet, looking about her with interest as, with Sandford’s assistance, she descended from the carriage.

He nodded, surprised but gratified that she had remembered Ridgeway’s tale.

‘We’d been trying to persuade him to move out for months,’ he said, walking over to the ruin. ‘The rest of the tenants were rehoused last year in the new cottages by Top Meadow …’ He gesticulated back towards the fork in the lane. ‘Old Josh refused to go—said he’d lived here since he was first married and he intended to die here.’

‘Pretty near did, too, by all accounts,’ interjected Tiptree, who, having tethered the horses, had joined them. ‘Set fire to his bed with his pipe, so I hear. Lucky for him Jack Rawlings was driving his cart along the top lane and got him out.’

‘Was he hurt?’ Harriet asked, her sympathy for the old tenant immediately aroused.

‘Not really, so I’m told,’ replied the viscount, ‘superficial burns to his hands and legs. Meggy—his daughter—soon sorted him out, according to Charles, but she’s had the Devil’s own job trying to keep him away from here.’ Sandford indicated the blackened roof timbers. ‘Going to fall in any minute, I should say. We’d better get a gang on to it right away. The whole row should be pulled down and rebuilt.’

‘Poor old man,’ said Harriet, her eyes pricking with involuntary tears as she surveyed the pitiful ruins of Josh Potter’s belongings. She bent down and picked up part of the charred remains of an ancient book.

‘Oh, look!’ She showed it to Sandford. ‘It’s his family bible—how awful! His whole history written off in a single stroke.’

She placed what was left of the ruined volume reverently on the stone windowsill and, as she did so, a withered blossom fluttered from between its leaves. Harriet caught the faded, almost transparent pressing in the palm of her hand and stared down at it bleakly.

Sandford could see the tears trickling down her cheeks and stepped hastily towards her.

‘Please don’t distress yourself,’ he said, holding out his hands. ‘I should not have brought you here—I hadn’t realised it would be so—you are recalling parallels, I imagine?’

Harriet nodded. ‘As you say, my lord.’ There was a catch in her throat and she smiled tremulously at him as he once again applied his handkerchief to her face. What a watering-pot you must think me!’

‘You never allow me to tell you what I think of you,’ brusquely returned his lordship, resignedly pocketing his damp accessory. ‘What have you got there?’ He pointed to her hand.

She showed him the pressed flower, then looked at him in sudden inspiration. ‘Do you have a card-case with you, my lord?’

Sandford frowned and nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said, patting his breast pocket. ‘Why do you ask—you surely do not require me to leave a calling-card here?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ sighed Harriet patiently, as though to a child. ‘I need to keep this memento safe for Mr Potter. You can slip it carefully between your cards until we return to Beldale—then I shall think of something.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will,’ said Sandford, eyeing the relic in distaste, but he handed over his card-case as requested and watched in amused silence as Harriet gently placed the ancient favour between its folds and tucked it into her reticule.

The return journey to Beldale was accomplished without incident. The interchanges between them were friendly and relaxed and when Harriet mentioned that she would be riding with Judith early the following morning Sandford, anxious to avoid damaging the fragile tenure of their newly forged relationship, forbore from insisting that she should take a groom.

Chapter Eight

The two horses cantered side by side to the top of the hill and their riders reined in together, laughing. Judith dismounted gracefully on to a stone block set there for just that purpose and moved away to allow Harriet to do likewise. Tethering their mounts to a nearby sapling, they seated themselves on a fallen tree trunk and surveyed the magnificent view below them.

Harriet breathed in deeply, savouring the fresh morning air. ‘This is such a glorious country, Judith,’ she said. ‘At first I wasn’t sure if I could get used to it—after the heat and the mountains, you know, but now I think I shall never want to leave. I do hope I shall like Scotland as much.’

Judith looked at her curiously. ‘Are you to visit Scotland? You have not mentioned it.’

Harriet recollected herself with a start. She had grown to be so at ease in Judith’s company that she had quite forgotten that there were still things not to be shared with her new friend.

‘I believe I am to visit my grandfather,’ she said carefully. ‘He has an estate near Edinburgh and he has expressed a desire to—to meet—my betrothed,’ she finished, on a sudden inspiration. She pleated the folds of her habit between her fingers, unhappy at having to lie in this way to someone of whom she had grown so fond, but Judith appeared not to notice her discomfort.

‘That sounds delightful,’ she said, nodding absently and, rising to her feet, she strolled across the grass and sat down under a spreading beech tree and began to pluck the daisies, which grew in profusion around her. Harriet watched her in amusement. Already she was beginning to judge her friend’s moods to a nicety and had been waiting for Judith to speak first but now, she realised, it was up to her to venture the subject.

‘Did Charles enjoy the evening?’ she asked suddenly. Startled, Judith dropped her miniature bouquet and, flushing, bowed her head as she bent to retrieve the scattered flowers.

‘Y-yes—I believe so—at least—I don’t really—I haven’t …’

She gave up, looking ruefully at Harriet, who grinned encouragingly at her.

‘I suppose Lady Butler gave you the expected scold,’ said Harriet. ‘You haven’t committed any great sin, you know, and it was an amazing party!’

Judith nodded, her eyes brightening. ‘Yes, everyone has said so. I’m so pleased that it was a success and you were so popular—that is very important, you know, for you will be Countess of Beldale one day and to be well liked by the locals is a feather in your cap.’

Harriet blanched at the thought and quickly changed the subject. ‘Will you ever marry again, do you think, Judith?’

‘I have no need to,’ replied Judith, in a low voice. ‘Philip left me very well provided for—we have no financial worries and, of course, it is my—my duty to see that Christopher inherits his father’s estates in good order and …’ And Charles no doubt regards it as his duty to do the same, interrupted Harriet. ‘What a pair you are—you do like him, don’t you, Judith?’

‘I have known him all my life,’ laughed Judith, selfconsciously straightening her stock. ‘The twins always chaffed me about him—he used to bring me wild strawberries on a dock leaf when I was a little girl—I never thought of him in—you know—that way—I never loved anyone but Philip—but I get so lonely sometimes that everything suddenly becomes very hard to bear.’

She stared bleakly at the horizon, watching the early morning sun slowly ascending the cloudless blue sky.

‘Well, you must have seen that he’s absolutely dotty about you,’ said Harriet bluntly. ‘He’ll never say so, of course, because of convention and protocol and—oh, Judith, don’t waste the rest of your life! Surely Philip wouldn’t want you to be sad forever?’

Judith smiled briefly. ‘No, but then we didn’t exactly discuss the possibility of one of us remarrying—we were too busy being happy, I suppose.’

She looked down at her entwined fingers and then faced her friend. ‘Mother always expected me to marry Robert, you know,’ she said, in a rush. ‘They were both forever in and out of Staines—my home—and Mother always thought it would be Robert who would offer for me, but I chose Philip. Father liked both Hurst boys and was perfectly happy with my choice, which was why he made over half of our farmland to Philip on our marriage. The earl settled Beldale’s western boundaries on Philip and we built Westpark House. My parents remained at Staines until Papa died and then Mother let the house out to tenants and moved in with us, lock, stock and barrel, as they say—she even brought most of the old staff with her and expected Philip to find them positions. He did his best, of course, and organised pensions for those whom we couldn’t accommodate. Mother has always held a grudge about that, even though she doesn’t concern herself in the least about servants—she just took it as a personal slight.’

She glanced at Harriet. ‘I’m being fearfully disloyal telling you all this, aren’t I?’

Harriet shook her head. No, it explains a lot,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t understand why she took me in such dislike—obviously she hoped that his lordship would come back from the wars and snap you up—I’m only amazed that he didn’t!’ She burst out laughing at her friend’s look of astonishment and Judith found herself laughing in return.

‘Well,’ she said, in relief, ‘it doesn’t really matter. I couldn’t possibly have married Robert. That would have seemed quite immoral somehow—I love him as a brother. Charles is different altogether but..it will be terribly difficult …’ she paused wistfully ‘—he is such a proud man.’

‘That’s true.’ Harriet nodded. ‘So it is up to you to show him how much you depend upon him—how you can’t manage without him, in fact. Gracious me, but aren’t you lucky to have all these fellows crazy in love with you—it makes me positively green with envy!’

She got to her feet and began brushing the bits of grass from her habit, thereby failing to see Judith’s look of puzzlement at her final remark.

‘Now we really must get back,’ she said, leading Clipper to the mounting block. I told them ‘I would return for breakfast.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Judith, scrambling to her feet. ‘I promised Mother I would bring you back to have breakfast with the children.’

Harriet paused for a moment to consider this invitation.

‘Well, I dare say I could stay just for the veriest minute—it is still very early and I could do with a drink, couldn’t you? All this heart-searching is very thirst-making!’

Laughing together, they made their way back down the hill and on to the lane that led back to Westpark.