LITMIR.BIZ

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way. Once had been enough, probably, to determine her mousy-coloured hair and her unremarkable eyes, let alone anose that was hardly retroussé and a chin that was much more defiant than was deemed fashionable.

      Plain!

      She had never felt the condition with such an agony and the ache of rejection was wretched. Taking a breath, she tried to exhale in a calm and dignified manner. Frankwell might have robbed her of youth, but a will that had been long bent was again firming, and the gift of independence was something that she could cling to. She had both gold and land and the means to be beholden to no one. Ever again! It was at least a start.

      Swallowing, she stood, the group of people coming on horseback now visible, the men they had spoken to last night joined by a good many others, society folk, their dress rich and ornate.

      When they finally came within ten yards of the barn the most beautiful woman Beatrice had ever seen in her life slid from her steed and ran.

      Taris. Taris. Oh, thank God.’ Her eyes were flooded with tears and the chignon in its net had slipped, allowing a halo of blonde silken curls to fall in riotous abandon down to her shoulders as she flung herself into his opened arms.

      ‘My God, we thought we…had lost you…we thought you had been swept away in the storm or buried beneath the pile of snow and the hailstones…have you ever seen such hailstones…?’

      The tirade stopped only as turquoise eyes came level with Bea’s, interest stamped across uncertainty.

      Taris Wellingham turned finally in her direction, his amber gaze running quickly over her as though only just remembering that she was indeed still here. ‘Emerald Wellingham, meet Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke.’

      Emerald Wellingham?

      He was married? My God, he had lied to her, lied about everything…

      ‘She is my sister-in-law.’

      Relief made the world bend in a strange way and Bea placed her hand against the wall to steady herself. Taris Wellingham neither came forwards nor commented on her instability and the callous indifference in his eyes confirmed her deductions. She meant nothing to him. She was just a warm and docile body with whom a freezing night had been passed more quickly. But at least he was not married!

      She felt the turquoise gaze of the newcomer take in her dishevelled clothes and the hay that was stuck to them, summing up her character in the clues that lay all around.

      A plain woman who would take the chance of an unexpected night with a man who looked as beautiful as this one did.

      Shame battled with anger and both were over-taken by surprise as another man with a look of menacing danger joined them. Beatrice noticed he had a rather pronounced limp.

      ‘We travelled up from London at first light when you failed to come to Park Avenue. Emerald had a feeling about it all and would not be fobbed off with any excuse.’

      ‘It was the storms that made me uneasy, Taris, though Asher said I should not be concerned…’

      Asher and Taris Wellingham? The names were suddenly horrifyingly familiar to Beatrice, for she had read of them across the years, two brothers who had ruled the ton with their wealth and escapades.

      Falder Castle was their seat and they were the direct descendants of the first Duke of Carisbrook and if memory served her well Taris Wellingham had recently acquired extensive properties in Kent. Her cheeks burned with the growing realisation of how far she had trespassed into a world she knew nothing of and all she wanted was to be gone from this place, removed to one of the carriages that she could see now pulling up to the barn, further faces turned towards her, questions in their eyes.

      ‘The weather will be upon us in the next few moments, my lord, if we do not hurry from here.’ A tall thin man had come to the side of Taris Wellingham and she was bemused by the way he threaded his arm through that of his master.

      The woman Emerald seemed as protective, her hand coming into his on the other side as they turned for the coach. She was amazed that Taris Wellingham allowed them to shepherd him in such a manner and was about to say something when his brother gave an order to the servant next to her.

      ‘See to the woman, Forbes.’ The young servant nodded even as the Wellinghams disappeared from view.

      She could not believe it. He would not even tarry to say goodbye after all that they had shared?

      The sound of a door shutting and a call to the horses answered her query. Then the beat of hooves and a quickening pace, the contraption lost to the whiteness of the landscape and the newly falling snow.

      Gone.

      Finished.

      ‘If you would come this way, miss, the others are in the coach…’

      ‘Others?’

      There was a shout of recognition from the old woman and her son she had met the night before as she scrambled up the steps and into the shelter of the vehicle. She was pleased to find no sign of the one who had been killed in the accident. Or the driver.

      ‘Mr Brown was taken on to London an hour or so ago and the other went to Brentwood to the church, I would guess, until his family have been notified to collect him.’ The younger man was full of chatter, his mother less talkative after such a long and harrowing night.

      ‘We spent the night at a farmhouse further north and were picked up just a little time ago. He’s brother to a Duke, you know, the man we all rode with, and he has a wealth of land in Kent.’

      Bea nodded, pleased when the carriage was spurred on, the droning sound of miles being eaten up as they travelled south sending the others to sleep.

       Lord Taris Wellingham, brother to the Duke of Carisbrook.

      She turned the names on her tongue, grand names, names that were known in all the four corners of this country, the lineage of the dukedom reaching down through a thousand years of privilege and entitlement.

       Taris Wellingham.

      She remembered his profile turned against the snow, strong and proud, a man who might not understand how easily he intimidated others with his effortless leadership and control.

      Control over the reactions of her body too, every bit as persuasive yet infinitely gentle.

      ‘Enough,’ she whispered into the gathering greyness of the morning and, pulling the collar of her cloak around her eyes, she was glad to hide her tears from a world that she no longer understood.

      Taris felt his sister-in-law’s gaze on him even as he turned to the window, looking out.

      Lord, he was a coward and a faint-heart and as the miles between them grew he understood something he had never in his life before experienced.

      A woman had bettered him, had made him feel a cad of the very first order, a man who would not own up to either circumstance or reality, but hid in a world that was only deception.

       ‘So if by chance I should catch sight of you in the streets…?’

       ‘Your reputation would stay safer should you ignore me altogether.’

      He took in a breath and held it, hating the tightness he could feel in his throat, loathing the way he still did not say anything.

       Turn around. Turn around and go back.

      He should say it, should shout it, but with the world only a grey sludge he found that he just could not.

      Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke had seen him at his best. The best that he used to be, before…before he had become dependent on everyone! He wanted her to remember him like that, a man in charge of his life and his actions.

      From best to worst, Bates’s hand threaded through his own and Emerald’s on the other side, leading him out through the space to his carriage. He hoped she had not seen the coat of arms emblazoned

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