LITMIR.BIZ

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‘The Marchioness and her daughter run sewing groups,’ she said. ‘They make most of the baby gowns, and very nice they are too. Lord Elyot and Lord Rayne brought a bundle of them up only a day or two ago. They’re very caring, that family.’ She opened the door and waited for her guests to pass. ‘Always have been. Very involved they are, bless ‘em. People come here from all over the country, you know, to see how we manage things, and there’s never a month goes by without Lord Elyot coming to see us, never emptyhanded.’

      The full significance of the matron’s revelation made less than its full impact upon Amelie then, although she recalled feelings of both confusion and contradiction. But outside the door, Caterina took her aunt into her arms, holding her until she could collect herself while Lord Elyot waited a little way off, aware of the crisis, but keeping the farm manager and bailiff in conversation. There was nothing Amelie could do to conceal the effects of her distress from him, in spite of Caterina’s mopping, the kindly matron’s understanding and her soothing cordial. She could see at a glance where the problem lay.

      Lord Rayne had been visiting the stables, coming to meet them as they emerged from the large stone porch on to the cobbled courtyard where their horses were waiting. With unmistakable authority, he took charge of Caterina’s attempts to arrange her long skirts over her legs, brusquely changed her riding crop from her left to her right hand and told her to face forward properly in the saddle, which she thought she was doing. From his own saddle, he saw her attempt to move away and, reaching for her horse’s bridle, clipped a leading-rein to it. Then he sat back, grim-faced.

      ‘I can manage,’ said Caterina, crossly.

      ‘You need to concentrate.’

      ‘On you, or the horse?’ she muttered.

      ‘On your riding. Walk on.’

      Not another word was spoken by either of them on the way home, but a glance that passed between Caterina and her red-nosed aunt assured her that silence was no bad thing.

      For that matter, there was no actual conversation between Amelie and Lord Elyot either, and what did pass between them was mostly monosyllabic.

      

      To an outsider, one tear-stained face and a lack of communication between four people might have appeared disastrous, but to Lord Nicholas Elyot it was far from that. For one thing, his brother seemed to have accepted his advice about what young Miss Chester really needed and, for another, he himself had discovered what her aunt needed, if that little scene was anything to go by. Through the pane of glass in the ward door, he had seen how reluctantly she’d handed back the warm bundle to its mother as if it broke her heart to do so, and he had wanted to take her in his arms there and then to give her the comfort she craved so desperately. But the episode had, for him, answered the question about her zeal for the plight of fallen women, a discovery that did not unsettle him as it once might have done. With previous mistresses, the problem of raising bastards had been enough to cool his initial ardour. This woman disturbed him in quite a different way.

      Back in the stable courtyard at Paradise Road, he lifted her down from the saddle, knowing that she would attempt to escape him as quickly as Miss Chester had dismissed herself from his brother’s uncongenial presence. ‘No,’ he said, gently hooking a hand beneath the velvet-covered arm. ‘We need to speak, in private, if you please.’

      Lord Rayne was remounting, preparing to leave.

      ‘Seton,’ Lord Elyot called to him, ‘go on up to the Roebuck and I’ll join you in a few moments.’ The sound of a door being slammed in the house made him smile and throw a wink in his brother’s direction.

      On the ground floor, the saloon and the dining room were connected by a pair of large doors, leaving Lord Elyot in no doubt that both rooms would compliment each other in similar tones of soft blue, white and gold, warmed by the honeyed oak floor and a huge vase of red and gold foliage. This woman certainly had style and a liking for Mr Wedgwood.

      In the saloon, she stood rather like a deer at bay, prepared to defend herself without knowing where the first attack would come from. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said, in a voice torn with emotion. She put out a hand as if to ward him off. ‘I can’t explain. You would not understand. It would be best if you were to leave me, my lord. I’m not company for anyone.’ She turned away from him to hide her face.

      Slowly, he peeled off his leather gloves and laid them upon a small side table, watching the graceful curve of her back and the irritable stacatto pulls at the finger-ends of her gloves which, in the next moment, went flying across the room like angry bats, followed by her veiled hat, narrowly missing a blue Wedgwood urn.

      ‘I will leave you, my lady but, before I go, allow me to tell you that my only reason for taking you up there was to put your mind at rest about the welfare of the mothers and infants, not to upset you. I wanted you to see how seriously the Vestry treat the problem. I can see where your pain is.’

      ‘You cannot possibly know,’ she retorted, angrily, still with her back to him.

      ‘I do know,’ he said, harshly. ‘I’d have to be blind not to know.’

      ‘It’s none of your business,’ she whispered.

      ‘It is, Amelie. It’s very much my business, and so are you.’ He waited, but she did not contradict him, nor did she remark on his familiar use of her name. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘so far you have avoided asking me about the two invitations. Well, one is to my sister’s birthday dinner party at Mortlake.’

      ‘When?’ She turned at that, suddenly apprehensive.

      ‘Tomorrow evening.’

      ‘I cannot go…no, I cannot! Your parents will be there.’

      ‘They won’t. They’re attending a court function in London. Only my sister’s family and friends will be there, and Miss Chester will be among people of her own age. My sister would particularly like to meet you after Miss Chester told her about you.’

      For the first time since leaving the workhouse, Amelie’s eyes met his, holding them steadily, and Nick knew she was saying what she could not bring herself to speak, that she would be on show as his newest conquest, paraded, compared, discussed and judged, that this was a role she had no idea how to fulfil, nor did she have the aptitude for it.

      ‘We shall be among friends. They will congratulate us, that’s all.’

      ‘Your sister is not like the Marchioness, then?’ She had mused, on the way home, about the sewing group run by the mother and daughter who made clothes for those unfortunates so heartily disapproved of by at least one of them. There was nothing so strange, she had told herself, as folk.

      ‘Not at all. You will like each other, I know it. They all will.’

      ‘And the other invitation?’

      ‘Equally pleasant. A soirée at Ham House. Professional musicians. I think you’ll enjoy it. Interesting people, artists, poets, writers too.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘The day after tomorrow,’

      ‘And Caterina?’

      ‘Of course, that’s why I shall accept, so that she can meet the best people. She’ll be a sensation.’

      Again, there was a long silent exchange of messages behind the eyes that said it was more likely to be she who would be the sensation, that she was the one he wanted to flaunt like a trophy. He sensed the struggle in her, the excitement of being desired by a man, the conflict of needs, her reluctance to adapt to her new role and her fear of passing control of her life to a complete stranger. To him.

      ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said at last. ‘Why are you doing this? There must be easier ways of getting a woman to partner you.’

      ‘A woman like you, my lady? I think not. Perhaps I’ve had it all my own way till now. Perhaps I need to work harder at it. Perhaps my other relationships were so brief because there was no

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