Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress. Louise Allen
one dour and puritanical enough to suit him—but I am just a nuisance and, this way, he will be rid of me.’
‘But what can we do?’ Celina whispered. Meg shook her head. Celina was too sweet and too pretty for coldness and drudgery, but her seventeen-year-old sister always seemed unable to rebel.
All three glanced at the sampler hanging over the cold grate. Arabella had worked the first line, Margaret had stitched the second and Celina had managed the plain cross-stitch border. It was a favourite saying of the Reverend Shelley, one he fervently believed to be true.
Woman is the daughter of Eve—
She is born of sin and is the vessel of sin.
‘Is that a horse in the lane?’ Meg pushed open the window: any distraction was welcome. From high in the eaves of Martinsdene’s vicarage, the old schoolroom had a clear view down to the church and the village green.
‘Oh, don’t!’ Half-lying across the sill, Meg ignored the nervous plea from Celina. ‘You know how angry Papa was last time he saw us hanging out of the window, like common hoydens, he said.’
‘It is James!’ How very strange she felt inside. Was it love? It must be. ‘He’s come home at last and he’s in regimentals! He has joined the army as he said he would, despite Mr Halgate forbidding it. Oh, but he looks so handsome. Bella, don’t you think he looks handsome?’
‘James Halgate may look like Adonis…’ Arabella countered. Bella’s common sense was a predictable as Lina’s nervousness. Meg glanced back into the room. ‘And he might be a very pleasant and well-bred young man,’ her sister continued. ‘But you know Papa would never let him call and I shudder to think what would happen if you tried to get out to see James again. Remember before he went away? Papa had you locked in the attic for a week on bread and water. Really, Meg—’
Meg leaned out precariously and waved. ‘He must see me!’
Celina joined Meg at the window.
‘Look at him.’
Lina’s pretty mouth curled into a smile, but she glanced over her shoulder at the door before agreeing. ‘Oh, yes, he does look very fine. The Squire is going to be so proud of him. Surely he will forgive him for going off enjoying himself in London for almost a year?’
‘He has seen me,’ Meg whispered. Something inside her contracted, as though her heart had faltered for a moment. All those long nights dreaming about her childhood sweetheart, and now here he was and she still felt as she had when he had left. She was in love with him, she knew she was, and the fields of buttercups still stretched out in the sunlight where they had run hand in hand and exchanged soft, innocent kisses. Although perhaps, in retrospect, James’s had not been so very innocent.
Even as he reined in, taking advantage of the tall hedge to doff his shako and wave it to the two young women in the window, he was casting a careful eye around. Every one in Martinsdene knew the Reverend Shelley’s views on the upbringing of girls and how closely he guarded his three motherless daughters.
‘Now what is he doing?’ Celina wondered as James made gestures towards the stream that ran on the other side of the lane.
‘He means to leave a message in the old willow, just like we used to do before he went away.’ Meg clutched her hands to her bosom, although it did not stop her heart thumping. ‘He means to meet me.’ It was just like the fairy stories. Her knight in shining armour had come for her, he would scale the castle walls, cut through the hedge of thorns that surrounded her, carry her off to a lifetime of happy ever after.
Meg watched as the bay mare walked on down the lane and out of sight, then there was nothing to do but go back to the table. She kicked the mending basket out of sight.
‘Oh, Meg. Do you truly still feel affection for him?’ Arabella asked, her expression the familiar one of mingled sympathy and exasperation. ‘You know Papa will whip you if he finds out.’
‘I don’t care.’ Meg sank down on her chair, perilously close to tears again. It was not the thought of the switch. It hurt and was humiliating, but she went away in her head while she was beaten or lectured, off into her imagination. ‘If he would only treat us with some trust then I would not have to sneak out. I am eighteen, I know my own mind. And I love James. I always have. We are meant to be together. I love James and he loves me, so where is the sin in that?’
What was so wrong with love that it was classed with crimes like theft or murder? She had asked that once, when she was fifteen, and had hardly been able to sit down for a week.
‘Only in the defiance of Papa’s authority,’ Bella said, with a thoughtful frown. ‘Otherwise it is a perfectly eligible match, I am sure—for anyone else. Lina, would you be very kind and go and ask Cook if we might have some lemonade?’
There was something in Bella’s placid tone that had prickles running up and down Meg’s spine. Hope?
Bella waited until the door closed. ‘You are the one he punishes most, because you are such a dreamer, so romantic. And being shut away with Great-Aunt Caroline would be dreadful for you. If James truly loves you, means to marry you—then I’ll help, somehow. We mustn’t say anything to Lina, then she can swear she was ignorant, and I never do anything wrong—Papa will not suspect that I had anything to do with it.’
More than hope. A plan. A surge of feeling, of joy and anticipation and fear, and with it the realisation of loss. But this would not be like losing Mama. Bella and Lina would still be there, she would be with them again one day. ‘Bella, thank you! But to leave you both—’
‘In any other household but this we would have to part soon anyway, because we would become betrothed and move away. We will miss you, dearest, but it will be more tranquil without your constant friction with Papa, so perhaps Lina will become less nervous.’ Arabella reached for her hand, her own warm and strong. ‘And I want you to be happy. James will have to swear you have Papa’s permission for a licence, of course, but once you are married, even Papa is not going to object—think of the scandal if he did!’
‘It is a good match. Provided we are married there will be no scandal.’ Meg’s mind was racing. ‘James will be going overseas. I sneaked a look at Papa’s Morning Post yesterday and it says they are sending troops to the Peninsula. If he does go to Portugal, I will go with him. But—oh, Bella, it could be years before we see each other again!’
It felt like goodbye already, the fierceness of Bella’s hug. ‘It would be years if you are sent to Wales. I want you to be happy. Let us see if he proposes first. If he does, then love will find a way. Somehow.’
Chapter One
20 April 1814—Bordeaux
The breeze funnelling down the Gironde estuary from the sea was chill, Meg told herself, snuggling her shawl around her shoulders. And it was a long time since she had eaten much and the bag containing her pelisse was somewhere on the battlefield of Toulouse with an abandoned wagon train. That was all these shivers were, not fear.
A group of people were coming along the quayside, making for the England-bound ship moored further along. She put her shoulders back and her chin up. It was important to look respectable, competent and not at all needy. One of them, surely, would welcome a willing pair of hands to help on the voyage in return for her passage? That did not seem a very certain plan, but it was the only one she had now.
A tall gentleman with a lady on his arm, a valet and maid, a stack of baggage—they most certainly had no need of her. A plainly dressed middle-aged man with a valise in one hand, a clerk at his elbow. A businessman, no doubt. Then more luggage. The porters shoved a loaded cart to one side to reveal another passenger and shock had her stepping back in superstitious dread.
Death was striding—no, limping—along the quayside in the bright spring sunlight. For goodness’ sake! Meg took a grip on her nerves. He was a flesh-and-blood human being, of course he was. Just a man. But very much a man. He seemed