A Regency Christmas Treat. Louise Allen
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?’
‘There is the village school for the children of the labouring classes, the Society for the Relief of Limbless Servicemen Passing through the Parish, the Ladies’ Sewing Circle—we produce shirts and infant clothes for the deserving poor— and…’ she lowered her voice ‘…the Home for Fallen Women in Aylesbury.’
Two of those enterprises struck a distinct chord with Hester, but she felt it politic to mention only one of them. ‘A most interesting collection of charitable aims, Mrs Redland. I feel great sympathy with the plight of the limbless soldiers, having spent time in the Peninsula myself, but naturally I will do my best to assist with all of them.’
Mrs Redland beamed and turned to inform the lower half of the table that she had secured a willing recruit to their charitable groups. Guy lowered his voice and remarked,