Page 10 of Christmas Comes to Little Valentine

This remark nettled him for reasons Nat did not quite understand, but he let it go.

They carried on in silence for a while and Nat grew sleepy despite the jolting, all the rushing about of the previous night catching up with him. Waking sometime later, groggy and disorientated, he discovered to his relief that they were in Tunbridge Wells.

Meg looked up at the hotel, her feelings in complete disarray. After twelve hours in a carriage, it seemed like some fantastic dream, or more like a farcical one. Was she really doing this? Was she, Miss Margaret Bancroft, truly here in Tunbridge Wells, at a hotel, with a man whom she had only met last night? Had all her principles, all her long-held beliefs about propriety and how a young lady ought to behave, been thrown out of the window at the first hint of misfortune?

Not at the first hint, she reasoned, for she truly had been left in the most disastrous circumstances through no fault of her own. First had come her father’s illness, nursing him and coming to realise the depths of poverty they had been reduced to, a situation he had hidden from her for years. Despite having been raised a lady, she had not complained or bemoaned her circumstances and had submitted to becoming a governess when her father had explained it was her only option, the only thing left he could do for her.

Though she had always adored her papa, she had realised lately that he had been a rather selfish creature, for he had in no way prepared her for her fate. At least he had educated her well, as well as any man, in fact, for as his only companion he had expected her to discuss and debate whatever caught his interest, which might range from Ancient Greece to politics or science. Sadly, this had not endeared her to the family for whom she had worked. In their view, women ought to speak French and Italian, embroider, paint and play music, and very little else. They had been furious when they had discovered her teaching their daughter the rudiments of Latin.

“Miss Bancroft?”

Meg started, looking around to find Mr Ashford watching her with concern.

“It’s a very respectable hotel,” he said with a reassuring smile. “And you have a comfortable room with an annex for Betty. It’s quite all right, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said, uncertain of what more to say. She was all at sea, everything seemed such a muddle, and the prospect of meeting Mr Ashford’s family, and pretending to be something she was not, loomed before her. She had never been good at playacting, or at least she had never had the opportunity to try, and the suspicion she would likely fail and catapult them both into disaster made her stomach churn.

“Are you sure quite well?” he asked anxiously.

Meg looked at him, discovering his expression filled with concern, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. How handsome he was, and so personable. She truly believed he could persuade a girl that black was white if he put his mind to it. Surely his family would never believe he had consented to wed such a dull creature as she?

“Come, take a walk with me before we go in,” he said, offering her his arm. “You’ve been cooped up in that stuffy carriage for hours. A little fresh air will be just the thing.”

Meg nodded, wondering if this was a new version of herself, a docile creature who would submit to whatever he thought best for her, a leaf caught up and tossed about on the breeze, or swept inexorably down a river to certain disaster.

He sent Betty off to prepare the room for her mistress and then guided her down the road.

“If you would like, you can take the waters,” he offered with a smile. “It might put some colour back into your cheeks, but all the same, I won’t recommend it. Foul stuff. Mind you, Little Valentine is a spa town too, and the water there is even worse. We used to dare each other to drink it as children!”

“We?” she said, realising she knew very little about his family.

“Oh, Hawkney, his sister Della, and our cousin Aubrey usually, though there seemed always to be dozens of cousins coming and going. In those days my grandmother spent the entire summer at Little Valentine, though. We children would run tame there.”

“Why did she stop?”

Mr Ashford frowned. “I don’t know, though I bet Hawkney had something to do with it,” he added darkly.

“Is Lord Hawkney so humourless?” she asked, feeling increasingly daunted at meeting the man whom Mr Ashford seemed to dislike so much.

His expression grew pensive, and he sent her a shifty glance that made her nerves leap.

“What is it?” she demanded, planting her feet and refusing to move another step. “What haven’t you told me?”

“Nothing. That is to say, I didn’t not tell you, it’s only that you presumed.”

Meg was not a fool. He was nervous that whatever he was about to reveal would have her running back to town, on foot if necessary. “You had best make a clean breast of it, Mr Ashford,” she said sternly. “I cannot abide falsehoods, and if you are trying to make a fool of me—”

“Good heavens, no!” he said, sounding genuinely appalled, which was somewhat reassuring. “Heavens, but you do fly up into the boughs. It’s only that you assumed Hawkney was a lord, when he isn’t.”

“He isn’t?” Meg said, her stomach unknotting a little as she hoped perhaps the fellow wasn’t a nobleman and the family wouldn’t be as intimidating as she feared.

“No. He’s a duke.”

Meg stared at him in horrified silence. “Oh, dear lord. I’m doomed,” she said faintly, raising a trembling hand to her temple. This could not be happening. Oh, what a fool she had been to consider even for a moment—

“Come, come, buck up,” Mr Ashford said briskly, taking hold of her elbows. “We’ll have no swooning. Not again. Look, sit yourself down and take a deep breath.”

With no better option than to do as he suggested, Meg allowed him to guide her to a low wall. She sat down, wondering how on earth she could extricate herself from this dreadful situation.