AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
Ursula perched on the edge of the seat and stared at her father. He had one of those looks on his face; the ones that warned her that the news he was about to impart was not good. As if to confirm her suspicions he studied her over the top of his half-rimmed glasses and braced his elbows on the desk. He then stared at his hands for several long moments and allowed the somewhat disapproving silence to thicken.
She tensed and waited. She wondered what she had done to upset him this time. He always behaved like this when he was about to be a pompous bore so she must have done something to bring that dark frown to his face. As far as she was aware everything had been fine, right up until this moment.
As she waited she wondered what the time was and how long he was going to take. She longed to go for a walk while the weather was nice. Right now, she would much prefer to be outside than in his rather stuffy library waiting to be scolded. Unfortunately, she knew that when her father got a bee in his bonnet like this he could ramble on for hours, and the possibility of taking a walk was looking less and less likely.
“Now then, Ursula, I have been a little concerned of late as to your comings and goings in this house,” her father warned. He peered over the top of his glasses at her as though he expected her to know what he was talking about.
Ursula’s brows rose in surprise. “Comings and goings, Papa?”
“Yes,” Jeremiah Proctor repeated. “Comings and goings.”
“What comings and goings?” she asked. Her brows lowered. She didn’t understand.
“What comings and goings?” He glared. “That’s my point. There are none. You have not left this house for any other purpose than going for a walk into the village for an entire month.”
Oh-ho Ursula mentally winced. Wait for it; another lecture on attending the forthcoming balls is about to begin.
Her father stared at her for a moment then pushed out of his chair and began to march up and down the room like a sentry guarding his post.
“A young lady like you should be attending all the social engagements she is invited to.” He stomped over to the desk, picked up a thick wad of decorated cards and waved them at her. “Why haven’t you accepted these invitations? There are many of them, Ursula. Many. But I understand from Mrs Canterbury, that you have declined the invitation to her soiree next Friday. Why?”
Ursula opened her mouth to speak but her father whirled on her and pierced her with a dark look that rendered her silent.
“I found at least four invitations hidden behind the plant on the table in the hallway. If Edwina hadn’t polished the table in there, those invitations might never have been found.”
Again, Ursula opened her mouth to speak but closed it again when her father threw her another dark glare. It was clear he hadn’t finished his rant yet and didn’t expect her to speak until he had.
“Don’t tell me they got there all by themselves because you and I know better. Two of them are for engagements in the next few days. I am shocked at you, Ursula. Shocked, I say.”
Ursula wished she could relax her spine and wait out the tirade whilst slumped against the cushions on the chaise, but manners dictated that she must remain as she was and appear to be listening with interest. With this in mind, she left her father to ramble on about how important good connections were and turned her attention the view outside the study window.
The rolling green landscape stretched on for miles and looked simply beautiful in the autumn. She so longed to be out there now, enjoying the crisp, clean air and bracing winds. She sighed deeply as a wave of inevitability swept through her as she continued to study the view.
Although she tried to avoid it, her gaze was drawn toward the huge Jacobean mansion that lay to the right of the window. Even from half a mile away, Hoghampton Hall was massive and screamed of wealth and status that was in a different world to the old rectory she resided in. Hoghampton was the largest country estate for miles around, and belonged to Lord Blomsbury, their nearest neighbour. It was a familiar sight to her. Not least because over the years, she had sat on many occasions in this exact spot in her father’s rather claustrophobic study whilst listening to his tirades. Normally, like today, her time was spent mostly dreaming about the lives of the people who lived in the grand hall in the distance. In particular, one rather intriguing resident who had ensnared her imagination, and her heart as a young girl and refused to relinquish them.
When her thoughts began to stray toward him, she turned her attention back to her father. Unfortunately, as though drawn by an invisible hand, she resumed her study of the familiar solidarity of Hoghampton’s gleaming structure nestled amongst immaculate lawns and, of course, the moors. With a sigh, she purposely forced her attention to the rug beneath her feet however, remained conscious that the building sat in the periphery of her vision – teasingly waiting for her to look at it again.
She knew that it was time to move on with her life and leave certain matters to the past; in particular, her youthful infatuation with the third son of Lord Blomsbury, Trenton Calderhill. However, actually doing so was harder than she had ever imagined it to be. The more she tried not to think about him, the more she found herself actually thinking about him. It didn’t help that her father had a penchant for calling her into his study to lecture her on her future, and insisted she sat in the one chair that overlooked the place she was trying to ignore.
“Do you hear me, Ursula?”
She jumped when her father’s voice boomed at her from across the room. She wanted to say ‘yes, Papa’, but had no idea what he had just said and so merely looked at him blankly. Thankfully, he didn’t appear to expect a reply because he turned to stare out of the window. The silence that fell between them gave her a few moments to try to remember what he had said. When she failed to recall a single word, she knew she would get another lecture on paying attention to one’s elders and minding her manners; or something like it.
“You haven’t heard I word I have said, have you?” Jeremiah accused quietly, taking her silence for guilt.
She sheepishly studied her hands while she waited for further chastisement. Jeremiah returned to his desk, and slumped almost wearily in his chair. Their eyes met and held for a moment. It unnerved her when he steepled his fingers and studied her o
ver the top of them like that. It felt as though he was seeing things she would rather keep to herself. It made her want to poke at her hair to make sure all of the ringlets were still in place. As it was, she remained quiet and waited for him to tell her what she had missed.
“I told you that it is time you found yourself a husband, Ursula. You are four and twenty now. It’s far beyond the age when you should be married.”
Before she could argue that she didn’t want to be married, he continued.
“I will not send you for yet another coming out. You have had so many of those blasted things even I don’t know whether I am coming or going. It’s ridiculous. The last time you had Lord Attermire offer for your hand but, oh no, he wasn’t good enough for you. You said he was too foppish, whatever that means. Then there was Lord Smethurst. He was too old.”
“He was fifty,” Ursula burst out.
Jeremiah wasn’t about to be thwarted. “Then there was Stephen Heggerton.”
Ursula rolled her eyes.
“He was too dull. Hugo Montgomery – too cross eyed. Bertram Templeton – too stuffy. Harrold Walters – too shy.” He continued to tap his fingers as he rattled off the names and criticisms of her suitors over the past few years. If she was honest, she knew she was being rather too picky but had found all of them to be as dull as dishwater; as dull as her life in fact. The prospect of being married to any of them made her want to do something drastically offensive to put them off.
Unsure how she should argue with her father’s tirade, Ursula remained quiet. She knew he was going to inform her of the benefits of being a married lady again. What he didn’t realise yet was that she wasn’t going to budge on the issue, no matter how much he scolded her. The last thing she wanted was to get married, and that was the end of the matter as far as she was concerned. All she had to do was wait for her father to get his grievance off his chest. Then, hopefully, if they were still speaking to each other they could put the matter to one side, move on and forget about it – for the time being at least.
