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‘And now she will be independent and comfortable. Secure. And she does not have to listen to scandalmongers dragging her father’s sins out to be picked over, or have you issuing challenges left right and centre whenever you think she’s been slighted.’ Hal turned up the collar of his caped coat against the wind. ‘And she can take a lover if she wishes, when she is ready to.’
Corinth tossed his head as the bit jabbed his mouth. Marcus forced his hand to relax. ‘I’ll not bother with the challenge if you touch on that subject again,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ll just knock your teeth out.’
‘You can try,’ Hal said, equally calmly. ‘Just remember, I’ve been fighting for my life recently, not in Gentleman Jackson’s boxing salon.’
‘Believe me,’ Marcus said, looking out over the bleak expanse of the snow-covered Vale of Aylesbury, ‘I would kill for Nell. But not you, little brother.’ He set his spurs to the big grey’s sides and galloped off along the ridge, hearing the thunder of Hal’s hunter behind him, trying to forget everything in the sting of the wind and the feel of the surging muscles under him.
Mid-morning on the second day, Nell found herself alone in the small drawing room with Diana Price. The companion was reading what looked very like a book of sermons, but put it to one side as Nell came in and sat on the other side of the fireplace. She was, Nell thought, almost supernaturally calm, collected and proper. Her energetic skating had been the nearest Nell had seen to her letting go and enjoying herself. It was a relief, somehow, to be curious about someone else and not be constantly staring inwards at her own preoccupations.
‘Do you mind me asking,’ she said, stretching out a hand to the fire, ‘but how did you come to be a lady’s companion? My sister was one—she may still be, for all I know—and I was thinking about her, wondering what the life is like.’ Diana looked up sharply, and Nell hastened to add, ‘I do not want you to say anything about your employers, naturally.’
‘One’s employers make all the difference,’ Diana said dryly. ‘With considerate, intelligent people such as the Carlows, the position is very congenial. With a stupid or tyrannical employer, it can be hell, I believe.’ She bit her lip, as though undecided whether to say more; then, almost as if it were dragged out of her, she added, ‘My father lost everything gambling. In one night he was, effectively, ruined by—’ She broke off, staring into the flames.
‘Please, say no more. It must be most distressing,’ Nell said, feeling quite dreadful that her probing had touched such a raw nerve.
Diana shook her head as though trying to clear it, looked at Nell and seemed to reach a decision. ‘He was ruined by a card sharp. A man so young, so innocent looking, my father had no idea of his danger. By morning he had lost everything—our house, his money…everything. Papa never recovered, his health was shattered. I thank God that Mama did not live to see it. He moved North and took what work he could. Somehow he managed to keep out of debtors’ prison, but I had no option but to seek employment.’
‘I am so sorry,’ Nell said warmly. ‘And I am so glad you found a happy position here.’
‘We have one thing in common,’ Diana said, her eyes fixed on Nell’s face as though she was searching it. ‘We have both been ruined by a feckless young man. You would not have been in the position you were, had your brother not deserted you.’
‘Oh, no! Nathan did not desert us, I am sure of that.’ Distressed, Nell got to her feet and began to pace. ‘I do not know what happened to him—and I fear the worst—yet surely I would know if my own brother had died? He was getting into bad company, that I do know. Suddenly there was money—not regularly, but more than I could account for by him taking odd jobs of work. He would not tell us where it was coming from, yet when I challenged him he swore he was not stealing.’
Diana Price made a sound so like a snort of disbelief that Nell turned in surprise. The other woman was on her feet, gathering up her book and handkerchief. She gave Nell a thin smile. ‘I like you, Miss…Wardale. Despite everything.’
The door closed behind her, leaving Nell puzzled and uneasy in the quiet room.
Nell watched Marcus, as she had throughout dinner. He was brooding, but not, she sensed, about her. As Lady Narborough rose
after dinner, Marcus came to himself with a start, almost late on his feet as the women got up.
‘Nell, Hal, Father—there is something I would like to discuss. Mama, can you spare Nell for half an hour?’
‘If she does not object to your port,’ his mother said with a smile.
‘Thank you, Watson, that will be all.’ The earl waited for the room to clear. ‘Would you care for a glass of ratafia, my dear?’
‘Might I try port?’ Nell asked. ‘I never have.’ The room seemed suddenly overwhelmingly masculine with the silver and porcelain cleared, the white linen removed, just the glasses and the decanters and a bowl of nuts on the polished board.
‘I have been trying to remember back,’ Marcus said, cracking nuts in his fingers as his father poured the deep ruby liquid into her glass. ‘I was nine years old, young enough for none of it to make much sense, old enough to be able to escape being whisked off to the nursery every time an adult conversation took place. I seem to recall a lot of time spent behind the curtains in the window seat.’
‘I have told you all that occurred,’ the earl said with a frown. ‘What you recall as a child cannot add to that.’
‘But this is something that has never been mentioned since. Not to me, at least. It sounds melodramatic, but was there something about a curse? I have this vague memory of a Gypsy’s curse.’
Lord Narborough set down his wine glass with a snap. ‘That nonsense.’
‘These woods are a haunt of Gypsies, yet they have suddenly vanished. Nell’s dark man might be a Romany.’ Nell looked from one man to the other. Hal appeared sceptical, the earl uncomfortable. Marcus caught her eye and held it, a silent conversation she could not, dare not, try to understand.
‘There was something,’ Lord Narborough said at length. ‘Kit Hebden—Lord Framlingham—took a Gypsy woman as a lover, had a son by him. Amanda, his own wife, seemed barren, so he brought the baby home, forced her to rear it.’
‘Tactless,’ Hal remarked.
‘Cruel,’ Marcus countered. ‘As good as saying he was potent and any lack of children was his wife’s fault.’
‘Poor little boy,’ Nell said, moved. ‘Just a pawn in his father’s games.’
‘Not at first. Lady Framlingham came to love the child, reared it as her own. And, as so often happens, once there was a baby in the house, she too began to increase. She had a daughter and a son and was expecting again when her husband was murdered. She lost that baby, and her own son shortly afterwards.’
