A Marriageable Miss (19 page)

Finding himself deeply and irrevocably in love for the first time in his life was something of a new and rather daunting experience for Richard. Observing that Helena had finally closed her eyes, he tightened his hold and, leaning contentedly back against the squabs, he indulged himself in the luxury of an uninterrupted perusal of her lovely face: the remarkable length of the fringe of thick, dark eyelashes that swept across the velvet creaminess of her skin; the tiny scattering of pale freckles on the impertinently tip-tilted nose; the stubborn little chin; the perfect bow-shape of her lips—such infinitely kissable lips…

As the rather too-tempting reminder of the heady rapture so inopportunely ripped from his grasp brought about a disturbing contraction of his pelvic muscles, Richard hurriedly switched his attention to the sudden flare of colour that was sweeping across Helena’s cheeks. Smilingly registering the soft rosy hue, he was unable to prevent the warm glow of gratification that spread across his chest, as he speculated on the probable cause of her discomfiture. The eager enthusiasm with which she had returned his kiss had filled him with unmitigated delight and had at once brought home to him that there was a good deal more to the former Miss Wheatley than he had at first supposed—hidden talents indeed, as his grandmother had unwittingly remarked! And, despite the fact that Helena had gone out of her way to make it clear that she felt nothing for him, her passionate response to his embrace had given him every reason to hope that, with time and patience, he might, eventually, persuade her otherwise. Just as soon as they had set foot in Westpark House, he swore that he would court her with such a fierce determination that she would be unable to find it in her heart to resist him!

‘T
hank you, Teddington, you may leave us now.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

Having placed the decanter of port within convenient reach of his master’s right hand, the butler bowed and quietly withdrew, to report his findings to the eagerly awaiting group of house servants who had assembled themselves at the dinner table below stairs.

‘Scarcely a word out of either one of them during the entire meal,’ he said, with a concerned shake of his elderly head.

‘Not even a mention of my peach soufflé?’ demanded Mrs Ellis, the portly cook, with an indignant snort. ‘Took me nigh on twenty-five minutes to whip up that cream!’

‘Oh, her ladyship was very complimentary about every single one of the courses,’ soothed the butler, unbuttoning his jacket and taking his seat at the head of the table. ‘It was just that there seemed to be a certain—how shall I put it—constraint between the two of them.’

‘Oh, give the poor lambs a chance,’ put in Mrs Wainwright, the housekeeper. ‘Bless me, they’ve barely been in the house five minutes! I swear her ladyship looked fit to drop when I showed her up to her room—I did suggest that she might like to have a little lie down on the bed while that maid of hers sorted out the rest of her things, but she said that she needed to change out of
her dress. I dare say she’ll be fine, as soon as she’s settled in—she’s quite a taking little thing, to my way of thinking.’

‘Didn’t help, his lordship going straight off to the stables like that,’ muttered one of the footmen sourly. ‘Would’ve thought that Grimthorpe fellow would have had a bit more gumption than to drag him off before he even had time to introduce us all properly. Bad form that, if you want my opinion.’

‘Well, we don’t!’ retorted Teddington, with a reproving frown in the young manservant’s direction. ‘Mr Grimthorpe has been dashing backwards and forwards for the best part of the afternoon, waiting for the master’s return. Seems that prize mare of his has been giving him trouble.’

‘Yeah, but even so,’ persisted the unrepentant Hadley. ‘Leaving his brand new wife for the sake of a blessed horse! I ask you!’

Such sentiments as were not entirely dissimilar to those entertained by his lordship’s brand new wife at the time. With barely a hurried “So sorry, my dear—I’m afraid I have to go!”, Markfield had hurried away with the troubled stable man and vanished from Helena’s sight, leaving her to deal with the greeting and dismissal of the dozen or so servants who had been lined up inside the front door to pay their respects to their new mistress.

Luckily, her previous years of managing her father’s household, albeit a good deal smaller than this present one, had stood her in excellent stead and, with the housekeeper’s welcome assistance, she had accomplished her first task as Countess of Markfield with just the right mix of dignity and graciousness.

Having then been escorted up the stairs by Mrs Wainwright, she found that her allotted bedchamber had, as she had supposed it might, originally belonged to Markfield’s mother, although the added discovery that the room adjoined his lordship’s did nothing to curb her rapidly mounting feelings of resentment, especially when it transpired that the only discernible evidence of a keyhole appeared to be situated on her husband’s side of the interconnecting door!

Nevertheless, she had been immensely relieved to find that her maid Fran who, having arrived an hour or so ahead of the newly-
weds, had already made considerable inroads into the task of unpacking and transferring her mistress’s personal belongings to their designated locations, the greater bulk of Helena’s possessions having already been sent ahead to her new home earlier in the week.

Dismissing the housekeeper’s suggestion that she might care to make use of the unexpected opportunity afforded her by Markfield’s enforced absence to indulge herself in a little nap, Helena, having grown heartily sick of wearing the weighty and cumbersome cream-coloured corded silk gown in which she had spent the better part of the day, elected, instead, to change into a lightweight muslin afternoon dress. Since Mrs Wainwright had assured her that the dinner gong was unlikely to sound until five o’clock—and certainly not before his lordship had put in an appearance—and the little porcelain clock on the marble mantelshelf indicated that it was still only a quarter after three, Helena could see little point in trolling about the house in an evening gown for the next two hours or so. In fact, as soon as she had finished the tea that Mrs Wainwright had had sent up to her, it occurred to her that to use the time to familiarise herself with the layout of her new home would be a far more sensible option.

Westpark House, as she very soon discovered, after a thorough perambulation of the ground floor, was of relatively modern construction, built along elegant, but simple lines. A number of rooms led off from a large central hallway; to the right of the front door lay an imposingly furnished withdrawing room, whose double doors connected with the equally well-appointed dining room; to the left was a somewhat neglected library that seemed to double as a study or office and, behind this, overlooking a very pretty terrace garden, was situated a rather more casually furnished salon that gave the impression of having been used rather more frequently than its neighbours.

Tucked into the alcove below the central staircase she spotted a green baize door that looked as though it must lead down to the basement area—which probably housed the kitchen, cellars and staff quarters—but, since she had no desire to waste what little time she had at her disposal indulging in any more small talk with
the servants, Helena chose to bypass this area, for the present. Having made a comprehensive study of the ground-floor layout, it was not difficult to assume the disposition of the two upper floors; two pairs of bedchambers, back and front, on each floor, she hazarded, making a total of eight bedchambers in all. Well within her capabilities, she thought as, with a relieved nod, she retraced her steps up to her own room, where she found that Fran, having sorted her mistress’s belongings to her own fastidious satisfaction, was now in the process of tidying away the masses of tissue paper and empty boxes.

‘I’ll just pack this lot away, Miss—oh, dear! There I go again, my lady!’ she cried, clapping her hands to her cheeks in mortification. ‘Will I never learn?’

‘I dare say it’s bound to come, eventually,’ chuckled Helena. ‘You’ve seen us both through trickier situations than this during the past six or seven years or so, Fran, so please try not to worry about it.’

‘I promise I’ll do my best, Mi—my lady,’ sighed the maid, returning her mistress’s smile. ‘I’ll just go and fetch one of those footmen to carry these baskets and boxes up to the lumber room—or wherever it is they store things in a place like this.’

‘Why don’t you just tug the bell?’ suggested Helena, nodding towards the tasselled rope at the bedside. ‘As the Countess of Markfield’s personal attendant, you’re going to have to get used to giving orders on her ladyship’s behalf, so now’s your chance to begin.’

Staring at the bell rope as though it might leap up and bite her, Fran took a hesitant step forwards.

‘Go on, just pull it,’ encouraged Helena, giving the woman a gentle shove but, when Fran still refused to budge, the likely cause of the maid’s apparent reticence suddenly occurred to her.

‘Look, if it will help,’ she then suggested, as she walked across the room towards the adjoining door, ‘why don’t I just duck into his lordship’s room for a few minutes and leave you to it? I dare say you’d rather not have an audience at your first order-giving ceremony!’

Fran’s face cleared and, grinning broadly, she bobbed a neat
curtsy. ‘If you would be so good, Mi—my lady,’ she said, as she watched her mistress exiting through the door into the next room.

To begin with, Helena was a little disconcerted to find herself standing in what was, all too clearly, a gentleman’s bedchamber. Intimate signs of her husband were all around her, from the maroon banyan draped across the foot of the immense four-poster bed, to the set of horn-backed brushes, lined up with military precision on the mahogany dressing-table, along with a varied assortment of pots and bottles. There was even that indefinable smell about the room: a smell that was entirely Markfield.

Curious, she picked up one of the crystal bottles and, uncorking it, raised it tentatively to her nose. Essence of earl, undoubtedly, but difficult to put a name to! Lemon, certainly, and possibly verbena? Unable to resist the temptation, she bent her head and took another, more positive sniff. Most definitely Markfield and quite intoxicating, she thought dreamily, as she closed her eyes and cast her mind back to that incredibly breathtaking kiss that they had so recently shared. As the well-remembered fragrance drifted across her senses she could almost feel the compelling strength of his arms about her and the hot, insistent pressure of his lips on hers.

Letting out a trembling sigh, she re-corked the bottle and returned it to its place. How foolish it had been of her to automatically believe the worst of him, she thought, as her eyes travelled over the rest of the room: the twin leather chairs straddling the fireplace; the wardrobe, chest of drawers and marble-topped washstand; and, dominating the whole, that awesomely huge bed, complete with its plush jade-silk curtains and matching coverlet. Truly, a bed fit for a king, she found herself thinking. Well, an earl, at any rate, she then amended hastily. And, possibly, or rather, even probably—if that look in Markfield’s eye had been anything to go by—his countess, too!

The sudden sounds of movement in the corridor outside had her scurrying towards the interconnecting door where, no sooner had she thrust it open than she was able to observe that her maid appeared to have had little difficulty in exerting her new-found au
thority. Every vestige of the former disorder and untidiness had been removed, finally allowing its mistress to stand back and admire the full splendour of her own bedchamber.

Decorated in a soft green shade, the walls reflected the serenity of the sweeping lawns that could be seen through the pair of wide picture windows that occupied most of the wall on the far side of the room. Delightedly resting her hands on one of the windowsills and drinking in the beauty of the terraced garden below, Helena supposed that the view from the windows in the adjoining suite must be identical to hers, but was obliged to admit that she had been too otherwise absorbed to pay that much attention. Besides which, the far more delicate design of the pale maple furniture, along with the lilac-coloured gauze-like curtains that festooned her windows and bed had the effect of turning what was, in fact, an almost identical room to her husband’s, into a light and airy boudoir, rather than the sober and severely masculine bedchamber she had just vacated.

Aside from the shock of Markfield abandoning her to her fate the minute she had stepped over the threshold—a matter for which she intended to take him severely to task, whenever it eventually suited him to return—she could not feel that she had anything to complain about. In fact, insofar as she was able to judge, things seemed to be falling into place very nicely. Just that other, slightly bothersome sticking point to overcome and, once that had been dealt with, she was sure that everything would be plain sailing!

‘Shall you wear the blue or the green for dinner, Mi—my lady?’

The sound of Fran’s voice cut across her contemplative musings and she was obliged to give herself a little shake to clear her head before she turned round to acknowledge the question.

‘I think the green tonight, Fran,’ she replied, with a hurried look at the clock. Gone five already and still no sign of her lord and master! It really was too bad of him to treat her in such a cavalier manner! And just how much longer was she expected to sit up here in her bedroom? She was supposed to be the mistress of the house, for heaven’s sake!

‘Just keep it simple, please, Fran,’ she instructed the woman, as she saw her reach for the hairbrush. ‘All that fancy coiling and pinning you did earlier gave me quite a headache.’

‘Ah, but you did look lovely, Mi—my lady,’ replied her unrepentant abigail, as she skilfully swept up her mistress’s shining tresses into a soft chignon at the back of her neck. ‘I overheard several of the guests commenting on how lucky his lordship was to have got himself such a delightful wife.’

Feeling suddenly dispirited, Helena got to her feet and let out a weary sigh. She had been so wrapped up with congratulating herself on how splendidly everything was going that the original reason for the impetuous marriage had almost escaped her mind. But, now that she had been given an opportunity to study the reality, it came to her that, not only had it obliged her to desert her ailing father and abandon him to Lottie’s somewhat less tender mercies, but it had also forced her into giving up her work at the soup kitchen. And, for what? Little more than the doubtful privilege of seeing her inheritance handed over to a heartless ingrate who seemed to prefer the company of horses to that of his new wife, if his current performance were anything to go by! And, if that were not more than enough for anyone to contend with, she thought dismally, it appeared that she was going to have to spend the rest of her days being referred to as ‘Mi—my’, by her maidservant!

Unable to prevent the unbidden tears that suddenly sprang to her eyes, she turned away from the dressing-table and walked swiftly across to the window where, leaning her forehead on the cool glass, she tried to summon up the will-power to take herself downstairs and demand that dinner be served at once.

As if in answer to her unspoken thoughts, the plangent tones of the dinner gong suddenly sounded out, their tremulous echo reverberating to every corner of the house.

Blinking back the tears, she lifted her chin, straightened her shoulders and made ready to leave. But, scarcely had the last vibrations of the gong died away than her bedroom door was suddenly thrust open to reveal a decidedly dishevelled Markfield who, hurling himself across the room, threw his arms around her.

‘I’m so dreadfully sorry!’ he panted. ‘What must you have been thinking of me?’ and then, totally ignoring the dumbfounded gasp of the maidservant, he bent his head and sought her lips.