The Honourable Earl. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ out by one of his seconds and turned. Ralph raised his gun at the shadowing figure twenty paces away but he could not bring himself to fire. And then he heard a click and an oath and realised that Freddie’s pistol had misfired. ‘Go on,’ his second said quietly. ‘You’ve got him now.’

      Instead, he had deliberately fired away. He had been so absorbed in his dilemma, he had not heard the horse cantering over the fallen leaves beneath the trees, nor did he see the shadowy figure fling himself from the saddle and run towards them. He only knew he had hit something when he heard a harsh cry and felt, rather than saw, the body hit the ground, almost at his feet. After that there was pandemonium. In a dumb daze he watched Freddie fly to his father, saw everyone looking at each other in horror, heard someone mount a horse and gallop off to fetch a doctor. He simply stood there, the gun still in his almost lifeless fingers.

      Robert took it from him, while Freddie sobbed, yelling at him, accusing him, as if he had meant to do it. He felt sick. And then his father had come. His father, a notable Justice of the Peace, should have had them both taken up and sent to gaol for duelling, let alone killing an innocent man, but instead had sent him into exile. He had never seen him or his mother again.

      Ten long years he had been gone, ten years in which he had matured in body and mind, had learned to control his anger and subdue his softness, to deal straight with all men, and take his pleasures where he found them, never letting anyone see his vulnerability. In truth, he thought he had been so clever at concealing it, there was now nothing left to hide; he had become a hard man inside and out. Oh, he could be charming when he chose and there was many a young lady in that over-hot subcontinent who could vouch for that, but it was never more than skin deep.

      Now he had to pick up the pieces, decide if he should stay in England, stay at Colston Hall and face those who decried him as a murderer. But why should he not stay? He was the Earl of Blackwater, an honourable man, and he would treat every man fairly; if he should come upon Freddie Fostyn, he would ignore him, ignore the whole Fostyn family for they had brought him nothing but grief. They had probably gone from the village because his father had had to appoint a new rector and the house went with the living.

      As the coach rattled towards Colston Hall, his thoughts drifted to the young lady he had met in Chelmsford, a much more pleasant subject than the past which still had the power to torment him. She was a beauty with those classic features, that lustrous hair and those oh-so-expressive hazel eyes. She had been composed and ready to answer him without simpering or fluttering her eyelashes at him as some young ladies had been known to do under his scrutiny. She was a cool one, but under that he sensed a fire waiting to be kindled into life. He would have liked the opportunity to be the one to set the blaze going.

      He wished now he had been more insistent on learning her name or the name of that village she mentioned. He could have amused himself with a little dalliance between the bouts of serious exchanges with his lawyer. According to that gentleman, there was much to be done, so many things which had been neglected in and around the Hall: tenants’ homes needing repair, walls broken, ditches and drains overgrown, estate roads full of potholes.

      ‘How did it come to this?’ he had asked.

      ‘My lord, his lordship was not himself, worried, you know, about…’

      ‘About what? Out with it, man.’

      ‘The Countess’s health, my lord. She never got over it, you know.’

      He did not need to ask what ‘it’ was. It was one more thing to lay at the door of Freddie Fostyn. He hoped he would never meet him again.

      He discovered he had been wrong about the Fostyn family leaving the village the very next afternoon, when his lawyer called to go over the tenancies of the estate and he discovered they were living in the dower house, not a quarter of a mile away.

      ‘How did this come about?’ he demanded, angrily.

      ‘His lordship, your father, allowed it, my lord. I think he felt sorry for them when they had to leave the rectory.’

      ‘Sorry for them!’ he repeated bitterly. ‘And how much rent do they pay?’

      ‘Why, none, my lord. The dower house has never brought in rent. After your grandmother died, it stood empty and—’

      ‘Well, things are about to change,’ he said. ‘Write to Mrs Fostyn and tell her to remove herself from the house. Give her a week—’

      ‘My lord, she can hardly make other arrangements in a week and his lordship said Mrs Fostyn might stay there as long as she wished to.’

      ‘My father is dead, Falconer,’ he said. ‘And I am master here now. But I will not be unfair. Give them a month.’

      ‘Yes, my lord.’

      He might not have been so harsh, he realised later, if he had not spent the journey from Chelmsford going over the past, and in doing so resurrected all his bitterness and resentment. Let Mr Frederick Fostyn look to his mother; after all, he was the one who had got off scot free. His years in exile, far from mellowing him, had only served to harden him.

       Chapter Two

       T he girls were putting the finishing touches to their ball gowns, although no decision had been reached about whether the ball was going to take place. Rumours were flying about the village that the new Earl had arrived, but no one had seen him.

      ‘I saw a grand carriage turn into the gates of the Hall earlier today,’ John said over supper the previous evening. ‘It wasn’t the old Earl’s because everyone knows that was falling to bits. This was much newer and it had four matched bays and two postilions.’

      ‘Did you see anyone in it?’ Annabelle had demanded.

      ‘No. Whoever it was was sitting back in the shadows.’

      ‘That doesn’t mean it was the Earl,’ Lydia said, hoping that it wasn’t. She didn’t want to see him, ever again. ‘It could have been Mr Falconer, his lawyer. They say he is staying at the Hall, for there is so much to be done, especially if the Earl is not coming home.’

      ‘I doubt there will be a ball now,’ Annabelle said, snipping off her thread and looking at her beautiful pink gown with her head on one side. ‘And I did so want to wear this and dance the latest dances. How am I to find a husband if we never go anywhere? Caroline Brotherton is to have the Season in London.’

      ‘Caroline Brotherton is the daughter of a marquis, Annabelle,’ their mother said gently. ‘We cannot aspire to such things.’

      Annabelle had met Caroline at the school for young ladies they had both attended in Chelmsford and had subsequently been invited to a birthday celebration at her home when both girls, their education supposedly complete, had left school for good. She had talked of little else ever since and Lydia suspected that was where all this talk of husbands had come from.

      ‘I don’t see why not. Susan is going to London for the Season.’ Annabelle pouted. ‘I could stay with her.’ Susan had written to say she and her husband were going to stay in town for the summer months and she was looking forward to attending a few of the Season’s social occasions.

      ‘Dearest, even if you stayed with your sister, I could not buy all the gowns and frippery you would need. And besides…’ She paused, wondering how to go on. ‘We are not aristocracy, my love, and though you are very pretty, you would not be considered. СКАЧАТЬ