The Return of Lord Conistone. Lucy Ashford

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СКАЧАТЬ bit her lip. I won’t cry. When I heard about Lucas, I vowed that I would never, ever cry again.

      Once the contents were sold, the house would have to go too. Mr Mayhew, the family’s attorney, had told her that. Kind Mr Mayhew was here now, collecting payments at a desk by the door and issuing receipts. Earlier he’d taken Verena aside and said, ‘You do realise, don’t you, Miss Sheldon, that there is actually a potential buyer for the whole estate?’

      ‘The Earl. Yes’. Her voice, miraculously, was steady. ‘And I had rather it went to anyone else!’

      Mr Mayhew had glanced at her over his spectacles and sighed. ‘Very well. Very well…. But take my advice, my dear Miss Sheldon, and don’t make this harder than it needs to be. No need for you to attend the dispersal sale; your brother-in-law Mr Parker and I will manage the business perfectly well, I do assure you’.

      But Verena believed that someone had to represent their family! Her one sensible sister, Pippa, married to David, was at home looking after their twin baby boys. Verena’s other sisters, Deb and Isobel, were up in their bedrooms, and both of them, like their mother Lady Frances, were loudly lamenting the collapse of their family fortunes—about as useful as leaking buckets, the three of them.

      Lady Frances had tackled Verena before the sale began. ‘Verena, there will be gentlemen here this afternoon! Some of them with prospects!’ She’d glanced waspishly at Verena’s day gown of brown cambric, its only adornment the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons running firmly up the bodice to her throat. ‘Now, I know that your looks bear no comparison to Deb’s or darling Izzy’s—but if you do insist on being present, you might make some effort with your appearance! After all, your godfather is none other than the Earl of Stancliffe!’

      ‘And much good that has done us!’ Verena had snapped, her patience worn to a thread.

      Lady Frances had retreated upstairs with her smelling salts.

      Verena made a point of not changing her drab gown, and of only carelessly pinning up her chestnut-coloured hair before facing the seemingly endless onslaught of strangers cascading through the house.

      And she had thought she would be able to bear it. But suddenly the plaintive tune of ‘My Soldier Love’ drifted across the crowded hall, and the emotions she’d tried so very hard to suppress came sweeping back in a wave of blinding memory.

       That was her music box.

      She’d put it in the sale herself, but….

      She remembered Lucas, riding along the track towards her that golden autumn nearly two years ago; his body toughened by war, but his expression softening in glad surprise when he saw her.

      Herself, twenty years old, stumbling towards him, her heart racing, yet full of joy, blurting out, ‘Lucas. You’re safe. I was so afraid…’.

      He’d laughed as he sprang down from his big grey mare. ‘I’m untouchable,’ he’d said. ‘The bullets just fly past me’.

      She would not cry for him ever again. But that little silver music box was his last gift to her.

      She started to plunge through the crowds to where a corn merchant and his wife were greedily pawing over its delicate casing.

      Then she stopped; remembering what David had said. We have to sell as much as possible, before the bailiffs move in….

      Best to let it go, along with her memories. She turned round slowly and walked out through the open French doors into the west-facing gardens, where the sun was sending rays of gold across the sea below the cliff tops, and the scent of roses wafted towards her on the warm evening breeze.

      With its mellow brickwork clad in ivy and climbing roses, Wycherley Hall was one of the most picturesque dwellings between the South Downs and the Hampshire coast, and had belonged to the Sheldons for generations. But now, her family would have to leave, and go—where? What would they do? How would they live? There was no answer except the sad cries of the gulls high above.

      Last winter there had been troops posted all along this part of the coast, because of rumours that the Emperor Napoleon was sending an invasion fleet across the Channel. Now the troops were gone. But just sometimes lately, when she was alone, she felt as if she was being watched, though she told herself it was nothing but the rustling of birds, or small animals in the nearby woods. She was growing fanciful in her despair.

      The dark clouds were piling up to the south, and though the sun was going down, the air seemed hotter, more sultry than ever. Verena turned, heavy-hearted, to go back into the house.

      Lucas had once told her that it was the happiest house he had ever known. ‘I’ll carry my memory of you and Wycherley wherever I go, Verena,’ he’d said to her quietly. ‘Whatever you hear, please trust in me’.

      And she had. More fool her.

      ‘Verena!’ A man’s voice broke abruptly into her reverie. ‘What on earth’s going on here? All those people—taking your furniture, your things…’.

      She swung round to see the scarlet-jacketed Captain Martin Bryant, twenty-six-year-old war hero, marching towards her from the stable courtyard where he’d just sprung off his horse. She drew a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid we are quite done up, as they say, Captain Bryant. This is just the start’.

      Martin, with his pleasantly boyish features and brown curls, looked horrified. ‘But—you won’t have to leave the house?’

      She nodded, feeling a sudden constriction in her throat.

      ‘My dear Miss Sheldon!’ His light blue eyes were ardent. ‘May I call you Verena? I am, first and foremost, a man devoted to my military duties—duties that have too often taken me away from here!’ He was stammering a little; his face had turned slightly pink. ‘Otherwise, I would have asked you before’.

      Oh, Lord. What was he talking about? Verena’s heart was beginning to thump. ‘Captain Bryant, I really should be getting back inside’.

      He grasped her hand and clung to it almost desperately. ‘Verena. I want to ask you—I must beg of you the honour—the precious gift—of your sweet and lovely hand in marriage!’

      She snatched her hand away and stood, frozen with shock.

      Once, almost two years ago, she had walked with Lucas through these gardens, as the shadows lengthened, and the harvest moon encrusted the old house with fairytale shards of silver. Once Lucas had cupped her face in his strong but tender hands and breathed, ‘Some day I’ll be home again, Verena. Home for good. Will you wait for me?’

      There was no need even for him to ask, because she’d not been able to imagine life without him. Hadn’t wanted life without him. ‘For ever,’ she’d breathed, with the ardent belief of a twenty-year-old. ‘For ever, Lucas’.

      ‘Captain Bryant,’ she said steadily, though the ache at the back of her throat threatened to choke her, ‘I’m sorry, but I cannot marry you. It wouldn’t be fair to you, you see, because I do not love you!’

      His expression was imploring. ‘But perhaps you can grow to love me, in time!’

      Again, she hesitated. Everyone would tell her that life as Captain Bryant’s wife СКАЧАТЬ