The Black Sheep's Return. Elizabeth Beacon

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      Frowning at the very feel of her still half-pinned-up hair and the wild bird’s nest the rest of it felt as bits tried to escape while the rest was still in a knot, she searched for her hairpins and piled them up on the table and sighed with relief when the whole heavy mass tumbled down. Oh, the sheer pleasure and relief of feeling the uncombed length of it flow down her back and the pull and tangle subside a little. Freya went back to her filthy feet and legs and found another bowl to fill with clean water when the soap scum and mire in the first seemed too disgusting to use any more.

      At last she felt as clean as she could make herself without a hot bath and shut off the blissful thought of one of those with a regretful sigh at the very moment the door to the little kitchen-cum-scullery opened and Orlando strode in. Horrified and at the same time oddly frozen in her position, half-propped and half-sitting on the table so she could wash her good foot and take the weight off her bad one, she blushed so hotly it felt as if every inch of her must be covered in shame. Peeping at him from behind her tumbling mass of hair, she saw an arrested, almost shocked look on his face—as if he’d been hit on the head for no good reason. This time she noted numbly that his eyes were as clear and green as his little daughter’s by daylight and full of contrary emotions as they fixed on her like a sailor sighting land after a long voyage.

      ‘I beg your pardon,’ he finally managed in a deeper and huskier voice than normal and turned sharply about and was out of the door before she could think of a word to say.

      Since she still couldn’t, it was probably as well he’d disappeared faster than a scalded cat, she decided, making herself finish her makeshift toilette. She was contemplating her grubby chemise and shift with disgust when the door opened the smallest distance it took for a vigorous male hand to squeeze through it, then drop clean replacements on the floor before shutting it firmly once more. For some odd reason it seemed funny and Freya gratefully pulled on the chemise as she tried not to giggle hysterically at the latest act in the farce she and Orlando seemed to be playing.

      She looked ruefully at the shift before scrambling into it and decided his wife must have been considerably shorter than herself. It seemed she would have to wear her own half-ruined gown to preserve any hint of decency, if only she knew what he’d done with it. The next time the door did its remarkable trick he produced a cotton bedcover she took silently and wrapped round her body like a bath towel, before stiffening her shockingly naked shoulders and hopping out to face him as best she could. It took every ounce of well-honed Buckle pride to meet his eyes as if he hadn’t just seen her in the same state of nature in which she came into the world.

      ‘I should like to borrow a comb,’ she said loftily.

      ‘These belonged to my wife,’ he said with so little expression in his green gaze as he handed her a brush and comb she almost forgot to be deeply mortified for a moment.

      ‘Thank you,’ she returned and raised her eyebrows at him to indicate he should now make himself scarce if he was any sort of a gentleman at all.

      ‘I have been promised an outfit that I doubt very much is up to your usual standards whilst your own gown is being washed and mended. I will see you have it as soon as possible now you are up and awake,’ he said stiffly and took himself off.

      Freya crossed to the bed with more painful effort than she liked to think about and sank down on it before pulling the curtain across behind her so she would have the belated illusion of privacy. She examined the brush as if it might give her some clue to the woman who once owned it, but not even one stray strand remained to tell her what colour hair the lady had rejoiced in. Freya sighed and began the long and frustrating business of combing out the wild tangles from her own heavy mane and heartily wished for the ladies’ maid she had left at Bowland with not even a second thought how she would shift for herself without her. Of course she knew how to comb her own hair, everyone knew that, but she thought of the gentle patience little Mercy Dawkins had always shown her exacting mistress and felt oddly ashamed as she teased knot after knot from her rebellious locks.

      She wasn’t a fool, she decided as distance and the oddest of circumstances made her think hard about her day-to-day self, but Lady Freya Buckle had managed to go through life so far without thinking too hard about herself or those around her. The loss of her grandfather had hit her far harder than that of her own father and the sudden death of her mother two years earlier had shaken her world to its very foundations. Apart from those two heavy losses, the only event that had caused her even the mildest suffering until yesterday was the marriage of his Grace the Duke of Dettingham to Miss Jessica Pendle, and that certainly wasn’t because her heart was broken.

      No, she decided now with a preoccupied frown as she finally tracked down the piece of twig caught in the depths of her worst knot so far and set about removing it without pulling a hank of hair out with it, the fact that he preferred a lame spinster to the Earl of Buckland’s pretty daughter had been the first indication the rest of the world didn’t share her conviction she was entitled to all the best things in life that society had to offer her. For a while she had been so offended and furious she hadn’t asked herself why Jack Seaborne, Duke of Dettingham, preferred damaged Miss Pendle to her pristine and noble self.

      She and her mother had been a little too sure Lady Freya would be the next Duchess and the subsequent Little Season had been dogged by sniggers and snide whispers as she tried to pretend she didn’t care that the new Duchess was still on a protracted wedding journey about the Lakes with her besotted husband. The most eligible bachelors had begun to slide out of dances with her and find themselves engaged when Lady Bowland organised an elegant supper party or visit to the theatre and Freya had somehow become a laughing stock to the very people she had so wanted to impress with her ancient lineage and proud good looks when she made her début.

      It had taken Lady Bowland’s death and two years of living at Bowland, instead of comfortably ensconced in the Dower House with Mama, to finally make her realise she was not some entitled being, blessed by every god of good fortune at her christening. Being stripped of the advantages of wealth and rank had forced her into her true self: Lady Freya, the glowing hope of her mother and grandfather’s wildest dreams, was gone. Here sat a woman who must find out what she really wanted from life before it was too late to achieve it and suddenly she was determined to find out what that was as soon as possible.

      She squirmed on the disarrayed bed and tried to tell herself it was the constant nag of pain from her ankle making her so restless, even as her fingers patiently continued the task she’d set them. It wasn’t the fact she’d been seen mother-naked by Orlando, but she had to admit the sneaky idea it could be very pleasant indeed if he was entirely undressed too haunted her like a bad dream. She shifted impatiently again and had to suppress a yelp of agony as her injured foot reminded her how desperate her current situation was. Clearly it behoved her to behave like a lady for however long it took her to heal, then depart with as much of her tattered reputation and self-esteem intact as possible.

      Despite her burning cheeks and the shock she should be suffering from, she wondered how she had looked to Orlando and didn’t even notice her busy fingers had found the last knot in her nut-brown hair and she was now combing the heavy softness of it as if her life depended on it. Even allowing for the flattery her rank and fortune attracted while the ton laughed at her behind her back, she knew she was pretty enough and reasonably well formed. She was shaped like a nymph rather than a goddess and some might consider her slight and unformed, of course. Yet perhaps some men preferred subtlety to the obvious charms of more buxom women, she let herself wonder. After all, her legs were long and slender and her waist small above the long line of her hips. Feeling as guilty as if she was testing the ebb and flow of those very curves with her own hands to see if they could please a lover, she gasped at the thought of Orlando ever watching her with a lover’s eyes and told herself it was with horror at the very idea.

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