The Return of Lord Conistone. Lucy Ashford

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      It was just a kiss. But later, as she prepared for bed, she looked at herself in the mirror; for the first time in her life she wished that she was a tantalising society beauty, from a wealthy family, because then, then, he might love her in return.

      Love. She’d thought that being courted—being loved—would be sweet and pleasant—and easily resisted.

      But no. What she felt for Lucas was a dark, a dangerous, a living thing. Her whole being throbbed with need. She longed to be in his arms, to feel his lips on hers, and more, for he’d awakened her body, and her heart.

      Lucas called at Wycherley briefly before he left the next day. He was in uniform, and obviously in great haste, but he gave her the little music box. As she opened it, and the tender tune filled her heart, he took her hand and said, his eyes searching hers, ‘I’ll be away for a little while, Verena. Can I ask you something?’

      She had been tormented by the knowledge that soon he would be sailing away to Portugal, to war with the French, to terrible danger. ‘Of course,’ she breathed. ‘Anything’.

      ‘Will you keep your trust in me, whatever you hear? Will you remember we are friends?’

      Friends. Her heart plummeted, but she managed to say lightly, ‘Good friends indeed. And we owe you so much, Lucas! Next time you are home, you will see the Wycherley farms transformed!’

      He nodded almost curtly. ‘As long as you yourself do not change, Verena. As long as you stay the same’. Then he took her hand and pressed his lips to it. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and cling to him and never let him go.

      As he’d walked towards his waiting horse, he had turned to her once last time, as if he was about to say something else. But then he mounted up, gave a half-salute, and was gone.

      She thought—everybody thought—that he’d gone back to the battlefields of the Peninsula. But news came a few weeks later that he’d resigned from the army and was instead living the high life in London with the Prince’s set. After that came whispers, too, of secret affaires with beautiful society women—and each piece of news about Lord Lucas Conistone stabbed Verena to the heart.

      Still during that winter of anguish, there’d been no word from their father. And hard on the heels of the rumours about Lucas had come an ominous visit from Mr Mayhew, their father’s attorney. Verena’s mother had felt a migraine coming on, so it was Verena who had to listen to Mr Mayhew’s grave explanation that the loan on which Wycherley depended was being withdrawn, due, Mr Mayhew feared, to personal pressure on their bank from the Earl of Stancliffe, Lucas’s grandfather.

      Verena had first thought, This must be a mistake. The Earl is my godfather. Despite his disagreement with my father, he cannot intend to harm us so! She wrote to the Earl that same day, explaining their predicament; and that was when she’d received the devastating answer:

       The Earl of Stancliffe does not respond to begging letters. Especially when they are sent by a fortune-hunting harlot—yes, my grandson Lucas told me of your pitiful attempts to entrap him.

      Verena had locked herself in her room on receiving that note, shaking with shock. She read it again and again, remembering every conversation, every look of Lucas’s, trying to make sense of it and failing.

      She’d told Lucas that when he returned to Wycherley, he’d find it transformed; it was unrecognisable indeed, within months of his departure, for, by the January of 1809, the Sheldons, and the Wycherley estate, were starting to face the road to ruin.

      Soon afterwards, the Earl made a ludicrously low offer for the entire estate, which Verena refused outright. Something would happen, she thought desperately. Her dear father would return, filling the house with his beloved presence, making everything all right….

      Her father had been abroad for months, and still nothing whatsoever had been heard of him, though Verena took the gig or rode every fortnight to the shipping office in Portsmouth ten miles away to ask if there was any news.

      And early in February 1809, during bitter winter weather, the news finally arrived. Sir Jack Sheldon would never be coming home again.

       Chapter Four

      Jack Sheldon was dead. And there was no body to bury, either. They were told he’d been exploring the snow-covered peaks on Portugal’s Spanish border when he fell into a raging mountain river and was swept away downstream, never to be found. Verena had been grief-stricken and, more than that, desperately afraid. She honestly did not see how they could go on.

      The Earl of Stancliffe was in Bath when the news arrived, taking the waters for his health; they heard nothing from him, and after his insults Verena did not expect to. Then Lucas wrote to her, to send his condolences. She was horrified by his duplicity. She didn’t understand how he could pretend to care. She’d secretly fallen in love with a gallant hero, who’d asked her to trust him, when all the time he’d been planning to leave the army, and must also have betrayed her infatuation with him to his grandfather.

      Of course she burned Lucas’s letter and did not reply. He wrote again. This time she did not even read it before destroying it.

      Verena had her father’s letters for consolation. He was a compulsive writer, and as she leafed through them, with their vivid descriptions of the wild hills of his mother’s country where he’d felt so at home, she could almost hear Jack Sheldon’s loud voice, almost see his dancing dark eyes, which had glittered exultantly as he confided to her, on the night just before he left for the last time, that summer two years ago, that he had discovered a great secret, something that would make them all rich.

      Oh, Papa. She hadn’t believed him. But how she missed him: his stories, and his zest, and his unquenchable optimism—and how secretly fearful she was as she faced life without him, under a mountain of burgeoning debt.

      Lady Frances Sheldon was still determined to marry off her daughters, and wanted to take Verena and Deb to London as soon as the minimum period of mourning was over. Verena told her mother that they simply could not afford the expense of a London Season; Pippa, usually Verena’s staunch ally, was by then expecting her twins, so Verena took on the full brunt of her mother’s anger.

      ‘I would hate to think you are jealous of Deb’s prettiness, my dear,’ said Lady Frances.

      ‘Jealousy, piffle! I am not going to London, Mama!’ declared Verena. ‘And you should not either!’

      But Lady Frances had insisted on taking Deb to London that autumn, for an extended stay with a rather foolish friend of hers, Lady Willoughby. Verena remained at Wycherley, trying to hold the estate together and to fend off their mounting debts. She was startled one afternoon to see a hired chaise rattling into the courtyard; when she’d hurried to see who it was, Deb and Lady Frances were climbing out.

      ‘Deb! Mama!’ Verena had cried. ‘I had not expected you back so soon!’

      Lady Frances, hurrying towards the house, waved her hand dismissively. ‘The disappointments, Verena! Lady Willoughby is no true friend, and I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of her! Pray have tea sent up to my room while I recover from the journey!’

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