that family, one that was near fifty years old. Now he had another to add to it. Lewis Nugent was going to discover that delving into the past would bring him not treasure, but the vengeance of a man who was more than capable of protecting his own.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
An entire day at least to fill without Guy. Twenty-four hours without seeing him, without being held in his arms, without hearing that deep, flexible voice change from teasing to loving in the space of a breath.
Could he really love her? It seemed that he could and with enough passion to ignore her spotted past, ignore her relatively humble origins and make her his countess. Was it possible to be this happy and yet sit quite still, quite quiet and eat one’s breakfast just as one did every morning? Hester glanced across the table at Maria, who was attempting to read the Buckinghamshire Gazette while disguising the fact that she was sending anxious glances at her employer.
‘What is it, Maria?’ Hester asked, suppressing a smile.
‘His lordship has truly made you an offer?’ She put down the newspaper and sighed gustily. ‘It is wonderful.’
‘He has indeed, and I agree, it is so wonderful I feel I must pinch myself to ensure I am waking not dreaming. I only hope I meet with the approval of his sister, Lady Broome, who sounds most formidable. She is spending Christmas with Lord Buckland, you know.’
Miss Prudhome appeared daunted. ‘I do hope she will consider me a suitable chaperon for you. Oh, and what about gowns? Do you have the right gowns, for you are sure to be attending many social events in the next few weeks now, surely?’
‘I suppose so.’ Hester bit her underlip in thought. ‘I expect Guy will wish to introduce me to various relations.’ She was feeling as daunted as Maria looked. ‘I think my gowns will pass muster, but I must purchase new gloves and stockings, some more evening slippers, perhaps a fur tippet-why, all manner of things, now I think of it. And I have done nothing about Christmas presents or the party we are to hold. And I am short of ready cash. Maria, I think we must make an expedition to Aylesbury tomorrow to make the acquaintance of my new bank manager and to do our shopping.’
Maria frowned. ‘More roses are due then. Should we leave Susan and Jethro?’
‘I am really becoming quite bored with those dratted roses,’ Hester exclaimed, cutting into a piece of toast with some vigour. ‘Now we know who is behind them, they no longer have any mystery. I suppose the best thing is just to give the Nugents easy access to the house so they can deposit them-it will be four this time. On the other hand, I do not want them thinking they have the run of the place. Let me think.’
Hester brooded while Maria flicked through the pages of the paper, exclaiming from time to time over snippets of news or advertisements. ‘It says here that three murderers are to be hanged from the balcony of the Town Hall next Tuesday and their bodies cut down and anatomised! How frightful. Signor Olivetti, famed silhouette artist, wishes it to be known that he has established a studio in Aylesbury. A new silk warehouse advertises the fashionable and elegant silks at a price to please the most discerning lady. Oh dear, look at this, a child has lost his puppy and the parents advertise for its safe return.’
‘I know! Jethro!’
Jethro appeared, green baize apron wrapped firmly round his skinny midriff, one of Hester’s few pieces of good silver in his hand. ‘Yes, Miss Hester?’
‘Did you not say that Hector needed shoeing?’ Jethro nodded. ‘Very well, can you take him tomorrow, and Susan can go with you and do the marketing. Miss Prudhome and I are going into Aylesbury and I think it would be convenient to give the ghost the opportunity of an empty house to deposit the day’s roses without too much trouble.’
‘How will they know?’
‘I intend calling in and enquiring kindly if I can carry out any little commission for Miss Nugent whilst I am in Aylesbury. I will let drop what you are doing while I am about it.’
‘Driving what, Miss Hester?’
‘Oh, how foolish! I never thought. Well, there is nothing for it, Jethro, you will have to go over and ask Parrott if I might borrow a horse. His lordship must have something suitable for a gig, surely?’
‘Very well, Miss Hester.’
He returned ten minutes later, looking uncommonly flushed. ‘Mr Parrott says that, on his lordship’s behalf, he could not possibly lend us a horse for the gig as his lordship would not like you driving yourself all that way. He says he will have his lordship’s second carriage and a team sent round at ten tomorrow morning, Miss Hester, with two grooms and a footman.’ Jethro grinned. ‘I wish I could learn the way he has of talking, Miss Hester. He said he hopes he knows what is due to your consequence, even if I do not!’
‘Well! My consequence indeed!’
‘Perhaps he knows,’ Miss Prudhome ventured.
‘Mr Parrott knows
Feeling very fine indeed, Hester found some amusement next morning at the expression on the face of the butler at the Hall when he saw the carriage, and even more at the hastily concealed expressions of surprise on Lewis and Sarah’s faces as she swept in, all smiles and chatter.
‘…so I thought, if you are perhaps not feeling quite yourself still, Miss Nugent, that there might be some small commission I might perform for you in Aylesbury. Embroidery silks, rouge, that sort of thing. Is it not kind of his lordship to lend me a carriage? I foolishly forgot that Jethro has to take the cob to the smithy this morning and Susan has to go marketing, so you may imagine what a boon the loan of a footman is as well.’
Five minutes later she remarked to Maria, ‘That was a very fat and obvious fly to cast in front of a trout, but I do not think they suspect I know what they are up to. Now, let us look over our lists and think how to make the best of our time.’
Hester eased her hands cautiously out of her tight gloves, smoothed down the lint that protected her grazed palms and took out her tablets and pencil. ‘It is a lowering thought, Maria, but shopping for presents and fripperies is a delightful way to make one forget almost everything.’
Not that any amount of list writing could drive the thought of Guy from her mind-or the worry of what to buy him for Christmas. What did a young lady buy an earl? What did one buy a man doubtless too rich to want for anything? It was too late to embroider slippers, which was one of the few unexceptional items she had once been told would be allowable as a gift to a man. Not that she could imagine Guy wearing slippers.
Her smile of pure mischief at the thought of him sitting before the fire, pretending to be at ease in a pair of embroidered slippers, faded as the picture led her imagination further, deeper, into much more disturbing byways. Guy with bare feet, Guy wearing an exotic dressing gown of heavy silk- and nothing else.
Hester felt her cheeks burning and fanned herself surreptitiously with her pocket notebook. He was so very male, frighteningly so for a young lady with no experience whatsoever, and the demanding passion of his kisses on the downs and in the barn that night promised something far beyond her experience. But not, she realised, her cheeks burning hotter, beyond her desiring. Her body responded now when she thought of him, recalled his caresses. It was as though she was aware of every inch of bare skin where it touched her clothes, of her breasts, strangely heavier and fuller, of an ache deep in her abdomen.
‘This is a comfort,’ Maria remarked, jolting her out of her heated imaginings. ‘I was dreading the journey in a closed carriage, but this is nothing like that frightful post
‘Indeed, yes,’ Hester agreed, resolutely suppressing the thought of some of them.
They arrived back from their expedition weary, satisfied and more than grateful for the attentions of the footman who had stoically marched behind them all day, gradually vanishing under a mountain of shopping.
