She almost looked like a lady.
Allowing herself one moment of foolishness, she twirled and daydreamed about stepping down from a fancy carriage into a stately home, a footman trailing in her wake laden with boxes and parcels. Arran met her in the entrance hall, his kiss to her cheek a promise that later he would kiss her everywhere, and their children came running to demand hugs, show her drawings, and rummage through her reticule for the promised treat of candied fruit.
Rachel sighed and poked her tongue out at her reflection. Mistresses didn’t become wives, that was plain fact. Then she removed the cloak, and draping it over her arm, left the curtained-off area to find Arran sitting on a chair, arms folded.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said quickly.
He sent her a surprised look as he got to his feet. “You were fast. I was resigned to sitting here for an hour at least.”
“An hour?”
“A lady’s shopping always takes longer than anyone expects. Or so I hear.”
“It would be a very easy way to spend time,” she replied. “With the funds, of course. Shall we go?”
“You like that cloak?”
“I love it,” Rachel began, then bit her lip. “It is awfully expensive though. Twelve shillings!”
“A pittance.”
She stifled a gasp at his casual dismissal of the cost, the way only someone with a great deal of money, someone who had never been hungry or cold or winced at a bill, would do. “I never asked what it is you do for a living. Are you in trade perhaps? A lawyer? A banker?”
For the second time since she’d met him, Arran looked uncomfortable. Oddly, it seemed his occupation ranked alongside his family as something he didn’t wish to discuss.
“I do hold some trade interests,” he said eventually. “But mainly I’m a landowner.”
“Oh!” she said with a laugh. “Practically a lord. I’m glad you aren’t, though. In my experience lords are stuffy and mean. Reckless and ruthless. Very good at shirking their responsibilities.”
His shoulders went rigid. “Quite. I do like to think there is the odd decent one who is fair and pays his bills, though.”
Rachel winced. Yet again, she had allowed her unruly tongue to have its way, and now she had offended him. He couldn’t know she loathed peers because her own father had left her mother penniless and alone to die, then refused to acknowledge his daughter or pay so she might be a school pupil rather than a servant who learned to count and read by candlelight. Or that the supreme snobbishness and hypocritical morality lectures of the aristocratic school patrons had done nothing to change her mind.
But Arran could well have friends who were peers. Perhaps even a relative. He certainly appeared to have the funds to run about in such circles. “Of course. I fear I am a little biased. Some of the peers who inspected the school were…unpleasant.”
“Ah,” he replied, relaxing. “That I understand. Charity can be cold indeed. I’d wager you had some patrons who sent supplies or a generous donation with a smile, and others who expected deity-like worship for a paltry sum.”
“You would win that wager,” she said, unable to moderate the bitterness in her tone. “Foundlings have done nothing to warrant their circumstances. They should be treated with kindness and compassion. Who would choose a life of abject poverty and loneliness, forever being treated as though they were nothing?”
Oh God. In the middle of a dress shop, and she’d raised her voice and given a lecture to a man utterly undeserving of it.
“I mean…” she mumbled, her cheeks hot with mortification.
“I know what you mean,” he said, surprisingly mildly. “And I agree. Children should not be held responsible for the decisions or mistakes of their parents. Now, I think we should purchase this cloak and get back for the church service. I don’t want us to get caught in a snowstorm. Especially as you have chosen the brown cloak rather than the yellow one.”
Vastly relieved as his light humor eased the tension and indicated no animosity for her opinion, Rachel took his arm, and soon they were on their way back to the inn. Her new cloak was a cozy barrier against the chill, and it tempted her beyond measure to roll her old shawl into a ball and hurl it away. For again, her emotions were in a whirl. They clearly came from two different worlds, and yet Arran was unlike any man she’d ever met. Stern and yet kind. Unfailingly generous, both in bed and out.
It might only have been a short time, but never had her heart been in such jeopardy.
Chapter 4
With every passing hour, Rachel intrigued him more.
Leaning back in his chair, his stomach full to bursting after a plentiful Christmas supper of beef, boar’s head, a mix of vegetables, plum pudding soaked in brandy and cream, and mulled wine, Arran watched her conversing with another guest while almost unconsciously stacking plates and cutlery.
Rachel had told him she’d fallen on hard times. Which was entirely plausible, but still didn’t feel like the whole truth. Her passionate defense of foundlings seemed very personal, as though she had attended such a school rather than merely assisted at one, and the way she tidied spoke of experience and great ease in dealing with many, many mouths to feed. Much more than a small household. He wanted to say something, like how much he admired those who started with little and worked hard to advance themselves. Back in his own parish he’d seen many examples with tenant farmers and small enterprises, and had even started a fund to assist in the purchase of newer tools. His next lofty goal was to ensure that every child on his lands, boy or girl, could read and write. And yet he
