Leah Ball - The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance

He felt her stiffen although she didn’t move away. His gut cramped in anguish as he wondered if he’d ruined his chances. Permanently this time.

“For how long?” Her voice was quiet.

He stared at the glittering scene outside without seeing it. Instead, all his mind, all his soul focused on his wife. Again, he risked honesty, even if honesty cost him all chance of achieving his dream of a life with her.

“For ever.”

This time she did draw away, and he read the inches between them as absence. “Why?”

He turned to study her. She looked unhappy and uncertain and remarkably young. Almost as young as the girl he’d married. “Because I love you.”

“No …” She shook her head as if she didn’t believe him.

Kinvarra smiled at her, even while she broke his heart. Again. “Yes.”

Alicia raised her chin and stared at him as if what he said made no sense. “I was so awful to you. How can you forgive me?”

“How can you forgive me? Let’s rise above the past, my darling. I want you with me. I’ve never wanted anything else. Don’t let old mistakes destroy our hope of happiness.” He paused and swallowed. “If you love me, come back to me.”

For an unendurable moment, her expression didn’t change. Sebastian heard his every heartbeat as a knell of doom. Then the tension drained from her face and her eyes turned as blue as a clear sky. Suddenly, in the depths of winter, he basked in the reviving warmth of summer sun.

She stepped towards him although she didn’t touch him. “Sebastian, I love you too. We’ve wasted so much time. Let’s not waste any more.”

Shaking, he reached out to curl his hands around her upper arms and drag her against him. He could hardly believe what was happening. Yesterday he’d been lost in an endless mire of despair. Today the world offered love and hope and a future with the woman he adored. The swiftness of the change was dizzying.

“My wife,” he murmured and kissed her with all the reverence he felt in saying those two words.

The vivid, passionate woman in his arms kissed him back with a fervour that sent his blood rushing through his veins in a hot torrent. A bright, unfamiliar joy flooded him as he realized that Alicia at last was his.

Then because it was cold and he wanted her and he loved her — and they’d been apart for longer than mortal man could bear — he swung her up in his arms and strode across to the rumpled bed.

It was a perfect summer morning in 1819 when Miss Annabelle Langley drove her curricle through the streets of London, weaving in and out of the brewers’ carts and carriages with consummate skill. She was a striking sight, her Amazonian figure clad in a sky-blue pelisse and her fair hair topped with a high-crowned bonnet. She had no chaperone except for a tiger perched behind her. He was a splendidly clad urchin and he grinned impudently at the crusty old dowagers who looked on with a frown as the curricle whirled by.

In anyone else such behaviour would have been considered fast, but as Annabelle was twenty-seven years of age and possessed of a large fortune, she was grudgingly allowed to be eccentric.

She brought her equipage to a halt outside a house in Grosvenor Square and, handing the reins to her tiger, she approached the porticoed entrance. She lifted the knocker, but before she could let it drop, her sister-in-law opened the door.

“My dear Annabelle, I am so glad you are here,” said Hetty with a look of relief.

“But you knew I was coming. Why the heartfelt welcome?” asked Annabelle in surprise.

Hetty linked arms and drew her inside, much to the disapproval of the butler, whose expression seemed to say, Ladies opening the door for themselves? Whatever next?

“It is Caroline,” said Hetty, her silk skirts rustling as the two ladies crossed the spacious hall.

“What, do not tell me that she is not ready?” said Annabelle. “I suppose she has overslept and she is still drinking her chocolate? Or is it more serious? Is she standing in front of the mirror wondering which of Madame Renault’s delightful creations she should wear?”

“It is worse than that,” said Hetty with a heavy sigh as she guided Annabelle into the drawing room.

It was an elegant apartment with high ceilings and tall windows, and it was sumptuously furnished. Marble-topped console tables were set beneath gleaming mirrors, and damasked sofas were positioned between silk-upholstered chairs.

“Worse?” asked Annabelle.

“Much worse,” said Hetty emphatically. “It is A Man.” Her tone gave the words capital letters.

Annabelle stopped in the middle of stripping off her gloves and said, “I see. And who is this man?”

Hetty looked at her helplessly and groaned. “You will never believe it. If I did not know it to be true then I would not believe it myself. It is the Braithwaites’ gardener!” she said.

Annabelle raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Unless I am very much mistaken, the Braithwaites’ gardener is seventy years old!” she said.

“Oh no, it is not Old Ned. He has retired. It is his grandson who is the cause of all the trouble. Able. And a very handsome young man, it has to be said. But quite unsuitable. And, even worse, he is engaged.”

“Do you not mean, even better, he is engaged?” enquired Annabelle, removing her pelisse and bonnet.

“I only wish I did. If Caroline would accept that he was spoken for then all would be well. But you know how headstrong she is. She is convinced that he does not love his fiancée and that he is only marrying the girl to please his grandfather, who happens to be friends with the girl’s grandfather. The two men have had a very enjoyable rivalry over the last fifty years, concerning who can grow the best roses.”

“And what does Able say about it all?”

“Nothing. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other when she challenges him, and goes bright red, then pulls his ear, and says, ‘I don’t rightly know, Miss Caroline, I reckon I love ’er.’”

“Oh dear! But surely this must deter Caroline?” said Annabelle, bubbling with laughter.

“Not a bit of it. She simply says that he does not know his own mind, and that he needs a good woman to know it for him!”

“And the good woman in question, I suppose, is Caroline?”

“Of course,” said Hetty, sinking into a chair.

Annabelle looked at Hetty’s woebegone face and tried to pull a sympathetic expression but she could not help herself. It was too ridiculous! She burst into outright laughter.

“Really, Belle, it is no laughing matter,” said Hetty crossly.

“Oh, Hetty, I’m sorry, but of course it is! Caroline is a minx, but in six weeks’ time she will have forgotten all about Able, and she will be content for him to marry his sweetheart and grow roses for the rest of his days.”

“I only hope it may be so, but what am I to do with her in the meantime? She declares she won’t go to Whitegates Manor with you, and if she stays here, she will make everyone uncomfortable. The Braithwaites have already asked me not to bring her with me the next time I call. She distracts Able from his work. The last time we called he sent a cabbage indoors for the flower arrangements, and then enraged the cook by sending a basket of hollyhocks into the kitchen for dinner.”

“Never fear,” said Annabelle soothingly, putting her hand reassuringly on Hetty’s. “I will take Caroline to Whitegates with me, I promise you, and you can have some respite.”

“I only wish you could,” said Hetty dolorously, “but she has sworn she will not go.”

“A little of the sun, instead of the wind, will work wonders I am sure,” said Annabelle. Seeing Hetty’s bemused look, she said, “When the wind and the sun had an argument about which of them was the stronger, they agreed to a contest to decide the matter. There happened to be a merchant walking below them and they agreed that whichever one of them could part him from his cloak would be the winner. The wind blew as hard as it could, but to no avail, the merchant only held his cloak closer. Then the sun shone down and the merchant set his cloak aside, making the sun the winner.”

“And you plan to warm Caroline with sunshine?” asked Hetty dubiously.

“I do. The sunshine of flattery, coupled with an appeal to her generosity. And if all else fails, I will sweeten it with a treat.”

“I only hope you may succeed. I am at my wits’ end.” Hetty stood up and moved towards the bell. “I will send for Withers and she will fetch her.”

“There is no need for that. I will go myself. Is she in her room?”

“Yes,” said Hetty.

“Then I will go up to her now.”

Annabelle went out into the hall, threading her way between the marble columns and crossing the black-and-white squared floor before going up the stairs.

Twenty sets of ancestral eyes gazed down at her from Hetty’s family portraits, some haughty, some placid and some disdainful, but she ignored them all as she mounted the stairs and came at last to the bedrooms.

She went to Caroline’s door and knocked discreetly.

“Go away!” came a voice from inside.

“That is not a very friendly greeting,” Annabelle replied, “especially as I have come all this way to see you.”

“Oh, it is you, Aunt Annabelle,” said Caroline, appearing at the door of her room a minute later. “Mama has sent you to speak to me, I suppose.”

“No, I came of my own accord. Your mama thought it would not do any good for me to speak to you. She believes you are a hopeless case.”

“And so I am,” said Caroline, sinking down on to the bed with a dramatic sigh. “Hopelessly in love with Able.”