The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle. Elizabeth Beacon
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and his personal property. Didn’t my brother inform you of the terms of his will when he sold you Hollowhurst?’
‘He said there was a fine line to tread between his great-uncle’s personal property and the goods and chattels that came with the castle. One you must have expected to walk if he brought a bride home.’
‘I might feel more generous towards my brother,’ she snapped, because she saw pity in his blue eyes and she’d prefer anything to that, even a cold fury she sensed would freeze her to the marrow if he ever unleashed it.
‘Yet I’ve no intention of arguing about a few court cupboards and worm-eaten refectory tables, Miss Courland, so pray take what you like,’ he countered coolly.
‘And I won’t ransack the place in search of my inheritance, Sir Charles. My house is already furnished and all I require will fit on the farm dray when it returns. You’ll find your bookshelves a little empty and one or two walls bare, but I’m no magpie to be going about the place gathering everything I can.’
‘I suspect you’d rather leave much of what’s yours behind out of sheer pride, lest you be thought grasping. I give you fair warning I’ll send it after you if you’re foolish enough to do that.’
‘Then I’ll send it back. I already told you I’ve no room.’
‘Perhaps we should place the excess in a field halfway between our houses and fight a duel for it one morning?’ he said as if their argument was mildly amusing, but in danger of becoming tedious.
Well, it didn’t amuse her; she set her teeth and wondered why she’d got into this unproductive dispute in the first place. Of course she’d intended to be gone before he arrived, but he’d outmanoeuvred her and she suddenly knew how all those French captains felt when the famous, or infamous, Condottiere’s sails appeared on the horizon.
‘Do you intend to fill the castle with daybeds in the Egyptian style and chairs and tables with alligator feet, then?’ she asked sweetly.
‘No,’ he replied shortly. ‘I prefer comfort to fashion.’
‘Then you’ll just have to accept that most of the furniture was built to fit a castle and would look ridiculous in a house less than fifty years old.’
‘And you’ll have to accept I’m here to stay and have no intention of being cut by half the neighbourhood for throwing you out of your home at half a day’s notice with little more than your clothes and a few trifles.’
‘Even if you have,’ she replied with glee, feeling almost happy she was leaving for the first time since he announced his purchase last night.
‘Not a bit of it; I’ve just told your local vicar that I’m away to stay with my family for at least a sennight in order to give you time to find a suitable chaperone and remove from the Castle. He and his wife thought it a noble act of consideration on my part.’
‘But they occupy a living bestowed at your discretion, do they not? And know you not at all, Sir Charles.’
‘Only by repute,’ he said with a significant look she interpreted as a reproach to her for judging him on that basis herself. He’d no idea how bitterly he’d disappointed her young girl’s dreams in making that rakehell reputation, and it was up to her to make sure he never found out.
‘Then I’m sure you have nothing to worry about,’ she said stiffly. ‘A returning hero takes precedence over a wronged woman any day of the week. Witness Odysseus’s triumphant return from ten years of chasing about the Aegean after assorted goddesses and nymphs, in contrast to poor Penelope’s slaughtered maids and all that interminable weaving she had to do as well as fighting off her importunate suitors.’
‘Oh, I hardly think you fall into that category, Miss Courland. Indeed, I doubt any man would be brave enough to try to make you do anything you didn’t wish to. Anyway, I can hardly throw you out into the snow with nothing but the clothes on your back when you’re known to be a considerable heiress, and one who’s very fastidious indeed about her suitors.’
She hadn’t thought local society took much notice of her or her potential marriage, except to criticise her for acting as her uncle’s steward and refusing to employ a duenna to look down her nose at such a poor example of a lady. She had much to learn about her new occupation of doing very little in a suitably ladylike fashion.
‘You’ll be much sought after now that you’re free to be entertained by your neighbours,’ he went on as if attempting to reassure her. Roxanne could tell from the glint in his apparently guileless blue eyes that he was secretly enjoying the notion of her struggling to adapt to her new role, and tried not to give him the satisfaction of glowering furiously back. ‘You’ll have time on your hands enough to visit all of them now, Miss Courland,’ he went on smoothly, as if he was trying to be gallant and not utterly infuriating, ‘and they certainly wish to visit you if the vicar, his wife and their promising son just down from Oxford are anything to do by.’
‘I’m glad my uncle taught me to discern a false friend from a true one then,’ she replied stalwartly, trying not to let a shiver of apprehension slide down her spine at the very thought of such an existence. ‘I’ve no desire whatsoever to be wed for my money.’
‘Nor I—perhaps we should wed one another to avert such a travesty,’ he joked, and she felt a dart of the old pain, more intense if anything, and cursed that old infatuation for haunting her still.
‘Since that’s about as likely as black becoming white, I suggest you look elsewhere for a bride, Sir Charles,’ she said scornfully.
‘I’ll settle into my new life before looking about me for a lady brave enough to take me on,’ he parried lightly.
Roxanne tried not to be disappointed as he reverted to type and took on the shallow social manners common among the haut ton, at least if her memory of her one uncomfortable Season was anything to go by. She’d felt out of place and bored for most of her three months in the capital, and as glad to come home again as Uncle Granger was to see her. Her sister Maria had delighted in that milieu and had worked her way up the social ladder from noble young matron to society hostess, but Roxanne hadn’t felt the slightest urge to join her, let alone rival her in any way.
‘Indeed?’ she replied repressively.
‘I’ll need to feel my way among local society after usurping a long-established family,’ he replied with apparent sincerity, then looked spuriously anxious as he watched her struggle to remain distantly polite. ‘But first I insist you find a congenial companion, Miss Courland. No lady of your years and birth can live alone without being taken advantage of or bringing scandal on herself and her family. If you don’t look about you for a chaperone, I’ll do it for you. The local matrons will consider a respectable duenna essential now I’ve come amongst you, and no lone damsel can be considered beyond my villainy, and I’ve my own reputation to think about, after all.’
‘You don’t have one, at least not one any lady dares discuss and be received in polite society. As for employing a duenna for me, I have already told you it would be highly improper. I’d be ostracised if I took one of your choosing,’ she said haughtily, her gaze clashing with his.
‘I promised your brother I’d look after you in his stead,’ he told her with a glint in his eyes that looked very unbrotherly indeed.
‘Exactly how old do you think I am, sir?’ she asked defensively.
‘Hardly out of the schoolroom,’ he replied, with a wolfish smile that gave his words the lie.
‘I’m four and twenty and on the shelf. I dare say I could take up residence at Mulberry House without any chaperone but my maid and nobody would raise an eyebrow except you.’
‘There you’re very much mistaken, my dear, but if you choose not to be visited or invited out, I dare say you’ll grow used to the life of a recluse,’ he replied ruthlessly, but at least she’d wiped that annoying, indulgent-of-female-folly grin