The Major's Guarded Heart. Isabelle Goddard
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appeared well, but I was with him little more than an hour.’
‘Then that is one more hour than I have known.’
He refilled her cup and wondered if he should say more, for her voice had become shadowed and her liveliness lost. At length he said, ‘When did you last see him?’
‘Some three years ago.’ She jumped up from her chair and wandered to the window. ‘You have a vast estate here.’
For some reason she no longer wished to talk of her father and he wondered what had happened three years ago. He found himself wanting to ask, wanting to know more of her, but good sense reasserted itself. He must keep the conversation to polite trivialities. ‘Yes, most of it is given over to sheep farming, though we have some pleasant acres of parkland and a thriving kitchen garden.’
‘Everyone farms sheep here.’
‘That’s because it is profitable, especially now that taxes have been reduced and we can export to France without a huge levy. The smugglers have gone out of business,’ he joked.
‘There are smugglers here?’ She had turned back from the window, her eyes wide and her voice humming with excitement. The girl’s vitality was entrancing, he thought, but she had a raw energy that could easily lead her into trouble. Another reason, if he needed one, to keep his distance.
‘The smugglers have long gone,’ he said firmly. ‘Once the taxes were rescinded, smuggling lost its profit and therefore its attraction.’
‘But it cannot only be wool that was smuggled.’
‘Spirits and tobacco, I imagine. Perhaps even tea. But the last gang of smugglers were hanged years ago and the preventives are now everywhere along the coast.’
‘The preventives?’
‘Excise men. So you see, you are unlikely to discover an adventure here.’
Her face had fallen and he had to stop himself smiling at her disappointment. ‘You must find life as a companion a trifle slow.’
‘Mrs Croft is very kind,’ she said quickly.
‘But still a lady in her eighties. Why did you take such a post?’ The more he spoke to her—indeed, the more he looked at her and felt her charm, the more odd it seemed.
Her response was tart. ‘Possibly because I don’t own an estate like Chelwood.’
He could have kicked himself. She had evidently to earn her own living—no doubt Ingram was in debt and unable to help. Most soldiers he knew were, for much of the army had not been paid for months.
‘I’m sorry,’ he began, wishing away his crass comments.
‘There is no need to apologise, Major Delacourt. I find military men in general are blinkered. They see only the narrow world that is theirs and nothing of the world outside which can be quite as difficult as any military campaign.’
‘I’m sure it can be.’ He could find nothing better to say, but to his own ears he sounded indifferent, even condescending.
When she spoke again, her tone was a little too bright. ‘I must leave you in peace. The rain has stopped at last and I should return to Brede House before it begins again. If you would ring for your housekeeper, I would be much obliged. By now my dress should be dry.’
‘Nonsense. I will make sure that your dress is returned clean as well as dry, but in the meantime I will drive you back to Rye. The gig is at the door and you can be home in minutes, rain or no rain.’
She looked as though she might refuse his offer but when she stood, it was evident that her ankle was paining her and she capitulated.
‘Thank you. That is most kind of you.’
* * *
Neither of them spoke as they drove the five miles back to Brede House, but he was acutely aware of her warm body sitting snug beside him and of the slightest trace of jasmine filling the air. He tried hard not to think about her, to abstract his mind from her proximity, but failed miserably. His sharpened senses relished her very nearness and he could only thank heaven that the journey was brief. There was no space in his life for a woman, for any woman. Women were the very devil—he should know that better than anyone—and could ruin the best of men’s lives. From a young age he had steered clear of entanglement despite others’ best efforts and he was not about to let a girl he had met by chance destroy his peace of mind. She was a mere acquaintance, not even that, an acquaintance of an acquaintance. But it seemed that she was refusing to play the part assigned to her—she had given him no clear answer as to why she was wandering in the grounds of Chelwood and he had the uncomfortable suspicion that she had come looking for him. If so, alarm bells should be ringing very loudly. Her physical attractions were manifold and they were dangerous, he was quite aware of that. If that was all...but he knew it was more than that—there was an ardent soul behind those deep-brown eyes and even in the small time he had been with her, he’d found himself tumbling towards its bright sun. That thought made him crack the whip and the startled horse immediately picked up its pace. He really must curb such fanciful inclinations, he reproved himself silently. Elizabeth Ingram was no more than a shadowy presence in his life and must remain so. She was far too lively and far too attractive and he had sufficient problems already.
Chapter Three
Lizzie bid a prim farewell to him at the entrance to Brede House. Crunching her way along the gravelled drive, she was careful to hold her head high and not look back at the carriage. He was just a little too alluring. What a pity that Piers Silchester did not exude the same attraction, for as Miss Bates was fond of pointing out, he was everything she should want: loyal, loving, stable. The trouble was that she didn’t want it, or at least not enough. Instead she seemed continually drawn to men who offered fleeting excitement rather than a secure future. Soldiers lived in an exclusive world—she knew that from bitter experience—and it was a world in which women had no part. Justin Delacourt was most definitely a soldier, a gentlemanly one, but nevertheless a soldier. He lacked understanding of the cramped life she was forced to lead, knowing nothing of the narrow horizons which bound her. It would be years before he settled to any kind of humdrum life and in the meantime female company signified for him a little pleasantry, a little dalliance only.
Why was a woman’s life so very difficult? A small sum of money was all it would take to give her independence, but even a little money was beyond her. Still a companion’s life, for all its limitations, had to be better than marriage. Being married was too dull for words and being married to Piers Silchester, gentle soul though he was, the dullest of the dull. That was the choice that Clementine Bates had offered and she couldn’t blame the woman—she knew herself to be a liability, a loose cannon prone to fire in any direction. It must have been a blessed day for Miss Bates when she learned from her blushing music teacher that he hoped one day to make Miss Ingram his wife.
Lizzie was old enough now, though, to know that she could not afford to lose her heart to an adventurer. One day she supposed she would have to marry, heart or no heart, and doubtless Piers would be the lucky husband. He was the most dependable man she knew and, most importantly, he was willing to adore her. He would make her his goddess. She tried to imagine Justin Delacourt worshipping at her altar and the thought made her chuckle.
She wondered if he even found her attractive. He had certainly stared long and hard when she’d entered the library wearing that dress, his ever-changing eyes shading from light to dark as his glance held. Goodness knew why, since the garment was the frumpiest thing imaginable. But he had stared nevertheless and not in a pleasant way. Mrs Reynolds had confided in the bedroom that the gown had belonged to the Major’s mother, someone she called Lady Delacourt. Her tightened lips suggested to Lizzie that there was something odd about the woman. Was she dead? If so, why hadn’t the housekeeper mentioned the fact, especially since Sir Lucien had only just died himself? And if she wasn’t dead, then where was she? The dress was old fashioned, it was true, but she saw immediately that its material was richly luxurious and