The Return of Lord Conistone. Lucy Ashford
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Verena had snapped, her patience worn to a thread.
Lady Frances had retreated upstairs with her smelling salts.
Verena made a point of not changing her drab gown, and of only carelessly pinning up her chestnut-coloured hair before facing the seemingly endless onslaught of strangers cascading through the house.
And she had thought she would be able to bear it. But suddenly the plaintive tune of ‘My Soldier Love’ drifted across the crowded hall, and the emotions she’d tried so very hard to suppress came sweeping back in a wave of blinding memory.
That was her music box.
She’d put it in the sale herself, but….
She remembered Lucas, riding along the track towards her that golden autumn nearly two years ago; his body toughened by war, but his expression softening in glad surprise when he saw her.
Herself, twenty years old, stumbling towards him, her heart racing, yet full of joy, blurting out, ‘Lucas. You’re safe. I was so afraid…’.
He’d laughed as he sprang down from his big grey mare. ‘I’m untouchable,’ he’d said. ‘The bullets just fly past me’.
She would not cry for him ever again. But that little silver music box was his last gift to her.
She started to plunge through the crowds to where a corn merchant and his wife were greedily pawing over its delicate casing.
Then she stopped; remembering what David had said. We have to sell as much as possible, before the bailiffs move in….
Best to let it go, along with her memories. She turned round slowly and walked out through the open French doors into the west-facing gardens, where the sun was sending rays of gold across the sea below the cliff tops, and the scent of roses wafted towards her on the warm evening breeze.
With its mellow brickwork clad in ivy and climbing roses, Wycherley Hall was one of the most picturesque dwellings between the South Downs and the Hampshire coast, and had belonged to the Sheldons for generations. But now, her family would have to leave, and go—where? What would they do? How would they live? There was no answer except the sad cries of the gulls high above.
Last winter there had been troops posted all along this part of the coast, because of rumours that the Emperor Napoleon was sending an invasion fleet across the Channel. Now the troops were gone. But just sometimes lately, when she was alone, she felt as if she was being watched, though she told herself it was nothing but the rustling of birds, or small animals in the nearby woods. She was growing fanciful in her despair.
The dark clouds were piling up to the south, and though the sun was going down, the air seemed hotter, more sultry than ever. Verena turned, heavy-hearted, to go back into the house.
Lucas had once told her that it was the happiest house he had ever known. ‘I’ll carry my memory of you and Wycherley wherever I go, Verena,’ he’d said to her quietly. ‘Whatever you hear, please trust in me’.
And she had. More fool her.
‘Verena!’ A man’s voice broke abruptly into her reverie. ‘What on earth’s going on here? All those people—taking your furniture, your things…’.
She swung round to see the scarlet-jacketed Captain Martin Bryant, twenty-six-year-old war hero, marching towards her from the stable courtyard where he’d just sprung off his horse. She drew a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid we are quite done up, as they say, Captain Bryant. This is just the start’.
Martin, with his pleasantly boyish features and brown curls, looked horrified. ‘But—you won’t have to leave the house?’
She nodded, feeling a sudden constriction in her throat.
‘My dear Miss Sheldon!’ His light blue eyes were ardent. ‘May I call you Verena? I am, first and foremost, a man devoted to my military duties—duties that have too often taken me away from here!’ He was stammering a little; his face had turned slightly pink. ‘Otherwise, I would have asked you before’.
Oh, Lord. What was he talking about? Verena’s heart was beginning to thump. ‘Captain Bryant, I really should be getting back inside’.
He grasped her hand and clung to it almost desperately. ‘Verena. I want to ask you—I must beg of you the honour—the precious gift—of your sweet and lovely hand in marriage!’
She snatched her hand away and stood, frozen with shock.
Once, almost two years ago, she had walked with Lucas through these gardens, as the shadows lengthened, and the harvest moon encrusted the old house with fairytale shards of silver. Once Lucas had cupped her face in his strong but tender hands and breathed, ‘Some day I’ll be home again, Verena. Home for good. Will you wait for me?’
There was no need even for him to ask, because she’d not been able to imagine life without him. Hadn’t wanted life without him. ‘For ever,’ she’d breathed, with the ardent belief of a twenty-year-old. ‘For ever, Lucas’.
‘Captain Bryant,’ she said steadily, though the ache at the back of her throat threatened to choke her, ‘I’m sorry, but I cannot marry you. It wouldn’t be fair to you, you see, because I do not love you!’
His expression was imploring. ‘But perhaps you can grow to love me, in time!’
Again, she hesitated. Everyone would tell her that life as Captain Bryant’s wife would surely be preferable to employment as a governess, trapped in a dreary half-world between family and servants. Indeed, that was a prospect that filled her with dread.
‘I’m not rich,’ Captain Bryant was going on, ‘but believe me, I will do anything, my dear Verena, to provide you with the life you deserve! Your family also!’ he added hastily.
That, at last, made Verena smile just a little, and eased the pain that was squeezing her wretched heart. ‘All my family?’ she teased gently. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, Captain Bryant. We are really quite a frightening prospect, I do assure you!’
‘I don’t care!’ he declared defiantly. ‘I don’t care!’
He lunged towards her. She desperately sprang away from his outstretched arms—and felt the shoulder of the gown her mother so despised being firmly hooked by the sturdy thorn of the clambering pink rose shrub that grew by the back wall. She pulled herself away violently; the serviceable fabric held, but she felt, then heard, some of the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons that fastened her bodice at the front snap off with an alarming ping, their threads weakened by age. Oh, no….
She flung her hands across her breasts, but too late; Martin was staring, transfixed.
Verena, as even her mother reluctantly acknowledged, was slender but full-bosomed. And her gaping and shabby gown could no longer conceal that underneath it she wore something that could not be more different—an exquisite cream-silk chemise, scalloped and embroidered at the edges, low enough to reveal the full curve of her breasts. It was her one piece of finery. The one relic of the beautiful garments she had started to acquire when her future was full of hope.
In utter mortification she tried to tug her gown back across her bosom, making use of the few buttons that remained. But that dratted rose briar had left a thorn in her sleeve, and it pricked her every time she moved. ‘Ouch! Botheration!’ she gasped. Her long chestnut hair was starting to fall from its pins.
Martin Bryant, still wide-eyed, jumped to the rescue. ‘Here! Let me help you!’
‘No!’ She almost smacked him away, like a troublesome fly. But he persevered, drawing close to tackle the offending thorn; and things took a turn for the worse, because her efforts to escape from Martin meant that the bodice of her gown slipped apart again, and now she heard the sound of male voices and hoofbeats drawing exceedingly close; and just as she was frantically struggling to push Martin off, two horsemen rode into the yard.
And