Chapter One

      1816

      “A legacy?”

      The faint frown which appeared between Leonora’s well-defined brows served only to emphasise her excellent complexion and its general freedom from lines. Her eyes, grey liberally flecked with blue and green within a dark outer rim, widened on the elderly solicitor, who had written for an appointment and undertaken the long and tiring journey from London to Buckinghamshire especially to see her.

      Mr Warwick wiped the lenses of his spectacles and put them back on his bulbous, large-pored nose, winding the wires of the frame about his ears.

      “Did you not expect it, Miss Vincent?” he asked, his watery blue eyes, set beneath white brows, surprised. “Mr Charles Vincent did not inform you of his intention to name you as his heir?”

      “No,” said Leonora. She made a quick gesture with her hands. “He was kind to me as a child, but I have not seen or heard from my great-uncle for many years. I had supposed that my uncle the Earl would have benefited upon Uncle Vincent’s death.”

      She sat on a sofa in the morning room of Thornestone Park, her feet together, her hands folded neatly on the dove-grey muslin of her gown. On no account must she show the excitement, the elation growing inside her. Her Uncle Vincent, the Honourable Charles Vincent, younger brother to her grandfather, who had been the Earl of Chelstoke, had not been rich, but as far as she knew he had not been stricken by poverty either.

      There should be something to come—unless, of course, he had died heavily in debt, like his nephew her father. That disaster had left the Honourable Peregrine Vincent’s wife and daughter homeless and penniless. His wife had not possessed the strength of character to survive and had speedily followed her husband to the grave.

      Leonora, on the threshold of life, made of sterner stuff and valuing above everything her independence, had come here, to Thornestone Park, as governess to Mr and Mrs Hubert Farling’s two daughters. She had not thought to be trapped for seven long years but now, suddenly, when she was almost at her last prayers and faced with the problem of finding another, most probably uncongenial, position, the prospect of freedom seemed something too precious to be hoped for.

      “As I understood my client’s mind, Miss Vincent,” went on the lawyer in his dry voice, “he remembered you with great affection. Knowing that you had not been offered a home with your uncle the Earl and had not yet found a husband to provide for you, he sought to ease your situation with this legacy.”

      “My uncle did offer me a home,” said Leonora honestly.

      “But you did not accept?”

      “No. I would rather earn my living as a governess than live as a poor relation at the beck and call of Lady Chelstoke and her brood.”

      A faint smile touched the whiskery lips of the lawyer. “I see. I believe my client understood something of the kind. He…er…he held Lady Chelstoke in some dislike.”

      “So.” Leonora drew a breath and grinned wryly. “I have become an heiress, but rather too late in life to hope my good fortune will lure a gentleman of consequence to offer for me.” Her neatly folded hands gripped each other as she sought to hide her overwhelming anxiety to know. “How much am I to inherit?”

      “My client left everything to you, Miss Vincent, apart from a small sum which is to go to his valet, a man who had been with him for many years.”

      Mr Warwick made a show of consulting a sheaf of papers on his knee. He was sitting on an upright chair opposite Leonora, with a table by his side. He cleared his throat and reached out for the glass of Madeira he had been offered on his arrival. Leonora quelled her growing impatience, making herself take inaudible but deep, calming breaths as she waited for him to continue.

      He took a sip of the wine and then, at last, went on. “There is a house in Bath, a substantial residence not far from the Abbey. You know Bath?”

      Leonora shook her head. He said, “I am informed that it is