The Marriage Rescue

He now bore a scar, exactly where she had staunched the bleeding gash on his cheek—a pale crescent that somehow only served to enhance the otherwise unblemished perfection of his features...features that looked as though they had been designed to be traced by female fingertips.

Selina’s own face felt uncomfortably warm as she sat motionless, horrified by the spontaneous reaction of her body. Each nerve tingled with the desire to take another peep at the man below, to make doubly sure her disbelieving eyes had been correct and he truly was the same person she had encountered all those years before—as well as to take another glimpse of the face that made her heart beat a frenzied tattoo against her ribs.

If it was him, could there be a slim chance her predicament might not be as dire as she had feared?

As a boy he had accepted her help and seemed grateful for it, she was forced to recall. There had been no sign of any upper-class prejudice then, only two children, both too young to fully grasp the social gulf that would divide them so completely as adults. Perhaps he might be as gracious now he was fully grown, and allow her to leave without too much trouble?

It was the most Selina could hope for, and she clung to that hope as she prayed for his disconcerting effect on her to wane.

* * *

Edward Fulbrooke frowned lightly as he craned his neck upwards. Where exactly was she? He’d known she was there the whole time. Poor Harris and Milton...it was the most obvious hiding place imaginable.

He’d arrived on the scene just after the two gamekeepers had thundered off, his own horse blowing powerfully from their afternoon ride. Milton’s wife, Ada, had been attempting to drag a wailing Ophelia towards the Hall, and Edward had dismounted swiftly to aid her.

‘Oh, Mr Fulbrooke. I’m that glad you’re here!’ Ada’s voice had been barely audible above Ophelia’s sobs, and Edward scooped the child up immediately in one strong arm.

‘Ophie. That’s enough. What’s the matter?’

The little girl quieted at once, though her eyes—the same hazel as Edward’s own—had glittered with unshed tears. ‘Ned, the lady was only trying to help, and now they’re going to hurt her!’

Ophelia had told him the full story. She’d been ‘exploring’ again, having escaped from the watchful gaze of her governess, and had walked so far she’d been unable to find her way back home. She had been about to give up all hope of ever seeing her mama again when a lady had appeared through the trees, dressed in strange clothes and singing a song Ophelia hadn’t understood.

When she had seen the child she’d stopped and looked almost frightened, but after Ophelia burst into tears and explained that she was lost and alone the lady had wrapped her up snug in a shawl and taken her towards a waiting horse—a huge grey stallion, with great scars marring his flanks—and said she would take Ophelia safely home.

‘But then Harris and Milton came, and they were so angry. Harris pulled me away and Milton tried to take hold of the lady. But she ran—and nobody would listen to me!’

Edward had set Ophelia back on her feet and leapt back into the saddle without a word. He hadn’t doubted for a moment that the child was telling the truth; there wasn’t a moment to lose.

He peered upwards yet again. Was that a scrap of fabric? It was hard to tell against the leafy backdrop.

‘What is it that concerns you? Are you afraid I’ll come chasing after you again?’

There was only silence from above, and Edward forced back a grin.

The pert creature. Sitting pretty as a picture up her tree, deciding whether the Squire’s own son is worth coming down for.

The smile faded and a small crease formed between his eyebrows. The late Squire’s son, now. He was still getting used to that, having returned from London only two days prior to find the Hall quieter than he had ever known it before.

‘I can’t deny I have some slight misgivings.’

The smoky voice was edged with an undercurrent of something Edward could not identify, and his frown deepened.

‘Well, what if I gave you my word as a gentleman that I won’t? Would you allow me the honour of an introduction then?’

Another silence stretched out, this time less amusing, and Edward raised an eyebrow. This was getting a little out of hand. He was well within his rights to order her down, trespassing as she was on his own land—or what would be his land once he took formal possession of his inheritance.

‘Miss, I would have you know my word is my law. I would think myself beyond contempt if, once given, I were to break it.’

There was a moment’s quiet. Then, ‘I suppose there’s no chance you’d leave and let me go about my business without an audience?’

‘None whatsoever, I’m afraid.’

‘Not very gentlemanly of you.’

‘Alas, I remain unmoved.’

There was another pause. Edward was certain he could hear the grinding of teeth and allowed himself a small smile at her reluctance. She really was an unusual woman.

The branches above his head swayed suddenly, and then with a shower of falling leaves the woman dropped to the ground in front of him.

Edward felt his eyes widen in surprise. She was younger than he had expected: her tawny face, flecked with mud and with a long scratch across one cheek, belonged to a woman no older than twenty. Perhaps it had been the modest clothing that had confused him—she was certainly dressed like no fashionable young lady he had ever met. Her bright skirt was paired with a loose-fitting blouse, half hidden beneath a number of colourful tasselled shawls, and raven hair hung in thick waves about her shoulders.

Her effect on him was both immediate and startling. A distant part of his mind knew it was rude to stare, but for some reason he didn’t seem able to tear his gaze away as he took in the vibrancy of the scarlet wool against the deep black of her curls, the delicacy of the bone structure beneath the dirt on her face and even the oddly intriguing lack of a wedding ring on the hand that clutched her shawls to her chest.

There was something about her that seemed to call to him, to make him want to drink her in, and he felt a sharp pang of surprise at the very thought. There she stood, a complete stranger and an intruder on his land. He ought to be unmoved by their chance encounter and yet there he stood, a full-grown man, apparently struck dumb by the power of a lovely countenance. For lovely it most certainly was.

Where had he ever seen its equal?

It was the strangest sensation—almost as though he had surrendered control of his senses for the briefest of moments before coming back down to earth with a bump. So she was handsome—what was that to him? He was only human, and now his rational mind must take charge again. Her beauty counted for nothing—just the same as any other woman’s. He would not be making that mistake again.

She stood watching him with eyes as mistrustful as a feral cat’s. There was a feline grace to her posture, too, in the way she held herself, ready to run at the slightest provocation, and it highlighted the contrast between her lithe elegance and his broad stature. Although he easily topped her by a good head and a half, the tense wariness of her frame radiated an untouchability that would have stopped most men in their tracks.

Thrusting his moment of madness firmly to the back of his mind, Edward offered a short bow. ‘Thank you for indulging me.’

The woman inclined her head slightly but said nothing.

This might be a little more difficult than I thought, Edward mused. He wanted to thank her for trying to help Ophelia, but apparently conversing with her was destined to be like drawing blood from a stone.

She couldn’t know who he was, he was sure. If she did she would be far more interested in conversation. The young women of his acquaintance always seemed to open up at the first hint of his name and prospects.

Not that it was necessarily a good thing. Edward had lost count of the number of ladies who had breezed up to him at balls and revels, affecting shyness, confiding that they had a dance reserved for him in the event that he might be ‘inclined to take a turn’. Bitter experience had taught him not to be tempted.

‘My name is Edward Fulbrooke,’ Edward continued. ‘I’m the son of the late Squire of Blackwell Hall, and this is my family estate.’ He watched as something sparked in the woman’s eyes—something akin to fear. ‘Might I have the pleasure of knowing your name?’

He saw her throat move as she swallowed, his gaze drawn there by some impulse he couldn’t control. The look in her eyes had been fleeting, but there had definitely been a reaction. Was it something I said? Far from impressing her, the revelation of his name had seemed to unnerve her even more. Why was that?

‘Selina. Selina Agres.’

‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Agres.’

The woman nodded again. An odd expression flickered across her face, mingling with the ever-present wariness; it was half watchful, half curious. She seemed on the brink of saying something before evidently thinking better of it, instead folding her full lips into a tight line.

‘I’m afraid I might have frightened you earlier.’ Edward spoke quietly, his voice uncharacteristically gentle; the last thing he wanted was for her to bolt before he’d had a chance to explain. That was the least he could do, given the circumstances. ‘Please allow me to apologise for the misunderstanding.’

‘Misunderstanding?’ Selina’s eyebrows almost disappeared into her hair. ‘You and your men wanted nothing more than to hunt me down like a fox running from hounds!’

Edward frowned. ‘That’s not quite right. Ophelia told me what happened, and what your motives were. I went after Harris and Milton to—’ He broke off. To stop them from lynching you, he concluded internally. Not a fit topic of conversation for a lady, traditional or not. ‘They’re very fond of her, and I was uneasy that in their concern for her safety they might get carried away. It was my intention to defend you, if necessary.’

Edward watched a spark of surprise kindle in Selina’s eyes and felt another jolt of that unwelcome electricity as he saw how it enhanced their beguiling darkness. Their rich ebony was a colour rarely seen, and so entirely different from the china-blue set he had once thought the finest in the county.

Even if Harris and Milton hadn’t told him Edward would have known at once that she was Romani. The realisation was oddly pleasing. Surely her presence indicated an encampment nearby? A fact that flew directly in the face of his late father’s orders?

Passing groups of Roma had been a familiar sight to him on this land years ago, and Edward was momentarily lost in fond memories of brightly painted caravans pulled by gleaming horses, and the dark-haired boys his own age who had invited him, a shy, affection-starved child, to join their games. Although each group had rarely stayed for very long before moving on, Edward could still recall the brief happiness he had felt at their acceptance of him, all of them too young to have yet developed the prejudices of their parents.

His own father had disapproved enormously when Edward had told him of his newfound friends—but then, as usual, Ambrose’s attention had been caught by something far more interesting than his lonely young son, and it had been an older Roma boy who had taught Edward to fish, and how to play cards, and any number of other things his father should have taken the time to share with his child so desperate for some tenderness.

A vivid pang of nostalgia hit him like a sudden blow as he remembered the friend he had made the last year the Roma had crossed Fulbrooke land—a little girl, younger than himself, who had cared for him after his fight with the neighbouring family’s two sons. Edward felt a dull ache spread through his chest as he recalled how the pain of his cheek had been nothing compared to the crushing realisation that the other boys had been right: his mother was not going to return, and perhaps the unkind things they had said about her were more accurate than he’d wanted to accept.

Still, he’d given as good as he’d got. One cut cheek had been a fair price to pay for doling out a black eye and a broken tooth, and Edward almost smiled at the memory of his young nurse. She’d shown him more kindness in their short encounter than he had experienced in months, and again shown him the warmth of the Romani, almost unheard of among the upper classes.

There had been some unpleasantness soon after that incident, he recalled—some trouble with Uncle Charles and a Roma woman—and his father’s reluctant permission for the travellers to cross his land had been swiftly revoked. If they had returned it meant Ambrose’s grip on the estate was loosening, and Edward could truly step into his place.

He realised he was staring again. Selina returned his gaze uncertainly, a trace of a blush crossing her cheeks under his scrutiny, and Edward looked away swiftly, cursing his apparent lack of self-control.

‘My sister has a bad habit of escaping. If you hadn’t found her who knows what would have happened?’

Ophelia was the precocious daughter of Maria, the Squire’s second, much younger wife. Little Ophelia had breathed new life into the ancient house and, at just seven years old to Edward’s twenty-four, she held the key to her half-brother’s heart in one tiny hand. She’d been quick enough to take advantage of her mother’s absence from the Hall, visiting friends in Edinburgh, and go tramping about the estate on one of her ‘expeditions’.

‘It was never my intention to frighten you. Please forgive me if that was the case and accept my heartfelt thanks for your service to my sister.’

Selina shrugged—a fleeting movement of one slight shoulder. ‘It was what anybody would have done under the circumstances.’

Edward nodded as though she had said something more gracious. She really did have the most disarming manner, he thought. Not at all polished, or even very polite, but there was honesty in her words, a lack of affectation that was oddly refreshing.

He shouldn’t admire it; indeed, his interest in her was unnerving. Get a hold of yourself, man, he chastised himself uncomfortably. You’re not some green lad, swooning over a milkmaid.

‘Well. Thank you all the same.’ After a moment’s pause Edward delved into his waistcoat pocket, wrestling with something contained within.

Selina flinched backwards at the movement, glancing this way and that; she seemed on the point of darting away through the trees—

‘No! Wait.’ Edward held up both hands. Bunched in his right was a snowy handkerchief, which he held out to Selina as gingerly as he might on approaching a wild bird.

‘You have some mud on your face, and a scratch—it’s been bleeding.’ He smiled wryly, one hand moving to the moon-shaped scar below his right eye. ‘I know from experience that it’s best to treat such a wound as soon as possible.’

Selina stiffened, and Edward saw another complex look dart across her countenance before she regained her composure.

‘Oh. Thank you.’

She tentatively took the handkerchief from Edward’s outstretched hand, her eyes never leaving his face. He watched as she dabbed at her cheek and cleared the dirt from her skin.

She may well be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

For all the scratches that marred her face, she was strikingly lovely in a way totally apart from the celebrated society belles of his circle. The notion was unsettling: hadn’t he long thought himself immune to the charms of women? The fact that in that moment, with the trees whispering around him and leaves strewn at his feet, he found himself as vulnerable as any other man was alarming in the extreme.

He would disregard it. She confused him, straying dangerously close to stirring something deep within him that he wanted left undisturbed, and that he couldn’t allow.

When she tried to return the handkerchief, he backed away with a shake of his head. ‘You keep it. Call it a memento.’

‘I’m not sure how much of today I’m like to want to remember.’

Edward bowed. ‘I understand. Whatever else you might feel, I hope you won’t forget that you have a friend in me. If I’m ever able to repay your kindness I shall endeavour to do so. I pay my debts.’

Selina’s answering smile was strange and still mistrustful, as though she knew a secret she didn’t intend to share. She was moving away from him, backing out of his reach in the direction of the place where Edward had seen her horse waiting for her. He watched her go, wishing the graceful movement of her stride wasn’t so damnably intriguing.

‘If that’s the case, you owe me twice over.’

‘Twice?’

She was almost out of sight. Edward frowned as she turned away from him, confusion clouding into his mind. Twice? How was that?

‘Once for today. Once for before.’

She threw the words over her shoulder and with a whisk of her crimson skirt disappeared between the trees.

Chapter Two

Selina gazed up at the ceiling of the darkened caravan, arching in a perfect curve above her head. Orange embers glowed in the grate of the compact stove set against one wall, dimly illuminating the gilt-painted woodwork of the shelves and bunks to gleam like real gold. A sliver of moonlight fell from one not quite shuttered window, slicing down to leave a pale splash on the polished floor.

Like all Roma women, Selina kept her vardo spotlessly clean, and even Papa, when he came to call for a cup of tea, knew to wipe his boots before he was allowed to cross the threshold.

A sideways glance across the narrow cabin showed her grandmother was asleep, the mound of colourful crochet blankets she slept under rising and falling with each breath. In the eerie stillness of the night even that small movement was a comfort.

Selina sighed. It’s no use.

Sleep evaded her, just as it had on the previous three nights. Each time she closed her eyes pictures rose up to chase each other through her mind: Edward as a young lad, on the day she had first encountered him all those years ago, attempting to smile through gritted teeth as she cleaned his wounded face, and then his adult counterpart, the blond curls just as vivid but his shoulders so impressively broad beneath his fine coat that Selina felt her heart beat a little faster at the memory.

Would that distinctive hair have been soft beneath her fingertips, she wondered, if she’d leaned down from her tree to touch?

The very notion made her breath hitch in her throat before she slammed the brakes on that train of thought, horrified by its wayward direction.

You can stop that this moment, Selina. What’s the matter with you?

At least the mystery of who he was and why she had encountered him there had been solved. Edward Fulbrooke. Ambrose’s son and Charles’ nephew. Perhaps she should have suspected, she mused as the image of his face drifted unstoppably across her mind’s eye once again, wearing the same dazzling smile he had flashed her mere days previously. But Edward’s father and uncle shared the same chestnut hair and ruddy complexion, quite unlike his cool fairness. There was no physical resemblance. And as for character...

Certainly as a boy he had been agreeable, she recalled as she lay in the darkness. He’d looked surprised to see her there in the woods, hunting for wild mushrooms, and she herself had felt nothing but sympathy for him at the state of his bloodied cheek. In those days she’d had no real reason to fear the gentry; Mama had still been alive, and in her childish innocence it had felt the most natural thing in the world to go to him, to help tend to his wound and to feel a slow creep of pleasure at having made a new friend who delighted her with his strange old-fashioned manners.

But then they had killed Mama. The Roma had left the Fulbrooke estate, never intending to return—and Selina’s hatred of the gentry had been burned into her heart like a brand.

It was just as well he didn’t remember me. He might have wanted to talk, otherwise, and that would never have done.

Selina shifted beneath her bedclothes, attempting to make her body more comfortable than her mind. The fact Edward had been just as courteous as a grown man as he had been as a lad was as surprising as her apparently instinctive attraction to him—and almost as confusing. The upper classes were renowned among her people for their contempt of the Romani, fostering the animosity that raged on both sides.

Had her care of Edward as a child opened his mind to the possibility the Roma were more civilised than he would otherwise have believed? she wondered. Or perhaps she was giving herself too much credit, Selina thought wryly. Certainly she was giving him too much space in her head.

The fact that she had slipped Edward’s handkerchief beneath her pillow meant nothing. There just wasn’t anywhere else to keep it. Zillah, with her hawk-like eyes, would spy it at once if she left it on her shelf, and carrying it upon her person seemed unduly intimate. Perhaps she should just get rid of it, wad it into the stove, but the thought made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t quite identify.

Beneath her pillow it would have to stay, incriminating embroidered initials and all, and Selina could only pray nobody would find it.

‘You’re still awake, child.’

Selina jumped, and sat up so quickly she almost hit her head on the low shelf above her bunk. ‘I thought you were sleeping, Grandmother.’

‘So I was—until you decided the early hours would be a good time to begin talking to yourself. A sign of madness, as well you know.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t realise I’d spoken aloud.’

‘You didn’t.’ Zillah rose up in her bunk, arthritic bones creaking. ‘You’ve been tossing and turning all night; any fool could tell you have something on your mind. I’d wager it’s the reason why you rode back into camp three days ago as if the devil himself was after you.’

‘It’s nothing, Grandmother. Go back to sleep.’

‘I will not. Make a cup of tea, girl, and tell me what ails you.’

Selina groaned inwardly. There really was no stopping Zillah once she got the bit between her teeth. A lifetime on the road—a hard path for any woman—had instilled in her an almost legendary resolve. There was no room for weakness in a vardo. At past eighty years old, with silver hair and a face lined with the countless creases of age, Zillah had a mind that was still sharp as a knife, and she was revered among the Roma for her experience and wisdom.

Of course she’d noticed Selina’s absence from camp, and how distracted she had been for the past few days—how could Selina have expected anything less?

She swung her legs down from her bunk and shuffled, still cocooned in blankets, the few steps towards the stove. She could have made a fire in her sleep by now, she was sure, and it wasn’t long before their copper kettle was whistling shrilly. Two doses of strong, sweet tea were poured into china cups, and she conveyed them back to where her grandmother sat, swathed in a thick woollen shawl and regarding her expectantly.

‘Well?’

‘Well, what, Grandmother?’ Selina hopped up into her bunk, cup clutched to her chest.

‘I would like to know what it is that bothers you. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.’

‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’ Selina glanced at Zillah from beneath her lashes. Even in the darkness she could see her grandmother’s eyes were fixed on her, gleaming bright as a pair of new pins. ‘There isn’t anything I can think of.’

Edward’s face rose up before her mind’s eye before she could stop it, his hazel gaze locked onto hers, and she frowned down into her teacup. How was it that the only man ever to make her blush was a gentleman, and a Fulbrooke at that? She had every reason to loathe his family, and yet the pull of Edward’s powerful appeal was impossible for her to ignore.