Cinderella And The Duke

Mrs Pryce. Presumably there must be a Mr Pryce somewhere. He should put her from his mind, then.

And yet...there had been a definite spark when their eyes had locked, as when a hammer struck stone. He huffed a near-silent laugh—an apt metaphor, perhaps: the clash of a mighty force against an unyielding substance. She had certainly exhibited a steely resistance to Lascelles. The thought of his cousin triggered the sudden awareness that he was sitting on his horse in the middle of a country lane, staring after a stranger. He squeezed Conqueror into motion.

And there was Vernon, waiting for him, a wide smile on his face.

‘Whatever you’re about to say...don’t.’

‘Me?’ Lord Vernon Beauchamp—Leo’s brother and his junior by four years—feigned a look of innocence. ‘I am only concerned you may not find your way back to Halsdon without my guidance.’

‘I’m not in my dotage yet,’ Leo growled. It was something of a sore point, as he had recently passed his fortieth birthday. ‘My homing instinct is as keen as it ever was.’

Vernon glanced over his shoulder, then quirked a brow at Leo. ‘I can see that.’

Leo narrowed his eyes at his brother. ‘She’s married.’

Having been in the position of cuckolded husband himself, Leo was not about to inflict that indignity on any other man.

‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘we are only here another ten days. If I stay that long.’

‘Still fretting about Olivia?’

‘I do not fret.’

He was a duke: head of a large extended family, wealthy, powerful. Nothing could threaten him.

‘Cecily is wise to Olivia’s wiles and tricks,’ Vernon went on, in complete disregard of Leo’s obvious wish to be done with the topic. ‘Lord, that girl is a minx, Leo.’

Leo knew it. His only daughter and youngest child, eighteen-year-old Olivia was on the brink of her introduction to polite society. Her upbringing alongside her older brothers had instilled in her a deeply felt sense of injustice at the unfairness that allowed them so much more freedom than she could now enjoy. Leo had left her in London in the care of his sister, Cecily, who had raised Leo’s children after their mother was murdered.

‘I said I do not—’

‘And Beauchamp House is more secure than the Tower of London,’ Vernon went on, seemingly oblivious to Leo’s growing irritation. ‘They will be safe without you for a couple of weeks.’

Leo curbed his exasperation. Families! They saw too much and they understood too much. He might have no need to fret, but that did not stop him worrying about his children, and Vernon knew it. ‘And Alex?’ he said. ‘Who will keep a tight rein on him?’

The younger of his two sons, Alexander was twenty, and growing more sullen and secretive by the day.

‘Avon will keep him out of trouble...at least he gives you no cause for concern.’

Dominic, Marquess of Avon, was Leo’s eldest son and the heir to the dukedom, who indeed gave Leo little cause for concern. In fact, he was almost too serious for such a young man. Leo’s heart clenched. Was it because his children had lost their mother so early in life that he worried so about them? An unusual feeling stirred, deep in his gut.

Fear. No, not fear. Vulnerability. That was it. He didn’t like the feeling. Not one bit. How he wished he could keep them all—particularly Olivia—shut away safely at Cheriton Abbey for the rest of their lives, even though the Abbey hadn’t proved a place of safety for Margaret, who had been violated and strangled in a summerhouse. The impossibility of completely controlling his family’s surroundings was a constant worry. Leaving London to come to Halsdon Manor—against his natural instincts to stay put and to protect—was how he proved to himself he would not succumb to this irrational fear.

Uncomfortable with such feelings and thoughts, he thrust them aside.

‘Come, let us catch up with the others,’ he said and nudged Conqueror into a trot.

They soon caught up with Richard, Lord Stanton, walking his horse on a loose rein, a preoccupied look on his face. A look, Leo guessed, that had everything to do with his new wife, Felicity—Leo’s cousin and former ward.

‘Where’s our esteemed host?’ Vernon asked.

‘Rode on ahead,’ Stanton said, with a curl of his lip. ‘That poor animal of his won’t last another year if he carries on riding him so hard. He can’t even be bothered to walk him home to cool him off gradually. Mind you...’ he slanted a look at Leo ‘...it’ll give him a chance to get that temper of his under control before you two meet again.’

Leo shrugged. ‘Anthony always had a nasty streak and it seems he hasn’t improved since he’s been away, not if that little interlude is anything to go by.’ His cousin had spent several years in the Americas, returning to England only a few months previously. ‘I suspected this trip was a bad idea, but I thought I owed him the benefit of the doubt when he invited me.’

Plus—although he would not admit it to the other men—he was a little relieved to leave London behind for a while. He could not bear yet another simpering young miss being thrust in front of his nose by ambitious parents keen to ally themselves with the house of Beauchamp. He did not want, or need, another wife. His first marriage had cured him of any desire to wed again.

‘You owe him nothing, Leo,’ Vernon said. ‘It’s hardly your fault Uncle Claude refused to marry his mother.’

‘But if he had married her, Lascelles would be the Duke now.’

‘He was right not to marry her,’ Stanton said. ‘An actress and a whore for a duchess? And can you imagine a man like Lascelles with that amount of power and wealth?’ He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking of.’

‘We can always go home earlier than planned if Anthony becomes too obnoxious,’ Vernon said. ‘There’ll be nothing else to keep us here once Stan’s had a look at those ponies for Felicity.’

Leo grunted in agreement as they rode through the gates of Halsdon Manor.

Stanton had been searching for a pair of ponies suitable for Felicity to drive and Lascelles knew of a suitable pair for sale by his neighbour, Sir William Rockbeare, a renowned horse breeder and trainer, prompting Stanton to join the hunting party. Unfortunately, on their arrival two days before, they had learned Sir William was away from home and not expected to return for almost a week.

Nothing else to keep us here...

The memory surfaced of the woman, stick in hand, facing up to Lascelles. Leo found himself hoping that there was indeed a Mr Pryce. There was no sense in getting entangled in anything unnecessarily. No sense at all.

* * *

‘You were gone a long time, Ros. Did Hector run you ragged?’

Rosalind hooked her shawl over a peg by the back door and smiled at Freddie, who was scratching Hector’s shaggy ears.

‘He tried to,’ she said. ‘Then, on the way back, the sheep were out in the lane again and it took an age to put them back into the field.’

She thrust the encounter with the gentlemen from Halsdon Manor to the back of her mind, determined not to trouble Freddie with what had happened. It would only worry him to no purpose, for there was nothing he could do. Hopefully Lascelles would remain occupied with his guests and then the Season would start, the hunting party would return to London to continue their lives of idle pleasure and Lascelles would forget all about their meeting.

‘I hope Sir William appreciates you keeping his sheep safe.’ Freddie lurched awkwardly down the passage, leaning heavily on his crutch, and disappeared through the door leading to the main rooms of their temporary home.

Rosalind followed her younger brother to the front parlour, where a welcoming fire flickered, lending a homely charm to the shabby room. It could not match Lydney Hall for comfort and space, but at least it was somewhere to call home.

‘It’s the least I can do when he refuses to accept any rent for this place,’ she said. ‘I do not know what we would have done had he not offered us sanctuary.’

Sir William Rockbeare was an old friend of their late stepfather—the Earl of Lydney—and it was to him they appealed for help when forced to flee Lydney Hall two weeks before, together with their stepsister, Nell, Lady Helena Caldicot. Thankfully their young stepbrother, Jack, the new Lord Lydney, was safely at school. Rosalind was still petrified Sir Peter would discover Nell’s whereabouts before she made her come-out.

Would he...could he...force Nell to marry that awful toad, Viscount Bulbridge, to whom—Freddie had discovered—Sir Peter was deep in debt? When Sir Peter had bartered Nell’s dowry against those debts without a care for the future happiness of his niece, Rosalind had seen no other option but to remove her from his control immediately. She had written to Step-Papa’s eldest sister, Lady Glenlochrie, to beg her to come down from her home in Scotland to take Nell under her protection and present her to society. And now Nell was safely in London and Rosalind and Freddie were here—for the time being at least. What a messy situation it was to be in...and how precarious.

Freddie had turned at her words, and, as he did so, he stumbled. Rosalind darted forward and clutched his arm to prevent him falling.

He shook her away. ‘I can manage.’

Rosalind bit her lip. Would she never learn? But she could not help herself: with Freddie, her instinct always was to help and to protect, as she had done his entire life. ‘I am sorry.’

As usual, when his lameness was mentioned, even obliquely, Freddie ignored it. He returned to their previous conversation as he lowered himself on to a chair.

‘We would have coped. Jack is safe at school and we could have continued straight to Lady Glenlochrie in Scotland, if necessary. Sir Peter will not dare to flout her: she might be widowed, but she still has influence. And as for you and me, my dear Ros...as usual, we are of no interest to anyone. That is one benefit of being the product of such a shocking mésalliance,’ he added, with a wry smile.

After Papa and Mama had eloped, Mama’s father—Lord Humphrey Hillyer, youngest son of the Duke of Bacton—had disowned her, refusing to relent even after Papa was killed in the same carriage accident that had maimed one-year-old Freddie for life. Rosalind’s hand crept to her locket, her throat aching with the memory.

‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘The only benefit, as far as I can see.’

Freddie shot her a sharp look and she cursed her loose tongue. Five years older than her brother, Rosalind had always shielded Freddie from the truth of their parents’ marriage, with its vicious quarrels and their mother’s frequent tears. The last memory Rosalind had of their mother and father together had been of their bitter argument as they travelled home from a visit to Grandpa, a visit her mother had hated.

Her sixth birthday. The day her darling papa was killed.

Her mother had bloomed after Papa’s death. Confused and distraught, Rosalind had mourned alone. She had lost Grandpa, too, that day. She had no idea if he was even alive still...no idea how or where she might find him. Mama had made certain of that.

‘Are you envious that Nell will have the opportunity denied to you?’ Freddie watched her intently.

‘No, I am not, if by opportunity you mean marriage to a gentleman of the ton.’ She could think of nothing more likely to bring her misery. ‘Besides, the opportunity was not denied me, Freddie. Step-Papa offered me a Season when I was nineteen, with the idea of finding a husband, but I declined. And I am happy I did so.’

Or I might have ended up with an unequal union such as Mama and Papa’s.

Love had not been enough for her mother. Papa had tried to keep her content and happy, but Mama had hankered after luxuries poor Papa could not afford. Mama’s second marriage, to the Earl of Lydney, had been much happier than her first and that, to Rosalind’s mind, proved that no good comes of marrying outside one’s own class.

The late Lord Lydney had been a generous and loving stepfather and, when Mama died of influenza, he had continued to support Rosalind and Freddie as if they were his own children, even though their maternal relatives continued to disown them. When his second wife had died after giving birth to Jack, Rosalind, then sixteen, became a replacement mother to Freddie, eleven, Nell, four, and baby Jack and, three years later, when presented with the chance of a Season in London in order to find a husband, she had opted to stay at home with her family. She had never regretted her choice. The thought of facing her maternal relatives and their censorious friends, with their contempt and their snubs, filled her with dread even now.

The poor relations. The nobodies. The spinster and the cripple.

No, she held no envy in her heart for Nell and her forthcoming debut into polite society.

‘Well, with any luck,’ Freddie said, ‘Nell will find herself a husband during the Season and he will keep her safe.’

‘I do hope so.’ Rosalind sank on to the sofa with a sigh. ‘I cannot be easy that we have left Sir Peter in sole occupation of Lydney, Freddie. Heaven knows what havoc he will wreak. If only Step-Papa had realised the danger of him being appointed guardian, I am sure he would have altered his will as soon as his brother died.’

Her fingers were twisting together in her lap and she forced her hands to lie still. The weight of responsibility lay heavy upon her. Her stepfather would expect her to protect Jack’s inheritance, but although she and Freddie had both tried to stand up to Sir Peter, in the end they’d had to admit defeat.

‘We couldn’t have stayed there, Ros,’ Freddie said. ‘We were right to leave. If we had not, poor Nell would be married off to Bulbridge by now. But I agree. If Tadlow is left on a free rein, Jack won’t have much of an estate to take over when he reaches his majority.’

Rosalind silently cursed their lack of power. ‘Maybe I should ask Sir William’s advice on it all?’

She had been reluctant to burden their benefactor with more of their troubles. They did not know him well, though he had been a lifelong friend of the late Earl.

‘I will consult him as soon as he returns from his visit to his daughter,’ Freddie said.

Sir William had left Foxbourne the day after their arrival, on a long-planned visit to his widowed daughter and his grandchildren, who lived in the north.

Freddie’s quiet statement penetrated Rosalind’s thoughts. ‘You need not bother yourself, Freddie. I will deal with it.’

Freddie had his sketching, his insatiable appetite for books and his interest in politics to occupy him. She did not want him troubled. He had enough to contend with and the mockery he’d endured from Sir Peter and his friends had only increased Rosalind’s determination to protect him from the harshness of life.

She stood up. ‘I will go and ask Penny to make some tea.’ She caught sight of Freddie’s scowl, prompting her to add, ‘Unless you would prefer something stronger?’

‘No. Tea is fine.’

Rosalind was distracted by the door opening before she could question his brusqueness.

‘Oh, how lovely. Thank you, Penny. I was about to come and request tea. You have saved me the bother.’

Penny—who had been Freddie’s nursemaid and had agreed to accompany them to Buckinghamshire to keep house—smiled as she placed the tray on a table. ‘Shall I pour, ma’am?’

‘No. I shall do it.’

By the time she handed a cup and saucer to Freddie, and sat down with her own cup, Freddie had resumed his customary expression of good humour. When they had drunk their tea, Rosalind worked on her embroidery whilst Freddie picked up his book and opened it.

As Rosalind set her stitches, she tried to ignore the slow, uneasy coil of her stomach. That anxiety had been present ever since they had arrived at Stoney End, but today there was a different edge to it. A foreboding. Was it because Nell had gone to London, leaving the future for herself and Freddie even more uncertain? She would love nothing more than to go home to Lydney Hall and to live out her days there in obscurity, but would that be possible with Sir Peter in residence? Surely not.

Or was it that meeting with Lascelles that had increased her apprehension?

Leo’s face materialised in her mind’s eye—handsome, strong, assured—and a very different feeling stirred...tension of a sort she had never experienced before today, as though something deep within her had recognised him and now stretched out...seeking...yearning.

Humph!

‘Is there anything amiss, Ros?’

Startled, she looked up to find Freddie regarding her with raised brows. Her cheeks heated, realising she had allowed her snort of exasperation to sound aloud.

‘I am quite all right, thank you.’

Rosalind bent her head to her embroidery once more, pushing all thought of Leo’s lean face and silver grey, penetrating eyes from her thoughts. He might be the most attractive man she had ever met, but he demonstrated a remarkably poor choice of friends and, worse, he was obviously a member of the conceited and condescending world of the haut ton. The world she detested.

Chapter Three

Three days later, Leo strode into the local village of Malton, leading one of Lascelles’s hunters, a fine gelding, his coat as black as Leo’s mood. The horse—recommended to him particularly by Lascelles—had thrown a shoe within half an hour of the hunt starting and a swift examination of the animal’s remaining shoes had revealed their sorry states. Leo cursed himself for not examining the horse more thoroughly before they left Halsdon Manor. His cousin was doing a fine job of pushing Leo’s temper to the limit, the bad blood between the two smouldering beneath the surface urbanity.

This trip to Buckinghamshire had been a mistake. The days were just about acceptable, with outdoor pastimes to occupy them, but the evenings were a trial, the atmosphere fraught. More than once Leo had been within ames ace of leaving and returning to town, but Stanton had arranged to view those ponies the day after tomorrow, and Leo was damned if he would give Lascelles the satisfaction of believing he had driven him away. No. He would stay put and return to London with Vernon and Stanton in a week’s time as previously arranged.

Disinclined to wait for a fresh horse to be sent from Halsdon, Leo had instead elected to lead Saga the mile and a half to Malton for reshoeing, savouring the solitude. It was a bright morning, with frost still lingering in pockets where the sun had yet to reach and a chilly breeze. As he waited in the February sunshine, Leo felt his irritation dissipate as he watched life in the quiet village of Malton unfold before him. The farrier—Benson by name—chattered nonstop as he worked, calling out greetings to passers-by, regaling Leo with their life histories once they were out of earshot. During a lull in the man’s discourse, Leo’s attention was drawn by a light grey Arabian, complete with side-saddle, tethered a hundred yards or so down the street. The horse had exceptional conformation and a flowing snowy-white mane and tail.

‘That is a spectacular animal,’ he said, thinking how much Olivia would love the Arabian.

Benson peered along the street before fixing his attention once more on Saga’s off fore. ‘Ah, yes, a fine beast, sir, a fine beast indeed.’ He placed the red-hot horseshoe on the animal’s hoof, removed it and deftly pared the scorched areas level before nailing the shoe in place. ‘’E belongs to Mrs Pryce, so he does. Poor young lady. A widder, sir, so they say.’

Mrs Pryce? Leo kept an eye on the horse and, before long, a figure dressed in a peacock-blue riding habit and matching hat emerged from a nearby doorway, followed by a man who laced his fingers for Mrs Pryce to step on to in order to mount the Arabian. If Benson had not already identified her, Leo would never have recognised her. She looked very different to the shabbily clad woman of a few days before.

A widow. Anticipation rushed through his veins, stirring his blood...except...so they say? Gossip and conjecture, not fact.

‘Has she not long lived here?’

‘Only a couple of weeks, sir. She rides in most days to fetch a newspaper and the post, but the others keep themselves to themselves, they do. Living out at Stoney End, they are. That’s a house on the Foxbourne estate, sir, seeing as you’s a stranger yourself to these parts.’

Foxbourne. That was Rockbeare’s place, where they were due to go on Thursday to inspect that driving pair for Stanton.

‘They?’

‘She lives with her brother and sister, sir. Or so I’m told—no one’s seen a hair of their heads since they moved in.’ Benson filed the wall of Saga’s hoof, sweat dripping from the end of his nose. ‘There.’ He put the horse’s foot down, and straightened his back, wiping his forehead with one sweep of his beefy forearm. ‘All done.’

The Arabian stepped daintily down the street in their direction and Leo retreated into the gloom at the rear of the forge as Benson raised his voice in greeting. ‘Good day to you, Mrs Pryce, a fine day it is, is it not?’

Mrs Pryce responded to Benson with a stunning smile that slammed into Leo with the force of a kick from a horse.

‘Good morning, Mr Benson.’

She cut a graceful figure, her skirts draping elegantly to conceal her legs and feet. Her appearance and manner proclaimed her a lady—unlike her former attire—but she did not move in Leo’s circles. He would not have overlooked such a female, with her clear, direct gaze and her full soft lips. His body responded to the memory of the provocative sway of those rounded hips with the spontaneity of a youth. It was too long since he’d had a woman. A dalliance with a comely widow might be just the remedy for his boredom and help lessen his exasperation with Lascelles.

Mrs Pryce disappeared from view, and Leo swung up on to Saga and set off in pursuit. Her reaction the other day suggested she might not welcome his company, but he enjoyed a challenge. He recalled his cousin’s words with a twist of disgust. Most definitely not the kind of challenge Lascelles had hinted at. Vernon had been right—Leo could not stomach any kind of coercion, but neither did he particularly relish bedding the readily available widows he came across in society. They had no interest in him as a man. As a person. Their avaricious eyes fixed on his title and his wealth and rendered them oblivious to all else.

Mrs Pryce presented a rare opportunity. The true identities of the guests at Halsdon Manor had been concealed in an attempt to keep the matchmaking mamas of the county set at bay and Leo was visiting as Mr Boyton, Viscount Boyton being one of his many minor titles. Most parents of marriageable-age daughters were unable to resist the lure of an unmarried duke in their midst and it was easier not to receive invitations to hastily planned balls and parties than to offend the local gentry with refusals. So Mrs Pryce would have no idea of his true identity.

He could play a part.

Leo Boyton the man—not the Duke with a vast fortune and extensive estates to gild his appeal.

Saga’s ground-eating trot carried them around a blind bend, beyond which was a river spanned by a bridge. Leo was so deep in conjecture he failed to notice the Arabian had halted as, in the absence of any contrary instructions from his rider, Saga trotted on until they were almost upon the smaller animal. The Arabian let out a shrill neigh and, half-rearing, plunged away from the oncoming threat, causing its rider to lurch violently to one side. As Mrs Pryce scrabbled to gather the reins, a sheet of paper flew from her hands, helped on its way by the breeze. Her hat tilted and slid from the crown of her head, carried on a heavy fall of soft golden-brown waves that spilled over her shoulders and down her back. The hat, with its white feather, came to rest at a lopsided angle at her nape, seemingly hanging by a single pin.

‘Oh!’

That breathy half-squeak triggered a visceral reaction deep inside Leo, setting his pulse pounding. He watched in admiration as Mrs Pryce expertly brought the skittish Arabian back under control. She stared at Leo for several seconds, her eyes wide, then her brows snapped together and she turned her horse, urging him towards the bridge. Before they reached it, however, she halted again, wildly scanning the surrounding area.