Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

‘It’s a dream, it’s perfect. But you can’t do it, Ross. People will think he’s yours.’

‘He is mine—my brother—and I’ll tell anyone that, straight out. My father’s habits are well enough known for people to believe it if I acknowledge him. I was coming to see you when you got back, Lily, to see what I could do to help. There’s a cottage on the estate you might like and there will be an allowance for you, as well as for William.’ She tried to protest, but he closed his hand over hers and squeezed. ‘Let me help, Lily. Let me try to make it right.’

She squeezed his fingers in return. ‘Thank you. Yes, I’ll accept, for William, and be thankful. You’ve grown into a fine man, Ross.’

‘I’m a soldier, Lily, a killer who has got to learn to be a landowner. I’m so far out of my depth I think half the time I’m drowning.’ The relief of having someone who knew him so well, someone he could pour it all out to, was shattering. And with Lily there were none of the feelings that almost overwhelmed him when he was with Meg. Feelings that were more than lust and longing and which he could not understand.

But even to Lily he could not speak of the death and the blood and the feeling that all he had seen and done made him unfit for decent people, for the life duty told him he must lead. Or for the wife he knew he should take.

‘You’ll learn,’ Lily said comfortably as they strolled down the lane. ‘Just don’t be your father, that’s all anyone round these parts would ask of you.’

The sense of happiness vanished abruptly. ‘I look like him. I scared Heneage half to death this afternoon—he thought he’d seen a ghost, poor old devil. But it was just me scowling.’ Meg’s words, the words he had pushed away into a corner of his mind so he did not have to look at them, came back. Territorial, possessive…your father’s shoes.

‘Did he rape you, Lily?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Did he force you, or was it that he threatened ruin and dispossession for the whole family so you had to give in to him?’

‘He had no need to use force,’ Lily said. ‘Just threats. He owned me, he said. He was the lord, I was his to do with as he wanted or we could all get out and starve. Mine, he said.’

Ross felt physically sick. You are mine andyouknow it, he had flung at Meg. Mine, he had said as he crushed her body under his, his mouth on her neck. She was right, he was turning into his father.

‘I must go.’ He mounted Dragon and sat looking down at her tired, open, loving face. ‘Come and see me tomorrow, Lily, if you can, and we’ll decide which cottage you’d like—there are three empty. Bring William and we can talk some more.’

‘Thank you, Ross.’ She put her hand on the rein. ‘My father is so happy you are home.’

He forced a smile and dug his heels into Dragon’s flanks, urging him into a canter as soon as they were clear of Lily. He had not trusted himself to reply. Home? Perhaps he was coming to feel like that about it at last. The torrent of information about the farms, the estate, the fishing boats that he owned, that was all beginning to make sense now. He had a brother to discover and old friends to talk to.

And Meg was chasing the ghost of his father out of the house, room by room, making it warm and light and alive again, fit for a young wife to inhabit, fit for a family.

‘Oh, God. Meg.’ Ross reined in, provoking a display of temper and resistance from the stallion that had him cursing and sweating by the time the animal accepted that he had to walk again. What the devil was he going to do about Meg?

Chapter Fourteen

‘Mrs Halgate.’ Meg jumped, water splashing from the flower arrangement she was positioning on to the polished mahogany of the table in the small dining room. She mopped at it, then made herself turn.

‘My lord.’ She could speak, thank goodness—for a moment she had thought her heart had lodged in her throat.

Ross filled the intimate space. He stood, booted feet apart, face expressionless. ‘Please confer with Mrs Harris and tell me when would be a convenient evening to have a dinner party. There will be a full moon next week, which will make travelling easier for guests.’

The request was so abrupt and unexpected Meg thought she must have misheard. ‘A dinner party?’ He nodded.

‘For how many?’

‘The large dining room will seat twenty-four.’ Ross moved past her to straighten his neckcloth in the mirror.

‘Twenty-four? Forgive me, but are you on receiving terms with twenty-three people yet? My lord,’ she added, laying one hand over her stomach. It was suddenly queasy. She had been dreading his return, fretting about where he had gone, rehearsing over and over what she might say in the wake of that heat, that passion and anger. And now this, the cold, hard man, was back and she could see no way to speak the words.

‘Yes, that many. You forget, I have been riding out every day. I make social calls as well as endure lectures on foot rot in sheep and the value of seaweed as a manure, but I saw no reason to report them all to you. We may not be able to accommodate every young lady in the neighbourhood at the first dinner, but I can certainly start the inspection process.’

‘You wish to inspect the young ladies?’ Did he mean what she thought he meant?

‘Certainly. I am sure, as a vicar’s daughter, you can put me right, but it was St Paul who said “It is better to marry than to burn,” was it not? And it is certainly my duty to marry.’

His attention appeared to be fixed entirely on his neckcloth. He isn’t even watching to see what effect his words have on me. Meg gripped the back of the nearest chair. ‘Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter seven, verse nine.’

Two could play at pretending this did not matter, that this frigidly polite exchange was not in fact a blazing row. But of course, Ross did not feel sick, his nerves were not dancing so close to the surface that his skin hurt, he was not feeling confused and humiliated. Only frustrated and angry with her, no doubt. ‘You have nothing suitable to wear.’

‘Perrott has been nagging to some effect, so I visited the tailor again two days ago. It will all arrive by the end of the week. The bootmaker, too—I will not, I am glad to say, have to wear my father’s actual shoes.’

‘Excellent.’ He was throwing her own words about his father back at her and she was not going to pick him up on it. ‘I will go and consult with Cook immediately.’ Mrs Harris would know what to produce for a wife-hunting dinner party. Something to demonstrate taste and wealth to appeal to the parents and something festive enough to charm the young ladies.