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

‘Why the devil are you getting mixed up with smugglers?’ Ross hitched one hip against a fallen tree. ‘Tregarne told me he suspected you were at it.’ Silence. ‘Do you need the money?’ This stubborn man had taught him patience when he was a child; now he was prepared to wait it out. ‘I’ve got all day.’

Billy scowled at him. ‘Interfering cursed keepers. The boy’s growing, got a good brain. Lily’s worried.’

‘So you wanted money for William? Has Lily told you what I am doing about him? You don’t need to worry.’

‘Fool of a maid’s got it wrong—you’ll not be acknowledging your own father’s base cheel.’

‘I will and I am. He’s my brother, Billy. And I’m giving them a cottage on the estate and an allowance. You can have one, too, if you want.’

‘Who, me? In one of them cottages with a garden all round so all the neighbourhood can see you and what you’re about? Not me.’ He shifted against the tree. ‘But if you mean it, that’s a good thing you’re doing for Lily and the boy.’

‘You know he wants to be a lawyer?’ The old man nodded. ‘Can’t have his grandfather taken up for smuggling then, can he? Or poaching? You think of that. Kimber will take him to train, but not if you’re in Truro gaol.’

‘What’ll I eat then, if I can’t go after game?’

‘I’ll tell Tregarne that as my brother’s grandfather you may shoot and trap what you like on my land. And don’t look like that,’ Ross added as Billy scowled at him. ‘I don’t care if it spoils your fun—think about William. And don’t you go sneaking off on to anyone else’s land—I can’t help you there.’

‘You’ve grown up into a hard man, Ross Brandon.’ It was, he knew, both praise and an apology.

‘I had a good teacher.’

‘What you doing with that ’ansum maid?’ Billy demanded, obviously happier now he could catch Ross in the wrong.

‘’Ansum? I suppose Mrs Halgate might be described as attractive, yes. Trying to keep her out of trouble with old rogues like you around, that’s what I’m doing with her. She’s my housekeeper.’

‘Then what’s she about, capering in the scroff?’

‘Swimming, apparentl

y. She’ll not do it again.’

‘Huh.’ Billy slung his shotgun over his shoulder and snapped his fingers. The black-and-white dog slid out of the undergrowth and came to heel. ‘If you’ve finished giving me a slice of tongue pie, you can come and have some rabbit stew and tell me about this here courting you’re doing.’

‘Who says I’m courting?’ Ross fell into step beside him.

‘I see them carriages and all those fancy pieces getting out of them. Some people can’t see behind the end of their nose, if you ask me.’

‘I should get a wife. And an heir.’ Ross said it with outward confidence, wondering at the hollow feeling in his stomach. It was almost like apprehension, or the sensation that he had done something wrong, but couldn’t work out what. He shrugged. Not enough sleep, obviously.

‘That you should,’ Billy agreed. ‘Just get on with it, boy, and try to think with your head for once.’

Meg stood with Damaris in the middle of Ross’s bedchamber and sighed.

‘I know, ma’am. It’s enough to make you fall into a melancholy, isn’t it? It’s that dark and sort of quiet-like.’

‘That’s because of all the curtains.’ Meg turned slowly round, avoiding looking at the bed. ‘The dark mulberry velvet is dignified, but with the dark blue walls and all this heavy furniture, and those paintings, it is just depressing.’ She turned again. ‘These windows match the big room on the other side of the stairs, don’t they? Come along, Damaris, I have an idea.’

An hour later she left the maids exchanging the pale blue silk hangings from the main guest chamber for the mulberry velvet in Ross’s room and went to see what she could find to substitute for the collection of disapproving seventeenth-century portraits on the walls. She was sure there were some seascapes somewhere. She found that her cheeks were growing warm at the thought of the sea. It was going to be impossible if everything she thought about made her recollect Ross and last night. She was still smiling as she passed the door to the library.

‘Ow!’ There was a thud and a muffled curse from inside. Not Ross, he was out and that was not his voice. The maids had finished this part of the house for the day and the footmen were all up ladders wrestling with curtain poles.

Meg pushed open the door with some caution. A young man was crouched, gathering up a pile of fallen books. As he heard her he straightened: six foot of gangling, black-haired, strong-jawed young male Brandon—Ross’s portrait come to life.

They stared at each other. ‘They aren’t damaged,’ the youth said and at the sound of the Cornish burr in his voice the spell was broken.

‘I can see it was an accident.’ But who is he? Then she saw his eyes were an unusual amber and realised. ‘You are Billy’s grandson, aren’t you?’ And Ross’s brother.

‘Yes, ma’am. William. His lordship…Ross, I mean, said I could borrow books.’