Chapter 1
On this glorious summer’s day, Gareth Ardleigh reveled in the riches of Sherington Manor. Fish begging to be caught, small game fattened by summer’s bounty, and trees promising climbers wide vistas. He and his school friends, Thaddeus and Laurence Sherington, skirted the edge of the park, guns and rabbits in hand when they came upon an altercation. Two boys and a girl loomed over a thin little waif with hair so pale it was almost white.
“Say summat in French,” the bullying girl lisped. Limp hair straggled over dirty cheeks to a lank, dingy pinafore, drawing the eye down to bare brown feet.
In fact, only the biggest bully wore footwear—scuffed, holey boots at least one size two big.
“She can’t,” the shorter boy sneered, leaning in on his quarry. “As dumb as that tree over there, she is.”
Inside the circle of dirty, ill-dressed tormentors, the specter bristled, her brows drawn together in a defiant glare that was bigger than her small self.
“That’s Flora,” Thaddeus said. “She lives at Bicton Grange.”
“She doesn’t speak,” Laurence said. “That other lot are the Haskells, up from lower Reabridge to help with the haying.”
“Croak for us, Froggie.” The big Haskell stepped closer and the other two sniggered.
The one thing Gareth couldn’t abide was bullies. He handed Laurence his gun, dropped his game, and winked at Thaddeus.
He and Thad had battled their way through Rugby School together, and neither would back away from a fight.
“Leave off.” Gareth snatched the ringleader’s shirt and yanked him back. Cloth ripped, and three shocked faces turned his way.
Their shock turned to anger, followed by a fist. Gareth ducked, and Thaddeus flew into the fray, taking on the shorter boy.
“Stop it,” their sister squawked, and then shrieked. When Gareth spared a glance, the dirty chit had curled up on the ground, spluttering curses, while her would-be victim kicked at her.
He laughed and tossed the ringleader down. “Get you gone, all three of you. If I see you bullying again, I’ll do more than bloody your noses.”
“She’s a bluidy French?—”
“Watch your mouth.” Thad slapped the younger lad.
“Take the king’s shilling and join up if you want to fight,” Gareth said. It was what he and Thad were doing at summer’s end. “But don’t pick on babies.”
The baby in question glared at him, and while he swallowed a chuckle, all three Haskells tucked tail and ran.
Thaddeus clapped Gareth on the back, laughing. “Bang up to the mark, Gare,” he said. “You planted a solid facer. Looks like he clipped you one though.” He tapped Gareth’s chin and held up a bloody finger.
Gareth touched the wound. “So he did.” Laughing, he dabbed at it with his neck cloth.
“Use a handkerchief, man,” Laurence scoffed.
“Don’t have one.” Gareth’s gaze caught the imp watching him. There was no look of gratitude at their chivalry. She still glared.
He felt a stab of—well, not guilt. Recognition—that was it. His name-calling had wounded her pride.
The best remedy for wounded pride was the schoolboy’s solution—a good fight. Perhaps with enough goading, she’d kick him.
“Are you alone?” he asked. “Where is your nursemaid? Ought we to take you home?”
“Oh, she’s alright,” Laurence said. “Move out of our way, Flora.” He nudged her aside and he and Thaddeus walked on.
Gareth studied the chit while she stared back, her gaze far too steady for one so young. She couldn’t be more than five or six with the palest of hair, the lightest of gray eyes, and skin as white as a ghost’s, all wrapped in a white gown. Aside from a fringe of mud on her hem, a touch of light brown in her eyebrows and lashes, and some pink in her lips, the scrawny young stick had no more color in her than a skinned rabbit. His scrutiny wasn’t even raising a blush.
“Flora?” he said in the same teasing tone he applied to his infant cousins. And most other people as well, come to think of it. “You ought to be called Daisy, or Daffy.”
The pink bow of her lips thinned.
“Or,” he snapped his fingers, “Petal. Just Petal. I shall call you that.”
She drew her tiny self up, as haughty as Headmaster Ingles before he took out his strop. “My name,” she said in perfectly accented English, “is Fleur.”
Fleur? Flora, Daisy, Daffy, Petal… but Fleur? The ridiculousness of it made him laugh as he picked up his gun and rabbits and ran to catch up with his friends.
Thereafter, Petal seemed to appear everywhere he and Thaddeus went fishing, hunting, tree-climbing. She’d even attended the end of summer picnic at Sherington Manor with her guardian, still not speaking, except in the frowns and grimaces she showered upon him when he called her Petal.
The day he departed for a visit home to farewell his family before joining the regiment and taking up his ensign duties, he made one last walk savoring the peace he’d found at Sherington Manor. The little chit tracked him down and handed him a square of white cloth.
It was a man’s handkerchief; golden petals straggled around the edges in clumsy, uneven stitches.
A handkerchief. His new messmates in the regiment would think he had an amour. Would he look like a fool if they knew this came from a mere baby?
A laugh bubbled up and spilled over. Despite himself, he was touched. But when he looked up to thank her, she’d disappeared.
* * *
September, 1815
On a brisk earlyautumn morning the day after his arrival in Cheshire, Captain Gareth Ardleigh rode past fields swarming with laborers harvesting corn. Back-breaking labor it was, as he well knew from his days growing up on his gentry father’s modest estate. In bad years or good—especially in good—gentleman or not, all hands were needed. Returning to school for the Michaelmas term had always been a blessed reprieve, and he’d made good friends there, Thaddeus Sherington and to a lesser degree Thad’s older brother Laurence. Gareth had been warmly welcomed for visits by George Sherington and his lady wife. Those had been good times. Sadly, Mrs. Sherington died a little over a year ago. And Thad…
He reined up and gazed down the long drive to Bicton Grange, a square stone manse with a filled in moat and overgrown hedges. Tall grass had overtaken the lawns too, except where wheel tracks carved crescents around a crater-sized hole in the bumpy lane.
The Bicton-Morledge family had fallen on hard times. It was unfortunate, but not something he could help with. He had a small—very small—income from his late uncle, and somehow, he would live on it. His elder brother had not demanded Gareth’s return to the family fold; had been grateful, in fact, for one less mouth to feed.
He’d come to Reabridge first to visit the Sheringtons, and then… Well, once he finished here, if roaming around the country as an officer on half pay became boring, he could return to active duty and risk dying of a fever in either the East or the West Indies. He was, at least, alive now, as Thaddeus wasn’t, having fallen, finally, after so many battles, at Quatre Bras.
Laurence might be an annoying complainer, but he’d accepted Thad’s personal effects with almost as much grief as his mournful father and his watery-eyed widowed cousin, Mrs. Esther Smythe, who served as the Sherington chatelaine since Mrs. Sherington’s passing. They’d invited Gareth to stay on through the harvest, and longer, if he wished.
Which served Gareth’s needs quite well. For, much as he was honored to perform the task, delivering Thad’s things wasn’t his only reason for visiting Reabridge. He had a debt to repay, and to do so, he must find a female whom he’d last seen here.
He’d start looking in earnest tomorrow. Today, he’d ride back to Sherington Manor and open another bottle of champagne.
* * *
“Mr. Sherington won’t haveyou, gel. I’ll wager you a quid on that.”
Fleur Hardouin sent the snowy-haired lady next to her a haughty look. Lady Dulcinea Ixworth, the granddaughter of a duke and widow of a long-deceased viscount, perched perilously on the seat as Fleur handled the lines, making no move to clutch the siderail of Bicton Grange’s rickety gig. Dulcinea was, as usual, fearless, and full of vinegar.
“If either of us had a quid to spare, madame,” Fleur said, “I would take that wager.”
She suspected she might lose, of course, but that would be fine. No one in her life had been more generous than Dulcinea Ixworth in sharing small bounties.
“Perhaps he won’t see us, as ill as he’s been,” Dulcinea said, pressing her lips together.
Fleur glanced at her companion. Fearless Dulcinea might be, but Fleur sensed a heightened tension in her employer. Dulcinea had donned her newest gown, lavender half-mourning trimmed in intricate silver embroidery at the neckline and hem by Fleur’s own skilled hands. With her carefully coifed hair and newly trimmed bonnet, Dulcinea looked magnificent for this call on an old acquaintance.
Providing that Mr. George Sherington was able to receive them. Just months earlier, the fever that had taken Mr. Bicton-Morledge to the grave had struck Mr. Sherington. Mrs. Knollwood, the housekeeper at Bicton Grange, who’d been a beloved housemaid when Fleur was a child there, had learned that the local doctor said Mr. Sherington ought to have come out of his Bath chair weeks ago.
The doctor apparently had returned from Waterloo with a penchant for drink that sometimes loosened his tongue too much.
“The son will be more likely for you,” Dulcinea said, interrupting Fleur’s revery.
“But not more manageable.” Fleur urged the horse onto the lane leading to Sherington Manor. While one son had gone off to the army, Laurence had been home for school holidays, and she remembered him well. Unless he’d changed, he’d be bossy and careless of a wife. One could tolerate a bossy man for a few years, but Laurence would likely live another thirty.
She glanced at the small smile turning up her employer’s rouged lips. “I would have liked one more day of rest after our journey, but I suppose we must strike while the iron is hot. Today Sherington Manor and tomorrow?—”
“Yes, yes.” Interrupting was rude, but Fleur’s nerves were on edge. She’d never pursued matrimony before. “Since this visit to Reabridge was your idea in the first place, madame.”
Dulcinea snorted, something she only did in private with Fleur. “Rife with prosperous older men, it is. A better hunting ground for you, gel than any other place we might have chosen.”
Or been able to afford.
It would at least be a new one. Ten years before, she’d left Reabridge, naught but a scrawny girl of twelve, cast off by her frustrated guardian to serve as the companion of an aging relation who lived with a scholarly cousin in Staffordshire.
She’d grown to be a woman there, one not allowed to indulge in sulking. From the very first day, Dulcinea had poked, prodded, and even laughed at her silent stubbornness. Until the damn broke and Fleur talked, shouted, screamed back.
Dulcinea had allowed it. She’d listened. She’d drawn out the hurts, the resentments, the sadness. She’d made Fleur talk. She’d paid attention, pushed her to learn from books and intelligent conversations, taught her to manage a household.
As Fleur reached womanhood, Dulcinea shared more—naughty stories from her youth, lessons about men, about how to deflect the unsavory suitors an attractive young woman with no dowry or male relative might expect.
Dulcinea had saved her.
They’d reached Bicton Grange the previous evening, a visit arranged by Dulcinea, fortuitously since the two of them had just been put out of their prior home by the death of Basil Quidenham, Dulcinea’s cousin. Such were the vicissitudes of fate for widows and orphans.
It had, however, been clear upon their arrival that Mrs. Helena Bicton-Morledge positively needed them. She’d aged considerably in the years since Fleur last saw her, and was now immensely with child—twins, Mrs. Knollwood suspected. Plus, the Bicton-Morledge girls, three misses ranging from sixteen to four years of age, were running amuck, and the remaining servants were stretched thin.
Fleur would take the young chits and the household in hand this very day, as soon as she’d begun this campaign to see to her own future.
Twenty minutes later,she excused herself from the stiff settee and the overly warm drawing room of Sherington Manor where their hostess, Mrs. Smythe, poured tea and made excuses for the Sherington men. Neither of the Sheringtons was at home for the ladies, but the cousin was more than happy to have the likes of Lady Ixworth, the granddaughter of a duke, visiting.
While Dulcinea probed Mrs. Smythe about Sherington’s health, Fleur decided to act. She waved off the offer of a guiding hand to the retiring room. She’d visited Sherington Manor on one or two occasions as a child and knew where to find the water closet.
Her quest, however, was the location of the male voices echoing from another part of the house. Laurence would be there, maybe with his steward discussing the harvest, and perhaps even his father would be present. The men must be in high spirits for their voices to carry all the way to the drawing room, and wasn’t that interesting? They were probably happy to pawn their guests off on their middle-aged cousin.
She arrived at a paneled door that fairly quivered with masculine vibrations. As her hand touched the knob, a man’s laugh made her pause. She pressed her ear to the painted wood.