Lara Temple - Lord Hunter's Cinderella Heiress

‘What is she like? Ugly as nails? Heiresses usually are. When can we meet her?’

Hunter hesitated. Before this evening he would have known what to answer. After seeing her again he wasn’t so sure. She was certainly no beauty like Kate, but she was...different. Unpredictable. Intriguing. He decided to keep it simple until he knew what he himself thought. Not that it would make any difference. If he could convince her to hold her course and withstand her father’s ire, she would be someone else’s problem.

‘Not that it matters since I am about to be jilted, but she is neither ugly nor a beauty. More...unusual. I’ve never seen a woman with a better seat on a horse. On the other hand, she had a brutal harpy of an aunt living with them who reduced her to the state of a quivering blancmange, which when you’re as tall as a Viking looks just a bit bizarre. Then halfway through one of the most tedious dinners I have yet had to plough my way through she suddenly transformed into an avenging fury, told the aunt to go to the devil with biblical panache and the next day she ran back to her school without a word to anyone but the cook and groom. Then tonight she appeared on my doorstep unchaperoned and determined to consign me to the devil. I’m glad you find this so amusing,’ he concluded a bit sourly as his friends sat with various degrees of grins on their faces.

‘You would too, man, if it wasn’t happening to you,’ Ravenscar replied. ‘And I think you could call it a very auspicious beginning. Since marriage is a fate worse than death, it sounds as though you are getting a very fair preview of your future if you can’t convince her to sheer off.’

‘Thank you, Ravenscar. I can always count on you for perspective. I admit she wasn’t quite what I had bargained for when I was resigning myself to the benefits of a modest, country-bred wife who would be happy to live at the Hall tending to children and horses and leaving me to my concerns in London.’

‘Ah, the sentimental musings of today’s youth...’

‘You can be as caustic as you like, Raven. You’re one of the least sentimental people I have ever met.’

‘I have my moments. Luckily none of them involved an offer of matrimony.’

‘So what are you planning to do?’ Stanton interceded practically. ‘You need to find the girl’s father first thing.’

‘He’s likely at the Wilton breeders’ fair and the girl is raring to go there, which is lucky because the sooner I hand her over to her parent, the less likely we are to turn this fiasco into an outright scandal. If she is serious about jilting me, I will need to manage this carefully.’

‘Do you really want to nip this affair in the bud?’

Hunter shrugged. It was probably the wisest course of action. He had worn out his chivalric fantasies trying, and failing, to save Tim and his mother. Even before Tim’s death he, Ravenscar and Stanton had acquired a reputation for wild living and for accepting any and all sporting dares. After a particularly difficult midnight race down to Brighton, society had delighted in dubbing them the Wild Hunt Club. Since Tim’s death he had more than earned his membership rights in that club. He often spent his nights wearing himself down to the point where sleep captured him like the prey of the mythical wild hunts he and his friends were styled after. Whatever still remained of his chivalric impulses he channelled into his work at Hope House and he didn’t need anyone outside his friends, his work and the uncommitted physical companionship of women like Kate. The thought of being saddled with a frightened, easily bullied near-schoolgirl was so distasteful he wondered why he hadn’t just gone down on his knees and thanked his lucky stars the moment she had sent him to the devil. He had certainly been dreading the moment Tilney would come demanding his due.

It was just that he had been surprised. He had done a very effective job of putting her out of mind since that day at Tilney and coming face-to-face with her had disoriented him. She certainly didn’t act like a frightened girl, despite a few moments when he had seen alarm in her silvery eyes. As for near-schoolgirl...those lips and that body were anything but schoolgirlish.

He sighed. None of this mattered. The key was to grasp this reprieve with both hands. He would take her to her father and see if he could extract himself from this fiasco without too much damage.

‘Well, whatever you decide, I have faith in your ability to talk her into your way of thinking,’ Ravenscar said. ‘I’ve yet to see anyone get by you when you bend your mind to it.’

‘Tim did.’

The words were out before Hunter could stop them. They would have been completely out of place, except that these two men had also risked their lives to rescue Tim from France during the war and they knew what caring for Tim until his death had done to Hunter. Ravenscar’s cynical smile disappeared.

‘Tim was lost the moment that French devil of an inquisitor got his brutal hands on him. We might have managed to salvage his body, or what was left of it, but five months in that prison was five months too long. It was damn bad luck the French were convinced he knew something of value simply because he was on Wellington’s staff. They should have realised a boy of nineteen was unlikely to be privy to staff secrets.’

Hunter’s stomach clenched as his younger brother’s tortured, scarred hands appeared before him as they did in his nightmares, and his face—staring, shaking, wet with tears, begging for the release from mental and bodily pain that the opiates gave him and which Hunter had been forced to ration as Tim’s dependency grew.

‘That bastard would have continued torturing him anyway. But it was my fault allowing him to join up in the first place.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ Stanton said curtly. ‘You took better care of Tim than your parents ever did since the day he was born and he wouldn’t have lasted a day after we rescued him if you hadn’t nursed him. If there is anyone in this world who should feel no guilt over Tim, it’s you. I’m damned if I know why you do.’

Hunter’s shoulders tensed as the memories flooded back. For two years he had tried everything he could to help his brother heal, but nothing but laudanum had succeeded in dimming the daily agony of his pain and his attacks of terror. Hunter would never be certain if that final dose was intentional, but he was as certain as he could bear to be. He remembered Tim’s words that night before climbing the stairs to his childhood room for the last time.

‘You’ve always been so good to me, Gabe. If there is any way to stop anyone else from going through this, you’ll do it, won’t you? You promise?’

He would have promised Tim anything at that point, if only he had made an effort to... It was pointless. After the initial shock of finding Tim dead the next morning he had spent a year full of guilt and self-contempt that he had failed his younger brother, or worse, that he had somehow willed Tim to finish it because his agony was too much to bear, and yet worse—because he could only look ahead to years of servitude to a broken boy. Eventually he had dragged himself out of that pit with the help of Ravenscar and Stanton and their work at Hope House. But his grief and guilt and sense of failure clung. He had enough distance now to know that his pact with Tilney had been formed from the ashes of his failure with Tim. Bascombe, water rights and a young woman who was clearly in need of salvation and therefore likely to be grateful for what she could receive had been presented to him on a silver platter and he had taken them, platter and all, more fool he.

‘Are you still having nightmares?’ Stanton asked, dragging Hunter’s thoughts back with unwelcome sharpness. He could feel the sweat break out on the back of his neck and he rubbed at it, but nothing could erase the sick feeling of helplessness. He knew Stanton meant well, but he wished he hadn’t asked.