ventures in the country he’s adopted as his own.’
Roxanne gasped and let herself feel the momentous weight of change on her slim shoulders for a long, terrible moment. Then she braced them and forced her chaotic feelings to the back of her mind as she met his eyes steadily. The appalling reality of Davy’s betrayal could wait until she was alone; she refused to let her shock and grief show in front of Charles.
‘But what of legal formalities and viewing the farm accounts?’ she heard herself protest, feeling as if she was listening to a stranger producing caveats as to why the truth couldn’t be true.
‘No need of that between us, he named a fair price and I paid it. Your brother was ever an honest man.’
‘You call him so, but took advantage of his honesty, I dare say. He’s newly in love and that’s never time to take a hard look at the future,’ she shot at him, fury surging through her in an invigorating tide as she looked for someone to blame and found him very handy indeed.
‘You know better, Miss Courland. I always took you for the most intelligent of your family, so you must know your brother found his inheritance a burden rather than a joy. Davy has no love of the land and takes little pleasure in being lord of the manor. It’s my belief that America will suit him very well, and he already insists on being known as plain Mr Courland and is impatient with the old order for holding back the new.’
‘You don’t share his Jacobin notions, Sir Charles?’ she snapped scornfully, as lashing out at him staved off the painful thought that Charles Afforde knew her brother better than she did herself.
‘No, I’m quite content to command, but I was raised to it, Miss Courland, and learned early that it was my duty as an officer to lead. The life that never suited Davy will do me very well.’
Roxanne shivered again and hugged her arms about her body as if hoping to ward off the chill of the autumnal evening and this appalling news. She was having her childish dreams come true in the most twisted and cheerless fashion imaginable. Once she’d yearned for this man, striven to become a correct young lady in order to deserve him, until she finally realised he wasn’t worth it. She’d wasted the painful intensity of the very young on a handsome face and now felt betrayed again. Except he meant nothing to her, so retiring to Mulberry House sooner than she’d dreaded wasn’t the catastrophe it currently felt. What a relief to be spared the sight of him striding along in Uncle Granger’s shoes and lording it over her beloved home.
‘My brother was raised to take command here one day,’ she heard herself protest weakly and wondered why she bothered.
‘Of course he always knew he’d inherit,’ Sir Charles Afforde told her carefully and Roxanne wondered if shock made his voice echo in her ears like the voice of doom.
He’d be horrified if she gave in to the painful thudding of her heartbeat in her ears and fainted, but at least the mere sound of his voice no longer made her tingle down to her toes and at too many points in between.
‘You must know he never really took to the life, though, Miss Courland,’ he continued. ‘Indeed, Davy always claimed you were more suited to the role of landowner than he, but Hollowhurst would be too great a burden for a woman to bear alone, given the nature of the society we live in.’
‘Thank you for knowing my capabilities better than I do myself, Sir Charles, and on such a short acquaintance, as well.’
‘Ten years is no trifling term, ma’am.’
‘It is when we barely knew each other even then and have not seen each other to speak to since my eldest sister’s wedding to your cousin nine years ago.’
‘Then we can look forward to improving our friendship, can we not? Especially as we’re to be such close neighbours.’
‘I hope you don’t expect me to be overcome with delight at the prospect,’ she muttered just loudly enough for him to hear her, then fixed a false, social smile and hoped he knew how much she’d love to slap him. ‘So we are,’ she said aloud with a forced lightness he’d be a fool to mistake for cordiality. ‘Pray, how long do I have to remove myself from here, sir, or do you wish me to decamp tonight?’
‘I would never be so hardhearted, Miss Courland, despite the fact you obviously think me capable of any crime short of murder.’ He gazed at her through the increasing gloom and she saw his eyebrows rise in apparent amusement, the infuriating devil! ‘Ah,’ he went on, the laughter she’d once listened for so eagerly running through his deep voice in a warm invitation to share his amusement, ‘so you don’t set even that limit on my villainy.’
‘Of course I do,’ she spluttered as the good manners everyone had tried so hard to drum into her made a weak attempt to control her temper and, she had to admit it to herself, her pain. ‘I can tell you’re not a monster.’
‘Can you, my dear Miss Courland? I doubt it, but take as long as you like to gather your new household about you, and take what you want with you, so long as you leave me some furniture and a bed to sleep in.’
‘I’ll take no more than is mine,’ she informed him haughtily, seething at his apparent belief that she’d strip the house to its bare bones in some vulgar attempt at revenge.
‘And have the neighbourhood accuse me of turning you out with not much more than the clothes on your back? That really wouldn’t do my credit any good in the district, now would it? I claim the privilege of changing my mind and will return tomorrow to make sure you don’t distort my good intentions into infamy, Miss Courland, and leave with little more than the clothes you stand up in. I’d be a scandal and a hissing in the area if I turned you out with such apparent cruelty.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said impatiently, imagining the effect his looks and wealth would have on the local ladies. ‘Do as you please, sir, and, as this is your house, I certainly can’t stop you coming and going as you please.’
‘You can so long as you persist in not employing a chaperone.’
‘Whatever follies I choose to commit are mine, Sir Charles, and have nothing to do with you.’
‘They do when you make yourself extraordinary by them. You’re the sister of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Miss Courland, and while you might have run rings round him however early he got up in the morning, I’m no easygoing David Courland in search of a quiet life.’
‘That’s self-evident,’ she told him darkly, those good manners she’d congratulated herself on threatening to slip away if she yielded to temptation and punched him on his patrician nose as she longed to do.
‘Good, then, as we’ve established I’m certainly not your brother, hadn’t we better consider how we’re to remedy your chaperone-less state?’
‘No, we had not. If I’m to be saddled with one, I’ll select her myself. Indeed, it would be highly improper for a man like you to select a duenna for a single lady.’
‘True,’ he said without noticeable shame, ‘but I do have the odd female relative, you know. And one or two respectable friends who’ve yet to cast me off, who have ladies to lend their aid if I explain your situation.’
‘You do surprise me, sir.’
‘I always endeavour to confound expectations, ma’am, especially when they’re so very low.’
‘I’m
