weaving she had to do as well as fighting off her importunate suitors.’
‘Oh, I hardly think you fall into that category, Miss Courland. Indeed, I doubt any man would be brave enough to try to make you do anything you didn’t wish to. Anyway, I can hardly throw you out into the snow with nothing but the clothes on your back when you’re known to be a considerable heiress, and one who’s very fastidious indeed about her suitors.’
She hadn’t thought local society took much notice of her or her potential marriage, except to criticise her for acting as her uncle’s steward and refusing to employ a duenna to look down her nose at such a poor example of a lady. She had much to learn about her new occupation of doing very little in a suitably ladylike fashion.
‘You’ll be much sought after now that you’re free to be entertained by your neighbours,’ he went on as if attempting to reassure her. Roxanne could tell from the glint in his apparently guileless blue eyes that he was secretly enjoying the notion of her struggling to adapt to her new role, and tried not to give him the satisfaction of glowering furiously back. ‘You’ll have time on your hands enough to visit all of them now, Miss Courland,’ he went on smoothly, as if he was trying to be gallant and not utterly infuriating, ‘and they certainly wish to visit you if the vicar, his wife and their promising son just down from Oxford are anything to do by.’
‘I’m glad my uncle taught me to discern a false friend from a true one then,’ she replied stalwartly, trying not to let a shiver of apprehension slide down her spine at the very thought of such an existence. ‘I’ve no desire whatsoever to be wed for my money.’
‘Nor I—perhaps we should wed one another to avert such a travesty,’ he joked, and she felt a dart of the old pain, more intense if anything, and cursed that old infatuation for haunting her still.
‘Since that’s about as likely as black becoming white, I suggest you look elsewhere for a bride, Sir Charles,’ she said scornfully.
‘I’ll settle into my new life before looking about me for a lady brave enough to take me on,’ he parried lightly.
Roxanne tried not to be disappointed as he reverted to type and took on the shallow social manners common among the haut ton, at least if her memory of her one uncomfortable Season was anything to go by. She’d felt out of place and bored for most of her three months in the capital, and as glad to come home again as Uncle Granger was to see her. Her sister Maria had delighted in that milieu and had worked her way up the social ladder from noble young matron to society hostess, but Roxanne hadn’t felt the slightest urge to join her, let alone rival her in any way.
‘Indeed?’ she replied repressively.
‘I’ll need to feel my way among local society after usurping a long-established family,’ he replied with apparent sincerity, then looked spuriously anxious as he watched her struggle to remain distantly polite. ‘But first I insist you find a congenial companion, Miss Courland. No lady of your years and birth can live alone without being taken advantage of or bringing scandal on herself and her family. If you don’t look about you for a chaperone, I’ll do it for you. The local matrons will consider a respectable duenna essential now I’ve come amongst you, and no lone damsel can be considered beyond my villainy, and I’ve my own reputation to think about, after all.’
‘You don’t have one, at least not one any lady dares discuss and be received in polite society. As for employing a duenna for me, I have already told you it would be highly improper. I’d be ostracised if I took one of your choosing,’ she said haughtily, her gaze clashing with his.
‘I promised your brother I’d look after you in his stead,’ he told her with a glint in his eyes that looked very unbrotherly indeed.
‘Exactly how old do you think I am, sir?’ she asked defensively.
‘Hardly out of the schoolroom,’ he replied, with a wolfish smile that gave his words the lie.
‘I’m four and twenty and on the shelf. I dare say I could take up residence at Mulberry House without any chaperone but my maid and nobody would raise an eyebrow except you.’
‘There you’re very much mistaken, my dear, but if you choose not to be visited or invited out, I dare say you’ll grow used to the life of a recluse,’ he replied ruthlessly, but at least she’d wiped that annoying, indulgent-of-female-folly grin off his face.
Impatient of the petty rules of society she might be, reclusive she wasn’t, and hated to admit he was right. She could live so, but it’d be a very limited existence and she was too young to embark on a hermit’s career.
‘I’m not your dear, Sir Charles, and will thank you to address me in proper form.’
‘You have no idea what you are just yet, Miss Courland, and I suggest you take a few weeks to find out before you launch yourself into local society as their most scandalous exhibit,’ he retorted brusquely.
‘You could be right, but this subject is becoming tedious, or do you want me to put that admission in writing and have it published?’
‘No, I want you to behave yourself,’ he informed her as sternly as if she was fourteen again and he her legal and moral guardian, not the biggest rogue to break a score of susceptible hearts every time he came ashore.
‘Really? And I just want you to go away so that I can start my new life,’ she snapped back, smarting at the idea of all those unfortunate, abandoned females and how nearly she’d become one of them.
‘Then want must be your master,’ he said laconically and lounged against the intricately carved fireplace, since she’d omitted to invite him to sit.
She was about to spark back at him, regardless of the fact she must get on with her neighbours in future and he’d be the most important of them, but a rustle of silk petticoats announced a new arrival and stopped her.
‘Good morning. I believe you must be Miss Courland?’ a lady very obviously with child greeted her from the open doorway.
Roxanne sprang to her feet and offered the stranger a seat, trying to feel as overjoyed at so timely an interruption as she ought to be.
‘I couldn’t make anyone hear so I’m afraid I invited myself in,’ her visitor told her with an engaging smile.
Roxanne could see no resemblance whatsoever to Sir Charles Afforde about the lady’s warm golden eyes and heart-shaped face and searched her mind for any possible clues as to her identity. She doubted the lady was related to him and was obviously far too respectable to be a left-handed connection. Not that he’d sink so low as to install his pregnant mistress at the Castle before Roxanne had quit it, she decided with weary resignation.
‘Pray forgive me, Miss Courland, I’m Mrs Robert Besford of Westmeade Manor, but please call me Caro. My husband and Sir Charles have been friends since they were unappealing brats in short coats, so I barged in, since I couldn’t wait any longer to make your acquaintance.’
Roxanne could see no reason why a boyhood friendship between this lady’s husband and Charles Afforde should make her and Mrs Besford friends, too, but found it impossible to snub the vivacious young woman or refuse the warm understanding in Caro’s golden-brown gaze.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs Besford,’ she said, holding out her hand in greeting and having it firmly shaken by one that looked too small and slender to contain such strength and resolution.
