have given, but then Miss Ingram was hardly a society miss. She was a hired companion who spoke confidently and looked good enough to eat herself. In short, she was a conundrum.
‘Walking was not all you were doing, I imagine,’ he said gently.
She flushed a little and looked defiant. ‘No, it wasn’t. I was being marched across your estate.’
‘But why were you in the Chelwood grounds?’
‘I became confused and lost my way. Then that clunch of a bailiff found me and took me for a poacher.’
‘You must excuse Mellors. He is new and very eager to be seen doing a good job.’
‘He hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory this morning,’ she noted, munching her way through her third madeleine.
‘But you,’ he said, determined to bring the conversation back to her. It was difficult when she was sitting so close and looking more lovely in his mother’s gown than ever Lady Delacourt had. He tried again to focus his mind. ‘The only way into Chelwood is through the lodge gates and you didn’t come that way. How did you get into the estate and why?’
The question was bluntly put for he had given up any pretence of subtlety. He couldn’t play word games, not while his body was reacting so treacherously.
‘I climbed the wall.’ Her defiance was even more marked. ‘And as for why, because it blocked my way.’
‘Do you normally scale walls if they’re in your way?’
‘I don’t normally meet them. Most people don’t feel the need to live behind locked gates.’
She had quite neatly turned the tables. ‘My bailiff considers that locking the gates acts as a deterrent to law breakers. But then he is unused to adventurous young ladies.’ As I am, he thought. The idea of any woman in his mother’s tight little circle lifting one elegant foot to the wall was laughable.
‘Adventurous? Do you think so?’
‘Few ladies of my acquaintance would hurl themselves over ten-feet walls.’
‘I didn’t exactly hurl myself and your friends must be sad company.’
‘Acquaintances,’ he corrected. For some reason he did not want her to think he was part of the ton society he despised. ‘But you are right, they lack courage! They would never make a soldier!’
‘I would—and that is what I most wish for.’ He was startled for he had meant the remark only as a pleasantry.
She saw him looking astonished and laughed. ‘Don’t worry! I know that a woman cannot join the army, but I would give anything to do so—to be in Spain at this moment, to feel the camaraderie, the excitement, the thrill of victory.’
‘Victory is not assured,’ he warned. ‘We have lost almost as many battles as we have won and it is only recently that the tide has turned.’
‘I know. At Badajoz and Vitoria.’
He was intrigued. ‘You have followed the war closely?’
‘My father is fighting in Spain,’ she said simply.
‘Your father?’ Her name had had a familiar ring, he remembered, when Mrs Croft first introduced her, but he had taken little notice. He had been far too concerned with her prettiness to think of anything else and far too disturbed by his response to it.
‘He is not by chance Colonel Ingram?’
‘He is.’
She was transformed, her face alight, her smile glowing. It was clear that her father was a hero to her—and why should he not be? Justin knew him by repute as a very brave man. ‘You have met him?’ The words were almost breathless and the plate of madeleines pushed to one side.
‘Once. I met him only once. It was after Vitoria. His regiment was taking over from mine and I was about to leave. I had just received news of my father’s death and knew that I must return to England immediately.’
‘And how was he?’ She was all eagerness. ‘After the battle, he wrote only two lines to say that he was alive.’
‘He appeared well, but I was with him little more than an hour.’
‘Then that is one more hour than I have known.’
He refilled her cup and wondered if he should say more, for her voice had become shadowed and her liveliness lost. At length he said, ‘When did you last see him?’
‘Some three years ago.’ She jumped up from her chair and wandered to the window. ‘You have a vast estate here.’
For some reason she no longer wished to talk of her father and he wondered what had happened three years ago. He found himself wanting to ask, wanting to know more of her, but good sense reasserted itself. He must keep the conversation to polite trivialities. ‘Yes, most of it is given over to sheep farming, though we have some pleasant acres of parkland and a thriving kitchen garden.’
‘Everyone farms sheep here.’
‘That’s because it is profitable, especially now that taxes have been reduced and we can export to France without a huge levy. The smugglers have gone out of business,’ he joked.
‘There are smugglers here?’ She had turned back from the window, her eyes wide and her voice humming with excitement. The girl’s vitality was entrancing, he thought, but she had a raw energy that could easily lead her into trouble. Another reason, if he needed one, to keep his distance.
‘The smugglers have long gone,’ he said firmly. ‘Once the taxes were rescinded, smuggling lost its profit and therefore its attraction.’
‘But it cannot only be wool that was smuggled.’
‘Spirits and tobacco, I imagine. Perhaps even tea. But the last gang of smugglers were hanged years ago and the preventives are now everywhere along the coast.’
‘The preventives?’
‘Excise men. So you see, you are unlikely to discover an adventure here.’
Her face had fallen and he had to stop himself smiling at her disappointment. ‘You must find life as a companion a trifle slow.’
‘Mrs Croft is very kind,’ she said quickly.
‘But still a lady in her eighties. Why did you take such a post?’ The more he spoke to her—indeed, the more he looked at her and felt her charm, the more odd it seemed.
Her response was tart. ‘Possibly because I don’t own an estate like Chelwood.’
He could have kicked himself. She had evidently to earn her own living—no doubt Ingram was in debt and unable to help. Most soldiers he knew were, for much of the army had not been paid for months.
‘I’m sorry,’ he began, wishing away his crass comments.
‘There is no need to apologise, Major Delacourt.
