course, Mama.’
‘Ah, but what sort of a promise is that?’
‘I promise to be good and do as I am bid,’ Jenny parroted with the usual martyred sigh.
‘Then I will try to believe you, but please don’t break anything.’
‘As if I would,’ Jenny said with a cheeky grin and a glint of mischief in grey eyes that looked too much like her father’s. Jenny had dark hair and was built like a sprite instead of a lanky Hartfield, but her smoky gaze was pure Ash.
‘You should respect your aged mother, Imogen Meadows,’ Rosalind told her headstrong daughter, who grinned happily, held up her face for a kiss, then ran off to meet her next adventure.
Now the silence in the spotless little house felt oppressive and Rosalind decided a good walk was what she needed. Her pupils were absorbed in family life or absent from home at this time of year so she had nothing much to do, for once. Joan kept the house clean and neat as a new pin and digging over the neat vegetable plot behind the house ready for spring crops would not distract her from the treadmill of her thoughts long enough. A ramble up on to the high heath above Furze Cottage was what she needed to help her forget Ash until he was actually home and even more eager for his freedom than her.
The ancient stuff gown she kept for rough chores was good enough for rough exercise. Rosalind plaited her corn-gold hair tightly and wound it around her head, then sighed and let it down again. This time she twisted it in a loose knot and pinned it more gently to take the pressure off the headache that had become all too familiar since she read about Charlie Hartfield’s tragic demise. She eyed the reflection of her pure oval face, finely moulded features and deep blue eyes in the mirror with a frown, then turned away before she could change her mind about the cap she usually hid behind. The stark white linen would stand out against the heath and she preferred not to be seen.
‘You look like a tramping woman,’ Joan said when she saw Rosalind standing at the back door scanning the lane for onlookers.
‘I’m going out,’ she replied absently.
‘Where to and why?’
‘Just out,’ Rosalind said stubbornly. ‘You have no respect.’
‘You don’t deserve any dressed like that, Your Grace.’
‘I am Mrs Meadows, plain and simple.’
‘Nothing plain or simple about you, my girl. Easier if there was.’
‘And you could not keep up, even if I was willing to wait while you put on your boots and fuss for half an hour about fires and pots.’
‘At least I know my duty and you are a lady born, like it or not.’
‘I don’t—a lady is not supposed to have opinions or lift anything heavier than a teapot or embroidery frame. I would rather be a quiz than endure such idleness ever again.’
‘You are still young and beautiful, despite all those dull clothes and that daft cap you think makes you look invisible. A girl like you should not be flitting about the countryside alone just because you need to think about them as don’t deserve it,’ Joan said with a significant glance at Rosalind’s left hand.
Rosalind had kept Ash’s ring to give her story weight when she came here with his baby growing in her belly. ‘I cannot help but think about him now,’ she snapped disgustedly, then strode up the grassy lane so fast that her russet countrywoman’s cloak swung out behind her like a banner.
She had to stop and draw breath as soon as she was out of sight of the cottage and now she had a stitch and must stand still until it went.
Look where intemperate feelings get you and learn your lesson, Rose Meadows, her inner schoolmistress nagged.
It was only fury that made Ash seem close enough to feel her rage today. Only a man could make a divorce and even then he had to be an aristocrat. Ash had always been one of those to his very fingertips and she dreaded to think how arrogant he must be now. Eight years ago he had turned his back on her as if she were dross and then left the country to avoid her. She would not let him fill her life now as she had for so long after he left her. There, that was him recalled, dismissed and done with. Now she could turn her thoughts to gallant winter sunshine and a clear blue sky.
The wind had dropped after weeks of storm and tempest and she was tired of feeling hollow inside when Ash must have forgotten he even had a wife until the dukedom landed in his lap. There now, drat the man, but she was thinking about him again. It would not do; she had time to walk to the old stone circle at the highest point on the heath and be home again before dark and she must watch her step. If her thoughts wandered to him on that rough path she might blunder into a foul-smelling bog or tangle herself in a sneaky thicket of brambles. So this was exactly the sort of vigorous exercise she needed until she reached the brow of the hill and could stand in awe of the wide view across the heath and out to the distant sea before she strolled on and reached the stone circle.
* * *
When Ros reached her objective without letting her mind wander or think of the unthinkable more than once or twice, she rested against one of the lichen-covered stones in the January sun to get her breath back. The heath had a strange, secretive beauty at this time of year and she wished she could paint it and take a reminder home for times when the walls of her cottage seemed to close in. Even the pale ribbon of sea on the horizon looked serene as a millpond after weeks of storm and turmoil and only the faintest of breezes stirred the wisps of her hair escaping from its knot to tickle her flushed cheeks.
‘Would I was so calm,’ she murmured and searched the pocket no lady of fashion would dream of allowing to spoil the smooth lines of her gown. Luckily fashion was a stranger to her nowadays so she did not have to worry about such things. Here was the gold half-hunter watch she had bought for Ash as an engagement present and he later thrust back at her as if he wanted no reminders of what they had been to one another before they wed. She calculated how long it would take to walk downhill by the bridleway down to Livesey Village as her fingers ran absently over finely chased metal warm from her body. So many times she had decided to sell it, then put it back in her pocket or hung it by her bed again. Now the familiar details pulled her traitor memory back and she was eighteen again, rounding the corner of a secluded walk in Green Park with her heart hammering with eager anticipation.
Yes, there he was; impatiently waiting for her as he had promised last night when he daringly climbed up to her bedroom window at Lackbourne House to kiss her goodnight and beg her to meet him here in the morning. Here was her love, her Asher Hartfield, handsome, carelessly elegant and infinitely dear. And, wonder of wonders, he must love her back or he would never risk her stepfather’s wrath and a crashing fall just to wish her goodnight. She had been quite right to ignore all the warnings that he was too young to settle down with one woman and as wild and untameable as a feral moorland pony. One look into his warm grey eyes and she knew here was her one and only and what else was there to know?
‘You are precisely ten and a half minutes late, my darling,’ he had told her that morning, closing the watch she had given him as a secret betrothal gift and putting it away so she could run into his arms. Then he was close enough for her to feel his warm chuckle against her skin.
‘I missed you so much I—’ she said, but he stopped her mouth with hot sweet kisses until they both forgot about words for a while.
The
