you. We do both feel it very much still, my father was a man of considerable character. However, Sarah is gradually getting about more; in such a small and friendly community it is easier, although she does not feel yet that she should go to such a formal occasion as this. You must excuse us for not calling upon you.’
He hesitated, then asked, ‘And are you comfortable at the Moon House? We wondered that anyone would buy it after it had stood empty for so long.’
Miss Redland had drifted across to join them. Hester admired the casual way she achieved it. ‘Oh, yes, Miss Lattimer, are you not afraid of the ghost?’
Hester admired less her rather too obvious flutterings of mock-horror and they certainly did not seem to provoke the protective instincts she had hoped for in Sir Lewis. He frowned and said repressively, ‘You should pay no attention to superstitious village gossip, Annabelle. Just because of a number of strange incidents, there is no need to build up some fantasy of hauntings.’
‘So how do you explain them?’ Miss Redland demanded, suddenly reduced from grown-up young lady to the girl who had doubtless played and argued with the Nugents all her childhood. ‘You cannot, can you?’
‘Just because I cannot explain something does not mean it is anything to be afraid of.’ Sir Lewis was looking somewhat harassed. ‘I am sure it is quite safe. But you must let me know if you are regretting your decision, Miss Lattimer: I would always repurchase the house. In fact, I feel it my duty.’
‘Thank you, but I am perfectly comfortable,’ Hester said firmly. ‘I pay no attention to gossip—why, I am sure any house that is empty for some time attracts some such nonsense.’ All the same, she did wish people would stop trying to reassure her about it—their very words seemed to conjure up phantoms where none had existed before.
Guy Westrope was within earshot and she realised he was watching her, his face serious. She seemed to read a warning in his eyes. Did he think there was something to be worried about? But in her bedchamber he had said he was sure there was a perfectly rational explanation for both the pearls and the state of the dressing room. Hester gave herself a little shake. Perhaps he was warning her about taking this nonsense too seriously. Which was generous of him, considering that nothing would suit him better than for her to decide to sell up and move. The creeping anxiety about him returned.
‘Dinner is served, my lord.’
The small dinner party sorted themselves out with the ease of old acquaintances, despite being in the home of an unfamiliar host. Hester realised that Guy must have taken considerable pains to make himself known in the neighbourhood in a very short time. He had apparently asked Mrs Bunting to preside at the foot of the table while he took the head and Hester found herself being taken in by Major Piper and seated at Guy’s left hand opposite the formidable Mrs Redland.
For the first remove she devoted herself to Major Piper as convention demanded. He was thin, apparently rather shy, which made him gruff, and, she estimated, in his fifties.
With patience she extracted the information that he was a major of Marines and had been invalided out of the service after receiving a bullet in the chest. He now devoted himself to breeding the perfect spaniel and the management of his small estate.
Hester realised she must have sounded more knowledgeable than she had intended whilst talking about military matters when the major enquired whether she had relatives in the armed forces. Cautiously she explained that her father had been a major in the Peninsular Army and had been killed in 1812.
Why she should have been aware of Guy listening to their conversation she could not say. His head did not turn and she was conscious of him maintaining a constant flow of small talk with Mrs Redland, yet somehow she was sure he was listening to what she was saying.
And what if he is? she scolded herself. Nothing you are telling the major would arouse anyone’s interest. England is littered with the orphaned offspring of military men. To assume that anyone in this inward-looking community would have knowledge or interest about one disgraced young woman was to place her own importance far too high. And eligible, noble bachelors would certainly have not the slightest knowledge of the gossip surrounding insignificant young ladies. What did it matter anyway if a certain sector of society shunned her as the mistress of the late Colonel Sir John Norton?
As the staff cleared the first remove with silent proficiency, she acknowledged yet again that it did matter and that she had been left scarred and humiliated by the slurs of Sir John’s relatives. Telling oneself over and over again that the opinion of such blinkered, uncharitable persons could not be regarded by a rational person of clear conscience seemed not to help at all.
Firmly fixing her social smile on her lips, Hester turned to Guy, only to find him watching her with such intensity that she had a sudden qualm that her back hair had escaped again.
‘It hasn’t, has it?’ she hissed.
‘What?’ he hissed back, laughter suddenly lighting up his eyes.
‘My hair—you were looking so…’
‘I can assure you it is the picture of perfection, Miss Lattimer. Does it escape so frequently that it is the only reason you can think of why a gentleman might stare at you?’
Hester blushed, darting a quick glance at Mrs Redland in case she had overheard this blatant piece of flirtation. Fortunately she was intent on a spirited conversation with Mr Bunting about some detail of the church flowers with Miss Prudhome silently listening to their exchanges.
‘It is the despair of my maid,’ she admitted candidly, deciding to ignore the latter part of his question.
‘Perhaps it is the outward sign of your impetuous nature,’ Guy suggested, carving the wing from a capon and placing it on her plate. The glitter of laughter was there again and something else, which touched her skin as a flicker of warmth.
Suddenly breathless, Hester looked away and found diversion in thanking Major Piper for the offer of the timbale of rice. It was back, that shiver of recognition that this man was the embodiment of an ideal. It was insane to think like that; it would be madness even if she was the possessor of an unspotted reputation. Not only was Lord Buckland a peer of the realm, far above her socially, he was also a man she knew she could not wholly trust, much as she wished she could.
Eventually she could find no excuse not to turn back and resume their conversation. ‘Thank goodness the weather has turned drier, constant drizzle is so dispiriting, do you not think?’ she enquired. She was not in the slightest interested in Guy’s opinion of the weather, but it was the safest topic she could think of.
‘Indeed,’ he agreed with a gravity which told her he knew exactly what she was about. ‘I did not know your father was in the army.’
‘But why should you?’ Hester replied, smiling to remove the sting from her brisk answer. Then her stomach performed an uncomfortable lurch—had he been having her investigated, all the better to dislodge her from her home? No, a moment’s thought told her. He had been genuinely surprised to find a young single woman in possession of the Moon House. Aware that she was verging on being rude, she added, ‘He was with Wellington in the Peninsula and was killed at Vittoria.’
Guy sent her a look of sympathy, which conveyed more than any amount of trite condolence could have, and said simply, ‘You must be very proud of him.’
‘I am,’ Hester agreed. ‘We were close. My mother died when I was fifteen and we had always
