have Jamie.’
‘He is not yet twenty. Besides, he is no match for Ayrebourne. Marriage to me would make any marriage to the Duke impossible.’ He paused. ‘You were my best friend, you know.’
Beth rubbed her fingers against the smooth finish of the painted sill, while leaning her forehead against the pane. Her eyes stung with the flood of memories: long afternoons beside the brook, winter walks with the snow crisply crunching under their feet and long tramps through whistling windy days in fall.
‘Childhood friendship does not require this level of sacrifice. You and I haven’t spoken in years.’
For a moment he did not respond, but when he did, something in his voice sent a nervous tingling through her body making her breath uneven.
‘You know with us that doesn’t matter.’
She felt it, that intangible connection, that closeness that was rooted in childhood, but it had also changed. She heard him shift. She heard his breath quicken.
She bit her lip. ‘Why didn’t you write or come back or visit?’
There was a pause. She heard his discomfort, the intake of his breath and the movement of his clothes.
‘I couldn’t.’
‘It doesn’t take much. You inhale and speak. You pick up a pen or...or hire a horse.’
‘You’ll just have to believe me.’
‘And now you expect me to marry you after all these years?’
‘I expect nothing. I am merely offering a preferable alternative to the Duke,’ he said, his voice now hard and clipped.
She shivered. Few things frightened her, but the Duke was one of them. Marriage to him would destroy her. Even if she avoided that and he agreed to buy the land, it was an unpleasant concept and would give him even more reason to linger in the village or woods. She rubbed her arms. Goose pimples prickled the skin. She hated the thought of him owning the land on her own doorstep. Already, she felt watched. And sometimes, as she walked through the woods, she’d smell that odd sweet fragrance that seemed to emanate from him.
The Duke would use everything against her: her sex, her youth, her poverty, her sightless eyes, her wonderfully odd brother.
Ren stepped closer to her. She felt his breath on her neck, his tall presence behind her and his hand on her own. Warmth filled her, which was both comfortable and uncomfortable. The urge for distance and separation lessened so that, for an impulsive, crazy moment, she wanted only to lean against him and to feel his strength.
Ren was her friend. He had guided her over rivers and up steep hillsides.
His hand stilled the nervous movement of her fingers against the sill. ‘You can trust me.’
She nodded.
‘Let me honour our childhood friendship.’
‘We were good friends.’
His grip tightened and she felt the warmth grow, a tingling energy snaking through her.
‘The best. Don’t put yourself in that man’s power. Let me help,’ he said in a voice now oddly soft. ‘Don’t marry him.’
‘I don’t have the option to be selective,’ she muttered.
‘You do now.’
Eighteen months later
Beth strode towards the stable. As always, she counted her steps, tapping the path with her cane. She lifted her face to the sky, enjoying the warmth of the sun’s rays and the soft whisper of breeze. She enjoyed spring. She liked the smell of grass and earth. She liked the rustle of fresh leaves, so different from the dry, crisp wintery crack of bare branches. She liked that giddy, happy sense of renewal.
Even better, she welcomed the ease of movement which came with drier weather. Country life at Allington was dreadfully dull.
Worse than dull, it was lonely. Her beloved sister-in-law was dead. Jamie seldom conversed. Edmund had left. Ren never came. Her maid chattered of ribbons.
For a fleeting second, she remembered childhood winters: walks with Ren, afternoons by the fire’s crackling heat in a room rich with the aroma of cinnamon toast. Sometimes Edmund would read while Ren painted and Jamie pored over a botanical thesis.
Beth pushed the past away, recognising her brother’s footsteps on the rutted path. She lifted her hand in greeting.
‘Field’s ready for planting,’ Jamie said without preamble, satisfaction lacing his tones.
‘You are trying new crops this year?’
‘New variety of beans. They will be hardier.’
‘In Edmund’s fields as well as our own?’
Jamie grunted assent. ‘As I doubt your husband plans to do so.’
‘He’s in London,’ she said flatly. ‘Besides, Edmund left a manager in charge.’
Edmund, or rather Lord Graham, was Ren’s brother. Her husband’s brother...husband. Even after eighteen months her mind stumbled over the word—it wasn’t surprising since she had likely conversed more with the village blacksmith, a man of guttural grunts and limited vocabulary, than her spouse.
‘I am also trying a new variety of peas,’ Jamie said.
She nodded. ‘By the way, do we have any surplus supplies? I went to the Duke’s estate yesterday. The people are starving so I asked Arnold to take grain.’
She heard Jamie’s quick intake of breath. ‘You should not go there.’
‘Arnold was with me. Besides, the Duke is away. He hasn’t visited me since I turned down his proposal.’
‘One good thing about your marriage. But he has been at his estate on occasion. I also saw him on our own grounds once. Said his hound had strayed.’
Beth felt a shiver of apprehension. Dampness prickled her palms and her lungs felt tight as if unable to properly inhale the air. She pushed the feeling away. ‘The important thing is to get his people food.’
‘It is that bad?’
‘Yes.’ Beth’s fingers tightened on her cane. Her jaw clenched at the thought of yesterday’s visit. She remembered a mother’s desperate effort to soothe her hungry child. She’d held his hands and felt the thin boniness of his tiny fingers pressed into her palm like twigs devoid of flesh. ‘The Duke’s treatment of his tenants has worsened. I worry that it is a form of punishment.’
‘Punishment?’
‘Yes, for avoiding marriage to him.’
‘The
