Breathe in. Breathe out. ‘Won’t. I don’t want a husband.’ A husband would ruin all her hopes for the future.
The red in Mortimer’s face darkened to puce and his ears flushed vermilion. He reminded her of an angry sunset, the kind that heralded a storm. His bushy grey brows drew together over his pitted nose. ‘I am the head of this family and I say you will obey me or face the consequences.’
Did he think she feared a diet of bread and water or isolation in her room? ‘I—’
‘No more arguments, Frederica. It is decided. I have only your best interests in mind. I have clearly allowed you far too much liberty if your head is full of such nonsense. Art, indeed. Where did you ever get such a notion?’
‘I…’ Oh, what was the point? She didn’t really know where the notion came from anyway.
‘What you need to do, girl, is learn to make yourself useful. Find my glasses. I know I had them here earlier.’ He poked around in the folds of his robe.
Frederica stifled a sigh. ‘Uncle.’
He looked up. She pointed to her nose and he put a hand up to his face. ‘Ah. There they are. Now run along and prepare for our guests. Hurry up before you add a headache to my ills.’
Mortimer pressed one gnarled hand against his poultice and closed his eyes. ‘Ask Snively for more hot water on your way out.’
Dismissed, Frederica lowered her gaze and dropped a respectful curtsy. ‘Yes, Uncle.’
She turned and left swiftly, before he found some other task for her to do. It was no good fighting the stubborn man head on. And Snively was right, he was unusually crotchety. And this idea of his to marry her to Simon was strange to say the least. He’d never expressed a jot of interest in her future before. Perhaps age was catching up to him.
As she headed for the butler’s pantry to deliver her message, her mind twisted and turned, seeking an escape. She would not marry a man she despised as much as he scorned her.
Simon was the key, she realised. He would never agree to this scheme.
And to top it all off, she was to attend a ball? With strangers, people who might know of her mother. People who would expect her to make conversation. And dance. Never once had she danced in public. She’d probably fall flat on her face.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure which was worse: the thought of marriage or the thought of a room full of strangers.
A shudder ran down her spine. Of the two, it had to be Simon. Simon didn’t have a soul. He’d crush hers with his inanity.
Robert shouldered his shotgun, the brace of hares dangling from its muzzle. Fresh meat for dinner. His mouth watered.
He strode down Gallows Hill, mud heavy on his boots, the countryside unfolding in mist-draped valleys and leafless tree-crested hills. The late-afternoon air chilled the back of his throat and reached frigid fingers smelling of decayed vegetation into his lungs.
On the hill behind him, the rooks were settling back among the treetops with harsh cries. He whistled blithely, unusually content at the prospect of stew instead of bread and cheese, or the rations of salt beef provided by his employer.
Perhaps he’d request a recipe for dumplings from Wynchwood’s cook next time he arrived in her kitchen with a plump pheasant for his lordship’s dinner. A wry smile twisted his lips. How the mighty were fallen.
A sudden sense of loss made his stomach fall away.
The whistle died on his lips. Damn it. He would not sink into self-pity. Live for the moment and plan for the future must be his motto or he would go mad.
He slogged on down the hill, unable to recapture his lighter mood. At the bottom, he took the overgrown track alongside the river, pushing aside brambles and scuffing through damp leaves. Without vegetables his stew would be a sorry affair. Perhaps instead of going up to the house in the morning for a list of the cook’s requirements from the local village, he’d go now. She might have some vegetables to spare.
The trees thinned at the edge of the clearing. Stew. He could almost smell it.
Robert stopped short at the sight of a hunched figure perched on an old stump a little way from his cottage, her brown bonnet and brown wool cloak blending into the carpet of withered beech leaves. He knew her at once, even though she had her back to him and her head bowed over something on her lap. Miss Bracewell.
Hades. It seemed she’d taken him up on his invitation to return whenever she liked.
He inhaled a slow breath. This time he would not scare her. This time he would be polite. Polite and, damn it, suitably humble, since no word had come back to him about yesterday’s disastrous encounter.
He’d not had the courage to ask Weatherby about her either. If something had been said, he didn’t want to remind the old curmudgeon.
He circled around, thinking to come at her head on. A twig cracked under his boot. He cursed under his breath.
She leaped to her feet and whirled around. Sheets of paper fluttered around her, landing like snowflakes amid the dry leaves.
Large and grey-green, her eyes mirrored shock. Another emotion flickered away before he could guess its import. Strange when he rarely had trouble reading a woman’s thoughts. It left him feeling on edge. Out of his element.
He touched his hat. ‘Good day, Miss Bracewell.’
An expression of revulsion crossed her face.
It took him aback. Women usually looked at him with favour. Had he upset her so much? And if so, why was she back?
The focus of her horrified gaze remained fixed above his right shoulder. On his dinner, not on him. Not that he wasn’t the stuff of nightmares, with his worn jacket and fustian trousers mired with the blood of his catch. He’d gutted them up on the hill, preferring leaving the offal for scavengers rather than bury it near his hut. He put the gun and its grisly pennant on the ground at his feet with an apologetic shrug.
Her breast rose and fell in a deep breath. ‘Mr Deveril.’
Recalling his mistakes of the day before, he snatched his cap off his head and lowered his gaze. ‘Yes, miss. I am sorry if I disturbed you.’ One of her fallen papers had landed near his foot. He retrieved it. His jaw slackened at a glimpse of a drawing of his own likeness, jacketless, shabby, unkempt, disreputable.
Shock held him transfixed.
She leaped forwards and snatched it from his hand. At a crouching run, she scuttled about picking up the rest of the sheets. Each time he reached for one, she plucked it from beneath his hand, allowing only fractured glimpses of squirrels in their natural setting.
All the sheets picked up, she stood with the untidy bundle of papers clutched against her chest as if fearing he might make a grab for them, staring at him as if he had two heads and four eyes. Obviously she found his presence disturbing.
Her wariness gnawed at his gut like a rat feeding on bone. He quelled the urge to deny meaning her harm. She should be afraid out here alone in the woods without a chaperon.
