the cluttered little parlour of the Brambles. And just as she was recalling how the boys would lounge like so many overgrown puppies around their feet, her uncle’s butler, Bedworth, stunned her by opening the door and intoning, ‘Captain Alaric Bredon.’
While Imogen was still reeling from the coincidence of having the butler announcing a visitor with a name so like that of the boys she was thinking of, Bedworth opened the door a little wider, and she saw, just beyond his portly figure, in the scarlet jacket with the yellow reveres and cuffs of his regiment, his shako held under one arm, and a broad grin creasing his weather-beaten face, her oldest—and favourite—stepbrother.
‘Rick!’ she squealed, leaping to her feet, scattering her silks, tambour and pincushion in all directions.
Captain Bredon met her halfway across the room, dropping his shako as he spread his arms wide to sweep her into his embrace.
‘Midge!’ he laughed, lifting her off her feet and twirling her round as she flung her arms round his neck.
‘Oh, Rick, c-can it really be you?’ She was so happy to see him. It was absurd to find tears streaming down her face.
‘When did you get back to En-England?’ she hiccupped. He had missed his father’s funeral. The letter informing him of Hugh Bredon’s death had not caught up with him for several weeks. She had hoped he might have been permitted time to come home, but his commanding officer had thought pushing Bonaparte’s troops back into France had been far more important. ‘You have Nick there,’ he had written back to her. ‘Trust him to do what is best for you. After all, he is the legal brains of the family.’
And Nick had dealt with everything with extreme punctiliousness. But, oh, how she wished Rick had been there on that day when she had felt as though she had lost everything at a stroke!
Now that he was here, she found herself burying her face in his shoulder, letting go of all the grief she had bottled up for so long.
‘Rick, Rick,’ she sobbed. ‘I have m-missed you so much.’
‘Imogen!’ shrieked her aunt, preventing Rick from making any reply. ‘Have you lost all sense of decorum?’
‘But this is Rick, ma’am, Rick, my brother—’
‘I had gathered that,’ her aunt snapped. ‘But that is no excuse for indulging in such unseemly behaviour! And as for you, young man, I will thank you to put my niece down!’
Rick did so with alacrity. He had just tugged his jacket back into place and taken a breath as though to tender an apology for offending his hostess, when they all heard a carriage drawing up outside.
Lady Callandar flew to the window, said a rather unladylike word, then rounded on Imogen and Rick.
‘Up to your room, this instant!’ she barked at Imogen. ‘And as for you—’ she swooped on Captain Bredon’s shako and thrust it into his hands ‘—out! Now! No arguments!’
Imogen had caught a glimpse of the carriage when her aunt had twitched back the curtains, and she recognized Lord Keddinton’s crest on the door panel. The very last people she wished to face, in her present state, were Penelope and Charlotte Veryan. Hitching her skirts up in one hand, while dashing tears from her face with the other, she ran from the room and up the stairs.
She heard booted feet echo on the hall’s marbled tiles, then Rick’s bewildered cry of ‘Midge?’
She turned and looked down. Rick had one foot on the bottom step, as though he meant to follow her.
‘Oh, no you don’t!’ said her aunt, erupting from the drawing room in a froth of Brussels lace and righteous indignation. ‘This is a respectable household. I will not permit Imogen to have young men in her room.’
‘But I am her brother, ma’am,’ he protested.
‘No! You may think of yourself in those terms. But you are not related in the slightest.’
Somebody rapped on the front door, making them all freeze for a second. Rick took one last questioning look up at Imogen, who shook her head, silently begging him to understand. She could see him weighing up his options and in the end, choosing discretion. He removed his foot from the lower step, then made for the front door, his expression grim.
Torn between gratitude he was not making a stand and grief that he was retreating, Imogen backed noiselessly along the landing.
Bedworth, who had been biding his time beside the porter’s chair, opened the front door to permit Rick to leave and the visiting ladies to enter.
Imogen tiptoed to her room, where she sank onto her bed, guiltily aware that only her aunt’s quick thinking had saved her from becoming the subject of yet more gossip.
The next morning, when Imogen went down to breakfast, she found a carefully worded note from Rick beside her plate. With some trepidation, she passed it to her aunt.
‘He wishes to take you out for a drive in the park this afternoon?’ she said, squinting at the letter through her lorgnette. ‘Quite unexceptionable. You may send him back a note to the effect that you accept his invitation.’
Imogen felt faint with relief. She had spent the whole of the previous night in a state of sleepless agitation. What if her aunt had taken such exception to Rick’s lack of manners, she had reported the whole scene back to her uncle? He might forbid her stepbrother to call ever again! Even though Rick was an officer now, he was not exactly what Lord Callandar would call ‘top drawer.’ Her mother had, she learned soon after coming to live in Mount Street, married beneath what he expected of a Herriard on both occasions. First to an impecunious baron with an unsavoury reputation, and then to a mere ‘mister.’
Though at least it had shed some light on Nick’s apparent defection. He must have been astute enough to realize he would not receive a warm welcome in such an elevated household as Imogen now inhabited. That was why he had never called!
‘You will wear the dark blue carriage dress, with the silver frogging. And the shako-style bonnet with the cockade. It will make a charming picture, beside his own uniform.’
Imogen blinked at her aunt in surprise. She knew Lord Callandar disapproved of her stepbrothers, and had thought Lady Callandar shared his opinion. Whenever she mentioned them, it was as ‘those Bredon boys’ with her nose wrinkling up in distaste.
She gave Imogen a straight look. ‘I can see how fond of each other you are. I do not wish to make you unhappy, niece, by preventing you from seeing something of him during the short time I daresay he has on leave.’
‘Thank you, Aunt,’ said Imogen as meekly as her thundering heart would permit.
‘Besides,’ said her aunt, laying the note down next to her plate, ‘I cannot see how even you could manage to get into trouble, sitting beside a gentleman in his carriage. Do you happen to know what kind of carriage he has?’
Imogen was certain he had no carriage of any description. He would hire something. Her stomach turned over. She only hoped he had the funds to procure something that was not too run-down. Nor too dashing. It would have to strike just the right balance to satisfy her aunt’s notions of propriety.
‘And I hope,’ her aunt said with a hard gleam in her eye, ‘that now
