Chapter One
Eleanor refused to chaperone the most annoying matchmakers in England. Giving them an opportunity to be wicked was the only way to stop them plotting to find her a husband, any husband at all. They had no conscience where she was concerned.
Her sister’s voice filtered through the perfumed air from the shade of the wisteria bower. “All five of them?”
“You can’t count Jasper,” said Mr. Benedict. “He’s as exclusive as the duke. Your sister won’t appeal to either of them. We must pin our hopes on her attracting the rest of the Halyton Horde.”
“If one of them falls in love with her and compromises her, she’d have to marry him.” Juliet sounded thrilled at the idea. “They are all extremely handsome. Eleanor cannot complain!”
“Complain about marrying a Halyton? Should hope not, my love. Brothers of a duke, you know.” Mr. Benedict lowered his voice to ask in worried tones, “Do you find them awfully good looking?”
“Not as handsome as you, Lancie.”
Eleanor almost laughed out loud. How could he worry about his appearance? He was the most boyishly handsome man she had ever met. His flowing blond hair framed a face of breathtaking beauty. If he’d never opened his mouth to speak, she might have loved him as ardently as Juliet.
During a noisy interlude filled with masculine moans and feminine sighs, Eleanor edged out of the rose arbor determined to escape the Halyton brothers, known far and wide as the Horde.
“Your sister is not as lovely as you,” rasped Mr. Benedict.
Eleanor hoped they forgot all propriety and gave in to their desires. She hoped they got caught anticipating their matrimonial delights.
“Oh, Juliet! Oh! Oh!” Mr. Benedict’s eloquence diminished. “Agh.”
What were they doing? She couldn’t resist a quick glance, just to see if more witnesses were required.
“Oh, Lancie.” Juliet stroked her fiancé’s chest. Even through all his clothes, it had an effect on him.
Eleanor had never touched a man’s chest.
“I adore you, my love. I want us to be married, so badly. So very, very, very badly.” Mr. Benedict lost all coherence.
“Me too, Lancie.” Juliet held her fiancé’s face between her hands to make him look at her. She said in a penetrating whisper, “Don’t breathe a word to Eleanor about the Halyton Horde coming to visit.”
How could they! Eleanor escaped from the garden. She had heard stories about the Halytons’ refusal to take no for an answer. Mr. Benedict’s mother was a determined gossip and had confided that her sister, the dowager duchess, had been forced to marry the late duke--their son was born six months after the wedding.
Half an hour later, Eleanor’s mount fidgeted under her in the stable yard. The track up to the moor was bathed in sunlight and she was determined to go home. Foiling the trap laid for her was more important than being brave, or being thought rude by the Benedict family.
Bad luck brought Mr. Benedict running up the path from the garden to stop her.
“Miss Tennant, where are you going?” He gasped for air. “Company is coming. You can’t go for a ride now.”
“I am going home. I left Juliet a note,” said Eleanor. She stared down at him from her vantage point on Grizelle’s back. “You only want me here to meet your Halyton cousins.”
“How can you make a fuss about being introduced to them?” He gave an airy wave of dismissal. “You’ll find they won’t stand on ceremony. There is no need to be shy.” His pride showed in his self-satisfied expression.
“Mr. Benedict, let us have plain speaking between us. You want one of the Halyton Horde to compromise me. I overheard you say so to Juliet.”
“Don’t call ‘em that, the duke doesn’t like it,” he warned. “You misunderstood! A Halyton only compromises the woman he loves and intends to marry. If it were otherwise, if they just went around compromising ladies, the duke would have their heads.” He gave a pitying smile at her ignorance.
“Thank you for explaining it to me. It’s so reassuring.” Her sarcasm was lost on him. “Are any of them likely to find brown hair and gray eyes particularly alluring?”
He appraised her face and figure with a knowing air. Though her long skirt covered even her shoes, and her tailored riding jacket and shirt were perfectly respectable, she suddenly felt half naked, as if he could see through her clothes.
“I wouldn’t have invited them if I didn’t think you had a chance to attach one,” said Mr. Benedict, when he managed to lift his gaze from her bosom. “You are quite out of the ordinary. Told Juliet so.”
“Heavens! I’m sure she thanked you for it.”
“I’m just trying to tell you, Miss Tennant, that if you’d be a little warmer, smiling might help, that you’d have a very good chance of marrying the brother of a duke. They are not the usual men you meet.”
Her face must have shown her disgust for he stared at her in surprise, and asked, “What have I said to upset you?”
“Your aunt had a miserable marriage.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Noblemen make horrible husbands. They are autocratic despots.” She cut off his attempt to speak. “Do not argue with me, Mr. Benedict. Those are your mother’s words, or did she quote her sister, the dowager Duchess of Lezarth?”
“No one is asking you to marry the duke. Ridiculous idea! Anyway, my aunt’s marriage was a love match. Take no notice of my mother! All women enjoy complaining about their husbands when they visit one another.”
“Mr. Benedict, I am a republican.” Eleanor hid her amusement at his slack-mouthed gape of shock. “I believe in liberty, equality and fraternity--without the unfortunate head chopping. I also think women should stand side by side with men to vote. What this country needs is reform without bloodshed.” She admired the pink mounting in his cheeks, and the way the breeze ruffled his hair. In a friendlier tone, she said, “But I have no wish to argue with you about your aunt’s marriage.”
“I don’t discuss politics with females and I’ll have you know my aunt became a duchess!” he spluttered.
“But she became a happy duchess only after the death of her husband.” Eleanor smiled at him to infuriate him more.
“Miss Tennant! What an awful thing to say!”
The fool had but half a brain and that half was mad with passion for her sister.
“Instead of trying to find me a husband, Mr. Benedict, your time would be better spent convincing my father you have compromised Juliet, so he must allow you to marry.”
He almost leapt in the air. “How can you suggest I do such a thing? I begin to think you a most unnatural female, Miss Tennant. And let me tell you, every unmarried lady of my acquaintance has begged me for the introduction I offer you.”
“I decline it, sir. And may I add, I only suggested you give the appearance of having compromised my sister, I didn’t suggest you do it. If you are so delicate in your sensibilities, why don’t you dislike the idea of one of the Halytons forcing himself on me?”
He stared at her stupidly. The connection had never crossed his mind.
Eleanor gave her mare the gentlest of nudges. Grizelle surged forward.
Mr. Benedict grabbed for her bridle. Eleanor gave him a sharp tap with her crop to make him let go. He gave a start of surprise and rubbed the back of his hand.
“You’ll regret running away, Miss Tennant!” he called. “Juliet will never forgive you!”
Her sister’s reaction did not trouble Eleanor in the least. Being dangled like bait in front of the Halyton Horde troubled her exceedingly. Her ability to attract one of them was surely only a figment of Mr. Benedict’s imagination, unless they were all short-sighted and traitors to their class.
Juliet’s beauty caught every eye. When some of her sister’s fickle suitors had attempted to change their allegiance, Eleanor had always found a lively discussion on the rights of women to be dissuasive.
The ride up to the moor handily reduced the mare’s excess of energy. The wind grew stronger the higher they climbed, until the plume on her hat stroked her cheek.
Arguing with Mr. Benedict had heated her blood enough to make her welcome the cooling breeze. She had delighted in deliberately tormenting him and still thought he deserved every word, which made her not a lady. She hoped he’d not break his engagement to Juliet because of it.
A visit to her grandmother in Scotland might be in order. Grandmama thought men an abomination. It was the only place Eleanor would be safe from matchmakers, because her father’s edict that his older daughter must marry first, was known to every household in the county. It made every social event an occasion for stares, whispers, and humiliation. As if she wore a sign on her person saying, ‘Desperate! On The Shelf! Please Propose!’
Being unmarried didn’t trouble her mind. Her body, however, gave embarrassing signs of interest in subjects not suitable, not safe.
She felt longings.
Longings a lady should never have.
Of needs and urges that disturbed her sleep and woke her from dreams about a subject she knew nothing of, to her dismay.
The wind picked up, bringing dark clouds racing towards her. Rain sprinkled a warning as she reached the edge of the moor. Gorse and hawthorn fringed the gritstone outcroppings. The track meandered over the moor for miles.
At first, her path lay through a sea of low bilberry bushes.
Eleanor only had to go west until she saw the needle rock, to find her way home. The mare could find her stable through any weather and had, on occasion, gone home alone.
This part of the moor, although unfamiliar, held no terrors for rider or mount. The heather ran in patches along the drier bits. On either side of the track the grass was nibbled to a smooth bowling green nap by sheep, who moved only when her mare disputed the right of way with them.
Clouds lowered, bringing mist to cloak her.
Visibility was down to a few yards when Eleanor heard the thud of hooves. They were coming towards her. She moved off the path to hide near one of the gritstone boulders.
A man shouted, “He must have headed back.”
She stroked Grizelle’s ears to keep her quiet.
“Damn this weather,” someone answered. “Never find anyone in this.”
“Bet he’s warming his arse while we search like bloody fools.”
“Which way is back? I’ve lost all sense of direction.”
“Follow me. I’m on the path.”
“Jasper never wanted to meet that ugly female Lancelot is trying to marry off. Probably had to dose himself at the thought of it.”
Wicked laughter greeted his insult to her looks.
She silently consigned the Halyton Horde to everlasting torment as they filed past her hiding place.
“I was going to flirt with the poor old thing. I mean, how ugly can she be?”
Groans and hoots served for an answer. It mingled with the sound of their mounts breathing heavily, as if they’d been ridden hard.
“Lancelot said she was sedate. He didn’t say she was ugly.”
“Damn him for inviting us!”
“Do you think Jasper really couldn’t bring himself to meet her?”
“Jasper? Talk to a respectable virgin? Not unless they were discussing her price!”
Their laughter faded into the distance.
Sedate! It was worse than being thought ugly.
Eleanor regained the path with hatred in her heart for all Halytons. Grizelle trotted along, intent on her stable. The mist was no barrier to a mare who wanted to go home.
Did Lancelot Benedict expect her to attract one of those licentious, depraved noblemen? They were all careless sinners tainted by their rank.
Rain began to clear some of the mist. Cold water trickled down her neck.
Sedate!
Eleanor didn’t expect a Halyton to show any interest in her at all. The idea of marrying one of them was laughable. The nobility lived by different rules and married within their own set, or to women of staggering fortune.
Sedate!
The rain cooled her cheeks.
Why not accuse her of being an old maid, of being left on the shelf? Just because she hid her desires, didn’t mean a lazy afternoon on a warm languid summer day could not turn her thoughts to yearnings as hot as any rakehell’s. Only the details were missing from her daydreams.
Sedate! She’d show them sedate, if she ever had one of them in her power. She’d scorn him, and refuse him, and tell him how ugly he was. Debauched wretches, all of them!
The sky grew darker. Lightning flashed in the distance.
Blast them all!
Thunder rumbled nearer. The sky suddenly lit up, sending Grizelle into a fit of nerves.
With relief Eleanor recognized the needle rock marking the edge of the high lip of Bogs Bowl. Going around the rim added miles, going through it in this weather meant dismounting to lead her mare.
Lightning danced along the high ground and thunder blasted until her ears rang.
Eleanor dismounted at the edge and took off her riding jacket to tie the sleeves in a knot around the mare’s neck. Her father’s warning that iron attracted lightning, meant leaving behind as much as possible. The rain plastered her white shirt to her body with cold drops driven hard by the wind.
She unfastened the saddle and draped it over a tussock of grass, taking care not to let go of the makeshift halter. Grizelle’s bridle was soon tucked under a stirrup.
The wind blew Eleanor’s hat back from her head. It tugged painfully on her hat pin. She removed the pin with one hand to secure it better, only to see her hat sail off into Bogs Bowl.
“Damn!” If the Halyton Horde could swear, so could she. She stabbed her silver hatpin into the collar of her shirt. Thunder and lightning roiled about her.
Grizelle sidled closer and trod on Eleanor’s voluminous skirt. The laces tore and her skirt fell to the sodden ground. Her white shirt and petticoat made her feel like a ghost in the gloom cast by the thunder clouds. She struggled to retrieve her skirt from under Grizelle’s hooves.
The mare shuffled nervously and trod heavily on her toes.
Eleanore urged Grizelle forward to free her foot. She hopped about near the edge only to have her remaining clothes blown skyward by the wind. When she could unclench her teeth, she cursed even harder, “Damn and blast it!”
As if she’d conjured it with her words, a bolt of lightning struck the edge of Bogs Bowl. The peal of thunder almost knocked her off her feet.
In the following silence, a man’s voice drifted up, drowsy and warm, “Angel, are you from heaven?”
Eleanor squinted over the lip of Bogs Bowl, through the rain and shadows. Her heart pounded in her breast.
The man lay between mounds of moorgrass lining the steep slope.
She had found the missing Halyton rakehell. The dark-haired sinner who only spoke to a respectable virgin to discuss her price.
All rights reserved © 2003-2010 Maggie Jagger
