Housemaid Heiress. Elizabeth Beacon

and ready to share their simple supper. They retired early, for Thea had a brisk walk to look forward to and a hard day’s work. It was a very long time before she slept. When Thea did, she was glad her hostess was rather deaf, for she had woken from a nightmare on a panicked scream.

      

      It was strange living on the wrong side of the myriad of doors designed to hide servants in the service of their betters. The sun rose and set on her labours, but Thea got used to her duties. The news that Major Ashfield was the new Viscount Strensham galled her more. Of course it made no difference. With her name besmirched she couldn’t marry him, although his title would free her fortune. Yet could she have lived with his cold logic, if he had found out who she really was and offered marriage for mercenary reasons? Yes, the instant reply came, then she contemplated such an unequal match and shuddered.

      The great idiot had already hurt her more than the Winfordes had succeeded in doing by stripping her of home and worldly advantages. Marcus Ashfield had left her without the luxury of hope. Some last childish part of her had harboured the delusion that one day she might meet a man who valued her for herself alone. She did not have that vague hope now and, if she hadn’t been so busy, she might have been miserable.

      She found comfort in the thought that, even if she were a lady, he would dish out the same hurt. The deluded girl she had been could well have gone into a decline, so at least she was saved making that discovery too late.

      Then one April morning the sounds of church bells pealing out joyously interrupted the calm of Rosecombe, and such small considerations as a bruised heart faded into unimportance. The now nearly recovered Captain Prestbury rode out with his cousin to find out what was going on, to be met with the joyful news that Bonaparte had surrendered to the Allies. The cousins galloped back to Rosecombe with joy in their hearts.

      ‘Peace at last, my love!’ Sir Edward shouted, and threw himself off his horse to share the glad news with the woman he loved so much.

      ‘Oh, Ned, is it truly all over?’ her ladyship gasped breathlessly, as he seized her and swung her round, all the time laughing with joy.

      ‘Unless Farmer Boughton has been at the apple brandy, which I doubt as he has been a teetotaller ever since I can remember.’

      ‘Then we must ring the bell so we can share the news, my love.’

      As they were standing in the hall under the bemused gaze of most of their household, there was no need, and there was much cheering and chattering with joy and relief. They were given a half-day to celebrate and by nightfall bonfires were blazing for miles around.

      

      ‘Not celebrating, Miss Smith?’ Captain Prestbury asked Thea as she melted into the shadows where he watched joy being unconfined.

      ‘Of course, Captain, who would not?’ she replied cautiously, wishing she had checked the darkness before she tried to melt into it.

      ‘Someone who finds it hard to believe it’s all over I suppose.’

      ‘It does seem strange.’

      ‘Strange is too mild a word. After so many years of fighting that genius of a madman, I can’t believe it’s over.’

      ‘You think Bonaparte mad?’

      ‘Not in the sense poor old Farmer George is, but anyone who seeks to rule the world is unhinged.’

      ‘I see what you mean.’

      ‘Do you, Miss Smith?’ The light mockery was back in his voice and Thea wondered if anyone was allowed to catch more than a glimpse of the real Captain Prestbury.

      ‘Only a fool refuses to acknowledge his enemy’s strengths.’

      ‘And you are far from being a fool.’

      If only that were true. ‘Neither am I very wise.’

      ‘Yet, does a hard start explain your contradictions, I wonder?’

      Now his voice was speculative and Thea felt her heart race for a very different reason than it had in Marcus Ashfield’s company. Both cousins were dangerous in their own way.

      ‘I must leave you, sir, lest we be seen.’

      His grip was surprisingly firm for a man who was recovering from dreadful wounds. Most unattached females in Wiltshire were in love with this tall, dark and handsome Hussar, but she just felt a twinge of regret that they could never be friends. His cousin had dealt with any weaknesses she had for rogues ready to break her heart and leave without a backward look.

      ‘Just a warning from one adventurer to another,’ he continued, his grip impersonal and his gaze steady.

      ‘I’m no adventuress.’

      ‘Yet you’re not what you seem either, are you, Miss Smith?’

      ‘I am exactly what I seem, sir. Someone who needs a job to stave off destitution.’

      ‘Those are the plain facts,’ he agreed, but she could still see the glint of cynicism in blue eyes that were dark in the distant light of the flames. ‘Yet it is my business to look beneath them, even if my intentions are pure for once.’

      ‘You can hardly expect me to believe that, now can you, Captain?’ she told him, with a significant glance at his long fingers fettering her wrist.

      He chuckled and let her go, trusting his words to keep her.

      ‘You have a way of looking adversity in the face and defying it that says you are a kindred spirit, Miss Smith. Would I had met you on the dance floor.’

      ‘You must have a touch of fever, Captain. Housemaids hardly ever go to grand parties.’

      ‘I observe, my dear. I don’t report unless my commanders decree it, and even if you were Boney’s best spy it could hardly signify now.’

      ‘Well that’s a relief.’

      Thea saw him smile by the intermittent light, but he was sober and unsmiling when he finally came to the point. ‘My cousin Marcus is a fool, but a very determined one,’ he said gently.

      She held up a hand in protest, feeling as if someone was probing a wound as tender as the one finally healing in his arm.

      ‘I’m not always so fast asleep as I seem, Miss Smith. With the number of stitches in my arm, I am often pressed to do more than doze.’

      ‘You have the habit of deceit, Captain,’ she told him disapprovingly.

      ‘True, but perhaps we had best not to examine that trait too deeply, since you share it. At first I was sparing the great oaf worry by staying still, then I nearly ended up blushing like a schoolgirl.’

      ‘Serves you right.’

      ‘True, but I was glad you finally remembered my presence.’

      ‘I recalled my own good sense, you had nothing to do with it.’

      ‘I’m suitably mortified, but nevertheless you did well. Marcus decided long ago to have nothing to do with love. I doubt anything less would seem worthy of throwing your bonnet over the windmill.’

      ‘I realised that for myself.’

      ‘Yet it can’t hurt to say he’s as stony hearted as I’m thought to be.’

      ‘No, Captain, the gossips are wrong.’

      ‘That they’re not. Marcus is quieter than me, but he’s still dangerous, and your sex has a way of yearning for the unattainable.’

      ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said softly and reached a gentle hand up to touch his still-thin cheek. ‘Lord Strensham is essentially cold, but I think you, Captain, are far from it.’

      He looked uncomfortable, more used to brazening out misdeeds than fielding praise. ‘I leave at the end of the week to continue my recovery at my grandmother’s house in Bath,’ he said with every