Lord Hunter's Cinderella Heiress. Lara Temple

to wait until the main reason for marrying her became valid. She was only a child, for heaven’s sake, and the last thing she was ready to cope with at that point was someone else imposing their will on her. Her father and I agreed she would be better off remaining in the care of her schoolmistress as a boarder until she inherited. The corollary was that for the past four years we’ve enjoyed the best terms on the Tilney waterways in generations. I thought it was a damn good arrangement at the time.’

      Stanton stood up himself and moved with uncharacteristic restlessness around the room.

      ‘Are you saying you asked her to marry you because you felt sorry for her?’

      ‘I told you, there were also the water rights. Put like that I know it sounds foolish...’

      ‘Foolish doesn’t begin to cover... Hunter, didn’t it occur to you that making such a decision just days after Tim’s death wasn’t very wise?’

      ‘You do have a talent for understatement, Stanton,’ Ravenscar mocked.

      Hunter rose as well and went to stand by the fire, watching the flames dance cherry and gold in his brandy.

      ‘Very well,’ Stanton said carefully. ‘Now that her enterprising father has forced your hand, what do you intend to do?’

      ‘Since I am honour-bound to stand by my offer, my intentions are irrelevant. She, on the other hand, intends to jilt me.’

      Ravenscar grinned.

      ‘This keeps getting better.’

      ‘I still don’t see anything wrong in principle with marrying in order to ally my land with Bascombe,’ Hunter replied defensively. ‘It’s been done since time immemorial. Now you can take ten minutes to rake me down and then I suggest we get down to the business of finding a property for Hope House in the west country.’

      ‘More important than my friend making a monumental mistake?’ Both Hunter and Ravenscar straightened at the uncharacteristic bite in Stanton’s voice. He rarely used his last-chance-to-negotiate-surrender voice with them. ‘The only sensible thing about this whole fiasco so far appears to be Miss Tilney’s reaction! I make every allowance for your original decision having been made in rather trying circumstances, but do you really mean to tell me that for four years it didn’t occur to you once to seek out this girl and find out whether your decision was a wise one? I don’t give a damn about what people have done over time immemorial! I know you’ve lived your whole life thinking you can rescue people and depend on no one, but you are not as clever as you want to believe and this, let me tell you, is sheer, abject stupidity. Ravenscar I could understand cold-bloodedly deciding to marry an heiress, but you don’t even need the funds; the Hunter estate is one of the wealthiest in Hampshire...’

      ‘Yes, but we depend on Bascombe for the water...’ Hunter raised his hands placatingly, trying to stem Stanton’s rising outrage. It was clearly a mistake. Stanton, renowned for the lightest of diplomatic touches on the most sensitive affairs of state, rarely allowed himself to descend into blasphemy but he did so now, with all the thoroughness he applied to his diplomatic concerns. When he was done the silence was of the calibre often experienced in the studies of the better tutors. The moral point having been made, behaviours examined and condemned, silence remained to let remorse and counsel rise to the surface and prevail. Hunter had had to share quite a few of those moments at Eton with both Stanton and Ravenscar by his side. Predictably Ravenscar broke first.

      ‘What is she like? Ugly as nails? Heiresses usually are. When can we meet her?’

      Hunter hesitated. Before this evening he would have known what to answer. After seeing her again he wasn’t so sure. She was certainly no beauty like Kate, but she was...different. Unpredictable. Intriguing. He decided to keep it simple until he knew what he himself thought. Not that it would make any difference. If he could convince her to hold her course and withstand her father’s ire, she would be someone else’s problem.

      ‘Not that it matters since I am about to be jilted, but she is neither ugly nor a beauty. More...unusual. I’ve never seen a woman with a better seat on a horse. On the other hand, she had a brutal harpy of an aunt living with them who reduced her to the state of a quivering blancmange, which when you’re as tall as a Viking looks just a bit bizarre. Then halfway through one of the most tedious dinners I have yet had to plough my way through she suddenly transformed into an avenging fury, told the aunt to go to the devil with biblical panache and the next day she ran back to her school without a word to anyone but the cook and groom. Then tonight she appeared on my doorstep unchaperoned and determined to consign me to the devil. I’m glad you find this so amusing,’ he concluded a bit sourly as his friends sat with various degrees of grins on their faces.

      ‘You would too, man, if it wasn’t happening to you,’ Ravenscar replied. ‘And I think you could call it a very auspicious beginning. Since marriage is a fate worse than death, it sounds as though you are getting a very fair preview of your future if you can’t convince her to sheer off.’

      ‘Thank you, Ravenscar. I can always count on you for perspective. I admit she wasn’t quite what I had bargained for when I was resigning myself to the benefits of a modest, country-bred wife who would be happy to live at the Hall tending to children and horses and leaving me to my concerns in London.’

      ‘Ah, the sentimental musings of today’s youth...’

      ‘You can be as caustic as you like, Raven. You’re one of the least sentimental people I have ever met.’

      ‘I have my moments. Luckily none of them involved an offer of matrimony.’

      ‘So what are you planning to do?’ Stanton interceded practically. ‘You need to find the girl’s father first thing.’

      ‘He’s likely at the Wilton breeders’ fair and the girl is raring to go there, which is lucky because the sooner I hand her over to her parent, the less likely we are to turn this fiasco into an outright scandal. If she is serious about jilting me, I will need to manage this carefully.’

      ‘Do you really want to nip this affair in the bud?’

      Hunter shrugged. It was probably the wisest course of action. He had worn out his chivalric fantasies trying, and failing, to save Tim and his mother. Even before Tim’s death he, Ravenscar and Stanton had acquired a reputation for wild living and for accepting any and all sporting dares. After a particularly difficult midnight race down to Brighton, society had delighted in dubbing them the Wild Hunt Club. Since Tim’s death he had more than earned his membership rights in that club. He often spent his nights wearing himself down to the point where sleep captured him like the prey of the mythical wild hunts he and his friends were styled after. Whatever still remained of his chivalric impulses he channelled into his work at Hope House and he didn’t need anyone outside his friends, his work and the uncommitted physical companionship of women like Kate. The thought of being saddled with a frightened, easily bullied near-schoolgirl was so distasteful he wondered why he hadn’t just gone down on his knees and thanked his lucky stars the moment she had sent him to the devil. He had certainly been dreading the moment Tilney would come demanding his due.

      It was just that he had been surprised. He had done a very effective job of putting her out of mind since that day at Tilney and coming face-to-face with her had disoriented him. She certainly didn’t act like a frightened girl, despite a few moments when he had seen alarm in her silvery eyes. As for near-schoolgirl...those lips and that body were anything but schoolgirlish.

      He sighed. None of this mattered. The key was to grasp this reprieve with both hands. He would take her to her father and see if he could extract himself from this fiasco without too much damage.

      ‘Well, whatever you decide, I have faith in your ability to talk her into your way of thinking,’ Ravenscar said. ‘I’ve yet to see anyone get by you when you bend your mind to it.’

      ‘Tim did.’

      The words were out before Hunter could stop them. They would have been completely out of place, except that these two men had also risked their lives to rescue Tim from France during