The Earl and the Hoyden. Mary Nichols

was too late. I would have been glad to be reconciled with him. Did he ever forgive me?’

      ‘I think so, though I always thought there was nothing to forgive, except perhaps your hasty departure, when he might have come round to listening to you, and you to him.’

      Roland did not think so, but forbore to say so. ‘What would you have me do?’

      ‘It was his wish that you restore the Hall. It is, after all, your home. It has been the home of the Amerleighs for hundreds of years. One day you will marry and pass it on to your sons.’

      ‘I know, Mama.’ He gave a sigh. From what he had seen, it would be a monumental task and one that would take every penny he owned and more. ‘I had better see Mount-ford and talk it over with him.’

      ‘Yes. He will tell you about the lawsuit.’

      His heart sank. ‘The lawsuit?’

      ‘Yes, your father was in dispute with Mr Cartwright over a strip of land that he said the man had cheated him out of.’

      ‘Browhill?’

      ‘Yes, how did you know?’

      ‘I came that way and met Miss Cartwright.’ He smiled wryly at the memory. ‘We had a few words about it.’

      ‘Oh, no, not you too. Will there be no end to it?’

      ‘I do not know. Tell me what happened.’

      ‘Later. Now, I must go and have a room made ready for you, then you can change and we will have dinner.’ She bustled away.

      He sat on for a few minutes, gazing at a portrait of his father that hung over the mantel. It showed a big, proud man, master of all he surveyed, supremely confident. How had he come to be so far in debt he had had to leave his ancestral home? His mother seemed reluctant to tell him.

      He stood up and left the room to go in search of her and found her in one of the bedrooms supervising the making up of a bed for him. His portmanteau and haversack had been brought up and put on a chest under the window. A jug of hot water had been placed on the wash stand. ‘There, will that do?’ she asked.

      ‘Very well, Mama. I am used to far less than this.’

      ‘Come down when you are ready. I do not know what Mrs Burrows is making for dinner, but I am sure she will do her best.’

      He washed quickly, changed his shirt, put on his best uniform and returned downstairs where they were served a simple meal in the dining room by Mr Burrows. He had been the butler even longer than his wife had been the cook. He had always been one to stand on his dignity in the hierarchy of the servants’ quarters and held sway over at least twenty indoor servants. Now, according to his mother, Mr and Mrs Burrows and one girl were all the indoor staff they had.

      ‘And outside?’ he asked, after Burrows had left them to serve themselves. ‘Gardeners, coachmen, grooms?’

      ‘We go out so little I cannot remember the last time the coach came out. I drive the gig when I want to go calling or shopping. We only have one horse and Bennett looks after it. He still does the garden and keeps an eye on the big house.’

      Roland speared a piece of mutton on his fork. ‘Is that all that’s left?’

      ‘Yes, but we do not need them here and would have no room for them in any case. Some of them went to Mandeville. Jacob Edwards has done very well there. You remember him; he is a year or two older than you. He used to share your lessons before you went away to school and you used to go fishing together in the holidays.’

      ‘I remember.’ Jacob had been with him the first time either of them had set eyes on Charlotte Cartwright. It was at a horse fair that had come to Amerleigh. The boys had been enjoying themselves going round all the stalls and listening to the banter of the stallholders and had stopped at a shooting range where a row of wooden ducks were set up for the contestants to shoot down. Jacob tried first and had hit seven of the ten. Roland had his turn and hit the first nine, but failed at the last.

      ‘Missed!’ said a triumphant voice. He had swivelled round to find a girl of about twelve standing close by. She was well clad and well shod and her reddish hair was crammed under a blue chip bonnet, so she was not one of the villagers. There seemed to be no one with her.

      ‘You think you can do better?’ he had demanded, while the stallholder looked on, grinning from ear to ear.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You are more likely to shoot yourself than the ducks.’

      She held out a brown freckled hand. ‘Give me the gun and I’ll show you.’

      He laughed and gave it to her and was thoroughly chagrined when he found she could load and prime it and was astounded when, hardly seeming to take aim, she shot down all ten ducks in quick succession. ‘I told you so, boy,’ she said, returning the gun and taking a tiny squealing piglet from the stallholder as her prize. Any other girl of his acquaintance would have been more careful of her clothes than to hold the animal in her arms, but she did not seem to mind. Her father had come and fetched her then and given her a jobation for giving him the slip, but she just laughed at him.

      It was Jacob who found out who she was: daughter of Mr Cartwright the owner of Mandeville, an estate on the other side of the hill from Amerleigh. Roland had returned to school without seeing her again that year, but on subsequent holidays he and Jacob had come across her out riding or fishing and they had shouted a greeting and sometimes stood over her on the bank to watch her fish. It was only on reflection now that he realised she had always been alone and he wondered if she had ever had any siblings or playmates. Jacob had admired her, for all the neighbourhood considered her wild and unmanageable. Roland had gone away to university and did not see her again until a few days before that fateful ball, galloping over Browhill, just as he had seen her today. She had not changed.

      ‘Father paid for Jacob’s schooling later, didn’t he?’ he queried, coming back to his conversation with his mother.

      ‘Yes. He has climbed his way up to be a lawyer and is Miss Cartwright’s man of business.’

      ‘Rubbing salt in the wound.’

      ‘Yes. It was all too much for your poor papa and he seemed to give up. The estate became neglected and he thought of nothing but revenge. It soured him, Roland.’

      ‘And he blamed me.’

      ‘In a way I suppose he did.’

      ‘And you? Do you blame me?’

      ‘No, you were young with your life before you and you did not know the whole story. I begged your father to explain the position to you, but he said he would expect you to comply simply because he said it was necessary.’

      Roland closed his mouth on the comment that it was most unlikely that even an explanation would have made him change his mind. In the middle of the most lavish ball he could ever remember his parents holding, he had been told by his father that he was expected to propose to Miss Cartwright that very evening. He remembered his angry reaction as if it were yesterday. ‘Not for anything,’ he had said. ‘The chit is barely out of the schoolroom, if she was ever in one. She is a hoyden and ought to have been a boy. She is certainly plain enough.’ They had had a bitter quarrel and he had stormed up to his room where he had remained despite the entreaties of his mother to come down and his father’s threats that he would cut him off without a penny if he defied him. ‘If you do not obey me in this,’ he had shouted through the thick oak door, ‘you are no son of mine.’

      Next morning Roland had left the house with no luggage except a small carpet bag and taken a stage to London, where he bought into the 95th, which later became part of the Rifle Brigade. His rise to his present rank had been made on merit as more senior officers had been killed and wounded, which he supposed was something the war had done for him.

      ‘Why was it so important to Papa?’

      ‘Your father and Mr Cartwright were once friends in a way,