The Earl's Practical Marriage. Louise Allen

to one side when you were thinking. It reminded me of an old acquaintance.’ Whoever it was, the memory did not appear to give him much pleasure.

      Laurel nodded and walked away from him to the chaise. His face was intelligent and sensitive when he was serious, not merely handsome. That expression made up for the blue eyes—in fact, it was positively engaging. Trust me, it said.

      ‘Hah!’ she said under her breath as she climbed into the chaise and made room for Binham on the seat beside her. Men were not trustworthy, strangers or relatives, or friends. Life had taught her that.

      ‘My lady?’ Her new maid, a stickler for protocol, including being addressed by her surname by her employer and as Miss Binham by the lower servants, was radiating disapproval at the conversation with a strange man. Her stepmother thought well of Binham. Laurel had plans to find the lady’s maid a new employer at the earliest opportunity unless she showed signs of developing a sense of humour.

      ‘Nothing, Binham. Hold tight, this will be a bumpy ride, I fear.’

      They turned south, then west, climbing steadily, paralleling the modern road two miles or so away to their right on the other side of the great rise of Downland. Almost immediately the metalled road turned into a chalk track, rutted and white with dust.

      Binham gave a little shriek at the first lurch, clutched Laurel’s dressing case to her bosom with one hand and grabbed for the strap with the other. Laurel held on tightly and looked forward, through the glass between the team of four and the postilions, to the horseman leading the way.

      He was sitting relaxed on a big grey horse that had as much of a raffish air about it as its master, its tail ungroomed and long, its legs covered in the thick dust of the road. It was not some hired hack, that was for sure, not ridden on such a loose, trusting rein by a man who looked as though he had spent so long in the saddle that he was perfectly at home there.

      Laurel pushed back her veil and narrowed her eyes at the broad shoulders, the comfortable slouch. It was most improbable, but there was still something familiar about the man.

      No, it isn’t familiarity, she thought. It is as if someone rubbed out a faint pencil sketch of a young man and then drew this one on the same sheet of paper with the ghost of the original showing through.

      Which was ridiculous. The only person she had ever known with such lapis-blue eyes had been Giles Redmond and he had been an unprepossessing youth, his big feet and hands, large nose and ears all seeming to belong to someone else and not the mousey, scholarly young man. He had been thoughtful and sensitive though, always a loyal friend—and always failing to meet his father’s expectations.

      Gentle, kind, fun to be with and tolerant of the neighbours’ daughter, two years younger than him: no one had suspected that sixteen-year-old Laurel Knighton could fall for such a plain and retiring youth, even if he was the heir to a great title. But kindness, humour and intelligence could be as attractive to an impressionable girl as good looks and confidence.

      The Marquess of Thorncote, Giles’s father, had wanted a son from the same mould as himself for his heir—active, noisy, enthusiastically confident, a man who would hunt all day and wench and drink all night. Instead he had Giles, nose in a book, secretive and more likely to shoot his own foot off than hit a pheasant.

      Strange that he had so little idea of what his son was truly like, any more than she had known. It had almost been funny, the expression on the Marquess’s face the day the worm turned and Giles showed his true colours and her friend had revealed himself for the treacherous, deceitful beast that he was.

      But that was nine years in the past. The Marquess was ailing now, they said, not that there was any social interaction between Malden Grange, home of William Knighton, Earl of Palgrave, her late father, and Thorne Hall. Not since the day of the betrothal debacle.

      Malden was not her home any longer, not now that she had no function beyond that of spinster stepdaughter. Laurel narrowed her eyes at the worn brown riding coat ahead as though its wearer was personally responsible for her change of circumstances and the move to Bath.

      Which was unfair, she told herself.

      Just let me get to Laura Place—the name so close to her own must surely be a good omen—and I will learn to be contented and useful again. I refuse to become a sour old maid. I will be happy, find happiness in all the little things.

      She was simply resentful of the stranger triggering something in her memory of those long-ago days, she supposed.

      They were still climbing, the horses labouring now as the wheels stuck in deep ruts or lost their grip on loose stones. Open grassland spread out on either side and Laurel dropped the window, filling the stuffy interior of the chaise with cool air and the sound of birdsong all around them.

      ‘It feels like the roof of the world,’ she said as they came to a halt and she realised the vehicle was on the level. Then she hastily adjusted her veil as the stranger brought his horse round and leaned down from the saddle to look through the open window.

      ‘The team needs to rest a while after that pull and the view is spectacular.’

      ‘I have been looking at it, thank you.’

      Definitely not a gentleman if he persisted in talking to a lady to whom he had not been introduced.

      ‘Not on that side, this way.’ He gestured with his riding crop. ‘Come and see.’

      Outrageous, of course. She should snub him and raise the glass and sit demurely in the carriage until the horses were rested. She was thoroughly bored with that carriage.

      I am looking for happiness in small things, Laurel reminded herself, looking at the froth of white cow parsley in the sunlight, smelling the fresh scent of growing things. ‘Very well. Come along, Binham. Oh, do leave the dressing case. Who is going to steal it up here?’

      With the maid’s stare heating the spot between her shoulder blades Laurel picked her way along a side track and was suddenly not only on the roof of the world, but on its very edge. The close-cropped grass fell away at her feet, the valley of the Avon spread out before her. The face of the Downs was marked with deep, wide, dry valleys, as though a giant had pressed his fingers into the earth while it was still malleable, and the grass was starred with the white shapes of grazing sheep.

      ‘Oh, how lovely.’ She flipped back her veil to see better, the breeze a cool caress on her cheeks.

      ‘Ouch! I’ve turned my ankle, my lady.’

      Binham was glaring mutinously at the tussocky grass with its liberal sprinkling of sheep droppings. She had hardly taken a few steps, let alone enough to twist her foot. This was simply rebellion. Laurel was too weary of her to argue. ‘Go back to the chaise then, Binham.’

      Beside her the stranger watched the retreating maid, then turned back to Laurel, his gaze sharpening as he took in her unveiled face. Surely she had imagined the fleeting puzzlement in his expression, because it was not there now. ‘Yes, it is lovely,’ he agreed. ‘I have missed England in the spring.’ So she had been right, he had been abroad. ‘Listen to the skylarks. See, there is one, so ridiculously high.’ He pointed, leaning right back to look up at the tiny speck far above their heads.

      Laurel leaned back, too, following the line of his pointing finger. ‘So brave, singing its heart out, trying to touch the heavens.’

      She lost her balance and stumbled. The man caught her, turned her and stood, his hands cupping the points of her shoulders. ‘Dizzy? I have you.’

      Yes, yes, you do.

      There was something about him, something so familiar, so dear and yet so tinged with regret and sadness—and yet, surely she had never met this man before.

      She stood there, looking deep into the blue depths of his eyes, stood far too close, too long, his palms warm even through the thickness of her pelisse and gown. Then he took his hands away, as though freeing a captured bird, and, very slowly, giving her all the time in the world to run, he bent forward until his mouth met hers.