Contracted As His Countess. Louise Allen

it was a statement. Jack Ransome gave her a fleeting look that might have held sympathy or perhaps pity. Or even exasperation at her sentimentality. Madelyn tipped up her chin and stared back.

      ‘How long ago did your mother die?’

      ‘A month after the baby.’ Yes, he was definitely feeling sorry for her. ‘I imagine you will want to be on your way, Mr Ransome. If you come with me, I will find you the addresses you will need.’

      ‘Will you not call me Jack now? We are betrothed, after all.’ He sounded more amused than seductive, although his voice was low and the tone intimate. He had suppressed his anger, it seemed, and now he was bent on humouring her, she supposed. That was better than she had feared: a man who simply snatched at what she was offering, took it—and her—and then disregarded her.

      ‘Very well. And you may call me Madelyn.’ Not that he would wait for permission.

      It seemed to take a long time to find the addresses, to have his horse brought round, and she found herself without any conversation. Jack filled her awkward silences with polite remarks about the castle and its furnishings, questions about the armour, apparent interest in the problems of having tapestries woven when the Continent and its skilled craftsmen had been out of bounds until the last year. It was perhaps her imagination that he was tense with barely controlled impatience to be gone.

      Madelyn supposed she answered sensibly enough, but she had no experience of making small talk. As he was drawing on his gloves Jack looked around again at the empty Great Hall. ‘You have a companion living with you, I suppose? An older relative, perhaps?’

      ‘No. I have no close relatives at all. I have my maids.’

      ‘Friends, then? I realise that you are still in mourning—’ he glanced, frowning, at her coloured gown ‘—but when you come up to London to buy your trousseau and so forth, you will need someone to show you how to go on. The year since your father’s death will be up very soon, will it not? I imagine by the time we have matters settled there can be no objection to you appearing in society before the wedding. London is very quiet at this time of year, of course.’

      ‘No. I mean, yes, I will be out of mourning shortly. I only wore black for a few days.’ There was no one to be shocked, after all, so why worry past the funeral? Draping herself in black to symbolise the emotions she felt was hypocritical, she had decided. Besides, white was the correct mourning colour for a lady of the upper classes in the Middle Ages, and she looked so frightful in white. ‘I have no… Father did not socialise in the area.’ He had fallen out with virtually all of their neighbours over one thing or another and those he had not upset regarded him as peculiar at best and a lunatic at worst.

      ‘That must have been lonely.’ He was feeling pity for her again.

      Madelyn set her teeth and managed a smile. ‘One becomes used to it. And Father had numerous guests to stay.’ All male, of course, virtually all middle aged or elderly and equally obsessed with the Middle Ages. Probably society ladies in London would consider her eccentric, too, and would not care to be friends, but at least she would not be tied to these walls, however much she loved them. And one day there will be children, she told herself. She clung to that hope even as butterflies swarmed in her stomach at the thought of venturing into the world outside or to trusting herself to this stranger with the intelligent eyes and the lips that touched hers with the promise of intimacies that frightened her.

      At last the groom led his horse into the courtyard and she had something safe to talk about. ‘What a lovely animal.’

      ‘Thank you. His name is Altair. He is Irish and has great stamina. Do you ride?’

      ‘Yes. I have a palfrey.’ He looked surprised by her choice of word. ‘She has an ambling gait, if you understand the term. They are rare nowadays, of course.’

      ‘I would be interested to see it. But does that mean you do not ride with a modern lady’s saddle?’

      She nodded. ‘I suppose that is something else I must learn.’

      ‘Or you would attract a great deal of interest in Hyde Park. I believe the medieval side saddle involves sitting with your feet on a board?’

      He surprised a laugh from her. ‘In the Middle Ages most women rode pillion or they rode as I do, astride.’

      ‘Not in Hyde Park you do not!’ The groom looked over and Jack dropped his voice. ‘Or anywhere else you might be seen. I will teach you to ride side saddle after we are married.’

      ‘Thank you.’ She suspected that would be far more limiting than she was used to and riding, along with her garden, was her great freedom, her escape. ‘But Catherine the Great of Russia rode astride, I believe.’

      ‘Catherine the Great did a number of things I would be alarmed to see my wife doing,’ he said. There was something in his voice that made her think that most of those things were thoroughly shocking and he had no intention of telling her about them. She would find a book and discover for herself.

      ‘I must be gone.’ Jack Ransome took her hand and raised it to his lips with a courtly gesture that took her aback. ‘Today has been a day of surprises, Madelyn.’

      ‘Pleasant ones?’ she asked, knowing what the true answer would be.

      His eyes narrowed and she wondered if he thought she was trying to flirt. ‘Some of them. Cultivate your garden, my lady. I will write to you.’

      Madelyn climbed to the top of the gatehouse tower and watched Jack ride away on his big horse. He took the far slope at an easy canter, sitting relaxed and very much at home in the saddle. She stood there, thinking for a long while after he had vanished from sight. That man was going to be her husband. She would lie with him, know that long, hard body. She would share the trivial day-to-day incidents of domestic life with him. She might grow old with him. She would come to know the real man behind that carefully controlled exterior.

      The breeze strengthened, snapping the banners over her head, sending her hair whipping across her face. Madelyn shivered and went to find Mr Lansing, who had been her father’s employee and who was now, with quite clearly gritted teeth, working for her.

      Her father had told her nothing of his affairs because, as he said, women’s brains were not made for such matters. She suspected that it was a question more of education and expectation than mental capacity and at first she had no expectation that Mr Lansing would think any differently.

      She had been resigned to a state of ignorance, then, months after her father’s death, she heard the groom and the coachman discussing someone who had died in the village. His heir, it seemed, had been disgruntled to find the will left the dead man’s money and possessions to him, but only after the payment of his mortgages, debts and loans.

      ‘Which is a fair old amount,’ Tom, the coachman, had said. ‘Still, I don’t know why he was grumbling, it is how it is always worded.’

      But there had been nothing about debts, loans or mortgages in her father’s will. She wondered about it for a few days and the wondering had turned to worry. What if there were debts? Loans and mortgages, she assumed, would be paid at their due time by Mr Lansing. But debts? It would be very like her father to neglect to pay local people until he absolutely had to.

      Now she realised that she had to make certain. Lansing was at his desk, surrounded by ledgers. He put down his pen and stood up when she entered, very correct and polite, but she could tell he was repressing a sigh at the interruption.

      ‘Mr Lansing, did my father leave debts, loans and mortgages?’

      ‘Well, yes, Mistress Aylmer.’ He did not meet her gaze, but began to fiddle with his pen. ‘That is normal for any gentleman. Loans and mortgages assist with the flow of money…’

      ‘Yes, yes. But debts?’

      ‘There were some, yes,’ he said cautiously.