His Convenient Marchioness. Elizabeth Rolls

the most elegant drawing room.

      Whatever he had expected of her home, Hunt realised, it had not been the reality of this shabby-genteel, whitewashed parlour. It was spotlessly clean and he wondered if she did the dusting herself. The floorboards—no carpet, just scrubbed, bare boards—were swept. The furniture, what there was of it, was polished to a gleam and books crammed a battered set of shelves beside the window. An elderly lamp stood on the table and a plain wooden clock ticked on the shelf over the clean and empty grate. The chill in the room suggested that the fire was lit only in the evenings.

      Emma Lacy, he realised, lived on the edge of very real poverty and that puzzled him. Surely she had something to live on? Unless Lacy had muddled their money away. That was quite possible. Anyone brought up as Lacy and Emma had been would struggle to manage on much less. The younger sons of dukes, having been raised to luxury, then left with relatively little, were notoriously expensive and debt-ridden. A very pertinent reason why fathers preferred not to marry their daughters to them.

      She invited him to sit down and chatted about the renewed war with France. Not for long though. Harry and Georgie appeared in their outdoor things very quickly.

      ‘We brought yours, too, Mama.’ Harry had a brown pelisse over one shoulder and Georgie clutched a bonnet and gloves.

      ‘Thank you.’ Emma smiled at them. ‘That was very thoughtful of you.’

      ‘We wanted to have lots of time to throw the ball for Fergus,’ Harry explained.

      ‘Ah. Silly me.’ Emma’s eyes danced and something inside Hunt warmed as he saw again the open affection in her face. Whatever else this house might lack it was not deficient in love. And the thought crept up on him: this was not a woman who would leave her children to marry again.

      ‘That reminds me—’ He drew Georgie’s laundered handkerchief—God knew what his valet had thought when handed it with a request for an immediate wash—from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Thank you. I’ve brought an extra one of my own today.’

      ‘Oh.’ Georgie looked crestfallen as she tucked the scrap of cambric into her sleeve. ‘I wouldn’t have minded lending you another.’

      Emma cleared her throat. ‘Georgie, Lord Huntercombe cannot keep visiting merely to return your belongings.’

      Shards of ice edged her voice, but this was not the moment to launch into explanations. Time enough for that when the children were out of earshot. ‘Shall we go?’ he suggested.

      * * *

      The children raced ahead with Fergus, but obeyed Emma’s injunction not to get too far in front. A biting wind whipped around them, bringing bright colour to her pale cheeks. She had ignored his offered arm, tucking her gloved hands into a threadbare velvet muff. He wondered just how old it was, if she had owned it before her elopement.

      ‘You should not have come,’ she said.

      Hunt raised his brows at the cool, not to say imperious, tone. She had dropped the veneer of affability like a brick. ‘No? Why not, ma’am?’

      Anger flashed in her eyes. ‘I told you the other day that I am not interested. And I resent you using my children to force my compliance this morning!’

      He raised his brows. ‘I am sorry to contradict you, ma’am, but I had no intention of going for a walk. You informed me that you were going for a walk and invited me to join you. However, since you have raised the issue, let us be very clear on one thing; I am not looking for a mistress!’

      She stopped dead and he halted obligingly. Amused, he saw that her eyes were blank; he’d managed to shock her. ‘That is what you thought, is it not?’

      ‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded strangled, as if she were having trouble getting any sound out at all. ‘But, still, even if that is true—your wife, what will she think if anyone sees us together?’

      He froze. ‘My wife?’

      She glared at him. ‘Yes. I may have been out of society for a long time, sir, but I remember Lady Huntercombe perfectly well.’

      ‘Do you?’ How did this equate with the dreadful creature Letty assumed had accosted him boldly in Hatchard’s? A woman furious with him because she believed he was about to make improper advances to her and doubly furious because she remembered his wife?

      ‘Yes. I liked her. She was kind.’

      He couldn’t help smiling at her. ‘She was, wasn’t she?’

      Emma stopped, stared up at him. ‘Was?’

      He nodded curtly. ‘I have been a widower for some years, Lady Emma.’

      ‘Oh. I’m... I’m very sorry, sir.’

      He felt himself stiffen. ‘No need. A misunderstanding. As you said, you have been out of society. You weren’t to know.’

      ‘I meant,’ some of the astringency returned, ‘that I am sorry for your loss. She was lovely.’

      It was a very long time since anyone had offered their condolences. Of course, it had been a long time since Anne and the children died.

      ‘Thank you.’ He let out a breath. Eleven years gone and he was thinking about marrying Amelia Trumble. Maybe. If he could screw his good sense to the sticking place.

      ‘Mama! Watch this!’

      They turned to watch Harry hurl the ball far and high. Fergus raced underneath, leaping with a lithe twist to take the catch in mid-air.

      ‘See, Mama! Just like we said!’

      Fergus came racing back, spat the ball out at Harry’s feet.

      Emma turned back to him, laughter dancing in her eyes. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry I was so rude. But I’m not going to be sorry that I accidentally forced you to come for a walk. This is such a treat for them.’

      A treat. Taking a dog for a walk and throwing a ball. And she had been about to give them their morning lessons when he arrived. Amelia had a child. A young boy who would remain in his grandfather’s custody if his mother remarried, doubtless with a nanny and tutors, but still...without his mother. He hadn’t really thought about it. Just that it was helpful to know she was fertile... He hadn’t thought about the child, or children. Was it right for a woman to be forced to abandon her children? Would Trumble allow the child to spend time with them if he did marry Amelia? She is not unduly sentimental. Wouldn’t Amelia want the child with her?

      ‘Tell me, Lady Emma, if you ever remarried, would you consent to leave your children behind?’

      ‘What?’

      What insanity had prompted him to ask that? ‘An academic question.’ There. That was better—a calm, logical approach. ‘You see, I am considering marriage and I wish to know what is reasonable to expect of a woman. Should she be expected to leave her children if she remarries? If, say, her father-in-law is their legal guardian?’

      Those dancing blue eyes chilled. ‘No. But the law doesn’t agree with me. Nor would most men.’ Her mouth flattened. ‘You, for example, seemed to assume that Keswick must be my children’s guardian. He is not.’

      Hunt frowned. ‘He is not their legal guardian?’

      ‘No. I am. Keswick has nothing to do with them.’

      He tried to imagine Amelia, virtuously conventional, spurning her father-in-law’s authority at all, let alone so brazenly. He ought to be shocked that Lady Emma had done so. Instead, he was shocked that he wasn’t shocked.

      ‘So a gentleman offering you marriage would have to take the children?’

      ‘A very academic question, my lord, but yes. And I would retain guardianship.’

      An iceberg would sound warmer. Yet somehow all his calm, logical reasons for considering Amelia were sliding into ruin. And in their place...

      No.