CHAPTER ONE
Fine flakes, still drifting through the air, sparkled in the early morning sun. The heavy fall in the night had shrouded the countryside in a winter blanket of white, but it would not last; for the air was warm, as the young gentleman visitor discovered immediately upon flinging up the window of the bedchamber allotted to him by his hosts.
Mr Denzell Hawkeridge pulled the nightcap off his head, spilling a profusion of fairish locks over the neck of his nightshirt. He looked out upon a large patch of ground beyond the garden, in which a group of urchin children were engaged, he saw, blinking sleepily upon them, in building a snowman.
A very proper occupation, he conceded, under the circumstances, if a trifle energetic. For Denzell, lured by his friend Osmond Ruishton into spending some days at Tunbridge Wells before Christmas was well upon them, with the promise of absolutely nothing to do, had every intention of doing precisely nothing.
Filling his lungs with fresh country air, he yawned contentedly. This was the life. Not that he had not enjoyed the season. He had. So much so, in fact, that he was quite tired out from the hectic pace one was obliged to maintain in town. Not to mention the exigencies to which he had been put, cudgelling his ingenuity to steer that fine line between flirtation — for with so many pretty girls about any man must be tempted to it — and the avoidance of matrimonial traps. He had no desire to settle with just onewoman, not yet awhile. All he wanted now was to lounge about, enjoy a little idle conversation with his hosts, and avoid women. Especially young women who might wish to marry him.
It was a fine thing to be heir to a worthy barony, but it could be a curst nuisance to be an eligible male. A nuisance, andextremely exhausting. Yes, this had been an excellent notion of Osmond’s. The Wells was so dead at this season that the chance of any debutante coming within a hundred miles of the place was too remote to be worthy of consideration. He could be off guard and laze at his ease.
He was glad, for instance, to think that it was not he, but some unfortunate woman who was obliged to cavort about in the snow in company with these busy youngsters.
For there was a woman with them, her back to him just now as she leaned to help infant fingers pack snow against the rapidly expanding waistline of the snowman. A nursemaid, perhaps. A shout floated up to him.
“Hoy, Charley! Gimme a…”
He could not hear the rest, but the voice told its own tale. And now he came to look at them, the children did not appear to be the offspring of the gentry, their frieze garments rather rougher than those in which Osmond’s elder boy, only recently breeched, was likely to appear.
“Is we done ’ere, missie?”
The woman straightened up, and shifted to the other side of the snowman, and Denzell, a budding connoisseur in the matter of female dress, at once recognised that the brown pelisse she wore was of too fine a cut and material for any servant, edged as it was with a fur trim.
There was a sudden disturbance to one side, a running boy bumping into another.
“Hoy, watch out!”
“Ow!” came clearly as the second boy slipped and went down.
“You donkey!” shouted another.
General laughter and a flurry of calling ensued, and Denzell caught a glimpse of the lady’s face as she dashed to the rescue. Evidently her assistance was not needed, for the boy pickedhimself up unhurt amid the ribald catcalls and chanting of his companions.
“Lawks, Joey!”
“You look like the snowman.”
“Joey’s covered in snow-oh.”
The shouts faded in Denzell’s ears, for the lady lifted her head as she stood poised, still ready to help, and his gaze became riveted upon her face.
It was, even at this distance, one of the most beautiful countenances he had ever seen: a perfect oval, with eyes set wide apart, a nose classically straight, and a mouth shaped in so pleasing a bow that any artist seeing it must at once beg its owner to sit for him. A cluster of loose curls escaping from under a close-fitting bonnet, small-brimmed and ornamented with knots of ribbon, whispered a promise of golden treasures within.
Fascinated, Denzell stared. Chaste stars, but not one among the debutantes paraded for inspection in the season just ended could have held a candle to this girl.
She was young, too. Some few years his junior, eighteen or nineteen, he judged. But why in the world was a beautiful girl of marriageable age immured in this rural backwater, unless she was already wed? Was he mistaken in the status of the children? Might one of them even be her own?
Yet he had no eyes to search for this possibility among the urchins. His attention was all for the lady as he watched the warmth of a smile enter her face while the children, finding Joey’s trip into the snow an enticing lark, began to fake falls so that they might also receive a cargo of snow upon their small persons.
This sport led naturally into a snowball fight, which the lady made no attempt to discourage — definitely not a nursemaid — but watched with laughing enjoyment, brushing an errantsnowflake away from that heavenly face with the back of one glove-encased hand.
Denzell’s breath caught. What animation. Such a glowing vivacity! She was utterly delightful. All at once two small figures erupted from under Denzell’s window, and he recognised young Felix Ruishton, his godson, all of four years old, running to join the fray; and tottering after in his infant dress, with their nurse Dinah in hot pursuit, little Miles, his brother.
Felix dashed across the garden and hurtled through the back gate, and Denzell saw the girl bend down to greet him with both hands held out, and a warm welcome on her lips, delivered, although he could not hear the words, in a pleasant musical voice.
So she knew Felix and Miles? Capital! Denzell shut the window and crossed to the bell pull to summon his valet. His determination to abjure the society of young women was forgotten. There was no time to lose. He must dress at once. Undoubtedly Osmond and Unice could identify this dazzling beauty, and he must know who she was instantly.
Nevertheless, it was quite half an hour later before he made his belated appearance, suitably attired for the country in a frock-coat of dark blue tabinet for warmth, over a grey cassimere waistcoat and breeches of black corduroy.
