Marrying Miss Monkton

“Maria,” Charles teased, gently touching her cheek with the back of his hand. “You are blushing.”

“And I think you are quite mad.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he whispered, and, bending his head, he pressed his lips to her forehead, placing his hands around her upper arms and drawing her against his chest, holding her as if he knew she would struggle if he tried to do more than that. “When we set out on this journey, you were not in my plans, Maria.”

“Oh, please,” she implored helplessly. “I don’t know what you want of me.”

He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted it, forcing her to meet his steady gaze as he quietly said, “A kiss would not go amiss.”

“Nevertheless, I think you should proceed with caution.”

“A little kiss here and there is quite harmless.”

“A little kiss here and there is dangerous,” she countered, thoroughly convinced of that where he was concerned.

Marrying Miss Monkton

Harlequin® Historical

HELEN DICKSON

Helen Dickson was born and lives in South Yorkshire with her retired farm manager husband. Having moved out of the busy farmhouse where she raised their two sons, she has more time to indulge in her favorite pastimes. She enjoys being outdoors, traveling, reading and music. An incurable romantic, she writes for pleasure. It was a love of history that drove her to writing historical fiction.

Marrying Miss Monkton

HELEN DICKSON

Available from Harlequin®Historical and Helen Dickson

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

The day was wet and blustery. Charles had slept little, and uneasily, for the problem of going out of his way to call at Chateau Feroc was an added irritant he could do without. He lifted his lean face so that trickles of water ran down his cheeks. The weather suited his mood.

He rode into a small village with one main street. It was no different from any other village in France, with its huddle of poor cottages, a church tower on the outskirts, a windmill and a tavern. A particular stench arose from the gutters to assail his nostrils and touch like icy fingers upon his deepest fears. It was the stench of poverty, the foul, unacceptable smell of humanity at its lowest.

The wind had risen and the fallen leaves went whipping along the ground and collected in roadside ditches. The road along which he slowly rode was narrow and crooked and paved with cobblestones, glistening with the rain. There were few people about, and the few he saw were ragged; when they turned to face him on hearing his horse’s hooves, he could see raw hunger in their eyes, and every time he saw it he wanted to curse.

These were troubled and dangerous times in France. The country was suffering financial difficulties, which stemmed from the heavy costs incurred by France during the war with America, which had left the Treasury bankrupt. But the ordinary masses were of the opinion, and rightly so, that France’s troubles were not helped by lavish court spending. To pay the heavy taxes imposed on them, people starved while the nobility were busy at the elaborate idleness in their grand chateaus or at the palace of Versailles, in the swim of the gay life of Louis XVI’s artificial paradise. Revolution was already apparent in the minds of the masses.

On the edge of the village Charles saw an old man and a child of no more than five or six, a boy, he thought, stooping and carefully picking up sticks and placing them in a sack. It was, he knew, their only means of warmth and to cook the meagre rations that came their way. Stumbling, the old man dropped the sack and his precious kindling tumbled out. The child bent to retrieve them, his fingers young and nimble compared to those of the elder. Charles stopped and dismounted and helped them in their task.

When the sticks had been retrieved, the old man smiled at Charles out of his lined face.

‘My thanks, monsieur,’ he said.

Charles looked at him, wondering how old he was. He knew he was probably many years younger than he looked, but when he asked him, his answer shocked him.

‘Thirty-two.’ His smile broadened when he saw shock register in the stranger’s eyes. ‘Hunger makes old men of us all, monsieur.’

The distant sound of carriage wheels rumbling on the cobbles reached their ears, an impatient drumming that came slowly nearer, growing louder and sounding clearer. All three looked ahead and stepped aside to avoid being run down by the coach and four bowling towards them. The uniformed coachman was lashing the horses, the black coach careering so fast that the wheels were almost lifted clear of the ground, the horses’ hooves making sparks against the cobblestones.

Charles caught a glimpse of its occupant, an elegantly attired young gentlewoman wearing black. The coach was travelling so fast that it was impossible to see her face properly, but his sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a pale face surrounded by black hair.

‘Look at her,’ the peasant growled. ‘Aristocrat! Ere long we’ll make an end to the likes of them and their arrogant breed—and good riddance is what I say. They’ll get what’s coming to them—had it coming for a long time, they have. They’ll be shown no mercy on the day of reckoning.’ So saying he spat on the ground and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

‘You pay your dues to the Seigneur?’

‘I give him everything. I pay to grind my corn at his mill. I pay to transport it across bridges not once but a hundred times. I pay to press my own grapes for wine. When winter comes we go hungry and we have to feed the children on bran and roots, which swell their bellies up; one of my daughters died last winter—a painful death. My wife is too weak to work. We killed the oxen for food, and the bailiffs come to search my house for salt.’

‘They found some?’

He nodded. ‘They fined me all the money I had left. The taxes are eating us up. We have decided to leave the house and take to the road. We shall leave everything—the furniture, the land—everything. Let them take it. With nothing we can’t be taxed.’

‘I am sorry for you,’ Charles said with deep sincerity. Shoving his hand in his pocket and bringing out a louis, Charles handed it to the man. ‘Here, take this. Buy yourself and your family something to eat.’

The man shook his head, making no attempt to take it. ‘Where would I spend a louis? Have you nothing smaller, monsieur? Were I to present such a large coin at the baker’s or the grocer’s or anywhere else, it would raise suspicion and attract the attention of the bailiffs. They would demand to know where I came by such a coin and my assessment would be increased.’

Charles took back the louis and gave him some small coins, not worth as much, but the man was satisfied and stuffed them into his pocket. They would enable him to feed his family for days, if not weeks, if he and his wife were careful.

‘There are terrible times ahead for France,’ Charles said, hoisting himself back into the saddle. ‘There is a great fear. All over the country, the lines are crumbling.’

The man nodded. ‘Aye, monsieur, you are right,’ he said, his voice hoarse with real emotion. His sunken cheeks already wet with the rain, became more so when the tears that gathered in his eyes spilled over. ‘I doubt I shall live to see it.’ Taking the child’s hand, he nodded his thanks and went on his way.

Charles rode on slowly, unable to shake off his meeting with the man and boy. He had seen much suffering since he had come to France. The peasantry was in debt, increasingly resentful—and suffering from the catastrophic effects of the previous year’s bad harvest. The populace blamed the nobility for the high price of grain and was enraged against them.

Since the recent storming of the Bastille in Paris, revolution had spread to the countryside. Mob violence had broken out in many regions. The whole of France was like a tinder box. One strike and there was no knowing what would follow. He knew the temper of the mob. If they saw blood they became like mad wolves. It was the kind of violence that gave Charles many a qualm about the rightness of their cause, for some of the mobs were made up of villainous, evil-smelling brutes, who, he swore to God, had never been starving peasants or anything else but brigands.

He had seen it all, recording it all in his mind, so that he could set it down when he put up in some inn or other, where he would rest for the night before setting off again on his journey back to England. But before embarking for his home country, he had a slight detour to make. To the Chateau Feroc, here in Alsace.

Coming to the next village, Charles had a feeling of unease. Crowds were gathered in the cobbled square in little knots, having suspended their operations to watch a young woman who, against all reason and judgement, with a large basket on her arm was distributing food to a small group of scrawny, hungry children. A carriage, the one that had passed him on the road, waited across the street, the driver seeming uncomfortable and clearly wishing he were somewhere else.

Charles reined to a canter as he rode slowly into the square. He could feel the pulse and panic of the people swirling about him from the very atmosphere beating down on him. There was an ominous silence as he passed and a menacing mutter that rose at his back, and the faces that watched him were questioning, insolent or uneasy.

His progress became slower as he rode towards the woman, fighting down his apprehension and his fear. There was a danger that he could get himself involved in a riot, and he might have to draw his pistol and shoot, for the mob was like an animal, and like an animal it could sense fear.

The woman was perfectly calm, and quite uninterested, he thought, irrationally swinging from the extremes of fear to the limits of exasperation, in the dangers of the situation. She paused in her work and looked up, frowning a little at the sight of him. Dismounting, holding the reins, he moved closer, the children stuffing bread into their mouths with dirty little hands as they scuttled away.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, taking her arm and drawing her aside.

‘And who, may I ask, are you?’ the young woman enquired, looking him up and down with icy disdain and shaking off his hand. There was insolence in the way he stood, in the lean, rangy line of his body, that gave the impression of dangerous vitality, and in the firm set line of his well-shaped mouth. Even the slender brown hand that had gripped her arm recalled the talon of a bird of prey, while the look in those pale blue eyes was unnervingly intent. She was very lovely, but she was maddened by his interference in something she considered none of his concern.

‘It doesn’t matter who I am,’ he snapped, deliberately keeping his voice low. ‘Have you no sense? Take a look around you and then maybe you will understand my concern.’

She did as he told her and studied the groups of people. They were watching her, glaring, the men brutish, openly hostile, quiet and threatening. She looked again at the stranger. ‘These people know me—I do not believe they will harm me.’

‘If you believe that, then you are more foolish than I thought. The quality of your clothes and the mere fact that you have access to food represents authority, and that sets you apart.’

She raised her chin, smarting at the rebuke. ‘The children are hungry. I wanted to bring them food. I’m trying to help them.’

‘By putting yourself in danger?’

‘I know the dangers, but they are more likely to harm you than me.’

This was precisely what Charles himself had thought, and his anger against himself for not having had the moral courage to leave her to take her chance kept him silent.

‘It was kind of you to concern yourself. Thank you.’

‘You have nothing to thank me for,’ Charles said brusquely, ‘but what the devil did you think you hoped to achieve? Can’t you see that it was the height of folly for a lady to bring food to the village at a time such as this? It’s small wonder you weren’t mobbed—it’s still not too late.’

Suddenly the young woman couldn’t answer, for she knew he spoke the truth. Having overheard the servants at the chateau talking in subdued tones as they cleared away the remains of the dinner the night before, saying what was left would have fed the people in the village for a month or more, and how everyone went to bed hungry, especially the small children who did not understand the suffering they were forced to endure, on impulse she had instructed cook to fill a basket of food and come to the village to distribute it to the children. Now, looking around at the hungry, hostile faces, with a quiver of fear she saw her mistake.

‘You are right,’ she said, finding it hard to defend herself because she knew she was in the wrong. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come, but I’ve distributed the food now so I’ll leave.’

They stood face to face.

Charles saw a slender young woman of medium height. Her forehead was wide, her chin slightly pointed, her skin the colour of ivory and she had startling translucent green eyes. They were surrounded by long, thick lashes under delicate black brows that curved like a swallow’s wings. Her skin was flushed at the cheekbones, whether with her indignation or perhaps where the sun had tinted it.

Her raven-black hair was drawn from her face and hidden beneath her bonnet, and yet it still managed to look unconfined. Wisps of soft curls peeked out from beneath the brim, and he had the strangest need to put up a hand and smooth them back. Her jaw was strong, clenched to a defiant angle, and her whole manner spoke of fearlessness, a fearlessness that told him she was afraid of no one, and certainly not of him.

Wearing a black woollen cloak over her black dress, she could not be mistaken for anything other than what she so evidently was, a lady of quality.

She saw a man dressed in a black frock coat, black trousers and black leather knee boots, a white silk cravat wound and knotted round his neck. He was tall, lean and arrogant as men of consequence often are. His narrowed eyes were pale blue and penetrating, with silver flecks in them. They were surrounded by long, curling dark lashes. His hair beneath his hat was a shade lighter than her own and just as thick. It was drawn from his handsome face and secured with a thin black ribbon at the nape.

Charles looked sternly at her. ‘I don’t suppose you told anyone you were coming here—what you were doing?’

She shook her head. ‘They would have stopped me.’

‘And they would have been right to. Your family ought to punish you most severely for this escapade and curtail all your outings in future. Go home, and should you have any more noble intentions, I advise you to think again. Shall I escort you?’

She stepped back, her look telling him that she deeply resented his high-handed attitude. What right had he to criticise and chastise her? ‘Certainly not,’ she answered tightly. ‘I can take care of myself. I will go my own way.’

Charles watched her carriage drive off before mounting his horse and riding away to find an inn where he could stay the night.

It was a subdued Maria that rode back in the carriage to Chateau Feroc, her empty basket on the seat beside her. Putting the obnoxious stranger out of her mind, she stared wide-eyed out of the window. Even though the scenery was marred by the lowering clouds, it was hard to imagine the turmoil that beset France when such a beautiful landscape unfolded before her eyes. But how she wished she were back in England, at Gravely, her home, where she had spent the happiest time of her life.

Maria’s father, Sir Edward Monkton, had expressed in his will his desire that she be made the ward of the Countess de Feroc, his deceased wife’s sister, until she was of an age to marry Colonel Henry Winston. Colonel Winston had obtained a well-paid administrative post in the ranks of the East India Company, which was where he had become acquainted with her father. It was six years since Colonel Winston had been home to England, six years since he had visited Sir Edward at Gravely Manor.

Having contracted various ailments whilst in India, her father had suffered greatly from ill health. Aware that his time was limited and desperate to settle Maria’s future before fortune hunters began presenting themselves at Gravely, when Colonel Winston approached him as a possible suitor for her hand—his tanned face and colourful talk of India reviving memories of his own years spent in that country—he had accepted his suit, satisfied that his daughter’s future would be secure.

Maria, though just thirteen at the time, had not objected, for she had become extremely fond of the handsome, dashing colonel, who went out of his way to talk to her, to flatter her and to tell her of his exciting life he led in India. Of course the wedding could not go ahead until Maria was of age and by then Colonel Winston would have served another six years in India.

When Maria was fourteen years old, her arrival at Chateau Feroc had made an unfavourable impression—an impression that was equally unfavourable to her.

The chateau was so very different from her home in England. The contrast was startling, the warm, happy and colourful environment that she had left behind so very different to the cold and stately French chateau. Here she was met with strict discipline and hostility from family and servants alike. Not even Constance, her spoilt cousin, had made her welcome. Driven in upon herself by the circumstances of this new life reduced Maria to a state of loneliness, despair and dumb misery. Her silence would have aroused compassion and understanding even in such a hard, dispassionate person as the Countess, but Maria’s quietness and her desire for solitude was put down to petulance and resentment.

It was mid-morning when Charles approached the Chateau Feroc. On all sides of the magnificent house large formal gardens were enclosed by freshly trimmed box hedges, with long, elegant walks peopled with statues, and urns brimming with flowers, and ornate, soaring fountains. Arrogant peacocks displaying their full, colourful plumage strutted on lawns like green velvet.

An air of peace and serenity prevailed over it all—in marked contrast to the character of its owner who, he was told when he asked to see the Count de Feroc, was being interred in the family tomb in the local church this very day.

Turning his horse, he headed off in the direction of the church. The path leading up to the gates was lined with faces bearing every expression from sadness to sympathy, curiosity and hostility for the man whose demand for higher taxes had made their lives intolerable.

All eyes were on the church as people began filing out in a subdued procession. Charles dismounted and removed his hat as a mark of respect for the dead Count and his family. He stood apart, a quiet observer as they were handed up into waiting carriages. Mourners were few, for people of the upper classes were afraid to travel far in these troubled times.

His eyes were drawn to the impressive and stately figure that could only be the Countess. She was followed by two women, their heads bowed, and like the Countess they were dressed in deepest black, their black gloved hands clutching their prayer books. Veils fell from their bonnets’ edges concealing their features, but failed to disguise their youth. Charles’s eyes were drawn to the taller of the two. She was of slender build, and there was something about the way she moved that he found vaguely familiar.

Watching them drive away, he felt it was inappropriate for him to intrude on the funeral party and the Countess’s grief, so he returned to the inn until the next day. But he would wait no longer. It was dangerous for him to remain in France, and if he were apprehended he would more than likely be hanged or shot or beaten by the mob. He must leave France without further delay.

As Charles followed the imposing servant in white wig and midnight blue livery up the great white marble staircase of the Chateau Feroc, he was surrounded by all the graceful elegance of eighteenth-century France. Here, it was gilded scrollwork, innumerable tall mirrors that seemed to double the house by reflection, exquisite porcelain, heavy silks and thick carpets and glittering chandeliers.

He went along a corridor and was admitted into a high-vaulted room, with all the elegance and luxuries befitting a family of the nobility. The furniture was in the mode of the present reign, Louis XVI, delicate and fine, the beads of the crystal chandelier catching the firelight and brightening the whole room.

Madam la Countess—an English woman who had met and married the Count de Feroc on a visit to France with her parents—received him alone. She was a stiff, thin, elderly woman with grey hair and very pale skin. In deepest mourning, she presented an imposing figure in a high-necked gown of heavy black silk. Grim faced, she rose from her chair when he entered and calmly watched him approach. There was no sign of grief for her dead husband on her face.

Charles stopped in front of her and inclined his head. When he straightened up it was to find himself looking into a pair of coldly critical pale eyes. Immediately he could see she was one of those aristocrats who had her feelings buried under deep layers of social propriety, the sort who might stare icily at someone, or turn away, affecting indifference.

‘Thank you for receiving me so promptly, Countess,’ he said in flawless French. ‘May I offer my deepest condolences on your loss.’

‘Sir Charles Osbourne! Welcome to Chateau Feroc.’ The Countess spoke English to the Englishman, her voice clear and incisive.

‘Please speak to me in French, Countess,’ he requested with calm gravity. ‘These are difficult times and servants hear and speculate too much.’

‘As you wish,’ she replied coolly.

‘I apologise for my inopportune arrival. Of course I had no idea of the Count’s demise until I arrived.’

‘How could you? It was very sudden.’ The Countess had never been particularly fond of her husband, and had regarded him with tolerance rather than affection. ‘You are here on behalf of Colonel Winston?’ she remarked, resuming her seat and indicating with a wave of her hand that was almost royal that he should occupy the chair across from her.

‘That is so, Countess—to escort your niece, Miss Monkton, to England.’

‘I know. I was expecting you.’

‘Colonel Winston said he would write to you apprising you of my arrival and the nature of my mission. You have received his letter?’

‘Yes, some weeks ago. We expected you earlier than this.’

‘I did not come direct. The recent troubles make travelling difficult. I also had some matters of my own to take care of first.’

‘You have been in Paris?’