The Loving Spirit Read online

  THE LOVING SPIRIT

  by

  Lucy Gordon

  Copyright Lucy Gordon 2001

  Original publication:

  Robert Hale, Ltd, Clerkenwell House,

  Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0HT

  ISBN 0 7090 6623 6

  Date: 2001

  Lucy Gordon is a writer of Romances for Harlequin. She has twice won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for the Best Traditional Romance. But she also enjoys writing historicals, and a few years ago she published four Regency romances under the pseudonym Penelope Stratton.

  Now she is publishing them as ebooks, but under the name of Lucy Gordon.

  Forced by a death-bed promise to marry a man she disliked.

  Kate lived a contented life as governess to the children of her dear friend, Amelia. She feared Amelia’s husband Justin, Lord Farringdon, a stern hard man, whose only virtue was his adoration of his wife.

  But then Amelia died, and in her last moments she begged Kate to marry Justin and protect her children. Horrified, but unable to refuse Amelia’s wishes, she agreed.

  Justin too was reluctant, but for the wife he adored he gave his promise.

  Within a few hours they were married and facing each other across barriers of hostility. It seemed that they could never find peace or affection.

  Then passion flared between them, giving new hope. But just when it seemed that they might reach out to each other a figure re-appeared from Kate’s past. This was the one man who knew her dark secret, and could bring her world crashing down.

  Would Justin turn against her when he learned the truth? Would they again bitterly regret that they had married? Or could Amelia’s loving spirit yet save them?

  Prologue

  1796

  There was a deathly hush in the library. From outside came the odd crack of a twig in the night air, and the faint bark of a dog. Inside, the silence was broken only by the slow ticking of a grandfather clock, and the sound of a woman’s smothered weeping.

  The man, a clergyman, took up the huge family Bible and laid it down on the desk where he wrote his sermons. Slowly he opened it at the beginning, where the family births and deaths were written.

  His face looked like oak; no pity softened its lines; no doubt brought a tremor to his hand. He took up a pen.

  ‘No. No!’

  With a shriek his wife threw herself on him, trying to seize the pen from his hand.

  ‘Don’t do it, my love,’ she begged. ‘It’s so terrible.’

  Gently but firmly he disengaged himself and ran his finger down the list of names until he came to Melissa, born 13 May, 1781. She was their only child. He took up the pen again, and drew a line through her name.

  ‘I beg you,’ his wife moaned, on her knees. ‘Don’t do this. She isn’t dead.’

  She opened the locket that she carried against her heart, revealing a picture of a pretty, fifteen-year-old girl with large blue eyes, golden curls and a mischievous smile. She kissed the picture again and again. ‘She isn’t dead.’

  ‘She is dead to us,’ her husband said harshly. ‘She has sinned, and is no longer our child. We will never speak or think of her again.’

  He drew a second line through Melissa’s name, and slammed the Bible shut. At his feet his wife slid to the floor in anguish. He didn’t look at her. His own face was bleak and resolute. His child was dead.

  Chapter One

  1812

  ‘I should have come out last year. I might have made a brilliant marriage by now. It’s not fair.’

  The young girl uttering these complaints was seventeen, delicately built, and with a face that would have been lovely but for an expression of petulance.

  She was sitting with her Aunt Amelia, Lady Farringdon, in a charming rose arbour in the grounds of the Farringdon country seat. It was summer and the afternoon sun was just beginning to fade.

  ‘I hate Aunt Millicent,’ Charmaine sulked, pulling carelessly on a rose in a way that made Amelia wince, for the rose arbour was her pride and joy.

  ‘Your aunt only wants what’s best for you,’ Amelia said gently. ‘She works tirelessly to make your debut a success, but you must work too.’

  ‘But I do. I take dancing lessons, and etiquette lessons, and singing lessons, but why should I take boring French?’

  This was an old refrain, and Amelia sighed. Charmaine was her husband’s cousin and was being groomed for her come out by Millicent, Lady Thorpe, another, more distant, cousin.

  ‘It’s not right,’ Charmaine insisted. ‘And so I shall tell my aunt when she arrives.’

  ‘That should be at any moment,’ Amelia said to distract the girl.

  ‘Oh, I wish she were here now,’ Charmaine said. ‘I want to hear of all her fine doings in Brighton, and her society friends, and whether she danced with the Prince Regent.’

  ‘There, I think I see her carriage.’

  Instantly Charmaine jumped up and fled down the path. Amelia observed tolerantly, ‘She’s so young, and full of life. I do hope her season is everything she wants.’

  Amelia was a quiet young woman of about thirty, with soft black hair curling in wispy tendrils about her face. She was pretty but not remarkable, and her nose had a tiny irregularity which she called a ripple, and which became more noticeable when she smiled, which was often. She habitually wore the happy, trusting look of one who had been loved all her life.

  Beside her in the arbour was another woman of the same age, wearing the modest garb of a governess. The grey material was buttoned up to the neck, and her head was covered by a plain cap that tied under the chin. In the presence of men she kept her head lowered and seldom spoke. It was only at moments like this, when she was with Lady Farringdon, her friend and benefactress, that Kate Hendricks allowed herself to laugh, and let the fire shine from her magnificent eyes.

  All around them the roses blossomed in a riot of life; red, white, pink, yellow. Smiling, Amelia caressed them.

  ‘Look at the new red roses that Ned brought me. They bloomed for the first time this year.’ Her face softened as she spoke of her husband. ‘Dear Ned. Always so good to me.’

  Kate murmured non-committally. She thought Lord Farringdon was a cold, arrogant man, proud, and apt to make harsh judgements of people. His one redeeming feature, in her eyes, was his devotion to his wife. But she still disliked him, and he barely noticed her, except occasionally to commend her excellent teaching.

  Amelia patted her stomach, swollen with a pregnancy of nearly nine months.

  ‘We’ve been squabbling about the baby,’ she said with a smile. ‘Ned says he wants a girl, but I’d like to give him another son.’

  ‘But you have three already, and only one girl,’ Kate objected.

  ‘Whom Ned felt obliged to name after his mother. He says he wants another so that he can name her for me,’ Amelia said fondly. ‘Oh Kate, how lucky I am? So many husbands grow cold and neglectful when they’ve been married a little while, and after fourteen years he still says he loves me every day – ’

  She broke off, thinking that her friend’s life wasn’t so happy. The world saw Mrs Kate Hendricks, a soldier’s widow with a fine son, employed by Lord and Lady Farringdon as governess to their young family. And the world said she was lucky.

  Only Amelia knew the full extent of Kate’s misfortunes. Now she blamed herself for rejoicing in her own happiness, when her dear friend had so little.

  Impulsively she took off her pearl pendant and began to hang it about Kate’s neck.

  ‘Let me give you this,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you have a birthday soon.’

  ‘It was my birthday last week and you gave me a ring,’ Kate protested. ‘Besides, a governess could never wear this.’

&nbs
p; ‘But you mustn’t refuse me,’ Amelia said, looking hurt. ‘I like to give you things. And if you can’t wear it...well, perhaps one day you might sell it.’

  ‘Sell a gift of yours? Do you think I ever would?’

  For a moment Amelia’s eyes were worldly wise.

  ‘If you were in want I wouldn’t mind you selling a gift of mine. Remember that.’

  Kate’s eyes softened at her friend’s generosity and understanding. Amelia hastened to make her smile, for she was naturally light-hearted and couldn’t bear anyone to be sad.

  ‘Besides, I’m only repaying my debts,’ she said merrily. ‘Do you remember when we were at school, how bad I was at every subject? And you were so clever, and helped me.’

  ‘You’ve repaid me a thousand times,’ Kate said quietly. ‘What would have become of me, but for you?’

  ‘Dear Kate, I wish you could be happy.’

  ‘You’re forgetting Tom,’ Kate reminded her. ‘While I have my son, I must be happy. If only...’

  ‘If only he wouldn’t keep running off to join the army. I’m afraid Charlie and Jack will soon be just as bad. They keep asking their father to tell them all about Lord Wellington’s victories in Spain. Never mind, they’re both far too young to join, and when they’re older I dare say the war will be over.’

  ‘And Philip wouldn’t think of it anyway,’ Kate said, naming Amelia’s eldest son. ‘All he cares about is books. But Tom...’ she sighed.

  Young Tom Hendricks was fourteen, but so well grown and manly that he could have passed for sixteen. His one thought was to fight Napoleon. His fear was that the war would end before he could evade his mother’s watchful eye long enough to enlist.

  This afternoon Kate was troubled because she hadn’t seen Tom today. She knew how intense was her son’s passion for the army, knew too that he was stubborn and wilful, just like his father...

  Kate stopped her thoughts there, as she always did. She never allowed herself to think about Tom’s father. That way lay madness.

  Through a gap in the trees they could see Charmaine welcoming her Aunt Millicent from the carriage, bouncing up and down in her excitement.

  ‘I’m so glad that I’m not charged with the duty of supervising her debut in society,’ Amelia observed wryly.

  ‘But you should have been,’ Kate said. ‘It’s insulting that the family should have excluded you.’

  ‘Well, they never liked Ned marrying me. The daughter of a knight, with barely three thousand pounds of her own, daring to aspire to an earl. I believe one of his aunts took to her bed for a week and drank nothing but vinegar.

  `But he wouldn’t give me up,’ she added fondly. ‘Oh Kate, I felt such a wicked girl. I knew I ought to renounce him, but when I hinted it at once he ordered me to say no more and brought our wedding forward by a month. And of course he married me before I could have a season. He said he didn’t want me to meet any other men in case I found one I preferred to him. As though I ever could!’

  Kate said nothing. She commended Lord Farringdon for being true to Amelia, yet the story was all too typical of his domineering ways.

  ‘I fear for Charmaine,’ Amelia continued. ‘She has a good heart, but Millicent indulges her so much that she’s become impatient of all restraint.’

  Kate would have put the matter more strongly. To her mind, Millicent spoilt Charmaine outrageously, encouraging her to become proud, selfish, greedy and indifferent to everything except her own wishes. Like Millicent herself, in fact.

  Millicent, Lady Thorpe, was bearing down on them. She was a sight guaranteed to strike awe into those seeing her for the first time: a tall, proud woman, dressed in the height of fashion, with an ornate hat pinned atop a coiffure whose auburn colour wasn’t quite natural, and which had been embellished with swathes of false hair.

  She wore a pelisse of dark-green velvet, over a satin underdress. The high-waisted styles of the day suited her height and elegance, and she was beautiful in a cold, haughty manner. She was a widow, an extravagant, ill-natured worldly woman, who thought life began and ended in society.

  Kate quickly hid the pearl pendant beneath her dress, and moved from the marble bench where she had been sitting close to Amelia, choosing a smaller bench further off. Lady Thorpe entered the arbour with a flourish and took her seat without deigning to notice the woman who had made way for her.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ she ordered Charmaine, who was dancing around her. ‘These hoydenish ways are all very well in the country...’ Her eyes flickered disparagingly over Amelia’s quiet garb of pale-grey muslin. ‘But when you are presented at court they must cease.’

  ‘Oh, how I long to be at court!’ Charmaine exclaimed.

  ‘And so you shall be, my pet. In a few weeks we shall go to London and open Farringdon House. Then your uncle will give a magnificent ball for your debut. You won’t wish to he present, of course,’ she added to Amelia. ‘You never cared for society.’

  ‘I don’t mind society if Ned is there,’ Amelia said gently. ‘And he told me he would like me to attend Charmaine’s debut.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ll be too weak from the birth of your child,’ Millicent declared imperiously. ‘I shall tell him so.’

  Kate seethed in silence at this insolence, but Amelia ignored it. She was happy in a world where she had the love of her children and the near worship of her husband, and Millicent’s spite barely touched her.

  ‘I’m sure Charmaine will be the toast of London,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘And rich, handsome men will throw themselves at my feet,’ Charmaine said ecstatically. ‘But I shall hold them off, and make them await my pleasure.’

  ‘Hm, that doesn’t seem to be the way things are done these days,’ Millicent said sourly. ‘Some young women are so desperate for an offer that they seize the first chance they get.’

  This veiled reference to Amelia was another insult, and Kate clenched her hands. But only out of sight. She was the governess, and had no right to an opinion.

  ‘Do you think the Prince Regent will dance with me?’ Charmaine asked.

  ‘To be sure. He dances with all the new beauties. Ah, if you could only have seen him when he was a young man, so handsome and charming, we called him Prince Florizel. But now he’s in his fifties, fat as a flawn, reeking of scent, his corsets creaking with every step. But he is still the Prince Regent, and if you find favour in his eyes, your success is assured.’

  ‘He’ll take one look at me and forget every other woman in the room,’ Charmaine said. ‘We’ll dance all night..’

  ‘I hope not,’ Amelia said in alarm. ‘Such behaviour would only convince people that you were fast.’

  ‘My dear Amelia,’ Millicent said frostily, ‘you may safely leave it to me to know what is comme it faut in polite society.’

  Amelia was saved from having to answer this by a noise from beyond the trees, and the next moment two little boys burst into view, laughing and squabbling at the same time. They were eight and nine, with bright, merry faces and identical dark brown, curly hair. At the sight of her two younger sons Amelia’s face broke into a radiant smile.

  ‘Quietly, darlings,’ she begged.

  ‘Mama, Jack says he can throw further than me...’

  ‘I can, Mama...Charlie says I can’t, but I can. Come and look...’

  ‘Mama, make him give me the ball...’

  Little Jack tried to seize the ball, but Charlie held it out of reach and danced away. Neither boy looked where he was going, until they both fell over Millicent’s feet. There was an ugly tearing noise and she rose with a scream.

  ‘My dress, my dress! Look what they’ve done! You horrid little wretches!’

  She raised her hand ready to strike, but quick as a flash Kate whisked the boys behind her and faced Lady Thorpe. Millicent stayed her hand just in time. For a moment the eyes of the two women met, temper and disdain on one side, dislike and contempt on the other.

  ‘My dear Amelia,’ Lady Thorpe said, reseating
herself, her eyes snapping, ‘you indulge those boys too much. They need a firm hand and I shall tell your husband so.’

  But in defence of her young, even Amelia’s gentle nature was roused. ‘No, Millicent, you will not,’ she said firmly. ‘Ned and I are in perfect accord over the rearing of our children, and it concerns nobody else.’

  Charmaine smothered a giggle at hearing her aunt snubbed, and a dull flush mounted in Millicent’s haughty face.

  ‘I think we’d better go into the house,’ she said, rising. ‘I prefer not to remain where ill-bred children are allowed to run riot.’

  She swept out of the arbour without a backward glance, with Charmaine bouncing behind her.

  ‘Boys, that was very naughty of you,’ Amelia chided in her mild voice. ‘You ruined her lovely dress.’

  ‘She had no right to raise her hand to them,’ Kate said angrily.

  ‘Dear Kate. I know I can always rely on you to defend them, however little the rascals deserve it.’

  The boys didn’t respond in words. It was beneath their masculine dignity to acknowledge a woman’s protection. But they gave Kate nods that said she was a jolly good sport, and a fellow could rely on her.

  ‘Be off with you to the kitchen,’ Kate told them. ‘Cook is making apricot tarts.’

  ‘Hooray!’

  ‘But because you’ve been such bad boys, you can only have two each.’

  Cheering and pummelling each other, they raced away across the lawn. Amelia’s eyes, full of amusement, met her friend’s.

  ‘And Millicent says that I spoil them! Kate, you’re much worse than me.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I love them all so.’

  ‘I know you do. You’ll think I’m foolish, but I’ve sometimes thought...if anything were to happen to me...I could be easy in my mind thinking of my darlings in your care.’

  ‘Don’t say such things. Why should anything happen to you?’

  ‘No reason, of course. I’m being absurd.’