Winterset (2 page)

Anna glanced over at her hostess and saw that Mrs. Burroughs’ cheeks were also faintly flushed, her eyes bright.
What on earth was going on?

As if she could hold it in no longer, Mrs. Bennett said in a rush, “Have you heard the news, Miss Holcomb? So very exciting…”

“No, I am afraid that I have heard nothing exciting.” Anna looked at the doctor, and he shrugged imperceptibly, as though he had no idea what was going on, either.

“Well, the squire told me—and I am certain that he heard it directly from Mr. Norton, who is, of course, his solicitor—Reed Moreland is returning to Winterset!”

Mrs. Bennett paused, looking at Anna expectantly. Anna could do nothing but stare blankly at the woman.
Reed Moreland!
She felt as if her insides had suddenly fallen down to her knees.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” the vicar’s wife gushed.

“Yes,” Anna managed to say through bloodless lips. “Yes, of course.”

“Such a gentleman of refinement,” Mrs. Burroughs went on happily. “So knowledgeable, so well bred. Everything one would expect from the son of a duke.”

“But not at all proud,” Mrs. Bennett stuck in.

“Oh, no, indeed, you are absolutely right,” her friend agreed. “Not proud at all, but not overly friendly, either.”

“Indeed, just perfect.”

“A paragon, it would seem,” Dr. Felton put in, a faint note of amusement in his voice.

“You are absolutely right.” Mrs. Bennett, incapable of irony, nodded her head. “Did you meet him when he was here before, Dr. Felton?”

“I was introduced to him at a party, I believe. He seemed a pleasant-enough gentleman.”

Anna felt as if she might be sick, right there in front of everyone.
Why was Reed coming back here after all this time? And how was she to bear it?
She thought of seeing him again, of going to a party and finding him there.
It would be impossible.

“I am sure you must be quite excited to hear of it,” Mrs. Bennett said, with a playful smirk. “As I remember, the man danced attendance upon you quite a bit.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Anna protested faintly. “He was a very pleasant man, but I am sure he had no partiality for me.”

The other two women exchanged knowing glances.

“Very prettily said, my dear,” Mrs. Burroughs said approvingly. “Your maidenly reserve becomes you. But there is nothing wrong with attracting a worthy man’s attention.”

“And since you did not have a Season—” Mrs. Bennett rattled on.

“Of course it was very proper, very good of you to remain here and run the household for your father and brother—” the vicar’s wife inserted piously.

“—no one is more deserving than you of catching such a man’s eye,” Mrs. Bennett finished triumphantly.

“You are very kind to say so,” Anna said, putting all the firmness into her voice that she was capable of. “However, I assure you that there was nothing between Lord Moreland and myself but a very brief acquaintance. I imagine he scarcely remembers me.”

That statement, Anna knew, was extremely doubtful. Reed Moreland might not recall her with any kindness, but the son of a duke was unlikely to forget the affront of a woman turning down his offer of marriage.

“One wonders why Lord Moreland is returning after so long,” Dr. Felton commented, and Anna shot him a grateful glance for turning the conversation away from her relationship with Reed.

“He wrote to Mr. Norton that he intended to sell Winterset,” Mrs. Bennett explained. “And he wanted to see what needed to be done to the place to put it in good condition. He instructed Mr. Norton to hire servants and have the house cleaned and made ready for his arrival.”

“Do you…know when he is arriving?” Anna asked.

“Very soon, I would think, my dear,” Mrs. Bennett replied. “The squire said Mr. Norton seemed to think that Lord Moreland was most eager to come here.” She shot a meaningful little glance at Anna.

“It would doubtless be a good thing if he can sell it,” the doctor mused. “It would be much better to have someone living there. Winterset is far too fine a house to stand empty so long.”

“Oh, yes, it is beautiful,” Mrs. Burroughs hastened to agree, adding somewhat hesitantly, “Although it is a trifle odd, don’t you think?” She looked toward Anna apologetically. “I do not mean any offense, my dear. I know it is your ancestors’ house….”

Anna gave her a reassuring smile. “Please. Do not fear it will offend me. Everyone knows that the Lord de Winter who built it was, well, a trifle whimsical.”

“Exactly.” The vicar’s wife nodded, pleased at Anna’s understanding.

“It would be wonderful if someone would live in it,” Mrs. Bennett agreed, her eyes shining at the prospect. “Think of the parties…the balls…. Do you remember that ball Lord Moreland gave when he lived here before? Such a grand turnout.”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” Mrs. Burroughs agreed.

Anna said nothing, letting the conversational tide move on without her. She remembered the ball very well. Too well. The memories of it had haunted her for years.

She had looked her best. She had been aware of that. Her hair had been piled on top of her head in one of the intricate styles that her maid Penny was always trying to persuade her to wear, and she had worn a vivid deep blue gown that turned her eyes midnight blue. Her eyes had sparkled; her cheeks had been flushed with excitement. And she had glowed as if lit from within, her emotions turning her attractiveness into beauty.

The Winterset ballroom had positively glittered with lights, and the scent of gardenias had perfumed the air. Anna, knowing that she had told Reed once that gardenias were her favorite flowers, was aware, with a happiness so great she felt as if she were about to burst, that Reed had ordered them as a gift to her. His eyes as he smiled down at her had confirmed that knowledge.

It had been the most wonderful night of her life. She had danced only twice with Reed, the limit that propriety would allow, but those moments in his arms had been heavenly. She would never forget his face as he smiled down at her, his gray eyes warm and tender, the slash of dark eyebrows above them, the planes and hollows of his face as familiar and dear to her as if she had known him always, rather than only one month. The music, the other people, even the words they spoke, had been immaterial; the only important thing had been the way it felt to have his arm around her, her hand in his.

Later, after the midnight supper, he had taken her hand and slipped out onto the terrace with her, evading the countless prying eyes inside. They had strolled down the steps to the garden. The evening had been cool, but the chill had felt pleasant after the heat of the ballroom. As they walked, his hand had clasped hers, and Anna’s pulse had begun to hammer in her throat. He had stopped and turned to face her, and she had looked up at him, knowing what was coming next, wanting it with every fiber of her being.

Then he had bent and kissed her, and she had felt as if something exploded within her. Longing, hunger, a dancing, gibbering joy such as she had never experienced, all surged inside her, tangling and tumbling and racing through every inch of her. She had clung to him, lost to everything but Reed and the pleasure of his lips. And she had known at that moment that she had found the only man in the world for her, the love that would last her lifetime.

Even now, just thinking about it sent a shaft of pain through her chest so swift and hard that she almost gasped. Anna closed her eyes briefly, willing down the anguish that welled up in her all over again. Giving up Reed Moreland had been the hardest thing that she had ever done in her life. It had taken her three long years to reach the point of—well, not happiness, exactly, but at least contentment with her life.

It seemed the cruelest of jokes that Reed should decide to reappear in her life now. She dreaded the thought of what would happen if she saw him again.
Would the mere sight of him send all her hard-won peace of mind crashing to the ground?

Anna could feel herself starting to shake inside, and she clenched her fists tightly to control it. She had to get away from here, had to be by herself, where she could reflect without having to worry about what everyone around her would think. Hoping she had stayed long enough to be polite, she inserted herself into the first conversational pause, saying that she must return home to give Kit the latest news.

She set the horse on the road back to Holcomb Manor, but before she reached it, she took the lane to the left that led to Winterset. She drove the trap along the driveway, edged on both sides with limes. Her hands grew looser on the reins, and the horse slowed its pace more and more. There were breaks in the trees where one or more had died and been cut down over the years, and there were shrubs that had grown up closer to the road. But it was still familiar enough to make Anna’s heart ache within her chest. Winterset was their nearest neighbor, but she had not ridden along this drive for three years.

The rows of trees ended, opening onto a broad expanse of lawn leading up to the great house itself. Winterset lay on a slight rise in the land, like a jewel in its setting. The drive curved in a circle in front of it, ending just before the low stone wall, topped by an iron railing, that stood some yards in front of the house.

The wall was centered by two stone pillars standing higher than the iron railings, and atop each pillar lay a staghound
au couchant,
its ears pricked alertly. The fierce dogs were, it was said, modeled after the hunting hounds of Lord Jasper de Winter, who had built the house in the seventeenth century.

Between the iron fencing and the house lay a small inner courtyard, with a wide stone pathway leading from the drive to the front door of the house. The house itself was elegant and symmetrical, with a long central section flanked on either end by two shorter gabled wings. It had been constructed of yellowish stone, almost honey-colored when it was built, but now darkened in patches by age, and much of it spotted by lichen. As a result, when the sun shone on it, as it did this summer day, the stone was a mellow golden; on dreary days, it had a dark and gloomy cast.

Much of its graceful elegance came from its large windows and the stone balustrade that ran across the top of the house. Stone chimneys dotted the roof. The chimneys at the front gables were carved so that they appeared to twist upward in spirals. At various corners of the roof, statues of fierce griffins and eagles jutted up into the air.

Anna looked up at the building. She had always loved Winterset, even when she was a child, seeing the statues of the fantastical griffins and the twisting chimneys as delightful whimsy. But now, looking at the house, she understood the superstitious unease with which many people regarded it. The statues and twisted chimneys did give the place an odd air, even—especially on a gloomy day—an atmosphere of foreboding. The uncannily accurate renditions of the staghounds on the gate piers only added to the faint menace. Despite the ravages of time, the faces of the large dogs were eerily realistic, so that one felt almost as if the animals were watching one carefully. It was the sculptor’s skill at creating the hounds, Anna thought, that had contributed to the local legend that on the nights of the full moon, the staghounds rose from their positions and, at the piercing whistle of their long-dead master, Lord Jasper de Winter, ran with him on a ghostly hunt through the night, eyes gleaming like red-hot coals.

There was a rustling in the bushes beside Anna’s trap, and she whipped her head around. A man stood just beyond, scarcely visible, watching her.

A
nna’s hands tightened on the reins, her heart suddenly in her throat. Then the figure moved, shoving through the shrubbery to the driveway, and she relaxed.

“Grimsley. I did not see you there.”

The slight man, a trifle stooped from years of bending over plants and weeds, reached up and swept the dark cap from his head, revealing a shock of curly hair, the dark streaked through with gray.

“Good day to ye, miss,” Grimsley replied, with a deferential bob of his head. He had once been head gardener here at Winterset and had stayed on as caretaker during all the years it had sat empty.

“How are you?” Anna asked politely, and the man moved over to the side of her trap.

“Very good, miss. Kind of you to ask.” He grinned up at her, displaying a row of crooked teeth. “The old place is still a beauty, ain’t she, miss?”

“Yes. I have always found Winterset quite lovely.” Anna paused, then added, “I hear that the owner plans to return.”

He nodded his head eagerly. “Yes, miss, that’s the truth. Mr. Norton came by and told me today. Says the grand folk are coming back. Mayhap ye will be coming over here again, then.”

Anna quickly shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so.”

“Don’t seem right, the house without a de Winter in it.”

“I am sure Lord Moreland is a good employer.”

“Not a de Winter,” the man said unanswerably. He turned to look again at the building. “House is lonely without them. Don’t seem right, Lord de Winter leaving Winterset like that. Going to some heathen place.”

“Barbados,” Anna said automatically. This was a familiar conversation; she had had it nearly every time she had run into Mr. Grimsley in the past few years.

“Selling the house.” The middle-aged man’s jaw set stubbornly.

“It was far too big a place for my uncle,” Anna said. “And he did not wish to live there any longer.”

Her mother’s brother, Charles, was the Lord de Winter about whom the caretaker spoke. An unmarried, childless man, he—and Anna’s mother, Barbara—had been the last of the de Winter line. When he left Winterset, he had put the house and all his other assets into the guardianship of Anna’s father, as someday, when he died, all his belongings would be inherited by Anna and Kit. Kit still managed the de Winter lands and money, but their father had sold the house, as all of them preferred to live in their own home, Holcomb Manor.

Anna could see that her words had not mollified Grimsley; she knew that they never had before and doubtless never would. The man was peculiarly obsessed with Winterset and the de Winters. He had been born on the estate and had lived his entire life there. He had continued to occupy the small gardener’s house on the grounds for the last three years, while the house had stood empty. Of course, he was also rumored to take a few nips of gin throughout the day, which Anna suspected had something to do with some of the odd notions he took.

She turned the conversation back to the subject that still nagged at her brain. “Do you know when Lord Moreland will be arriving at Winterset?”

Grimsley shook his head gloomily. “Soon, Mr. Norton said. ‘Best be getting it in shape, Grimsley.’ That’s what he said. How’s one man to do that, I’d like to know.”

“I am sure he will not expect you to do any more than what you can,” Anna assured him. “Ree—Lord Moreland is a very fair man.”

He nodded, but Anna could see the skepticism in his eyes.

“Well,” she went on bracingly, though she knew that the assurance was more for herself than from the caretaker, “I imagine that he will not stay here all that long, anyway. I understand that he is merely looking it over to see about selling it.”

“Aye.” Grimsley shifted and looked away, and suddenly Anna understood what bothered him.

“Even if he does sell the house,” she told him with the sympathetic understanding that had made her a favorite among all the people who worked for the Holcombs, “I would think that a new owner would keep you on as head gardener—and would probably even hire men to help you. Then you would be able to keep the grounds in the manner that you would like to.”

He looked up at her, and a kind of odd, shy smile touched his lips. “Aye, miss, that he would—if he be the kind ye and yer brother be.”

“If he is not, rest assured that there will always be a place for you on the Winterset lands,” Anna replied.

“Thankee, miss. Good day, miss.” Again he gave her the little head bob and began to move away, melting back into the shrubbery.

Anna glanced back at the house. She would have to tell Kit about Reed’s return. It would seem highly odd if she did not. Kit did not know what had transpired between her and Reed. He had been abroad when their father had sold Reed the house, and she had never told him what happened. He might have heard rumors from others, she supposed, but he had never brought up the subject. He would have to call on Reed when he arrived. It would be impolite to do anything else, and it would cause talk. But surely Reed would not return the call, given what had passed between them, so if she avoided any parties that he might attend…

But she knew that idea was ridiculous. She could not pretend to be ill for however many days or weeks Reed decided to stay here. She was filled with a cowardly impulse to flee. If only there were some relative to whom she could make a sudden visit, but she was sorely lacking in relations on both sides of her family. Her uncle was childless, and the great-aunt who had raised her mother after her parents’ tragic deaths had died a few years ago. The only other possibility was a cousin of her father’s, but she was a busy woman with five adolescent girls whom she was continually in the process of trying to marry off, and she had made it quite clear to Anna years ago, when Anna should have made her debut, that she had little desire to have another girl in the house, especially one who would outshine her own plain daughters.

There was her good friend Miranda, of course, who had married a minister near Exeter. Anna had visited her many times, and Miranda would welcome her, but she was the mother of two children and was even now in her lying-in for her third baby. Her husband’s mother had come to visit, in order to help with the new baby, and what with the nursemaid, the children and the mother-in-law, the small parsonage would be bursting at the seams.

Besides, such a sudden flight just when Reed returned would cause much talk and speculation, and that was the last thing Anna wanted. She knew that she would simply have to stay here and do everything she could to avoid seeing Reed. And if they met by chance, then she would simply have to get through it. She would smile politely and say some little formality, and that would be it.

After all, it had been three years. She no longer even thought about him—well, scarcely at all—and doubtless he had similarly gotten over her. He had been in London these three years, and there had been numerous girls there doing their best to lift his spirits, Anna was sure.
Why, for all she knew, he had gotten married.

Anna’s heart twisted in her chest at this thought, but she told herself sternly that that was both foolish and selfish. A man as eligible, as handsome, as charming as Reed would have had no difficulty finding someone else to love, and surely that was what she wanted for him.
Of course it was.
And she was over him; she had put away her girlish dreams. Whatever pain and embarrassment she might feel about meeting him again, it certainly was not because she still
loved
him.

With an irritated shake of her head, Anna clicked her tongue, turning her horse around and heading back down the driveway. Whatever lay before her, she told herself sternly, she was not going to act like a lovesick girl. She had done what she had to do three years ago, and she did not regret it. She
would not
regret it. That aspect of her life was over. She refused to let Reed Moreland’s return send her into a turmoil.

She slapped the reins, urging the horse on, and firmly quelled the notion, deep inside her, that it felt as though she was running away.

Anna kept herself busy for the next few days, doing her best not to think about Reed or his impending arrival. She did all the mending that had piled up in her sewing basket and finished the little embroidered baby gown she had made for her friend Miranda’s newest baby, as well as embroidering a white linen fichu she had bought a few months ago for the neckline of one of her dresses. She caught up on all her correspondence and visited one of their aging tenants. She also took a long walk every day, something she had found helped to ease her mind, whatever the situation.

Three days after she had called at the vicarage, she left her house for another long tramp. She took the path that ran from their garden to the east. The path forked, one choice leading back into the woods that nestled at the base of Craydon Tor, one of her favorite places to walk, but today she continued on the walk that curved around the outer base of the tor. It then straightened out and ran in a more-or-less straight line until one reached the edge of Winterset lands. Anna had walked this path hundreds of times in her life, but in the last three years she had never walked as far as Winterset. She did not plan to today, either, intending to turn off at the meadow halfway along and climb over the stile and cut across the meadow to the tree-lined stream that lay beyond. She often went there to think, for it was a calming place, shaded by leafy green trees and dappled with the sunlight that stole through their gently moving leaves, with the burble of the brook as a soothing background.

Rounding the tor, her head down and deep in thought, she did not look at the long stretch of path before her until gradually she became aware of the soft plip-plop of horses’ hooves. She sighed inwardly. She did not wish to have to speak to anyone right now, and she cast about in her mind for some way to avoid it, but, of course, there was none, for the rider was sure to have seen her, and a retreat now would be rude. Bracing herself to smile and say a few polite words, she lifted her head.

The horse, a big, sleek black stallion, was trotting toward her, his rider moving with an effortless grace on his back. The man riding was tall and broad-shouldered, and his dark hair glinted with highlights of red in the sun. He was still too far away for her to make out the exact shape of his features or the color of his eyes, but Anna knew them well enough to supply the strong jaw and wide mouth, the straight slash of dark eyebrows above dark-lashed gray eyes.

It was Reed Moreland riding toward her.

Anna stood rooted to the spot, her mind a chaotic jumble. He had been in her thoughts often the last few days, but still, it was a shock to actually see him. Fate, she thought, had a firm sense of irony, to send him riding toward her as he had been the first time they met.

Reed stopped a few feet away from her and dismounted. For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Anna’s heart was pounding in her chest until she felt as though it might explode. No matter how hard she had tried, she realized, nothing could have prepared her for seeing him again.

“Miss Holcomb.” He came a step or two closer, holding the reins of his horse.

“My lord.” Anna was a little surprised at how calmly her voice came out. It should, she thought, have shaken as she was shaking inside.

Her eyes searched his face, looking for each tiny difference. Was his skin more tanned? Were there a few more little lines radiating out from the corner of his eyes? It was a little something of a shock, seeing his eyes again; memory could not render exactly the silver-gray color of them, shadowed by lashes so thick and long they seemed almost ridiculous on a man.

She was aware of a strong desire to reach out and brush back his hair with her fingertips. Warmth started deep in her abdomen. She remembered the touch of his lips on hers, the way heat had flared along his skin, the hard iron of his arms around her. Anna swallowed and looked away from him, praying that her face showed none of what she was feeling.

Silence stretched between them awkwardly, until finally Anna rushed in with the first thing she could think of. “I was…surprised to learn that you had decided to return to Winterset.”

“It seemed foolish to keep the house,” he replied. “I thought I should look at it…put it up for sale.”

“That will be good,” Anna said, irritated by how stiffly her voice came out. She felt embarrassed and foolish, and she could not help but think about the fact that she was wearing her everyday bonnet and her sturdy walking boots and a quite ordinary dress. She must look like the veritable country mouse. Reed would probably wonder what he had ever seen in her.
Why had she had the misfortune to run into him this way? And why the devil had he returned so early?
She had thought she would have several more days to ready herself.

“Yes, I am sure you must feel so,” he retorted in a clipped voice.

He still hated her, she thought. It was what she had expected. A person did not forget slights—the son of a duke probably even less so than others. But she had not been able to explain it to him. She could not have borne the way he would have looked at her after that, the way he would have thought about her. Better that he think her callous and careless, an inveterate flirt.

She cast about in her mind for something to say to alleviate the awkward silence. “I hope that they were able to get the house ready for you in time.”