“I hate to send you out on an errand in this weather, but Miss Helena needs this letter delivered to Rosemary Broadbent’s house as soon as you can.”
“Not to worry, Miss Jenny. I have my rainwear right at hand.”
He took the letter and left.
Jenny held out her hand to her friend. “Come to my room. I have a new book I want to show you. It is a delightful romance that I am certain you will want to read—when I am finished, of course.”
Laughing they ran to Jenny’s room where they threw themselves on Jenny’s bed. Their stockings felt damp, so they undid and kicked off their shoes. They sprawled across the bed, stared up at the ceiling, and listened as the rain pelted the windows and a cozy fire warmed the room.
“It seems like we have known each other forever. Do you remember how we met?” Helena asked, drifting into a fading memory.
Jenny tried to remember and finding it difficult, sat up on her elbows. “Did you come into the shop? Was that it?”
“No, silly.”
“The school?”
“No. Your mother was delivering a large order of pastries for a party my mother was giving. You had come along, and, when I came into the kitchen, you and I started to make a racket, banging pots with wooden spoons and saying it was music.”
Jenny fell back onto the bed laughing. “I do remember that—but only just. How ever did we become friends? It is so strange for the daughter of an Earl to make friends with a common baker.”
“That was later at the school. We were in the same class and from then on we were never apart.”
“Yes… I am so fortunate my parents put such a value on education. All of us have been to school—even though it was a huge burden for them to pay for us to go.”
“I am sorry to say my father rather frowned on us being friends though,” Helena added sadly.
“Oh?”
“Because you were from a working family in the village,” Helena said. “He is rather a stickler for aristocratic traditions.”
“I am certainly happyyoudid not think that way.”
“You know I never would. Now where is that book?” Helena asked, suddenly bouncing off the bed.
Chapter 2
Thomas Haddington, the tenth Duke of Pemberton stood at one of the tall windows of his bedchamber, gazing across the expanse of woodland sloping gently toward the river. Pemberton, the family estate, stretched across his view as far as the Thornton hills to the east and all the way to the river on the west. The setting for Pemberton House had always been informal. There were no neatly laid-out formal, French-style gardens—no statues of Greek or Roman origin—nor follies dotted on hillsides reminiscent of classical pavilions.
At eight-and-twenty years of age, Thomas was an impressive figure. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with confidence and grace. His auburn hair was long but neatly trimmed. His handsome regular features—his penetrating green eyes—and his welcoming smile made him attractive to most women and friendly to most men.
The Haddington family income partially came from interests in the West Indies. But because of unrest in the region, this income was in jeopardy his uncle, Wilcox Mowbray, the Earl of Denham, said, and he had been urging Thomas to marry money—and soon. There could be no doubt that Thomas loved women—all women. But he kept telling himself he could only marry the perfect woman. And even though he was delighted with their company, he had, as yet, not found the perfect partner. He was absolutely determinednotto be pressured by his uncle to marry for money alone.
Thomas had just come from London where he had engaged in casual dalliances with several notable society women. They were eligible, moneyed, and exactly the sort of woman his uncle had been urging him to find as a wife.But what a pity they do not meet up to my expectations,he thought.
Every time he began to contemplate marriage, he could not help but go back to that dreadful day. Ever since…He could not bring himself to utter her name. He abruptly turned from the window and tried to distract his thoughts of her by leafing through an atlas on his side table next to the globe.
“Amanda,” he said aloud and strove again to forget her… but he could not.
Finally, he charged out of his bed chambers, ran down the grand entrance staircase, and charged to the stables where he had a groom saddle his horse. As soon as he could mount, he galloped across the open fields as fast as he could, burning to erase from his mind that haunting name… Amanda… Amanda.
Exhausted from lack of sleep since his return from London, coupled with the ferocity of his ride, he threw himself on the bank of the river and tried in vain to find some rest. But to no avail. The singing birds reminded him of the day of his wedding. The gently flowing river made him think of her gentle nature, and the soothing rays of the sun made him think of her warm and comforting smile. A smile meant only for him—or so he thought—until the betrayal.
But he was not going to allow himself to wallow in the past. What was done was done. Amanda was married to his best friend—his ex-best friend—and that was the end of it.Life must go on.
He roused himself from his thoughts and walked to where his horse was nibbling at a grassy bank and mounted to return to Pemberton.
Even in his groggy tiredness, he knew he needed to take charge of his own life and find a way to restore the resources of the estate without the need to marry only for money—his uncle be damned.
