He put a finger under Hannah’s chin, tilting her face up towards him. He nodded as if in approval of what he saw.
‘I will make a pact with you, Mrs.Linton. You can buy my silence for the price of your daughter. I need a biddable wife to give me an heir, and she’s fair enough.’
‘No!’ Hannah and her mother cried out as one.
Sir Simon grasped Hannah’s arm, spinning her around to face her mother.
‘Very well, if that is what you wish. Mrs. Linton my men are still outside... You can both rot in Dorchester Gaol tonight and you’ll hang in the new year.’
Hannah turned a stricken face to her mother.
‘No! This was my doing. Sir Simon, I will marry you on condition you spare my mother.’
‘Hannah, no!’
Tears were running down her mother’s face and Hannah took a deep shuddering breath.
‘We have no choice, Mama.’ She turned back to Sir Simon. ‘When?’
He licked his lips. ‘As soon as a licence can be arranged, my dear. You see, I’m not an unreasonable man and you’ve made a very wise decision.’
One I shall live to regret.
‘Just to make sure you don’t abscond, Miss Linton, you can both come back to the hall with me now. We have a fine Christmas meal planned, and what better way to celebrate our betrothal?’
He smiled, revealing a row of yellowing, mottled teeth. Hannah thought about Fabien and the kisses they had shared. Those precious moments in time when she had known perfect happiness. She had to put those memories away in a locked box in her mind. Never to be brought out.
It was too late now for Hannah and Fabien.
She touched the band of the little ring he had given her and made a silent vow that while she had breath in her body she would never take it off.
It would serve her always as a reminder of what it was to know love, even for a fleeting moment.
Chapter Nine
LONDON, 24 DECEMBER 1816
The Christmas ball at the Darlingtons’ grand house was one of the highlights of the season. A couple of hundred people already packed the ballroom, spilling into the anterooms and, braving the cold and the soft blanket of snow, out on to the terrace.
The already splendid house had been decorated for the season with boughs of greenery, strategically placed mistletoe and swags of red velvet, illuminated by hundreds of candles in the brilliant cut chandeliers.
‘Lady Maxwell,’ the major domo intoned, but no one even looked Hannah’s way as she stepped into the crowded ballroom.
Except for one person.
Sophie Westhall pushed through the crowd. She grabbed Hannah’s arm, her fingers digging painfully into the flesh as she dragged Hannah into a shadowy nook.
From Sophie’s high colour and the spittle forming around her lips, Hannah concluded the Honourable Sophie Westhall was not pleased
‘You have no right to be here!’
Hannah shook her arm free and produced the invitation card.
‘I have every right to be here,’ she said calmly. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, Sophie, I am sure your friends will be wondering where you have gone.’
The encounter had unnerved her, and Hannah selected an uncomfortable gilded chair, which offered a good vantage of the room. She spread out the grey silk of her skirts and laid her gloved hands in her lap. If Fabien was to be among the invited guests tonight, she would see him long before he noticed her.
But it was not Fabien who found her. Lord Easterbrook loomed up in front of her, a glass of champagne in his hand.
