‘Please relay my compliments to the chef, Higgins. The lemon chicken is excellent tonight,’ Lord Darcy pronounced.
The butler inclined his head. ‘He’ll be very pleased to hear it, your lordship.’
‘Well, Richard,’ Lady Sarah said as Higgins left and she cut into her grilled asparagus, ‘don’t keep us in suspense. Was the trip to Derbyshire successful?’
‘Indeed it was. We’ve added twelve sheep to the herd,’ he replied. ‘Six tups and six ewes.’
‘Tups?’ Holly said.
‘Rams,’ Hugh explained. ‘For breeding. Gritstones are bred to be resilient and tough, but for all that, they’re at risk.’
‘Oh? Why is that?’
‘Low numbers mean that an outbreak of disease – such as hoof and mouth – put them at greater risk than more numerous breeds.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Holly said, and laid her fork and knife aside. ‘It seems I have a lot to learn.’
‘I did warn you,’ Lady Sarah said, and sipped her Sauvignon Blanc with a complacent smile. ‘There’s more to having a title – and running a stately home – than heading up the church flower rota or hosting the annual hunt. And one has certain responsibilities to help those less fortunate, as well.’
Although the conversation moved on to other things – Saturday’s regatta race being the main topic – Holly was preoccupied. There was so much to learn, so much she didn’t know, that she despaired of ever getting up to speed.
She wasn’t much of a horsewoman, she didn’t know the first thing about sailing or hosting a charity ball or a hunt, she’d never managed a phalanx of servants (or a phalanx of anything, for that matter), and all she knew about sheep was that they produced wool, and… lamb chops.
‘You’ve gone quiet.’ Hugh, sitting beside her, spoke in a low voice as his father and Harry debated the relative merits of sailing versus power boating. ‘You didn’t let my mother’s comments about responsibility and noblesse oblige earlier upset you, I hope.’
She hesitated. ‘Perhaps, a little. She’s right, Hugh – I’m not remotely prepared to be your wife or to be the next Lady Darcy. I don’t know anything about running a stately home, or breeding sheep, or riding to hounds, or – or anything about aristocratic protocol. I scarcely know the different between a viscount and a baron, or an earl and a marquess. I’ll make a total muck of everything.’
‘You’ll learn.’ He reached up and covered her hand with his. ‘When she married my father, my mother didn’t know any of those things, either. But she learned, and she muddled through.’ Hugh smiled. ‘And you will, too.’
Although she returned his smile and squeezed his hand, Holly wasn’t convinced.
‘Are you and Holly going to the regatta ball on Sunday night?’ Lady Darcy asked Hugh as the dinner plates were removed. ‘I hear the committee’s really splashed out this year. The theme is “Neptune’s Triumph”. Oh – and Lady de Byrne will be there,’ she added, and turned to her husband. ‘She’s bringing Imogen.’
‘All the more reason to avoid the ball,’ he muttered.
‘Richard!’ Hugh’s mother regarded him in mild shock. ‘Lady Georgina is Hugh’s godmother, and Imogen is her daughter.’
‘I don’t need reminding of either of those facts, thank you very much.’
‘I haven’t asked Holly yet if she’d like to go,’ Hugh said, and glanced at her. ‘I’ll warn you, these things are usually excruciatingly dull.’
‘The worst,’ Harry agreed, and grimaced. ‘But attendance is pretty much de rigueur for us Darcys.’
‘I think it sounds like fun,’ Holly said. ‘I didn’t pack a ball gown, though.’
‘Oh, I’m sure we can find you something to wear.’ Lady Sarah eyed her. ‘You’re about the same size as Phoebe; there’s bound to be something in her closet upstairs. Or perhaps,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘you and I could go into town and shop for a gown. Make a day of it.’
Holly grabbed her water goblet and took a fortifying sip. She’d rather have a full Brazilian wax without benefit of aspirin than spend an entire day shopping with Hugh’s mother. ‘Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary…’ she began.
‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ Hugh agreed, and leaned over to give her a brief kiss. ‘I’ll give you my card and you can buy whatever you need. Shoes, gown, a wrap – the evenings get a bit chilly in Longbourne when the breeze comes in off the harbour.’
‘How thoughtful.’ Holly’s smile was more of a grimace. ‘Thanks so much, darling.’
‘We’ll go tomorrow,’ Lady Darcy decided, ‘if that suits your plans, Holly?’
‘Oh, erm… perfectly. I look forward to it.’
After all, Holly thought resignedly as Higgins arrived with dessert – Peach Melba with raspberry sauce – there was really nothing more to be said, was there?
***
The next morning Lady Darcy slotted the Aston into a spot along the Longbourne high street and shut off the engine.
‘Here we are,’ she announced as she reached back for her handbag. ‘Off we go to – what is it they say? – shop till we drop.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Holly said, and climbed out of the car with a smile plastered to her face. What she really meant was I can’t wait until this bloody day is over.
But, needs must. She needed a proper ball gown, so she had to endure the shopping trip from hell with Hugh’s mother to get it. She eyed the high street with misgivings.
There wasn’t a Zara or a Topshop to be seen.
Her gaze came to rest on the only dress shop, its window featuring clothing that looked like it had been there since the Second World War – the Longbourne Dress Shoppe – and her heart sank.
In Holly’s experience, any shop that termed itself a ‘shoppe’ usually held nothing but disappointment.
‘Are you coming?’ Lady Sarah enquired, and raised one of her perfectly groomed brows. ‘We need to move quick smart if we’re to find you a gown before the best ones are snapped up.’
Holly doubted they’d find anything in the Longbourne Dress Shoppe but gowns that even Oxfam would reject, much less a dress that anyone would want to ‘snap up’, but she nodded and shut the car door and said brightly, ‘Let’s go. Let’s find a ball gown.’
***
Hugh adjusted Thor’s girth, then thrust his booted foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. It was a perfect day for a ride out to the pasture to check on the new additions to their flock. With any luck, by the time lambing season rolled around next spring, they’d have increased the flock considerably.
He tugged gently on the reins as he guided Thor out of the paddock. There were plenty of threats – predators, disease, parasites – and more sheep meant they’d need to rotate additional pastureland for grazing, provide more vaccines… and they’d need more dogs as well. The pair they had now wouldn’t be enough to keep the foxes at bay once the newborns were foaled next spring.
He could still hear Holly’s words at dinner last night echoing in his head.
I’m not remotely prepared to be the next Lady Darcy. I don’t know anything about running a stately home, or breeding sheep, or riding to hounds. I’ll make a total muck of everything.
Of course he’d reassured her, and told her she’d soon learn. And she would; he was sure of it. Holly was smart, motivated, and – most importantly – willing to make the effort to adapt to her new life at Cleremont, with all that entailed. Surely she could manage, if he helped her with the basics…
‘Hugh!’
He glanced up, his thoughts evaporating as he saw Lizzy Bennet hurrying towards him.
She wore those old Dublin boots she’d always favoured, and jeans, and a plain white T-shirt. Her face was flushed from running. She waved at him and pulled her hair, brown and gold and flying around her face, back into a messy ponytail.
‘They told me at the house you’d gone out to the pasture,’ she said breathlessly as she caught up to him. ‘I hoped I’d catch you before you left.’
‘Go back and get yourself a mount. I’m off to check on the sheep and I wouldn’t mind the company. Go on – I’ll wait.’
‘Thanks. Be right back.’ She grinned, and raced back to the stables as fast as her feet would take her.
***
‘I think the aqua chiffon suits you.’
Holly stared at herself – and Lady Darcy’s reflection just behind her – in the dress shop mirror in mute horror.
The pastel bluish green shade gave her skin a pasty, underwater cast, and the floor-length gown with its voluminous overskirt of aqua netting completely swamped her slender figure.
‘I don’t agree.’ Her words were polite, but firm. ‘This colour’s hideous on me and the dress is way too… much,’ Holly said. ‘I prefer something simpler.’
‘But it’s a ball, Holly, not a sixth-form disco.’
‘Yes, and I want to go to the ball dressed a little more like Carrie Bradshaw and a little less like Cinderella,’ she retorted. She smoothed her hands over the gown’s sparkly, netted skirts and grimaced. ‘What sort of transportation did you have in mind – a pumpkin coach?’
‘Very well,’ Lady Darcy said, and pressed her lips together as she reached for another hanger. ‘We’ll forget the aqua gown. Try this one.’
Reluctantly Holly took the peach silk dress and stalked back into the dressing room for the next round of torture.
Honestly – if she didn’t know better, she’d swear that Hugh’s mother had chosen the most godawful ball gowns she could find, in an effort to make Holly look as frumpy and old-fashioned as possible…
Her hands went still on the dress hanger. Of course… that was exactly what Lady Darcy was doing! She’d set out to deliberately make her son’s fiancée look like a Barbara Cartland reject so that Lizzy Bennet could waltz into the ballroom on Sunday night, looking gorgeous in an elegantly simple gown, and dazzle Hugh.
With her face set in a grim expression, Holly slid the peach silk over her head and waited as it settled around her feet. The gown made her look like the inside of a pig’s ear.
‘No,’ she said out loud. ‘No, no, no!’
There was a rustle just outside the dressing room door. ‘Don’t you like it?’ Lady Darcy enquired. ‘Let me see.’
Grimly Holly threw the door open. ‘I look like last night’s Peach Melba. All I need is a raspberry-coloured pashmina to complete the effect.’
‘Perhaps pastels aren’t your strong suit,’ Hugh’s mother agreed, and held out her hand for the hangers. ‘Give me those, and I’ll go and find something else.’
Holly shook her head. ‘No. This isn’t working. I saw a little shop on one of the side streets as we were coming in – I’d like to try my luck there. If you don’t mind,’ she added.
And within five minutes of entering Nadia’s Dress Shop (thankfully, with no extra ‘p’ or ‘e’), Holly found the perfect gown – a slim column of ivory silk with a plunging back and clean, simple lines.
‘What do you think?’ she asked Hugh’s mother as she turned and twirled in front of the three-way mirror just outside the dressing room.
‘To be frank,’ Lady Sarah said, ‘I think it’s rather plain. But even I have to admit that it suits you more than those gowns I picked out.’
‘I’ll take it,’ Holly told the shop assistant, her mind made up. ‘And these shoes, too.’ The cream leather pumps with the diamante straps were perfect – sexy, but still comfy enough for dancing.
‘A silver lamé clutch will do nicely, I think,’ Lady Darcy mused. ‘Don’t you agree?’
And before Holly could reply, she wandered off and returned a moment later with an envelope clutch of silver lamé and handed it to the shop girl. ‘Please put everything on my account,’ she instructed the girl.
‘Certainly, Lady Darcy.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Holly began, ‘but it isn’t necessary. Hugh gave me his card…’
‘I know it isn’t necessary.’ Lady Sarah turned to Holly with a tight smile. ‘I want to do this for you. Think of it as a sort of pre-wedding present.’
Holly blinked. ‘That’s very kind. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Now,’ she added as they followed the girl to the till, ‘we’ll go to lunch, just the two of us, and get to know each another a bit better.’
As she agreed and trailed after Hugh’s mother to the till, Holly felt a mixture of nausea and terror at the prospect of making small talk over glasses of room-temperature wine and overpriced rocket salads.
Whatever you’re doing right this second, Hugh Darcy, she thought grimly, I only hope you’re half as miserable as I’m about to be…
***
‘That,’ Lizzy declared, laughing so hard she could scarcely catch her breath, ‘was brilliant.’
She flung the reins aide and joined Hugh on the grass under the shade of an oak tree.
‘Which bit?’ he asked. ‘When I won the race? Or when you nearly fell into the brambles when your saddle slid sideways? You’d have been picking thorns out of your bottom for weeks.’
‘You probably loosened the girth deliberately before we left.’
‘And why would I do that?’
‘To win the race, of course.’ She leaned back against the tree trunk. ‘You’ll do anything to win. It’s a known fact.’
‘Is that right?’ he retorted. ‘Perhaps that’s true, but I’d never resort to loosening your saddle strap. I’d hardly need to, anyway. The conclusion was foregone.’
‘What?’ She let out a gasp of mock outrage. ‘Liar! Take it back.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You will,’ she said, her expression determined as she thrust herself away from the tree. ‘I’ll see to it.’
And she reached out and began to tickle him, knowing he hated to be tickled, until she was straddling him and he was shouting and laughing as hard as she was.
‘Take it back,’ Lizzy laughed, breathless. ‘Do it.’
He twisted away, still laughing, and caught her by the wrists. ‘Stop, Lizzy,’ he ordered, his face inches from hers, ‘stop it this instant, or I swear, I’ll…’
‘What? You’ll what?’ she challenged him, her words coming in short gasps after their playful tussle.
Her gaze collided with his, and his fingers tightened around her wrists. His lips were dangerously, deliciously close. For a moment, just for a moment, Lizzy thought he might lean forward and kiss her. He wanted to, as much as she did; she saw it plainly in his eyes.
And she did want him to kiss her. She wanted Hugh’s mouth on hers, she wanted to wrap herself up in his arms and never, ever let go.
But instead he loosened his grip and pushed her, gently, away. ‘What about a challenge? A rematch?’
‘All right. You’re on.’ Lizzy tamped down her disappointment, so sharp and sudden and strong, and affixed a smile to her face. We were close, so very close...
Her disappointment deepened into resentment. It wasn’t fair, to come so near to kissing Hugh Darcy here in the tall summer grass… to have a chance to lie beside him and hold him and make him hers, even if only for a few minutes… only to have it snatched away.
And it was all Holly’s fault.
If not for the James girl’s infuriating hold over him, Lizzy would be engaged to Hugh right now, she knew it. If he hadn’t gone to work at that bloody department store he’d never have met the blonde interloper.
Well, perhaps it was time Lizzy quit playing fair.
Perhaps it was time to dazzle Hugh Darcy – using whatever means necessary – and claim him for her own.