yes. Miles Delafield—he died recently of a heart attack, didn’t he? And I hear this poor little girl’s mother is dead, too—most, most unfortunate!’
Connor felt Elvie press closer. He’d always thought the Vicar was a blundering fool. ‘Indeed,’ he replied tersely. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us...’
But no sooner had Connor got away from the Vicar than he found himself surrounded by a fresh hazard—women.
Oh, the women. Not just the young ones eyeing him up from beneath their beribboned straw bonnets, but their mothers, too, were coming at him from all sides. ‘My dear Mr Hamilton!’ they simpered one after another. ‘We’re truly delighted that you’ve returned to Gloucestershire. We do hope we’ll have the privilege of your company soon...’
And they proceeded to recite a list of church committees, fund-raising fêtes and parish entertainments that all sounded extremely worthy—but he knew, of course, what the tabbies were really thinking.
They would be thinking that Mr Connor Hamilton, at twenty-five years old, was an extremely wealthy man. Had risen from being a blacksmith’s son to partner in a highly successful iron business—and now that his partner had conveniently died, he’d got the lot. What was more, he was the new owner of the most impressive house in the district by far—a family home if ever there was one, even if it was somewhat neglected—and he was not married!
Connor endured just a few more moments of the mothers parading their daughters, but he was heartily glad to be distracted by Elvie tugging at his hand. ‘Connor,’ she was whispering. ‘Connor, look.’
He looked and realised there was some sort of disturbance over by the crowded ale tent. A cluster of children, none of them older than Elvie, were racing around and he thought he could hear a small dog yapping. There were adult voices as well now, raised in anger and in threat.
Connor, with Elvie’s hand still in his, drew closer. The children looked underfed and scruffy—he immediately guessed they were from the gypsy caravans that came every summer to set up camp in Plass Valley, half a mile from here. Their parents would be busy harvesting the hay and the children, he realised, were chasing after a puppy whose rope leash trailed after it. They dived to catch it, failed and tried again, shrieking with laughter as the excited puppy evaded them.
Local people didn’t like the Plass Valley children, Connor remembered. Local people didn’t like their parents much, either, despite the vital work they did on the farms in summer. The children’s appearance didn’t help, since judging by the mud splashes on their clothes and bare skin they’d all taken a dip in the nearby duck pond.
And so, evidently, had the puppy. Droplets of water were still flying from its fur as it shook itself, causing nearby ladies to shriek as their best frocks were bespattered, while their menfolk blustered. One burly man caught a little lad by the ear. ‘You young varmint, you and your kind should be beaten out of here. And I’ll—’
He broke off when Connor stepped forward. ‘The child’s rather small for your threats, don’t you think?’
‘I’ll bloody thump him, that’s what! Plass Valley vermin!’
‘Try thumping me instead,’ invited Connor.
Connor was tall and his well-tailored clothes couldn’t hide the fact that he was extremely well muscled into the bargain. The man hesitated, muttered something under his breath and vanished into the staring crowd. And then Connor heard another voice, a young woman’s voice, saying calmly but firmly, ‘Children, you really shouldn’t let your puppy get so excited. He thinks it’s all a game—he doesn’t understand that you’re trying to catch him.’
Connor could see her now. Tall and slender, in her early twenties, she wore an old-fashioned cotton sunbonnet and a flowery frock—a frock now generously splashed with mud, since she’d picked up the excited puppy and was holding it firmly in her arms.
One of the children—a freckle-faced lad in a battered cap set at a jaunty angle—called out to her, ‘We didn’t mean any trouble, miss! He went swimming in the duck pond and got stuck in the weeds. So we pulled him out, but then he ran away.’
‘But here he is—fortunately,’ she said. The puppy was trying to lick her face with its pink tongue. ‘Perhaps you’d better take him home and get yourselves cleaned up.’
The children looked at one another. ‘But he’s not ours, miss.’
‘Not...?’
‘He’s a stray,’ explained the lad. ‘We found him this morning up in the fields, really hungry, so we fed him and asked around. No one wants him. And he’s not wanted at home, either, at our camp, ’cos our dads say we’ve got enough dogs already.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Well.’
And Connor felt the memories surge and connect, rolling into place one after another. The young woman wore country clothes that were clearly homemade and years out of fashion; yet she carried herself with grace and spoke with unusual clarity. And more memories began to pile in. Far too many of them.
Then someone else arrived—that blasted Vicar, Malpass. ‘Best keep yourself out of this, young lady,’ he said curtly to the woman, looking almost with repugnance at the muddy puppy in her arms. ‘As for you,’ he declared, turning to the children, ‘how dare you run wild here, disturbing the peace and up to no good? Be off with you!’
Connor was about to stride forward and intervene, but the children had a defender already.
‘I’ve spoken to the children, Vicar,’ she said, still apparently calm, ‘about this little dog. He was in difficulties in the pond and they were trying to help him. Is that really so bad of them?’
The Vicar clearly thought it was. ‘You know their kind. They’re no better than their parents, living like vagrants, thinking they’re beyond the power of the law. And they never attend the church!’
‘Perhaps they don’t attend your church,’ the woman said steadily, ‘because they realise how unwelcome they’ll be.’
And her intervention—was this what she’d intended? Connor wondered—had given the children the chance to escape, scampering through a gap in the hedge and off into the neighbouring fields. Connor stepped forward, Elvie’s hand still in his, and said to the Vicar, ‘It seems there’s no harm done, Reverend Malpass. But I think we all need to remember that these children’s parents are vital to the summer harvest. Don’t we?’
The Vicar pursed his lips. ‘Of course, Mr Hamilton. But we still need to maintain basic standards of morality in the district.’ And—with a curt nod of the head—the Vicar moved on.
If Connor had been wise, he’d have moved on, too, but he didn’t.
Everyone else had drifted away, back to the ale tent or the food stalls or the livestock pens—but the young woman remained. She was still soothing the puppy, which had settled gratefully into her arms, and Connor noted that despite her slenderness, she certainly possessed her share of womanly curves. Swiftly he lifted his gaze to her face and saw that her eyes were as intense as ever—green flecked with gold and fringed by thick dark lashes...
Then he realised she was meeting his gaze steadfastly. And she said, ‘So you’re back.’
The little dog whimpered in her arms, as if suddenly uneasy. And Connor, too, was unsettled, was not quite sure how to handle this. Calmly would be best. He nodded. ‘Indeed, Miss Blake,’ he replied. ‘I’m back and you are still—how can I put it?—managing to find yourself in the thick of things.’
He thought he glimpsed a faint flush tinge her cheeks. But she lifted her chin and said, ‘In the thick of things? If that’s how you choose to see it, then, yes. It’s a habit of mine, perhaps an unfortunate one, but one I can’t appear to break.’ She met his gaze mildly, though he thought he glimpsed a pulse of agitation in her throat. ‘And I’ve heard,