learned the lesson most parents had months to get used to—this little life was far more important than his own and whatever plans he had about the future without any trace of Rosalind in it must now be forgotten.
‘Where have you come from?’ his imp demanded.
‘India,’ he said and waited in vain for her to say, Oh, yes, my papa lives there, so there was not even that much cover for his absence from his daughter’s life. Ash wondered how Rosalind would get around the fact he was staying here as Mr Meadows, since being a duke would have caused an even bigger sensation and some strange impulse had made him sign himself so when he was still furious with Rosalind for hiding in the middle of nowhere to pretend he didn’t exist. He still wondered why he had done it, but at least it would make removing his daughter from this backwater a lot easier. Not even Rosalind could deny they were man and wife with this child between them to prove it. He felt sure she would go wherever her child went, even if she loathed the girl’s father and she must do so to have done this to him for the last eight years.
‘Are your saddlebags stuffed with rubies and pearls?’ the boy asked as if he thought such jewels must be scattered on the ground in exotic countries for anyone to pick up and bring home.
‘No, I keep them in a bank vault,’ he joked to stop himself promising his child the run of his treasury if she would only love him as her father. Adorning her with diamonds and pearls and all the riches he had gained in eight driven years of hard work could not buy a child’s loyalty. He only wished he did not have to make her Lady Jenny before he had much of a chance to get to know his own child. I have a child, he whispered it in his head—as if someone might leap in and take her away again if he dared to say it out loud.
‘Did you catch a fever while you were out there?’ she asked as if that might explain his dazzled silence and make him a bit more interesting.
‘Not that I know of,’ he said feebly, still not quite sure this was really happening even now.
‘My father says India is too dangerous for English women and children because fevers are rife. He was going to live there until he met Mama, but he agreed to come here instead so Grandpapa Waters would let them marry one another and have us. Grandpapa says he would rather put a knife in Mama than send her out there to die in all that heat and—’ The girl must have given her talkative little brother a sharp elbow in the ribs since he grunted a startled breath then glared at her.
‘He might like it, Hal, since he didn’t take a fever there and you should not have been listening when Grandpapa thought we weren’t there,’ she lectured from the advantage of what looked like a couple of years’ seniority.
‘You were there as well, so neither should you.’
Obviously thinking the siblings were about to forget all about Ash and his fine horse and everything else except their latest quarrel, Jenny ignored them and continued to stare down at Ash as if she knew he was important to her somehow. ‘When I grow up I am going to be a sultana,’ she told him solemnly.
Even Ash could not quite hide a grin and the boy forgot to fight with his sister to laugh so hard he began to cough and splutter, until his sister thumped him on the back so hard he begged for mercy. ‘You’ll kill me,’ he accused her breathlessly, then recalled the reason why he had been laughing in the first place. ‘Raisins are nicer than sultanas, Jenny, so why not be one of those instead?’ he taunted Jenny.
Ash had to bite back a stern rebuke to stop the lad teasing his child, even if she didn’t know she was instantly precious to this tongue-tied stranger.
‘She’s been reading that book about Aladdin and whoever else is in there again,’ the older girl told her brother with a shrug. ‘Anyway, you’re the fool for not knowing a sultan’s wife is called a sultana. Not that you can marry one, Jenny, because your mother wouldn’t want you to live so far away.’
‘I could if he loved me and I loved him,’ Jenny said stubbornly.
Ash silently cursed Rosalind for putting such nonsense in her head when she ought to know better by now. Love was not real; had she learnt nothing from their fiasco of a marriage?
Yes, how to lie even better than she did before it, an inner voice whispered sternly in his ear.
‘Yuk, what soppy stuff and I thought you knew better,’ the boy said, pulling a revolted face. Ash almost nodded his agreement before he met his daughter’s reproachful gaze. She could not even be eight years old for months, so he had years and years to fight that battle before she was old enough to marry anyone, let alone a sultan.
‘Be quiet, you two, someone’s coming,’ the older girl hushed the fight about to break out between her brother and their friend as Jenny took exception to the boy’s scornful superiority.
‘Hide,’ the boy ordered and there was a great deal of wriggling and whispering as the trio drew back into the loft and Ash wanted to shout a protest and call them back. This was not the right time. He must make himself wait to claim his child until he had confronted her mother with her latest sins and got her to admit the truth. Then they could find a way to tell Jenny who she really was and get ready to leave for Edenhope as soon as the weather was right for such a long journey.
‘Seth said he thought those two eldest demons of the Vicar’s had been sneaking around the yard again and I won’t have it, Enoch. If they was to tumble into a stall and get themselves trampled half to death after scaring the horses, that Mrs Belstone would be on our tails sharpish and we’d never hear the last of it. Vicar might have his head in the clouds when it ain’t in a book, but his missus’s tongue’s sharp enough to cut a duke down to size if she was to turn her mind to it.’
The only Duke available managed to look too modest to need a trimming while he listened to those three furtive children creeping down from their perch by whatever means they got up there in the first place. A few moments later there were delighted squeals outside and he looked through the door the innkeeper’s elderly father had left open when he came in here and saw a fat flake of snow drifting to earth like down. He didn’t want to be snowbound in a village that thought his wife’s husband must have died before his daughter was born, but it looked as if he would be staying here until the snow was gone whether he liked it or not.
By the time he stepped outside with directions to Furze Cottage and a frown from Enoch to wonder what this stranger wanted with a respectable widow, Jenny and her not very saintly friends were long gone. Ash jammed his expensive beaver hat on his head, pulled his collar up around his ears and hoped those three scamps were safely back at the vicarage having nursery tea by the time he got to Rosalind’s house, because he didn’t think he could wait to talk about their past, present and future until his daughter was supposed to be asleep tonight.
* * *
Now the snow had actually arrived Rosalind had to accept it was ridiculous to even try to travel, so she almost welcomed the cool slide of a fat snowflake against her flushed cheek. She scurried away from the vicarage with a promise from the Belstones and a delighted Jenny happy to stay the night while Rosalind attended to unexpected business. Judith Belstone shot Rosalind a sharp look, as if she could see how agitated she was under the pretend calm, but she agreed the children would be happy to play together in the heavy fall of snow it looked as if they would have by morning.
Now her daughter was safe with the Belstones she could hope against hope Ash would make a hasty retreat to Dorchester after all, so she and Jenny could sneak off in the opposite direction as soon as the coast was clear. If this desultory snow was all they were going to get he might even be able to leave first thing in the morning. So there was still a slim chance he might never find out about Jenny, if she kept her fingers crossed and a myriad of small chances all went her way. She rushed across the churchyard and out on to the lane leading to Furze Cottage, eager to grasp a last straw of hope.
‘Ah, there you are.’ Ash’s deep voice rumbled on the still air. What a giveaway to put a hand to her racing heart to stop it leaping clean out of her ribcage. She blinked at him and thought he looked stonier than ever.
‘Yes,’