‘There has been a lot to do,’ I said defensively.

‘And I can see you do it all,’ Richard said. The words sounded like praise, but I knew Richard was not pleased. ‘What a wonderful little miss squire you are, Julia. Acre must adore you.’

‘Stuff,’ I said awkwardly. ‘It is just work, Richard, as Beatrice used to do.’

He would have said more, but Prince came out of the stable with his head thrown up and Jem clinging on to the reins. ‘He’s rather fresh,’ Richard said, and he sounded almost apprehensive.

‘He’s not been ridden very often,’ I said. ‘Jem has taken him out, but John has been too tired to ride much in the cold weather.’

Richard nodded. ‘Hold him still, can’t you?’ he said abruptly to Jem as the animal shifted when he was trying to mount. Jem nodded, but shot a disrespectful wink at me which I pretended not to see.


Once Richard was in the saddle, he seemed more confident, though he was a little pale. ‘I shouldn’t think he’s been out of his stable for a sennight,’ he complained. ‘Really, Julia, if you are squiring it around the estate so much, you might ensure that the horses are properly exercised.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said neutrally. I knew Prince would settle down soon. He was too well mannered to let his enthusiasm for being out overcome his normal steadiness. ‘Mr Megson stables one of his horses here,’ I offered. ‘If you don’t like Prince, you could try him.’

‘I’ll ride our horse,’ Richard snapped, and he let Prince start forward and brushed past me to trot down the drive.

‘Prince is all right,’ Jem said reassuringly. ‘He’s got no vices. If he bolts, he’ll only come home. All Master Richard has to do is to hold on tight and stay on top. I suppose he can do that, Miss Julia.’

‘Thank you, Jem,’ I said repressively, and I trotted out into the sunlit drive after Richard.

I had hoped we would go towards Acre, because I wanted to see what they were planting in the common strips, but Richard turned to the right before we got to the village and led the way up towards the downs.

‘I thought we would ride along the top of the downs and then drop down to the common,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. I could at least check the sheep as we rode past the flock. They were out on the high downs at last, and I wanted to see if the lambs were looking well enough and standing up to their first days out.

‘Why do you not know what to say when I tell you how much I admire you?’ Richard asked abruptly as the two horses breasted the rise of the track and came out at the top of the downs, blowing hard.

I coloured again. ‘I suppose because we have known each other for so long…’ I said awkwardly, ‘and been friends for so long, Richard. It just seems so strange to hear you speak to me like that.’


‘But your Bath friends, James Fortescue and the others, no doubt pay you compliments, don’t they?’ Richard continued. ‘Does it sound odd to you from them?’

‘Not from them,’ I said honestly. The horses fell into an easy walk side by side, along the old drovers’ way that runs along the top of the downs. Looking to my left, I could see Acre and the Wideacre woods, the London road and half of Sussex, and Hampshire as well. Looking southwards, I could see the gleam of the sea and the thousand little mud islands of Chichester harbour.

‘Is that because you prefer them to me?’ Richard suddenly demanded. I jumped and switched my eyes from the view to Richard. He was breathing fast; his colour came and went in his cheeks, and his eyes were blazing blue. ‘Tell me, Julia,’ he said urgently. ‘I have to know! You wrote me a letter which I could not begin to understand. That is why I came straight home to see you. I believed us to be betrothed. You have given me your word; and then you write to me as if it were a little piece of gossip and tell me that you are affianced to someone else!’

‘Richard! No!’ I said. I stopped my horse and put my hand out to him. He jumped down from Prince and lifted me down from the saddle. When my feet touched the frosty grass he did not release me, but kept hold of me in a tight grip, looking down at my face.

‘Tell me, then,’ he said huskily, ‘tell me that you have not changed towards me, even though your clothes have changed, and you are so grown-up and confident. Remember how it was when I came to the field just yesterday? Tell me that you still love me.’

‘Of course I do,’ I said simply. ‘I always have done. From as far back as I can remember I have always loved you, Richard. How can you doubt that?’

‘You love me as a cousin, I know,’ he said tightly, ‘but you have promised me more than that, Julia. I love you as a lover, I think you know that. We both know what it means. I am asking you, do you love me too?’

It was not true.


There was a lie, somewhere.

I was not a fool. I had been a fool over Richard many, many times. I had loved him without encouragement and without return. I had always thought there would be a time when he would take me in his arms and say he loved me, and our love would have changed, grown into adult love. Now that time had come.

But it had come too late.

‘I do love you,’ I said slowly, ‘but I am not sure what that love means for us both.’

‘You have promised to marry me,’ Richard pressed. ‘When I am done at Oxford and we are of age, you will marry me, as we always planned.’

‘Richard…’ I said helplessly. His hands on my waist were closed in a hard grip, hardly a caress at all. I was trying to think of words to explain to him that he was my dearest brother and friend, but that the feeling of being in love was quite different, that he should not mistake his feelings for me.

He drew me a little closer to him and his hand slid around my back. I felt my mouth grow dry with apprehension. He put a hand under my chin and turned my face up to him.

He had always done as he wished with me. I had never said no to Richard, I had never even run away from his anger. How could I now learn to pull away from his touch?

‘Richard…’ I said softly.

His hand smoothed my back and I could feel his warm body pressing against mine. One hand stroked my face, my cheek, my neck. But my body did not respond to him. It did not melt to his touch. Instead I heard a buzzing in my head like an angry bee and I could feel the hair on the nape of my neck standing up like the hackles on a frightened dog. For the first time in our lives, when Richard touched me, I drew away. I could not help but draw away. He made my skin crawl.

Richard’s face came down lower and he kissed me lightly on the lips.

I held myself still. Nothing would be gained by pulling away, and anyway I had my back against Misty and could step backwards no further. But when his lips were pressed harder on my passive mouth, I could not help but shudder.

He misunderstood that shiver. He broke from the kiss and smiled down at me. ‘You are hot for me,’ he said confidently. ‘You love me and you want me.’

‘No,’ I said instantly. ‘I am sorry, Richard, but that is not how it is.’

‘You are wanton,’ Richard said coolly. ‘You have always been mine. You would come to me at any time, night or day, if I so much as snapped my fingers. But then you go away to Bath and think you have found another master, another lover. But I have come to claim you back. And here and now I do take you back.’

‘No, Richard,’ I said steadily. I was breathing fast, but there was a very sharp awareness in my mind that what Richard was saying was not true.

‘You are a whore and a wanton,’ Richard said pleasantly. ‘You would go with any man who flattered your monstrous vanity. You played the little squire all around Bath and made a show of yourself with finding the paupers and bringing them home. Now you have some cheap tradesman’s son sniffing around you and I am supposed to believe this is love! It is vanity and lust, Julia. You are my betrothed, and I will take care to keep you.’

I wrenched myself from him and turned my head into Misty’s silver-grey shoulder. The clean smell of her warmth steadied me.

‘None of that is true,’ I said quietly. My temper was rising, but I had endured Dr Phillips’s stripping away of my most private hopes and fears, and I no longer rose to the slightest bait. ‘None of that is true,’ I said again. ‘I am in love with James Fortescue. I went to Bath a free woman. We did play at being engaged when we were children, but neither your papa nor my mama ever encouraged that. Since we have been grown, I have never felt that you loved me in that way. I love you as if you were my brother and I will continue to do so, provided you treat me well. There is no other relationship between us.’

‘Julia!’ Richard cried. His tone was so anguished that I turned back to look at him. His mouth was working, but his eyes were sharp. ‘You are breaking my heart!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have loved you all my life. I have refused invitations to balls and dinners in Oxford because I considered myself a betrothed man. Now you tell me this means nothing to you! Have you forgotten how much we loved each other in childhood, before all of Acre started to come between us? Before Mr Megson came back, before you started going out of the house instead of waiting at home for me.’

It just did not sound right. I pulled back so that I could scan his face. ‘What is the matter with you?’ I asked softly.

‘Nothing,’ he said quickly. He said it too quickly, I heard it.

‘You do not have to love me,’ I said slowly. I spoke almost sadly. ‘You know that I love you and that I shall love you for always, as my dearest friend, as my brother. No one could take that love away from us. No one could replace you in my heart. There is no need for you to pretend you feel desire for me when you do not.’

There was an invitation there if Richard had been the person to hear it, and understand it. But he was not.

It was odd, for I had believed that it was women who were the romantic ones, who cling to lies and pretty mannered courtesies. I would have given every florist’s bloom in the world to have known what was in Richard’s heart on that bright day on the top of the downs. But he would not tell me.

‘I know I do not have to love you,’ he said gently. ‘But I can tell you, I can tell you freely, that I do love you with all my heart and soul.’

He bent his dark head and kissed me again, and I felt such pity for him if he was telling the truth and such confusion about what I should do to help him that I let him kiss me. His breathing was coming faster and he was murmuring my name over and over as his lips went up and down the line of my neck from my collarbone to my ear.

I wrenched my face away from him, and I put both my hands against his shoulders and tried to push him off me. Then I saw his face, quite empty of emotion, not warm and loving nor hot with passion, but with an absolute coldness behind his eyes as he looked at me and measured me.

‘Is it the truth that you no longer want me?’ he asked. His voice was like ice.

I pulled my stock up around my throat and smoothed my jacket down. My hat had come off altogether and I pinned it back on as best I could. I felt rumpled and foolish. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am sorry. I am betrothed to another man and I love him as a lover. I love you as a brother and that is all.’

‘Then you are faithless and you have broken my heart!’ he cried out and spun around to Prince and vaulted up into the saddle.

‘Richard!’ I said. But he wheeled Prince around so close that the flick of his tail stung me in the face. Richard, high on his back, was scowling. He jerked Prince to face back along the way we had come and then dug his heels in hard and used his whip too. Prince threw up his head and thundered away from us. Misty sidled, anxious, and I grabbed her reins.

I did not hurry to follow. I let him go. I waited on the downs and I wept for the pain I had caused him, and that I should have been so stupid as to think that Richard could readily accept another in his place. I had never known before how much he loved me. I wept for my folly, and for the loss of that love.

I led Misty over to a hummock which I could use as a mounting-block to help me into the high saddle, and I wiped my eyes on the back of my glove and sniffed miserably. Then I turned her head for home and went slowly down the bridle-track to the foot of the downs. And there he was.

He was waiting for me, with Prince held on a short rein, standing very still at the side of the path. He was waiting for me with his sweetest smile.