Page 22 of Appointment in Bath

“No. I mean it. Truly. The important things are often difficult to say.”

“Everything is difficult when I’m in your c-company,” she replied candidly. “Or when I’m with m-my father. To be sure, it’s worse with him.”

“Your father makes you nervous, too?” His eyes narrowed with concern behind the lenses of his spectacles. “You’re not afraid of him?”

She withdrew back to her mare, avoiding his searching gaze. “Only of his censure. He c-can be a difficult man.”

“He has that reputation.”

“But he’s n-not a bad one,” she said. “Not in that way.”

Ivo followed after her to assist her in mounting. “I’m gratified to hear it.”

“I know your family dislikes him—”

“Our families dislike each other. This feud isn’t one sided.”

She stopped beside her mare, one hand resting on the bridle. “But it isn’t a feud at all. It’s…it’s a love st-story.”

Ivo stiffened at the suggestion. He had no desire to belabor old grudges, but to categorize the history between his mother and Sir Frederick as some variety of romance was passing all bounds. Miss Burton-Smythe was either ill-informed or incredibly naïve. Possibly both.

“How do you figure that?” he asked.

She looked at him with growing uncertainty as she gathered her reins. “Because Lady Allendale refused m-my father and married yours.”

“That simple, is it?”

Her brow creased. “Isn’t it?”

Ivo helped her back onto her mare. He was careful with her, his hands gentle on her waist as he lifted her up. It wasn’t his place to disabuse her of her girlish fancies. Even so, he couldn’t refrain from enlightening her. “He was her guardian for a time, your father. Did you know that?”

She darted him a sharp glance. “Her guardian!”

He remained beside her, standing in the mud, while she settled herself in her sidesaddle. “Sir Frederick had the stewardship of Beasley Park after my grandfather died. My mother was left in his charge. He bullied and tormented her. He’d have forced her to marry him if he could. A lesser female would have crumbled under such treatment.”

Miss Burton-Smythe’s face paled. “Your m-mother told you this?”

“Not directly, no.” He’d originally heard it from his mother’s former maid, Bessie. Long since retired to a cottage on the estate, old Bessie had been a veritable font of information in Ivo’s youth. She hadn’t furnished the exact details of Sir Frederick’s misconduct toward Ivo’s mother, but she’d been clear on the substance of it. “I suppose your father has told you different.”

“He’s said n-nothing on the subject. What I know, I learned from our c-cook and housekeeper.”

Ivo strode down the river bank to untie his stallion. Snap nudged him hard with his muzzle, threatening to nip as Ivo tightened his girth before mounting. “And what do they say?”

“That my father and your m-mother were promised to each other. And that your m-mother broke that p-promise to wed Lord Allendale.”

Ivo vaulted into his saddle. Shortening his reins, he brought Snap up alongside Miss Burton-Smythe’s mare. “My mother never promised to marry Sir Frederick. It was only a notion my grandfather, Squire Honeywell, had. He wanted to join the two estates. That was the crux of the idea. It had nothing to do with any affection on our parents’ parts.”

“But m-my father did love your m-mother,” Miss Burton-Smythe insisted. “He m-must have done. Why else…” Her words trailed away. She gave him a look of utter bewilderment. Stark vulnerability shone beneath the surface of it.

“Why else would he have named you Margaret?” Ivo offered a sympathetic smile. “Perhaps you should ask him.”

Chapter Six

Meg returned home with a sour feeling in her stomach. She regretted having said anything about the origins of the feud between their families. It had snuffed out the pleasure she’d felt after traversing the clapper bridge with Mr. Beresford. The hope that had bloomed within her at the symbolism of it. It had seemed, at the time, as if they’d crossed from the past and into the future, leaving the old animosity behind them.

But not any longer.

She’d had to go and ruin it by mentioning her father. By bringing up the fact that he’d loved Mr. Beresford’s mother.