2. Good Intentions

It had all been going well until the fireplace.

Audrey had resisted dinner at the Arms initially, but there was something rather liberating – infectiously so – about someone who cared so little for what other people thought.

She had spent her life bound up with appearances and propriety and so she understood the reasons for his change of name and the adoption of those trappings of English gentility. And yet alongside that was the utter disregard for other people's opinions of him. It was a contradiction that she found very intriguing.

Sitting in those cosy surroundings in her jodhpurs and boots, she was aware of the looks and the whispers from other tables but, with Richard's indifference to the effect that their windblown, slightly muddy appearances had, she had found it hard to care about the disapproval aimed at them.

The staff did not seem to have that problem – they had almost fallen over themselves to ensure that Richard and Audrey were seated at the best table and wanted for nothing.

Money, Richard told her, meant that just about anything was forgivable – provided you had enough of it.

She had laughed at that, but later, much later, it was a comment that came back to her and with it the thought that maybe he wasn't as thick-skinned as his rather easygoing manner suggested; maybe he wore a lot of armour and, like all armour, it had its vulnerabilities.

But as a dinner companion he was charming and entertaining and it was all too easy to find herself back at the manor, sprawled across the divan in his study with an excellent cognac and the scent of cigar smoke on the air.

And then the fireplace. She stared at the gaudy monstrosity in despair while he cheerfully told her she could have the equally appalling one from the library.

'Audrey?'

She glared at him.

'Are you all right?' He looked genuinely concerned.

She genuinely wanted to claw his face off.

'Have you any idea what you've done?' She seemed to have been asking the same question for hours and, finally, the fact that his gift to her was not going down quite the way he had intended was starting to register.

'I, er…'

'There is a Portland stone fireplace behind that … that … thingthat you have brought into my home.'

He looked over at the newly-installed fireplace with interest. 'Is there? Yes, I suppose that would make sense if the lodge is the same age as the house.'

'It is.' Audrey got the words out through clenched teeth. 'Brabinger found it when he was wiring the new bells-' His eyebrows rose a fraction, interest replaced by a sort of amused tolerance that was infuriating. And humiliating. 'And then you dared to come into my house, without any invitation and-and deface my home!'

'Audrey, l'm sorry – truly. You've been very kind and very generous with your time and it was meant to be a way of thanking you. I thought you loved…' he looked again at the bright red and blue painted surround, '…that.'

'Well I don't!'

Hands balled into fists, her nails bit into the flesh of her palms. She hadn't been kind. Or generous. And it was all Marton's fault, anyway, with his vulgar taste that had ruined so much of the home she had loved. And his incompetence and dishonesty that had lost her her home. But Marton wasn't here and Richard was and so he would be the recipient of her fury.

You've never seen anything so beautiful.

He had meant it; wonder in his face when he had said it. Not how much it was worth, not how much it added to the value of the house, but simply beauty for the sake of beauty. He recognised it, appreciated it in a way that Marton never had. Richard wasn't just renovating the manor, he was restoring it; finding parts of it that had been lost for so long and bringing them back to life.

And all she could do was catch glimpses of it from her exile at the bottom of the drive and the unfairness of it was more than she could bear.

And Richard was still talking, with that same ease that he had had when walking them into the pub. 'Look, I'll send the workmen down tomorrow and they'll sort this out – put that thing on the scrap heap where it belongs. I'll get them to check Brabinger's wiring while they're at it – I have a feeling that your functioning bell situation here is the reason for our non-functioning bell situation at the manor.'

He seemed to find the whole thing extremely entertaining. Audrey blinked back tears of sheer frustration.

'It's the least you can do,' she said icily.

His eyes wandered over her face and his smile faded. 'Why don't you come up to the manor tomorrow while they're working-'

'That won't be necessary.' She lifted her chin. 'I'll expect your men in the morning. Good night, Mister DeVere.'

Richard hesitated for a moment and then his shoulders sagged slightly. 'Goodnight, Audrey,' he said quietly.

She spent the following day with Marjory, and it was a day spent directing invective at the current occupant of her beloved manor.

'Come on, Aud,' Marjory said, 'he wouldn't have done it if you hadn't made such a fuss.'

The wrong thing to say, and Audrey spent a good half-hour telling her so.

When she got back to the lodge, all was quiet and Brabinger greeted her with a smile that was almost beatific.

'The men have done a wonderful job, Madam.'

And they had. Not a trace of dust, no sign that anything had been done, just the creamy stone restored to its lustrous glory. And the huge bouquet of flowers that did duty as yet another apology.

He might own the manor, she thought, sipping her sherry, but he was not the lord of all he surveyed, no matter what he nor anyone else thought.

And she was determined to remind him of that.