Page 21 of Greystone’s Legacy (To All The Earls I’ve Loved Before #5)
Chapter Eleven
Hester Wynstanley had never felt quite so adrift as she did that bitter winter's evening at the Wheatsheaf Inn in High Wycombe.
The familiar comforts of home - her beloved Plas Wyn with its weathered stones and eternal mountains - seemed as distant as the moon hanging behind the storm clouds outside the inn's windows.
Even the rich aroma of lamb stew rising from her bowl failed to lift her spirits, though the innkeeper's wife had proudly proclaimed it her finest recipe.
Her diminutive aunts sat across the rough-hewn oak table, exchanging worried glances when they thought she wasn't looking.
Aunt Cecilia's curls bobbed as she fussed with the placement of the salt cellar, while Aunt Felicity's fingers worried at the edge of her shawl.
Their concern radiated across the table like the heat from the crackling hearth behind them.
"The stew really is quite excellent," Aunt Cecilia ventured, her voice carrying that particular tone of forced cheerfulness that had marked the entire day's journey from London. "Almost as good as Mrs. Jones makes at home, wouldn't you say, Felicity?"
"Oh yes, indeed," Aunt Felicity agreed quickly. "Though perhaps a touch more thyme would not go amiss."
Hester managed a wan smile, stirring her spoon through the steaming broth.
The vegetables were perfectly tender, the meat succulent - everything a good country stew should be.
So different from the delicate consommés served at Lady Burrowes' table, those refined concoctions that seemed to epitomize everything about the world she had fled.
A world of crystal and silver, of perfectly arranged place settings and carefully measured social graces.
The dining room buzzed with the comfortable sounds of travel-weary guests seeking sustenance and warmth.
A pair of merchants discussed the price of wool at a nearby table.
A family with three small children tried to maintain order over their meal.
A young couple sat in a corner, heads bent close together over their plates.
All of them seemed so certain of their place in the world, while Hester's had never felt more precarious.
She glanced out the window again, watching raindrops trace patterns down the wavering glass.
"My dear," Aunt Cecilia's soft voice interrupted her reverie, "you've barely touched your food."
"I'm sorry, Aunt. I find my appetite somewhat diminished this evening."
"Perfectly understandable," Aunt Felicity interjected. "Travel can be so unsettling to the constitution. Though perhaps..." she hesitated, sharing another meaningful look with her sister, "perhaps we need not have set off quite so soon?"
The question hung in the air between them, heavy with unspoken meaning. They could still turn back. London was only a day's journey behind them, and Lady Burrowes had almost begged them to stay. The thought made Hester's heart clench painfully in her chest.
"I cannot go back," she said softly, more to herself than to her aunts. "I would never truly belong there."
"But my dear," Aunt Cecilia leaned forward, her face earnest in the flickering candlelight, "is that not for Lord Frederick to decide?"
Hester's fingers tightened around her spoon.
She did not want to think about Freddie.
"It is for society to decide, and society has made its opinion quite clear.
Did you not see how Lady Arabella Grey looked at my hands that day she asked me to play the pianoforte?
These are not the hands of a lady." She held them up briefly - strong, capable hands marked by years of practical work.
Hands that knew how to mend fences and tend sick lambs, not merely how to pour tea or hold a fan.
Outside, the wind howled more fiercely, rattling the windows in their frames. Several other diners glanced up nervously at the sound, but Hester found it oddly comforting. It reminded her of winter storms at Plas Wyn, where practical concerns always took precedence over social niceties.
"I cannot help but think," Aunt Cecilia said carefully, "that you may be doing both yourself and Lord Frederick a disservice. I rather think it was precisely who you are that drew him to you in the first place."
The truth of her aunt's words stung more sharply than any society matron's subtle barb. Freddie had never asked her to change, had never seemed anything but delighted by her practical nature and independent spirit. It was her own fears, her own doubts that had driven her to this precipitous flight.
A particularly violent gust of wind rattled the window panes, and Hester shivered despite the warmth of the room.
The stew grew cold before her as she stared into its depths, seeing reflected there all the possibilities she might be leaving behind.
The love she might be running from, simply because she feared she wasn't equal to its demands.
"Perhaps," she whispered, but before she could complete the thought, the inn's door burst open with a crash that made every diner in the room jump in their seats.
Lord Frederick Grey stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his greatcoat onto the inn's wooden floors, his fair hair darkened by the storm and plastered to his forehead.
His commanding presence drew every eye in the room, though his appearance was far from the polished elegance one might expect of an earl's heir.
Mud spattered his riding boots and breeches, and his cravat had come entirely undone, hanging in limp folds around his neck.
"Hester," he said, his voice carrying clearly across the suddenly silent room. "My dearest, most impossible woman."
The spoon slipped from Hester's nerveless fingers, clattering against her bowl. Her aunts, far from showing proper dismay at such an irregular entrance, wore matching expressions of poorly concealed delight.
"Good heavens," the merchant who had been discussing wool prices muttered to his companion. "Whoever is that?"
"Look at his coat!" his companion whispered back. "A lord if ever I saw one. What on earth is he doing in such a state?"
Freddie paid no attention to the whispers rippling through the room. His eyes remained fixed on Hester as he strode forward, leaving puddles in his wake. The innkeeper's wife appeared with a cloth to mop up the water, then stopped, transfixed by the unfolding scene.
"I have ridden through this abominable weather for the past six hours," Freddie announced, coming to a halt beside their table.
Hester rose slowly to her feet, her heart thundering in her chest. "Freddie, you'll catch your death..."
"I don't give a damn about catching my death," he declared, with such passion that several ladies at nearby tables pressed their hands to their hearts. "I care only about catching you before you disappear entirely from my life."
"But surely," Hester began, only to be cut off by a raised hand.
"No. You've had your say - Grandmother gave me your letter this morning.
Now it's my turn." He reached into his coat and withdrew a somewhat damp piece of paper, which Hester recognized as the farewell note she had left him.
"You write here that love me. Well, I love you too, hopelessly and completely, and I am not leaving here until you agree to marry me! "
The young couple in the corner had abandoned all pretence of eating, their faces alight with romantic interest. Even the children at the family table had fallen silent, watching with wide eyes as the scene unfolded.
"My lord," Hester tried again, her voice barely above a whisper, "the ton will never accept…"
"Hang the ton!" Freddie's declaration echoed off the inn's oak-beamed ceiling.
"Hang them all, with their sophisticated soirees and their empty headed gossip.
Do you think I care a whit for their opinion?
Do you think I would trade one moment of your honest conversation for a thousand afternoons of their insipid chatter? "
A smattering of applause broke out from several tables, quickly hushed by those trying to hear every word.
"But your position," Hester protested weakly, even as her heart leaped at his words. "Your responsibilities to Greystone..."
"Will be far better served by a wife who understands the true meaning of stewardship than by some pampered society miss who has never seen beyond her own drawing room.
" Freddie stepped closer, his blue eyes intense in his rain-washed face.
"Do you know what my grandfather said when I told him I meant to marry you? "
Hester shook her head mutely.
"He said, 'That girl has more sense in her little finger than half the peerage has in their collective heads. Don't you dare let her slip away, boy.'"
Aunt Cecilia let out a distinctly unladylike sniffle, while Aunt Felicity beamed like a proud mother. The innkeeper's wife had given up any pretence of work and stood openly wiping tears from her eyes with her apron.
"And so," Freddie continued, dropping to one knee, heedless of the puddle spreading around him, "I have come to ask you properly, in front of all these good people, to do me the very great honour of becoming my wife.
Not because you are or are not what society expects, but because you are exactly what I want and need. "
The entire room seemed to hold its breath. Even the storm outside appeared to pause in its fury, waiting for Hester's response.
"But the ton..." Hester began weakly.
"Will adapt," Freddie said firmly. "Just as they adapted when an American inherited the earldom of Havers, or when Lord Holbrook married his mistress, and when the Duke of Rutherton chose a merchant's daughter.
Besides," a mischievous glint appeared in his eye, "half of them are already in debt to their merchants.
Perhaps it's time they learned something about practical economics from someone who actually understands estate management. "