Dita was already sitting under the oak when he got there, her back against the trunk, her knees drawn up with her arms around them as she’d been used to sit, watching the boys fish until her patience gave out. It made him smile despite everything, just to look at her. She turned her head at the sound of hooves, but did not move position. The long skirts of her riding habit pooled around her feet and his horse snickered a greeting to her mare, tied to a nearby willow.
‘He’s handsome,’ she said in greeting as Alistair dismounted and threw the reins over a branch.
‘Very,’ he agreed and came to sit next to her on the turf. ‘My father had an eye for horseflesh.’ And female flesh, too. ‘Are you all right?’ She was silent and he turned his head against the rough bark for a better look at her face. ‘You are not, are you? Couldn’t you sleep?’
‘No,’ she agreed, ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Nightmares? Or have you made up your mind to do the right thing and marry me?’ He put his arm around her shoulders. She sighed and leaned in to him for a second and he felt himself relax.
‘No. A dilemma.’ After a moment she sat up straight, pushing herself away from his arm. ‘Alistair, I am worried about Lady Iwerne.’ When he did not reply, she added, ‘She told me a very unpleasant story about you. If she is spiteful enough to spread it, she could do a lot of damage.’
‘What is she saying?’ he asked, surprised his voice was not shaking with the temper that flashed through him.
‘That you were in love with her, eight years ago, and that you left home when you realised she was going to marry your father, which in itself is quite understandable,’ Dita said flatly. ‘But she told me that she is frightened of you now and feels she has to flee to the Dower House to be safe from you forcing your attentions on her.’
Alistair swore. ‘Quite,’ Dita said. ‘The question is, what are you going to do about it?’
‘You don’t believe her?’ He had to ask.
Dita made a scornful little noise. ‘I believe you were in love with her, yes. She is quite extraordinarily lovely and I expect then she was prettily behaved and flirted with a sweet sort of innocence. You were in such a state when you realised the truth that your emotions must have been deeply involved.
‘But now? I can imagine that she is distractingly beautiful to have around the house, but she is foolish and empty-headed and you have higher standards than that. I would guess that she irritates you greatly. Leaving aside the small matter of it being incest to lie with your father’s widow.’
The relief that Dita so categorically believed in him distracted Alistair from how she had phrased it and it took a while for her words to sink in. ‘Thank you for your faith in me.’ He found her calm intelligence both bracing and refreshing after Imogen’s tantrums. ‘But how do you know how I reacted to the realisation that she and my father—’
‘I saw you that day, don’t forget.’ She kept her voice carefully neutral, but Alistair winced. ‘Imogen said that your father found her alone, his passions overcame him and he swept her into his arms and showered kisses on her face while declaring his undying devotion. It was rather more than that, I imagine.’
‘I walked into the library and found him taking her on the map table,’ Alistair said. ‘I turned right round and walked out and didn’t go back until I was sure I wouldn’t do something stupid, such as hit him.’
‘And so you went and got drunk.’
‘Yes. And, unfortunately you know more about what happened next than I do.’ He got to his feet and walked away from her. ‘I must have sunk at least two more bottles after you left me.’
‘I am so sorry. Look at me,’ Dita said. ‘It is all right,’ she went on as he turned, and he saw she was studying him gravely. ‘I told you af
ter the shipwreck—it wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t your fault that I realised that I was in love with you and that you broke my heart.’
‘What?’ He sat down with a thump on a tree stump.
‘Along with every other impressionable girl for twenty miles around,’ Dita explained with flattening calm. ‘You were very handsome then, you know. You still are, of course, but so many of the boys and young men we knew had spots, or kept falling over their feet or were complete boors. I didn’t see it because I was still thinking of you as my friend, you understand. Or like George. Only, when you kissed me like that I realised that you most certainly were not my brother and I didn’t want you to be. That is why I came to you. Don’t think you forced me.’
Alistair knew he was gaping and had no idea what to say. ‘I was sixteen, Alistair. Girls that age are all emotions and drama and there is nothing they enjoy more than the agonies of exaggerated love. We grow out of it, you know. You broke my heart, of course, when you went away. I thought it was all my fault, because I didn’t know about Imogen. But then I heard Mama and Papa talking about some row you had had with your father over land and I saw it was nothing to do with me. Girls that age fall in and out of love four times a month.’
‘You were in love with me? Then why the hell won’t you marry me?’ he demanded. ‘That’s what you want in marriage, isn’t it? Love?’
‘I told you—I fell out of it soon enough. And I was rather hoping for a husband who loved me,’ she said tartly. ‘Mind you,’ she added, ‘it did make a lasting impression, making love with you. You know how if ducklings hatch and there is no duck around they become fixed on whatever they see first and think the cat or a bucket is their mother?’ He nodded, bemused. ‘Well, I think I must have become imprinted with the image of tall, dark, handsome men with interesting cheekbones—because Stephen looks a bit like you, I realise now. And I don’t find blond men very attractive.’
He shook his head as though to dislodge an irritating fly. ‘Look, you know you have to marry me. You love me.’ The thought filled him with terror.
‘You were not listening,’ she reproved. ‘That was eight years ago. Calf-love. But that doesn’t matter now. How are we going to neutralise Imogen before she spreads this tale round half the county?’
Alistair dragged his mind—and his body, which was taking an entirely inappropriate interest in the thought of how Dita might demonstrate love—back to the problem. ‘I need a chaperon,’ he said. ‘In fact, half a dozen of them. I’ll invite a houseful of men, sober professional men, to stay immediately. I’ll get in my London man of business, an architect, someone to advise on landscaping the grounds, the steward here, my solicitor—they’ll drop everything if I call. I’ll have the vicar to stay, while I’m at it, tell him I want to discuss the parish and good works, or something. I’ve got the devil of a lot of business to see to—I’ll do it here and now.’
‘Of course!’ She clapped her hands together. ‘They won’t be a houseparty of bucks or rakes but deadly dull businessmen of the utmost respectability. There is no way she can accuse you of harassing her with them in the house. And, I’ve just thought of another idea—why not bring her to call on us and ask Mama’s advice on finding a suitable companion to live with her? Mama can tell everyone quite truthfully how thoughtful you are and how concerned that Imogen is looked after and how you are exerting yourself to make the Dower House comfortable for her.’
‘Yes, that should put a stop to her nonsense. We make a good tactical team, you and I.’ There it was again, the sense of connection that he so often felt with Dita stealing over him, as though their minds were touching. ‘I don’t understand her—she seems to be reacting with spite because I haven’t fallen at her feet. But she must know perfectly well that any sort of relationship other than the obvious one is impossible—and scandalous.’
‘She has a guilty conscience.’ Dita rested her chin on her knees and tipped her head to one side, thinking. ‘She knows she betrayed you and that both she and your father acted badly—it is much easier to attack the person you have wounded rather than beg forgiveness. I feel sorry for her. At least, I feel sorry for the girl she was, and it is sad that she did not have the character and intelligence to mature into a happy person now.’