Free A Christmas Courtship by Jeannie Machin Page B

small company of soldiers was riding up the hill, keeping to the grass so that their horses made no sound. There was an officer at the head of the column, his uniform, like those of his men, concealed beneath a heavy winter great-coat. He’d just turned to shout a single order, and it was this call that she and her father had heard.
    She remained by the window, watching as the soldiers drew nearer. She expected them to ride past to the gates of Amberley Court, for she could only think that they had some business with Sir Edmund, but to her astonishment the officer halted his men by the cottage.
    Becoming suddenly aware of her silhouette in the bedroom window, the officer looked directly up at her. It was too dark to see him clearly, but by his build, manner, and the lieutenant’s badge on his shining black shako, she was sure it was Jonathan. With a gasp of delight, she turned to her father. ‘It’s Jonathan! He’s come home at last!’
    Picking up the candlestick and shielding the flames with her hand, she hurried from the room and down the stairs. In her delight, it didn’t occur to her to wonder why, if it was indeed her brother, he’d come home on Christmas furlough at the head of a troop of his men. If she’d paused for a moment to think, she’d have realized that something was very wrong, and in the ensuing days she was to remember this as the moment the conspiracy began for her. It had already begun for her brother, but as Blanche left the candlestick on the hall table and ran out into the cold night, there was still no hint of the terrible blow that was about to strike the Amberley family.
    The Christmas that lay ahead now wouldn’t be a time of happiness, but a time of strain, anxiety, and scandal.

CHAPTER 7
    As Blanche reached the gate, her brother’s name on her lips, she realized with a sudden and embarrassing jolt that the lieutenant wasn’t Jonathan. The resemblance she’d seen from the bedroom window was only superficial, for this man wasn’t blond like her brother, but much darker, with full, rather sensuous lips.
    He’d turned toward her the moment she ran out calling Jonathan’s name, and the gaze he directed was cold and disdainful . ‘Miss Amberley, I presume?’ he said. His voice was an affected drawl.
    Her embarrassment was swiftly replaced by surprise that he should know her name, and an instinctive dislike for anyone who could be so cool and contemptuous toward someone he had never met before. She paused by the gate. ‘You have the advantage of me, sir,’ she responded, her tone frosty to match his.
    ‘Lieutenant Neville, of the King’s West Gloucestershire Regiment,’ he replied, raising a white-gloved hand in a brief, rather discourteous salute.
    She stared at him. Lieutenant Neville? Surely this couldn’t be Jonathan’s friend, the fellow officer described as ‘very noble and gracious in defeat’? There was nothing noble or gracious about this disagreeable creature. She shivered a little, for the night was very cold and she only wore her beige woolen gown. ‘Lieutenant Roderick Neville?’ she inquired, hoping that she was wrong.
    ‘I am, madam. Would you kindly inform Lieutenant Amberley that we have come for him?’ He controlled his horse, which capered a little as a dog began to bark by one of the nearby cottages.
    Blanche was bewildered, and more than a little angered by his manner. ‘Sir, it must surely be obvious to you that if I run out of the house calling my brother’s name, because I erroneously take you for him, then it must follow that he isn’t here.’
    ‘Miss Amberley, I’m not such a fool as to be taken in by such a feeble ruse. Lieutenant Amberley is here, and it is my duty to arrest him.’
    Her heart almost stopped with shock. ‘Arrest my brother?’ she gasped. ‘I-I don’t understand….’
    ‘Lieutenant Amberley has committed a number of crimes, madam, and is to be arrested to face a court-martial.’
    ‘There must be some mistake,’ she