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Women, in his experience, were timid creatures who fainted at any sign of violence, who obeyed when told to keep out of it. They sat at their sewing, drank tea and gossiped about fashion and the latest on dit, and left the men to govern and keep order among the people for whom they were responsible. Helen Wayland was not a bit like that.

She plunged in where others feared to go and spoke her mind when she would have done better to remain silent. How could you tame a woman like that? Why, in heaven’s name, did he want to tame her? She was not his wife. She was not even eligible to be his wife.

Why, then, did he enjoy their meetings so much? Why did he savour the cut and thrust of her debate, even welcome her fiery temper? He remembered his mother looking sideways at him and asking him if he had developed a tendre for her and his sharp denial. Now, if she asked him again, he would not know how to answer. Miss Helen Wayland had him in thrall—so much so that he had been fool enough to ask her to dance with him. He had not danced since he had been wounded and did not know if he could. And what would she make of it if he found he could not? Why, in heaven’s name, had he said he would go?

About the Author

Born in Singapore, MARY NICHOLS came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown-up children, and four grandchildren.

Previous novels by the same author:

RAGS-TO-RICHES

BRIDE THE EARL AND THE HOYDEN CLAIMING THE ASHBROOKE HEIR

(part of The Secret Baby Bargain)

HONOURABLE DOCTOR, IMPROPER

ARRANGEMENT THE CAPTAIN’S MYSTERIOUS LADY* THE VISCOUNT’S UNCONVENTIONAL BRIDE* LORD PORTMAN’S TROUBLESOME WIFE* SIR ASHLEY’S METTLESOME MATCH*

* The Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club mini-series

And available through Mills & Boon^® Historical eBooks

WITH VICTORIA’S BLESSING

(part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages)

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Author’s Note

Seditious Libel

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the libel laws were used to repress rebellion against the government, but their implementation was inconsistent. Writers and producers of newspapers and radical literature were under constant threat of prosecution and, when taken to court, were often faced with a hostile judge and jury. A defendant’s counsel could raise points of law, but could not summarise the case on behalf of the defendant until 1836. On the other hand, the Home Office lacked the means to prosecute everyone who published seditious matter and the writers often took their chances and got away with it. The prosecutions dwindled because defendants frequently managed to obtain an acquittal by exploiting the language in which the arraignment was made, and the legal authorities gave up trying for all but the most serious cases.

The year of 1816 was known as ‘the year without a summer’, not only in England, but all over the world, particularly in Northern Europe and North America. The year before there had been a huge explosion in the Mount Tamboura volcano on the Dutch East Indies, which had been rumbling since 1812. Thirty-eight cubic miles of dust and ash was sent up into the atmosphere, the ash column rising thousands of feet. The debris, including vast quantities of sulphur, took a year to circulate, its sheer volume obliterating the sun. The result was a cold, wet and miserable 1816. It rained off and on from May to September and, without sunlight, temperatures dropped dramatically. In the English countryside crops rotted in the fields before they could be harvested and those that were gathered rotted in storage because of the damp. Farm labourers were put out of work and added to the unemployed soldiers returning from the war with Napoleon.

Winning
The War Hero’s Heart
Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

1816

Helen heard the hunt some time before it came into view. The dogs were yelping and the horn sounding a wild halloo, and there was the thunder of hooves which seemed to shake the ground at her feet. Surely they would not come galloping through the village? The road was narrow, flanked on either side by workers’ cottages and their small gardens. And there were people on the street: woman gossiping at their gates, children playing, a cat sunning itself on one of the few days in the year in which the sun shone. Hearing the commotion, the women snatched up their children and disappeared indoors. The cat, its tail a wire brush, fled. Helen drew in her serviceable grey skirt and pushed herself against the fence of one of the cottages as the fox streaked past her. It scrambled over the gate and into a garden where a little boy was playing. It nearly knocked him over as it flew across the garden and through the hedge on the far side.

The dogs were in the street now, desperate to get at their quarry and the riders were not far behind. Afraid for the child, Helen moved swiftly into the garden, scooped him up and ran towards the house, but all she had time to do was press herself and the little one hard against the wall before the whole hunt was upon them. Dogs and horses milled about, trampling down rows of beans and cabbages and the currant bushes, wrecking the patch of grass and the few bedraggled flowers which had been growing each side of the path that ran between the rows and knocking over the hen coop and sending the chickens flapping and squawking to die under the horses’ hooves.

And then just as quickly they were gone, flattening the neatly clipped hedge at the end of the garden—all except one rider, who pulled up beside her. ‘Are you hurt, madam? Is your little one injured?’

Helen found herself looking up at the Earl of Warburton’s son, Viscount Cavenham. She knew who he was because a great fuss had been made of him in the district when he came back from Waterloo, a wounded hero. He did not look wounded to her, sitting arrogantly on a huge black stallion, looking down at her with what she took to be contempt. True, she was wearing her grey workaday dress, a wool spencer and a plain chip bonnet and the child she held so close to her bosom was filthy and bawling his head off, but that was no excuse. Still, he was the only one of the hunters to stop and enquire, so she ought to answer him.

‘No, we are not hurt, but the child is terrified. Have you no more sense than to come galloping all over other people’s property, ruining a year of hard work? This was once a productive garden. Now look at it.’ She waved an arm to encompass the mess.

‘The dogs follow the fox, madam,’ he said. ‘And the riders follow the dogs. And unless I am mistaken, the property is not yours, but part of the Cavenham estate. The Earl may go where he chooses.’

‘How arrogant and unfeeling can you be?’ she demanded. ‘How would you like it if someone trampled all over Ravens Park and terrified your children?’

‘I have no children.’

‘You know what I mean,’ she countered.

His smile transformed his face from darkly brooding to almost human, but she was too angry to notice, too furious to take in his good looks, his thick dark hair curling below his riding hat and into his neck, his broad shoulders and the long elegant fingers holding the reins, not to mention a shapely thigh, clad in white riding breeches, with which he was controlling his restive mount. ‘Perhaps. But I do not think anyone would dare invade the Park.’

‘No, but why is there one law for the rich and another for the poor? And for your information, I am not the child’s mother and I do not live here. I am simply an observer.’

‘Oh.’ He looked slightly taken aback, but recovered quickly. ‘Then I suggest you reunite the child with his mother and mind your own business.’

‘I intend to make it my business,’ she said, as a woman came from the house, diverting him from a reply.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said, taking the child from Helen. ‘I was upstairs when I heard the hullabaloo and in my haste to come down and fetch Edward indoors to safety, I tripped and fell. It winded me for a moment. If you hadn’t acted so quickly …’ She stopped, suddenly seeing the Viscount. ‘My lord.’ She curtsied and dipped her head.

The gesture infuriated Helen. ‘He and his like have just frightened your little boy nearly to death and ruined your garden and you bend your knee to him. You should be angry and demanding compensation.’

‘I can’t do that,’ she murmured, looking fearfully up at the man on the horse. ‘This is a tied cottage and I work at the big house.’

Helen realised she would probably make matters worse if she went on, so she held her tongue. Looking from the woman to the Viscount, she caught him gazing at her with an expression of puzzlement. So, he did not know who she was. He would soon find out.

He turned his attention from her to the mother. ‘Are you hurt, madam?’

‘A bruise or two, my lord. It is nothing, I thank you.’

Helen could have kicked her for her meekness. No wonder men like the Earl and his son felt they had a God-given right to trample over poor folk, just as they had trampled over the garden.

‘I am sorry about the garden,’ his lordship said softly, taking Helen by surprise. ‘The dogs became too excited to control and there was nothing I could do.’ He smiled again, though this time it was aimed at the other woman, not Helen. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a coin, which he passed to her. She accepted it, thanked him and curtsied. Without looking at Helen again, he wheeled his horse about and rode off.

‘Of all the arrogance!’ Helen exclaimed, watching him go.

‘He has given me a whole guinea,’ the woman said in mitigation. ‘And, to be fair, he didn’t ride over the garden, did he? He was the only one who stopped.’

Helen was in no mood to see any good in the Earl of Warburton’s son and did not respond, but accepted an invitation to enter the cottage for a cup of tea. ‘It is only camomile,’ the woman said. ‘I do not have Indian tea.’

It was while she was waiting for the kettle to boil that she learned a little more about Mrs Watson. ‘My husband died at Waterloo,’ she told Helen, putting the baby on the floor while she set out a teapot and cups. ‘Eddie was only a baby when he went off. He’d been all through the Peninsula without a scratch and he didn’t have to re-enlist, but he would go because Viscount Cavenham went and he couldn’t have the Earl’s son going off and making him look a coward. Why are men so proud?’

‘I don’t know,’ Helen murmured, thinking of her father. He was proud, too, and look where that had got him.

‘I’m lucky the housekeeper at the big house gave me a job in the laundry,’ Mrs Watson went on. ‘While I have this cottage, I can manage. Having the garden helps with fruit and vegetables and eggs, though nothing was growing well this year. Do you think we will ever get a summer?’

‘Let us hope so,’ Helen said. ‘I fear for the workers if the harvest is ruined.’ The year so far had been uncommonly wet and cold. It had rained every day and there had been snow in London the week before. According to the London newspapers, which sometimes published news from the regions, there was snow in hilly districts only a little further north. Some crops were already rotting in the fields. Farm labourers were out of work and added to the numbers of soldiers returning from the end of the war with Napoleon. And yet the Earl must have his sport. Unlike some, he hunted all the year round.

‘I’ll have to see what I can salvage. Perhaps it’s not as bad as it looks.’ Mrs Watson broke in on Helen’s reverie. ‘I have you to thank that Eddie was not trampled along with it. He could have been killed. That would have been far, far worse.’

‘And I don’t suppose the Earl would care any more about that than he cared about your dead chickens.’

Mrs Watson handed her a cup of tea. ‘Is it just the Earl you dislike or is it all landed gentry?’

The question surprised Helen and for a moment she did not know how to answer. ‘The Earl of Warburton is typical of his kind,’ she said slowly. ‘Arrogant, selfish, unfeeling. They seem to think money will buy them anything. It would do them all good to be without it for a while to see how everyone else has to manage.’

Mrs Watson laughed. ‘My, you do have a chip on your shoulder, don’t you?’

‘I suppose I do,’ Helen admitted. ‘but I try not to let it show. Today I was so angry I couldn’t help it.’

‘You don’t live in the village, do you?’

‘No, in Warburton. My name is Helen Wayland.’

This evidently meant nothing to Mrs Watson so Helen did not enlighten her. In her experience, telling someone she owned and published the Warburton Record was a sure way to have them holding their tongues. They would not believe she did not intend to publish some calumny about them when all she wanted to do was publicise their plight.

‘You are a town dweller, Miss Wayland, and cannot know what it is like to live in a small village, dependent on the local landowner for everything …’

‘Perhaps you should tell me,’ Helen said, picking the baby up off the floor and cuddling him on her lap. He began playing with her father’s watch, which she wore as a fob. ‘Then I might understand.’

Mrs Watson looked doubtful, but her visitor was so obviously fond of children and genuinely interested that she poured them both a second cup of tea and sat down to answer her questions.

Miles considered whether to catch up with the hunt or call it a day and decided he might as well go home. He did not want to be party to any more ruined gardens and he certainly did not want to have to justify himself to irate young ladies with fierce hazel eyes. Who the devil was she? Not gentry, that was evident from the simple way she dressed and the way she did not mind that grubby child dirtying her clothes, but none of that detracted from her proud demeanour. She had defied him and that was something he was not used to and his first reaction had been anger. But what she had said had troubled his conscience, not that he could do anything to prevent his father running the hunt over his own land. He was a law unto himself and as far as he was concerned owning the land and the cottages meant he also owned those who dwelt in them.

Did the defiant Miss Grey Gown come under that heading? She had undoubtedly saved the child’s life and, in his opinion, its mother should not be the only one who was grateful because his father, as Master of the Hunt, should also give thanks that his dogs and horses had not trampled the little one to death. Had he even been aware of her or the child as he hurtled through the garden after the dogs?

And what on earth had the woman meant by saying ‘I intend to make it my business’? It sounded like a threat, but how could a mere nobody, who could not be more than five and twenty, threaten someone like the Earl of Warburton? Miles was suddenly and inexplicably afraid for her.

He was walking his horse, deep in thought, and did not at first notice the man sitting on the milestone on the edge of the village. His attention was drawn to him when he stood up and took a step towards him, his hand outstretched. ‘My lord …’

Miles pulled up. The man was in rags and painfully thin. ‘Byers, isn’t it?’ he queried, not sure the vision who confronted him could be the big strong man who had once been employed as a gardener at Ravens Park.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘What happened to you, man?’

‘I came back from the war and there was no work to be had and my wife and children had gone to live with her sister. Will you give a coin or two to tide me over and help feed my little ones, my lord?’

Miles could tell how difficult it was for him to beg.

‘Why did you not go back to Ravens Park when you were discharged?’ he asked.

‘The Earl had given my place to someone else, the cottage, too. He would not take me on again.’

‘I am sorry to hear that.’

‘I was a good worker,’ Byers went on. ‘No one ever found fault with what I did; I served my time for king and country and that’s all the thanks I get for it.’

‘I can understand your bitterness,’ Miles said. ‘But the garden at Ravens Park could not wait on your return, you know. And gardeners expect to be housed.’ He paused. ‘Did you see the hunt come through just now?’

‘Yes, nigh on bowled me over, it did. Why do you ask?’

‘It ran over Mrs Watson’s garden and wrecked it. If you go and put it right for her, I’ll pay you. Better than begging, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Off you go, then. When it’s done, come to the house and ask for me. I’ll have your wages for you.’

The man touched his forelock and Miles trotted on towards Ravens Park. Jack Byers wasn’t the only one unemployed in the area. There were other ex-soldiers begging on the streets and they were adding to the agricultural labourers who were out of work on account of the dreadful weather ruining the crops. Times were bad for everyone, especially in a countryside that depended on farming for a living. He ought to try to do something to help, but what? Handing out money was not the answer.

He shook the problem from him as he cantered up the drive towards the house. His father, who had been Viscount Cavenham at the time, had had it built just before he was born, to replace an older building that had fallen into disrepair. It was meant to celebrate his marriage and his earldom. Miles’s mother, Dorothea, only daughter of Earl Graine, was a catch for any man because of her ancient lineage, far superior to that of the Cavenhams. She was beautiful but frail and completely dominated by her husband. He was not physically violent towards her, but his tongue lashings often left her in tears. Miles loved his mother dearly and wished she would learn to stand up for herself. But he understood why she did not. She had been brought up in a culture in which the husband was head of the household and should be deferred to in all things and it distressed her when Miles argued with his father.

Their disagreements were usually over the way the Earl treated his people. He was like a petty king whose subjects were expected to bend the knee and obey his commands under pain of destitution. That only worked so far; sooner or later the people would rise up and rebel. Miles had seen what had happened in the army if an officer ruled by fear. It did not make for a happy and willing force, whereas justice tempered with mercy and a willingness to share in the men’s hardship worked wonders for morale.

The last straw had been when Miles had defended the boot boy from a beating on account of his lordship’s boots not being as shiny as he thought they should be. He had suffered the beating instead of the lad, which he did not regret, but as soon as he was old enough he had left home to join the army. He had come home to find his mother even more cowed than before and was shocked by how frail she seemed. Many a time he had bitten his tongue on a sharp retort for her sake. But it would be difficult to keep silent about the way Mrs Watson and Jack Byers had been treated.

Helen was taking her leave of Mrs Watson when Jack arrived to say he had been bidden to set her garden to rights.

‘Who bade you do it?’ Mrs Watson asked.

‘The Viscount. He said he would pay me.’

‘Then he’s not as black as he’s painted.’

‘It’s no more than you’re due,’ Helen put in. ‘But it should have been the Earl who ordered it.’

‘Don’t matter who ordered it,’ Byers said. ‘I’m glad enough of the work, though it won’t get me my old job back.’

‘Why did you lose your job?’ Helen asked.

‘I went to war. It weren’t as if I wanted to go, but the Earl hinted that if his son went, then I should not lag behind. I’d be a coward if I did. And then when I come back, my job had gone to someone else and the cottage with it. My wife and family had been turned out and gone to live with her sister in Warburton. She’s only got a small house and they’re cramped for room. I’ve been sleeping out o’ doors.’

‘You put my garden to rights and you can sleep in my outhouse,’ Mrs Watson said. ‘It’s dry and there’s straw for a bed. I’ll give you a blanket.’

‘Thank you kindly, ma’am.’

‘I’ll come back tomorrow and see how you got on,’ Helen said as she bade them goodbye.

She would ask Jack Byers to tell his story and she would talk to other ex-soldiers; she would have something to say about the Earl and his guests riding roughshod over other people’s gardens and their feelings. It would fill a page of the Warburton Record and perhaps she could stir up some influential consciences. She was already composing the article in her head as she walked the three miles back to Warburton.

Warburton was a bustling little market town with two churches, a chapel, a mill, a public school for those who could afford to send their children there and a dame school for those who could not. It had two doctors: Dr Graham, who looked after the elite who could afford his fees, and Dr Benton, who treated everyone else. The town also had a blacksmith, a farrier, a harness maker who also made and mended shoes, a butcher and provisions shop, a small haberdasher and the Warburton printing press, home of the Warburton Record, which was where Helen was bound.

The business occupied a building in the centre of the town. There was an office at the front and the printing press in a room at the back. Helen lived in an apartment above the shop with only Betty, her maid, for company. A sign hanging above the door proclaimed, ‘H. Wayland, publisher and printer. Proprietor of the Warburton Record. All printing tasks undertaken, large and small.’ The H. stood for Henry, of course, but it also served for Helen so she saw no reason to change it.

A bell tinkled as she opened the door and let herself in. At a desk to one side young Edgar Harrington was busy writing. Helen went to look over his shoulder. He was composing a report on recent court hearings.

‘Committed to Warburton Bridewell for twelve months,’ she read. ‘John Taylor for stealing a pig from Joseph Boswell, farmer of Littleacre near Warburton.’ And again. ‘For stealing a peck of wheat from the barn at Home Farm, Ravensbrook, Daniel Cummings was sentenced to six months in gaol.’ There were several cases of poaching brought by the gamekeeper at Ravens Park. All had been found guilty and been sentenced to varying degrees of punishment, from prison to transportation, which Helen thought unduly harsh. No doubt the Earl, who controlled his fellow magistrates, had demanded they be made an example of. But if the poor men were hungry and had hungry families, who could blame them if they took a rabbit or two, or even a pig? It was different for the organised gangs, who came from the big cities to sell their ill-gotten gains to willing buyers. Those she condemned.

She moved through to the back room where Tom Salter was typesetting. Tom was in his middle years and had been working for the Record ever since Helen’s father moved to Warburton eight years before. He was good at his job, though Helen suspected he had reservations about working for a woman. He looked up as she entered. ‘A Mr Roger Blakestone came in while you were out, Miss Wayland. He wants us to print that poster.’ He nodded to a large sheet of paper lying on another table. ‘I said I’d have to ask you. It could get us into trouble.’

Helen picked the poster up and perused it. It was notice of a rally to demonstrate the plight of the agricultural labourers, which was to take place on the common the following Saturday afternoon at half past two. ‘The speaker will be Jason Hardacre,’ it declared in large capital letters.

She understood why Tom was doubtful about accepting the job. Jason Hardacre was a known firebrand who went from town to town, urging workers to stand up to their employers and strike for more wages. He stirred up unrest wherever he went, inciting his followers to violence against the farmers, whom he called the oppressors, although the farmers were struggling to keep going themselves. He had had some initial success, but the labourers were too worried about losing their positions to support him wholeheartedly, especially when there were plenty of men ready to step into their shoes if they were dismissed. Publishing such a poster could be construed as seditious and the publisher liable to prosecution.

‘How many does he want printed?’ she asked.

‘Half a gross.’

‘Print them.’

‘I’m busy putting the paper together.’

‘Leave that. I’ve something new to put on the front page. I’ll write it now and have it ready in an hour. You can do that poster in the meantime.’

‘Miss Wayland, are you sure? You know how Mr Wayland was always in trouble for taking on work like that. The Earl had him prosecuted more than once, as well you know.’

‘Yes, Tom, I do know. But my father was never afraid to do what he thought was right, even if it meant he was in trouble for it. He did not see why the Earl should dictate what he published and neither do I.’

‘Very well,’ Tom answered and set aside the page he was typesetting to begin on the poster.

The newspaper consisted of two large folded sheets and was on sale by lunchtime every Wednesday and Saturday. Helen kept the front for her own reports and for court announcements from the London papers. Her readers liked to know what the Regent and the nobility were up to in London. They wanted to know who had been granted a peerage, who had been made a knight and they keenly awaited a résumé of what was being said in Parliament. Earlier in the month she had copied the report of Princess Charlotte’s wedding to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. It had been a joyous occasion in an otherwise miserable year.

The back page was almost all given over to advertisements: comestibles, livestock, agricultural implements and quack medicines. The inside pages were filled with local news: a farmer’s stack set on fire—there had been several instances of arson lately, which were put down to the unrest among the labourers—a newcomer of note moving into the district, unusual happenings in the town, reports of the magistrate’s sittings, who had been convicted, who let off with a caution for anything from petty theft and criminal damage to poaching and assault.

Helen skimmed through the latest notices of births, marriages, obituaries and coming events. Josiah Bird-wood had died, aged seventy-six. He had been married three times and sired thirty children. Donations and prizes were needed for the races and various contests for the Midsummer Fair, held on the common every year. The Earl and Countess of Warburton and Viscount Cavenham would grace it with their presence and judge some of the competitions. There was to be a dance at the Warburton Assembly Rooms to celebrate the first anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Lord and Lady Somerfield’s daughter, Miss Verity Somerfield, was to come out with a grand ball to be held at their ancestral home at Gayton Hall.

Helen took off her bonnet and sat at her desk to report the hunt and the destruction it had caused.

Gilbert Cavenham, first Earl of Warburton, flung the newspaper on the table and swore loudly. ‘I thought I’d rid myself of that thorn in my side,’ he said to Miles. ‘But it seems his daughter is bent on continuing where he left off.’

‘What do you mean?’ Miles asked. ‘What thorn in your side? Whose daughter?’

‘Henry Wayland. He owned the Warburton Record and was always publishing libel. I had to bring him to court on more than one occasion, but neither fines nor prison seemed to deter him. Now he’s dead, I’m getting the same sort of rubbish from his daughter. Whoever heard of a woman running a newspaper?’

‘Why not?’ Miles said. ‘I suppose she inherited it and had no other way to support herself.’

‘I doubt she’ll carry it off. An appearance in court will soon dampen her ardour.’

‘What has she said to annoy you so much?’

‘Read it for yourself.’ He picked up the paper and waved it at his son. ‘Libel, that’s what it is, defamation of character. She needs to be taught she cannot ridicule me and get away with it.’

Miles was busy reading and hardly heard him. It was all he could do not to smile. The lady, whoever she was, had a witty turn of phrase. ‘The noble lord, in order to please his guests, literally left no stone unturned,’ he read. ‘Everything was ordered for their entertainment. The hunt hallooed its way over hill and dale, down lanes and across fields, chasing a fox that had surely been especially selected to give the most sport. Reynard led them a merry dance into the village of Ravensbrook, scattering the population and trampling down the small garden of a poor widow and putting her baby son in mortal danger. The excuse given by the only rider who deigned to pull up was, “The dogs follow the fox and the riders follow the dogs.” So we must blame the fox and no one else. But can a fox put right the damage that was done? Can the fox reset the rows of beans and peas? Can the fox revive dead chickens? Or still a child’s crying? Does killing the erring animal exact just retribution?

‘We must not begrudge the noble lord and his guests their sport, but who should pay for it? Surely not the poor widow endeavouring to provide for herself and her fatherless son. Not the fox, who was only doing what foxes do by nature and that is to run from its enemies. The dogs, perhaps? But they are trained to hunt the fox. Then we are left with whoever trained the hounds or caused them to be trained: the noble lord himself. But does he offer recompense, does he even apologise? No, because the land is his and he may ride over it whenever he chooses.