Hope by Lesley Pearse

sister could come and play,’ Lady Harvey said with a smile. ‘How old is she now?’
    ‘Hope’s six, mam,’ Nell said nervously, afraid that her mistress might mull that over later and think it was a strange coincidence that the Renton child was the same age as the one she lost. ‘But going on eighteen, she never stops asking questions,’ she added quickly.
    ‘Get down now, Mama,’ Rufus said, and climbed off his mother’s lap and toddled off to Ruth.
    Both Nell and Ruth adored Rufus; he was a sweet-natured little boy with a great sense of fun, and as affectionate to them as he was to his mother.
    ‘Bring Hope up for tea on Monday,’ Lady Harvey said, getting up off the couch and smoothing her dress down. ‘You can pop off to fetch her after luncheon. By the time you get back Rufus will have had his nap. I want him to learn to share his toys and mix well.’
    As their mistress swept out of the nursery, Ruth looked at Nell and giggled. ‘Our Hope in here! She don’t know what she’s letting herself in for.’
    Nell was brushing Lady Harvey’s hair that night when Sir William came into the bedroom.
    ‘You make a pretty picture,’ he said as he leaned against the doorpost. ‘Who brushes your hair, Nell?’
    Nell giggled. She could tell the master had drunk too much for his face was red and his shirt was hanging loose over his breeches. He was undeniably the most handsome man she’d ever seen, his features as perfect as the marble statues’ in the rosebed, hair the colour of ripe corn and eyes of an intense blue. Cook had often said he was pretty like a girl, but Nell didn’t agree; his lips might be just a bit too full, but he had a strong chin, and very shapely thighs and buttocks from riding so much.
    She knew he was in a good mood, drunk or not, for she’d heard him laughing with his wife as they came up the stairs after their dinner guests had left. ‘No one but me, sir,’ she replied.
    He just stood there silently watching her and his wife, and Nell thought this was because he wanted to come into his wife’s bed tonight. She thought it was a good job she’d already got her mistress’s corsets off and helped her into her nightgown. Nell didn’t think it was quite seemly for a husband to see all that.
    ‘Have you got a sweetheart, Nell?’ Sir William asked suddenly.
    ‘No, sir,’ she said, blushing furiously.
    ‘But would you like one?’ he said, moving right into the room and sitting down on the bed. ‘Do you hope to get married one day?’
    ‘William!’ Lady Harvey laughingly reproved him. ‘Stop quizzing poor Nell!’
    ‘I do hope to get married one day, sir, when the right man comes along,’ Nell said.
    ‘Then I think I must look around for a suitable husband for you,’ he said with a bright smile which showed perfect small white teeth.
    ‘Well, just don’t look too far away from Briargate, William,’ Lady Harvey said with laughter in her voice. ‘I don’t want her running off and leaving me. But you can get off to bed now, Nell. I can manage everything else alone.’
    Nell put the hairbrush down on the dressing table, bobbed a little curtsey and said goodnight. As she was leaving the room she turned her head just enough to see that her master had got up off the bed and was kissing his wife’s neck. That pleased her, and went some way towards allaying her fears about the visitor this afternoon.
    She had discovered who the gentleman caller was from James. He was Captain Angus Pettigrew of the Royal Hussars, a cousin of the Pettigrews who lived in Chelwood House about two miles away.
    She couldn’t of course tell her brother why she wanted to know about him, or indeed ask any further questions for fear of alerting him to her anxiety. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted any information for. All she knew was that she felt threatened.
    But by what? She had asked herself that question dozens of times tonight, and had found no answers. But now she’d left her master and