Page 3 of A Christmas Love Redeemed
‘No, she wasn’t.’
Bet unpinned Hannah’s hair. The relief from the dragging weight of her hair and the sharp pins helped to clear her head.
In a small, tight voice, she uttered the words she had been holding to her heart.
‘I saw him tonight, Bet. He was at the ball.’
‘Who?’ Bet enquired, her voice muffled by a mouthful hairpins.
‘Fabien.’
Hairpins fell to the floor with a succession of soft pings, and Bet laid her hand on her mistress’s shoulder.
‘No, m’lady, you must’ve been mistook!’
‘No mistake, Bet. Older, of course, but still Fabien.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘He didn’t even recognise me.’
She heard the hurt and bitterness in her voice, remembering that awful moment when Fabien Brassard had entered the ballroom. Despite the immaculate and expensive clothes, he had still been recognisable as the half-drowned sailor she had rescued so many years ago—a lifetime ago.
He had stood on the steps, his gaze sweeping the room, passing by her with no recognition in the depths of his green eyes. Green like the sea he had come from.
Hannah straightened her shoulders and picked up her hair brush, attacking her hair with a ferocity born of her pent-up emotion.
‘There is no reason why he would recognise me after all these years and after all he is a Count and I’m …’
Bet wrested the brush from her hand.
‘You’re still the same person you was nine years ago, Miss Hannah.’
Hannah lowered her head, her hair falling like a curtain around her face. ‘No, I’m not, Bet.’
Sir Simon Maxwell had beaten that person out of her a long time ago.
She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, her fingers twisting the little garnet ring she wore on her right hand. Was it possible that a shred of the old Hannah Linton still remained? Would the grand Comte de Mont Clair still recognise the girl who nearly gave her life to save him?
Pointless to dream… to hope.
She was Lady Hannah Maxwell, and she knew what they called her in whispered conversations… a person of no consequence.
Chapter Two
DORSET COAST, 16 DECEMBER 1807
Hannah Linton lay full length on the cold, dry ground, her brother’s spyglass pressed to her eye. For the last hour, she had been engrossed in the cat and mouse game taking place off the Dorset coast between a French corvette and a larger English frigate.
The little French ship, flying its flag proudly despite its proximity to the English coast, had managed to evade the slower, less manoeuvrable English ship, but now the frigate had it trapped against the coast. Hannah’s heart leaped as she heard the distant poof of gunfire, white smoke emanating from the frigate’s gun ports.
The French ship’s main mast toppled slowly towards the water, its sails billowing like a woman’s petticoats sinking into a curtsey. Although crippled and helpless, the guns of the corvette hammered away in the face of the superior English firepower. Another sally from the frigate and the little corvette lurched in the water. Hannah squeezed her eyes tight shut, not wishing to witness the last minutes of the little ship. It had fought bravely, defied the odds, and lost.
‘Hannah!’ Her mother’s voice drifted toward her on the sea breeze.
She slammed the spyglass shut and stood up, casting a regretful glance at the now-empty skyline. Only the sails of the victorious English frigate could be seen, heading for Poole.
Hannah pulled her heavy woollen shawl around her and took the path across the cliff top to the cottage, nestled in the lee of the cliff, a quiet, isolated place—the last refuge for herself and her mother and their two servants.
The next morning, as was her habit, she rose early, taking the steep path that led down to the isolated cove. She hesitated before stepping onto the sand.
Broken shards of wood and smashed boxes tangled with ropes marked the high-tide line, a testimony to the previous day’s encounter off the headland. The last thing she wished to encounter was any bodies, but the beach seemed clear of the human cost of the sea battle.
