CHAPTER EIGHT“Chiara, I simply cannot believe my ears!”
Lady Fairfax sat upright on the drawing room sofa at Rensham Hall, her face a picture of disappointment.
“This is not what I was expecting to hear at all.”
“I am sorry, Mama, if I have upset you. But I have to be truthful and, as I have just said, I don’t want to marry Mervyn Hunter – I really cannot.”
All the way back from Ely, she had been making up her mind to talk to her mother.
Now, it took all of her strength to speak firmly and calmly, when what she really wanted to do was to run out of the drawing room, escape to the stable yard and bury her face in Erebus’s white mane.
The little pony would certainly not condemn her for refusing Mervyn Hunter, the man who had caused him to fall and lamed him.
“But darling, I am upset.
