Chapter Fifteen

W hen the brass clock on the mantel in his study struck nine, Raven stopped trying to make sense of a plan sent to him by Braidwood for a metropolitan firefighting force. The idea was something like what Peel had accomplished for the police, and Raven thought it was an idea whose time had come. He pushed back from his desk and went to pour himself a brandy. For perhaps the dozenth time, he wondered where Jay Kydd had got to.

Everything about the study at Verwood proclaimed Raven a gentleman of means, Sir Adrian Cole. The walls were richly paneled, the bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes on a wide range of subjects, the carpet thick underfoot, and the brandy, aged in oak barrels, smooth as silk. He had only to glance around at the furnishings and paintings, however, to be reminded that Verwood was on loan to him. The old man in the large portrait over the hearth was not Raven's grandfather, but a former duke. The fair-haired boy, painted with his dog under a pair of trees, was not one of Raven's mates but Lady Cassandra's dead brother, who, if he had survived his time in the army, would now be the duke. Lady Cassandra appeared in a small sketch, as a young version of herself astride a pony. Raven raised his glass to the figures in the portraits. It did not matter that they once occupied the house. He was the one here now, and he meant to stay.

Brandy in hand, he turned to the window. From the southwest corner of the house the study looked down the long sweep of the drive, and he had not tired of the view. The June sky was pale blue above the chestnut trees. Dark forms of birds and insects, not yet settled for the night, flitted from branch to branch. Frogs and crickets made a loud chorus from the lake. Now that he was familiar with the landscape, he could see the gap in the trees where the lane led to the dower house.

All day he had kept his mind busy with his plans for the summer and kept at bay thoughts of Lady Cassandra. Their conversation had ended too soon. He wanted to know what she thought about his being Raven. She was the first person outside the circle of his closest friends to know something of his other life, though not the whole. He was the son of an officer with whom his mother had a liaison sometime during the early years of the great war with Napoleon. Letters his grandfather possessed showed that there had been an intention to marry, but the officer had died in Portugal. Raven's grandfather admitted that he had been enraged over his daughter's pregnancy, and that his anger had driven her from her home. It had been Wenlocke's research that had uncovered where she had given birth to Raven and the Foundling Hospital to which she'd given him when she could no longer care for him. He had escaped both the hospital and a mill before he'd met Wenlocke.

Lady Cassandra had offered her account of the accident as an equal exchange for what she'd learned about Raven's past. But her story concealed as much as it revealed. He wondered what had sent her out on an overlong solitary ride with no groom in attendance, and why now she had determined to ride the horse again. He told himself that all such speculation was fruitless and inappropriate. Lady Cassandra was his landlady, a person with whom his only tie was a lease covenant. It should not bother him that Jay would be there to watch her ride Hermes for the first time in three years, but the idea had lodged in his mind like a bubble only he could see in an otherwise perfect sheet of glass.

If Jay managed to charm the dowager and train the horse and the horse had a win, Raven would still have Verwood. His mind should remain centered on the surprise he planned for Lady Amabel and ball he planned to give. He took another swallow of the brandy. In a week Amabel would be at her father's estate, and all the distraction of Lady Cassandra and her horse would come to an end.

A quick jaunty rap sounded on the study door, and Jay strolled in. "What's this? Your library?" he asked.

"Study," Raven said. "Where have you been? I missed you at dinner."

"Drinking your health at the inn. You're quite the hero there. Hiring people. Spending money. Routing the local bully." Jay went straight for the brandy decanter, lifting it and taking a sniff. "Putting on airs, aren't you? Brandy, servants, and all this?" He waved a hand at the paneled walls and bookshelves.

"Join me," Raven lifted his glass.

"Don't mind if I do." Jay poured himself a glass and settled in one of the room's green leather armchairs. "So, what did you get up to today? Because, I tell you, you missed seeing a fine horse."

"Did you talk the dowager into running Hermes?"

"Only a matter of time. I'm sure the old girl's keen to run him. But she turned stiff as a poker when your lady friend wanted to ride."

"The old girl? That's the dowager to you. And my lady friend ?"

"Bluebell," said Jay with a grin. "I'm keeping my name for her. It suits her. She's not your London fashion plate. The girl's a Trojan. Faced right up to the old… dowager."

"I think she's had some practice," Raven said drily.

"Whatever that horse did to her, she rode him today like a trooper. A perfect seat, and great hands. You'd never guess she has a bum foot. Do you know what happened?"

"It was an accident caused by someone driving fast. She was leading Hermes when he reared and came down on her foot. Apparently, the doctors let the bones fuse wrong."

"Well, it's a shame. She was made to gallop." Jay swirled the brandy in his glass. "Though odds are that it's the bum foot that keeps her here. Otherwise, she'd have been married to some toff with a title by now."

Unaccountably, Raven found himself wanting to change the subject. Jay's easy assumption of a connection with Lady Cassandra was irksome. "You think the horse can win some prize money?"

"I'm sure he can, but it will take work. And Crockett. Those hands of his are magic. I'll be up early tomorrow."

Raven wanted to ask how long Jay meant to stay, but he held his tongue. In another week Amabel would be here. He found Jay watching him.

"That is, if you don't mind. I won't stay long, for I should be off to London to look for a rider for Hermes and find out who has horses running this season. It helps to know the field."

The sky outside began to darken. Jay gave a prodigious yawn, put aside his brandy class and pushed himself up out of the chair. "Sorry, Raven, I didn't ask you about your lady, your earl's daughter. She's coming here?"

"Not to Verwood, but to her father's house, about five miles away."

"When?"

"Next week."

"Does she know you've taken Verwood?"

"No. I mean it to be a surprise."

"When you call on her, you should ride Achilles. He's your best mount."

*

Raven had written to Lady Ramsbury asking if he might call upon her daughter, and a cordial reply invited him to visit. By the road the distance was an easy five miles. Another mile through the estate's woods and fields led to the house, built, Raven guessed, sometime before 1700. It was fiercely symmetrical with ornate diamond brickwork, a striking number of windows in old multiple-paned style, and paired columns framing a tall, narrow entrance. A cupola with a golden ball glinted in the sunlight atop the roof.

A stately butler greeted Raven. A liveried footman saw to his horse, and he was announced at the entrance to a long white-and-gold room with a high ceiling and a dark-blue carpet underfoot. Amabel and her mother sat over needlework at one end of the room, and Amabel's golden harp stood in a sunny corner.

Amabel saw him and flung aside her sewing, coming to his side and drawing him to her mother. "Mama, doesn't Sir Adrian look perfect for the country?"

Lady Ramsbury offered her hand, and Raven bowed over it. "Do not let my daughter embarrass you, Sir Adrian." She returned her attention to her needle and the bright threads of a piece she was working.

"But, I'm right, Mama. He must know our country ways. Have you been spying on us, sir?" she asked.

"Merely growing accustomed." Raven was not sure he had judged rightly after all. Both ladies were elaborately coiffed and gowned in pale green silk. The sameness of their dress rather than of feature marked the pair as mother and daughter. Raven remembered a stray comment of Jay's that Lady Cassandra was not a fashion plate. Perhaps Raven had been misled by her and by his neighbors in Wormley as to the degree of dress expected in a noble household even in summer in the country.

"And where are you staying, Sir Adrian?" asked the countess. "Did we have notice of your coming our way?"

"Oh, you knew he was coming, Mama, for I told you." Amabel gave Raven a mischievous look that made him rethink the letter he'd received.

"I've taken a place near Wormley, ma'am," he said.

At that the countess looked up briefly. "Have you? A hunting box? Do you hunt?"

"I have in the past."

"Ah, before your trade in London consumed you, I imagine."

"Exactly, ma'am."

"You may join Ramsbury's hunt. If you wish." Lady Ramsbury spoke to her needlework.

"Won't I have something to say about that?" Amabel asked. "After all, he's come to visit me, not Papa. And I'd like to show him the grounds, if I may."

"Of course, dear. You seem to have arranged things to your satisfaction."

Once again, the suspicion crossed Raven's mind that Amabel herself had answered his letter.

Amabel gave her mother a kiss, and took Raven by the hand. "Let's walk round the lake," she said. She pulled Raven to the door, and when it closed behind them, she smiled up at him with a gleam of mischief in her eyes and a hint of dimples in her cheeks. "You have saved me. My cousins are due to arrive within the hour. They are two of the dullest girls you will ever meet, and my aunt is a champion complainer."

"Won't your mother feel abandoned if you leave her to entertain the tedious cousins?" he asked.

"Mama can depress anyone's pretensions," she said. "And you mustn't mind her. She might want me to marry a title, as if I cared a scrap about that. But really, she knows that I must have a handsome, darling man who adores me. And, besides, we've already decided that you will have a title one day."

"Lady Amabel wills it so," he said. "By the way, did you send me that letter approving my visit?"

She flashed a triumphant smile at him. "Let me get a parasol."

For a few minutes Raven admired the soaring staircase in the entry hall with its elaborately carved white balustrade, trying to reconcile his pleasure in seeing Amabel, with a mild unease at the cunning with which she had secured approval for his visit. His misgivings vanished when she returned in a fetching straw bonnet, tied under her chin with a peach-colored ribbon, and with a dainty parasol over one shoulder.

She led him to the rear of the house where a wide expanse of grass sloped down to a lake considerably larger than the lake at Verwood with what looked to be a small Grecian temple on the hill opposite.

"You know…" She peeped up at him from under the parasol, her golden lashes catching the light. "We could row across to the folly if you'd like?"

He grinned at that. "You mean, Sir Adrian would you care to row me across the lake? "

A musical peal of laughter was her reply. She tripped lightly down the grass. At the lake edge, he helped her into a skiff tied to a short dock. He shed his coat and hat, climbed in to man the oars, and cast off. A breeze on the water ruffled the fringe of her parasol. This was what he'd come for, to exert himself under her admiring gaze. He had only the most fleeting thought that she wanted him to be someone he wasn't.

On the other side, the skiff slid up the gravel shore. He hopped out, helped her to alight, and secured the boat. Again, she took his hand, and led him up the hill to the folly. The interior was cool and shadowy, and they sat on the steps overlooking the lake and the house.

"Don't you wish," she said, "that you had a device that could capture a scene exactly, just as it is in the moment? It is so tedious to draw or paint. One looks back and forth between the thing and one's drawing, and nothing stays quite still while one does it."

"And what would you capture with your device?" he asked.

"Oh, so many things. Ramsbury Park, my family. Then we wouldn't have sit, cross and disagreeable for hours, to have our portrait made." She struck a stiff formal pose, lifting her chin high, and glancing sideways at him.

"Do you find your family disagreeable?"

"No. Just sitting, silly," she laughed. "What would you capture?"

A shockingly disloyal thought popped into his head. He dismissed it. He was with Amabel not Lady Cassandra. "Perhaps I'd capture my grandfather. He's a bit like your family, unwilling to sit for his portrait."

"He's very important to you, isn't he? You're his heir," she said with sudden earnestness.

"I am."

"Will he like me, do you suppose?"

"He will find you adorable."

"Good. Now where did you say you were staying?"

"I didn't. I wanted to surprise you."

"Well then, surprise me." Amabel plucked at her skirts arranging their fall over her knees.

"Verwood. I've taken the place on a lease."

Her expression was not quite what he expected. Her lips pursed in the familiar little pout, that someday he thought he might kiss. "You're not pleased?"

She squeezed his hand. "I am. It's like taking a house at Brighton for the summer. I never thought of that. Only isn't Verwood terribly run down and neglected?"

"Not at all. One of these days I'll show you. It may not be as grand as this place, but it has its… beauty."

A shadow of vexation altered her expression. "But what's happened to the ladies of Verwood? The dour dowager and the dithery aunt?"

"They are quite comfortable in the dower house." Raven liked his landladies, but he could not fault Amabel for her words. He had had a similar impression of the ladies at first.

She cast him a sly glance. "Even Lady Cassandra? I suppose she's quite the invalid these days."

"What makes you think that?" He was conscious of a stiffening of his posture.

"Don't be angry, Sir Adrian. It's just that people have a name for her."

"And what is that?" He tried to keep his voice level and bland, as if the matter were one of mere curiosity.

"It's not kind," she said with an imploring look.

"Can you tell me anyway?" he asked.

"As long as you promise not to be angry. I did not invent the phrase. I know it's dreadful what happened to her."

He nodded, nerving himself, keeping his gaze on the view. Across the lake a liveried servant emerged from the house and started down the grassy hill.

"She's called the dead duke's damaged daughter ."

If a man had spoken the words, Raven would have knocked him down. The cruel name said everything about Cassandra's circumstances and nothing about her. There was no doubt in his mind that Cassandra had heard those words. Her wounded foot was nothing to them.

The liveried servant reached the little dock and waved at them. Raven stood with careful easiness and offered his hand to Amabel. "It looks as if your escape is over. Shall I row you back?"

She turned a contrite, worried face up to his. "You'll come again, won't you?"

"Every day if you'll let me."

He was rewarded with a radiant smile.