Chapter Sixteen

R aven's daily ride to Ramsbury Park quickly became a habit until one morning dark clouds threatened. At his window, he contemplated asking for his carriage. The dowager's rule that Raven advise her grooms of his intention to use a horse or carriage was particularly irksome in such moments. He put aside his irritation to work on the guest list for the ball.

By midmorning when no rain appeared, he decided to risk making the journey on horseback and sent for a boy to inform the stable to saddle his usual mount. No boy appeared. A quick search of the house by his staff did not turn up Joe, Ben, or Tim. Raven sent a footman to the stable, who returned with the news that the boys were not there, either.

Vexed with them and with himself, Raven left the hall by the front entrance. Preoccupied with his plans for the ball, he had been lax, letting them spend hours watching Hermes's training. And he had been teaching them to swim. Now, he was repaid for allowing them so much freedom. He could think of a dozen places where they could get into trouble, starting with the lake. He strode down the drive and scanned the gray, choppy waters, relieved not to find them, and angry at the same time for the worry they caused him. With his temper rising, he headed for the stable.

On the north side of the house where the outer walk met the path through the formal garden, he heard shouts and the clash of metal as if some mortal combat were underway. He halted and listened more closely. The sound of distinctly boyish voices came from the other side of the hedge, from the very spot where he meant to propose to Amabel. He strode toward the sound and burst through the yew hedge and stopped cold. Joe, Ben, and Tim, with fierce frowning faces and swords drawn, stood looking at the fallen figure of Honoria Thornhill. She lay insensible on the grass, one hand clasped to her bosom, faded brown skirts oddly hiked around her knees, her stockings grass-stained. The boys saw him, and their expressions turned shame-faced. Raven hurried to the fallen woman's side and dropped to a knee to see what could be done for her.

He saw no wound, no blood, and thought perhaps she'd hit her head. He turned over her limp hand to find a pulse and stared at ink-stained fingers.

"Sir A," said Joe. "Miss T is teaching us sword fighting."

"And dying," added Ben.

Raven lifted the edge of her lace cap, looking for a head wound, and Miss Thornhill opened one eye. "Oh dear," she said. "Sir Adrian. What must you think!" She tried to push up on one elbow. "I can explain."

"First, are you hurt?" Raven asked. She shook her head, and the lace cap slid farther down over one ear. He offered a hand and helped her to her feet. Her skirts were tangled in some sort of knot, and she tugged at them in her flustered way. Amabel's words about the dithery aunt came instantly to mind. Raven turned aside to let Honoria rearrange her skirts.

He leveled a quelling gaze on the boys, who, he noted, wore colorful odds and ends of scarves and jackets over their blue shirts and gray trousers. "Explain," he said.

"We're acting a scene in one of Miss T's stories." Tim pointed to a notebook lying open on the stone bench next to a pencil case and a lady's straw bonnet.

Joe, with what Raven recognized as Miss Thornhill's usual shawl hanging from his shoulders like a cape, and a scrap of red cloth tied around his sword arm, announced, "I am Don Adeo, the Admirable. What country am I from, miss?"

"Portugal, dear," said Miss Thornhill.

"I'm a Portuguese colonel fighting for my country against… who are we against, miss?"

"Joe, you blockhead. We're against the Frogs, old Boney's men at Busaco," said Ben.

"Are you the enemy, Tim?" Raven asked.

"Not me, I'm Richard Crawley, British Rifleman. You see I've got this green uniform to wear." He tugged at the lapels of a lady's spencer jacket.

"We take turns being the French commander—'Yew the 'Orrible." Ben held a black mustache up to his lips. "We could show you how we do it."

A suspicion was dawning on Raven about what he was seeing, and a stricken look from Honoria rather confirmed his thinking. "Show me," he told the boys.

Ben stuck his mustache on, and he and Joe took positions opposite each other on the strip of grass in front of the very bench where Raven imagined himself proposing to Amabel. They raised their swords, hands on hips, knees bent.

"Miss," called Joe, "read the part about 'Yew the 'Orrible."

Raven looked to Honoria Thornhill. She did not meet his gaze, but took up the notebook from the stone bench and flipped through its pages.

"She writes the action down as we fights," confided Ben.

"Ready?" Honoria's voice wavered. "We'll just do a small part for Sir Adrian. We've interrupted his day." She cleared her throat and began to read.

At midday as the battle raged, Rifleman Crawley came upon his friend Don Adeo holding off a fierce French officer with a bristling mustache. Blood flowed from Don Adeo's sword arm. The noble Portuguese officer stood before his fallen steed.

"You must pay me sixty gold coins," the Frenchman cried, "or I will slay your horse."

"Never," cried Don Adeo. He staggered and fell to one knee barely able to parry his enemy's blows.

Rifleman Crawley, seeing his friend's distress, leapt into the fray, driving the French officer back from the fallen Don Adeo. The Frenchman retreated under the fury of Crawley's blows, leaping up upon a tall boulder, and shouting down, "Hugh the Horrible will have his revenge!"

Tim jumped up on the bench, struck a pose, then dropped down on the other side, and disappeared into the hedge. The boys looked to Raven, while he stood rigid with comprehension. He realized that it was his part to applaud. He clapped, even as his mind, stuck on the name of the French officer and the sum of sixty gold pieces.

"Thank you, lads," Honoria said. "You've played your parts quite well. Now, I'm sure, Sir Adrian has need of you. Let me have those costumes, and I'll leave you to get on with your work, or journey, or whatever you have planned." She collected her bonnet and pencil case.

The boys squirmed out of their borrowed clothes without a word, looking from her to Raven. Raven motioned them to sit upon the bench and took up the pile of clothes. "Don't move until I return. I'm walking Miss Thornhill to the dower house."

He offered his arm. She hesitated, giving him a beseeching look, but he didn't budge. At last, she took his arm. They began to walk. "I do apologize," she said. "I should have asked your permission to involve them. Sometimes they get quite in the way of the work going forward with Hermes."

"I imagine they do," said Raven mildly, as they turned into the path that led to the dower house. He meant to keep his temper in check until he understood what he'd seen.

"Cassie asked me if I could keep them occupied this morning, and they do like to be active."

Cassie. The name distracted him for a moment. She wasn't Lady Cassandra or Bluebell. She was Cassie.

Honoria Thornhill looked up at him, and he went back to his questioning. "So, you write stories."

Her hand on his arm twitched. "Fictions," she said firmly.

"But they aren't entirely fiction, are they?" he persisted.

"Well, writers do take inspiration from the… scenes around them, but then imagination takes over. A local bully becomes a French officer."

"You don't fear that the local bully might recognize himself in your work?"

"Never," she said. "No one connects my stories with… me or with this place."

"You publish anonymously then?" he asked. They had come within sight of the dower house.

Honoria released his arm, and faced him squarely, her notebook clutched to her chest with her ink-stained hands. "Only Cassie knows about my… work. Lottie would never approve, so, you see, I must remain an unknown author."

"Won't the story of Hugh the Horrible threaten that? Am I right in thinking that I've met the man who inspired your French officer?"

Honoria blushed. "You needn't worry. Horrible Hugh is no reader, and he'd never open a novel. He's a member of the sporting set, follows the races, hunts, rather like his father Lord Ramsbury."

"Horrible Hugh is Hugh Haydon, Lord Ramsbury's son?" The knowledge rocked him. One minute he had his balance, the next the ground shifted under his feet. All his carefully laid plans meant nothing. The scene in the inn yard came back to him in vivid detail. How many times had the story been told carelessly since by friends of Dick Crockett? Raven had figured as the hero, defending the vulnerable, but now he saw himself as the fool, the man who unknowingly offended the brother of the woman he loved. Hugh would not forget the slight.

Worse, Raven had compounded his offense with his daily visits to Ramsbury Park. He had accepted the hospitality of a family that would likely turn him out on his ear when they knew what he'd done. He had risked all his hopes and plans without knowing the danger he courted. But one person had known the risk and had not offered a word of warning.

For a week Raven had seen nothing of his landladies, which he had thought for the best. For a week he had congratulated himself on the wisdom of avoiding Lady Cassandra. Cassie. He feared that meeting her, he would betray his awareness of the cruelty she'd endured. He was under no obligation to tell her what he'd heard, or from whom he'd heard it, but he didn't like the idea of concealing the thing from her. He knew London society loved to mock its own. If Wellington or Melbourne or King William himself could be caricatured in the print shop windows, then no one was safe from society's barbs. For a week he had been full of sympathy for a woman who had let him make a fool of himself.

At the door of the dower house, he stopped and faced Honoria.

"Miss Thornhill, where's your niece?" he asked. He handed her the boys' costumes.

Honoria offered him a pleading glance. He merely raised one brow.

Honoria's shoulders slumped. "Cassie walked to the village this morning."

Raven bowed and strode off. He knew a thing or two about heat and how to judge the temperature of a flame from its color. His anger was white hot. His sympathy for Cassandra Lavenham was ash.

*

Cassie glanced at the sullen gray sky and adjusted the basket on her arm. The day had grown dark, and the clouds would open any minute. She took hold of her skirts and climbed the last stile between the village and Verwood. She did not want to be caught in a downpour, but she could not pass the stile without pausing to think of her first meeting with Jay Kydd. Since that day so much had changed. Verwood, which had seemed a dead place, was now alive again.

It was all owing to Raven. Gaining him as a tenant had had unexpected benefits. The ladies of Verwood had enlarged their little family, which now included Jay and the three boys, who were great favorites with Dick Crockett and Honoria. Grandmama might appear to be keeping aloof, but Cassie was not fooled. The stable was a happier place. Jay and Snell claimed that Hermes was making great progress and planned to put a jockey on him in the next week. Jay was quickly learning Dick Crockett's hand language, and the boys, when not with the horses, had evidently made friends in both kitchens. Even Raven, who was seldom at Verwood, was fond of the boys. In the mornings, he was teaching them to swim. Cassie had some concern that their confidence might outstrip their actual ability. She should talk with Raven about it, but she had not seen him since he'd begun his daily visits to Ramsbury Park. It was sad, she thought, that he had brought Verwood to life, and no longer wished to be there, but she understood.

His courting must be going well. Cassie would not have guessed that pretty Amabel would suit him. His character seemed made of sterner stuff, but she admitted that he did like perfection, and Amabel was that. The work he had done on the hall and the gardens showed his care with detail. Cassie had forgotten how truly lovely Verwood's gardens could be. Now if she could get home before the rain, she could sip her tea and enjoy her overflowing cup of happiness.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and she started for the dower house, but stopped at once. From Verwood, Raven bore down on her with rapid, angry strides, dressed for riding, but hatless and plainly in a mad hurry. Instinctively, she braced herself. "Oh, I did not expect to see you. Are you not going to Ramsbury Park today?"

He stopped directly in her path, and regarded her coldly. "My plans have changed."

"I'm sorry." She was at a loss meeting him in this out of the way spot. "I suppose the weather…"

"The change has nothing to do with the weather, and everything to do with you."

"Me?"

"I trusted you," he bit out the words, closing the distance between them.

"And now you don't?" It was a shocking thing to suggest.

"Your deceit—"

"My what? I beg your pardon. How have I been deceitful?" She tried to control her temper. His glare was withering, his mouth set in a harsh line. He was angry with her, and she could not think why. An intemperate reply from her could not help the conversation.

"You knew Hugh, Horrible Hugh , as your aunt calls him, was Lord Ramsbury's son, Lady Amabel's brother, and you didn't tell me."

Cassie did not know how to defend herself. It was true. "Has Hugh returned to Ramsbury Park? I should warn the Crocketts?"

"Warn the Crocketts?" The words burst from him. "Help them, but not me! I told you my plans. You. No one else. By all means help Dick Crockett, save him, but let me ride off day after day blissfully unaware of my offense against Lady Amabel's family, an offense which could sink me in their estimation and ruin everything I've worked for. I deserved better from you."

Cassie was confused. If Hugh had not returned, how had Raven's hopes been dashed? "How did you discover Hugh's connection to Amabel?"

Contempt curled his fine mouth, as if he were about to say something utterly distasteful. "Your aunt," he said, "is making Hugh the Horrible the villain of her next novel. Did you know that, too?"

Cassie shook her head. Her heart sank. Somehow Raven had discovered that Honoria wrote novels. "Has she put Hugh in her Portugal story? How do you know that?"

"So you did know."

"I did not." The first drops of rain hit her shoulders, heavy and cold. The storm, like his anger, was going to break over them. She wore a short summer cloak and a straw bonnet. He stood bare-headed. With a sudden rush, the rain came down, a thick, leaden river of wet. It ran down Raven's face, flattened his hair against his head, and caught in his lashes. In seconds it drenched him. The mingled scents of warm, damp earth and grass rose around them. He stood immobile as stone.

"Honoria's got Joe, Ben, and Tim playing characters from the book, waving swords about on the lawn." His voice rose over the hiss and splatter of the rain. "I recognized the scene at once. Hugh is a particularly nasty French officer who demands sixty gold pieces from the hero. Honoria assured me that the real Hugh would never see himself in her literary efforts because he was not a reader, but a sporting man, like his father, Lord Ramsbury."

Cassie winced. It was an awkward way for Raven to learn the truth, but surely learning it from Honoria was not the disaster he seemed to think. "Oh dear. I am sorry. I will speak to her."

"By all means. Dissuade Honoria from her folly. Give her the chance to avoid what—ridicule, humiliation, a lawsuit? And leave me open to the loss of all my hopes."

Rain dripped from the brim of Cassie's bonnet. The icy, contemptuous voice stirred her own anger, the heat of it blocking out the chill of her wet cloak. She tried to compose herself. "You surprised me that day with your plan to court Amabel. It was an unexpected confidence, and it would have been presumptuous of me to advise you in any way."

"You are not dull-witted or dithery like your aunt. The moment I told you Amabel was my object, you knew Hugh would be a problem for me."

"Dithery?" Cassie stiffened at the insult. "Go. We are done now. You've said quite enough. I understand you."

He blocked her path. The rain washed over his person in blowing curtains of water. His burning gaze settled on her mouth. He seemed on the verge of speaking, yet said nothing. Cassie's thin cloak grew heavy. Her soggy bonnet no longer protected her. If he would only move, she could get home before the pain took over.

At last, he spoke. "I can't leave you in this rain." He tore off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.

"Of course, you can. I am quite capable of making my way home on my own." She tried to shrug his coat off.

He gripped her shoulders, looking down into her face, the rain molding the thin lawn of his shirt to his arms. "Yes, the dead duke's damaged daughter needs no one's help."

She gasped. She couldn't help it. The old taunt hit her like a blow. Instantly, he looked appalled at what he'd said, but it was too late. She wrenched herself out of his grasp.

"Cassie!" His voice was an anguished cry. "I didn't mean—"

"You know what your problem is," she told him. She was shouting now over the rain, and over the plea in his voice, which she refused to hear. "You don't want to apologize to Hugh. You know he's undeserving of your apology. Being Amabel's brother does not make him less of a coward or a bully."

"What can I say to her ?"

"You could tell her the truth. You could say, Dearest, loveliest Amabel, your brother Hugh is an offensive worm, but I'm willing to overlook his vile behavior for your sake. "

He exhaled a sharp, bitter laugh. "You are outrageous."

"Am I?" She was beyond caring what he thought. She had been mistaken to regard him as different from any of them who had mocked her.

Rain ran in shining rivulets down his face. His coal-dark eyes turned bleak, teasing lights extinguished. "You know I can't say that."

"Will you grovel then? Pretend you don't know what he is. Tell Hugh that you acted hastily, that you didn't stop to see things his way, that you hope you and he can start again? Will you admire his horses, his latest curricle, his best guns? I promise you, you won't like yourself if you do."

"You're full of helpful ideas. And Amabel? How am I to make her understand?"

Cassie felt her anger dissolve in the rain. He stood impossibly close, in torment, his pain-filled gaze fixed on her. She knew that sort of pain, but his could end. Amabel might be angry, but she would forgive him if he let her.

She lifted his coat from her shoulders and handed it to him. He took the dripping wool.

"Tell her your plans for the July ball. Tell her that you just learned that you met her brother. You can tell her what happened, at least, a version of what happened, leaving out Hugh's nastiness. Tell her you would have behaved quite differently had you understood who Hugh was. Ask for her help to start over with Hugh. If she loves you, she will forgive you."

She turned to go. He reached out a hand, but she shook her head. He let his hand drop. With a few steps she moved beyond his gaze, letting the rain cut her off from him.