Chapter Eighteen

W hen Raven next rode to Ramsbury Park, he discovered that new guests had arrived in his absence, the Countess of Embledon, accompanied by her daughter Lady Hyacinthe and her son, Viscount Tyne. The party of young people had spent most of the previous long, wet day playing cards, and were now keen for outdoor amusement. At Tyne's suggestion, they settled on tennis, and the viscount gave lessons to each of the ladies in turn, taking on the rest, and showing his prowess.

Raven entered in with as much spirit as he could summon, trying to control his impatience to speak with Amabel. Every once in a while, she gave him a quick glance, as if to say, she, too, wished they could be alone together for a talk. He tried to hold onto his patience. At last, as they strolled back to the house from the tennis, she drew enough apart from the group for them to have a private exchange.

"We missed you yesterday, and you've been out of sorts today. Something's wrong, isn't it?" The tennis had brightened her cheeks and eyes.

"There's something I need to tell you," he said.

"So serious," she said. "We'll find a time before you leave. You can't expect me to ignore my guests. Tyne is a particular friend of my brother Hugh."

The reference to Hugh stopped Raven in his tracks, but Amabel gave his arm a tug, and he offered her a brief smile.

Amabel's duty to her guests included a long afternoon of lying about listening to Tyne tell stories. They occupied the high-ceilinged white-and-gold drawing room, the ladies sitting in admiring postures around Tyne. As Raven saw it, Tyne was enjoying the same admiration he, Raven, had once enjoyed for his story of the fire. But Tyne's stories were different, and his humor had an acid edge. He told a long story about a fat friend of his who had fallen into a dispute with his tailor over the cost of coat. The tailor insisted on a higher charge because more cloth was required for the garment than usual. The fat gentleman insisted that his coats should cost no more than those of his friends and stood over the tailor as he measured a bolt of cloth. As the story progressed, it was difficult to tell which of the two men was the ultimate butt of the viscount's joke, but everyone laughed heartily when the tailor sent the fat gentleman a coat with no sleeves.

Restlessness consumed Raven. He didn't want to talk about fat men and coats. With difficulty he managed the required laughter and maintained the languid posture of the group. It occurred to him that he was seeing Amabel's world from the inside, with the curtains pulled back. Amabel did not seem as rapt in the stories as the others, but she accepted the tone of Tyne's humor. As hostess, she sat at Tyne's right, and paid attention to his need for lemonade or cake. When she caught Raven frowning, she sent him a chiding look. At last, the party broke up with the cousins pleading a need to refresh themselves. Raven strolled out through the wide French doors onto the terrace.

On the terrace, he rehearsed in his head the explanation of his encounter with Hugh. His discomfort must be due to his lack of openness with Amabel. Once he had a chance to tell her about his meeting with Hugh and to see whether she could forgive him, then he wouldn't be so impatient with Tyne. He turned at the sound of her light quick steps on the flags of the terrace, and she stepped to his side and slipped her arm in his. "They are all settled. Now you can tell me what's on your mind."

Relief flooded him. She had not been ignoring him. She had been attending to her guests. "First," he said, "I'm going to give a ball. Will you help?"

She tilted her head, looking up at him as if he'd made no sense. "A ball? How will you manage that? Do gentlemen know anything about giving balls?"

"Why do you think I'm telling you my plan? Will you help?"

"When?" Her expression was doubtful.

"At the July full moon."

"So soon!"

"I want your opinion about everything—music, food, flowers."

"But where can you give a ball? There are no assembly rooms in Wormley, and Basingstoke is too distant." She was resisting the plan, and he feared that if he could not get her support, he would never be able to speak about Hugh. He took her hands in his.

"At Verwood, of course. There's a large hall that opens onto a terrace and garden."

"And you say it's not shabby."

Instinct warned him not to mention the work he'd done. He had a momentary recollection of Cassie covered in plaster dust. "Not at all, but I will want your help with the decoration."

"There's very little time. You must send your invitations at once. And you must include our guests. If the countess and Tyne come, you will be sure of a success."

He didn't like hearing that Tyne must be included, but at least she was no longer doubting that there could be a ball. "Then you will help?"

"Of course." She smiled up at him, that ravishing smile. He reached out to touch one of the shining golden curls, pulling on it lightly, uncoiling it.

"Shall we return? I can't be away too long, Mama will notice."

"There is something else," he said. "I have a confession to make. I've met your brother."

She gave him a puzzled look. "You met Hugh, where and how? I didn't think you were part of the sporting set."

"I'm not. I met him here in Wormley, and not under the best of circumstances. We—"

"Quarreled?" she asked, her dimples plain. "Hugh does have a temper."

"I stepped in where perhaps I should not have."

"Oh dear. Did you scold him? Like Papa?"

"Hugh was involved in an accident with a young man driving a cart, and Hugh's curricle was damaged. The young man couldn't pay for the damage, so I gave your brother the money."

"Oh, that! You mean the deaf boy with the donkey. I dare say you thought Hugh was unkind to the boy, though his cart is something of a hazard."

For a moment Raven lost the thread of his confession. Her dismissal of the incident as trivial should put his fears to rest, but in the phrase the deaf boy with the donkey he heard the echo of that other cruel phrase.

Amabel nudged him with her elbow. "You gave Hugh money for his vehicle, and…"

Raven had come to the most difficult part of his confession. "It made your brother quite angry."

"He does have a temper. But I can handle Hugh."

He stopped her, and turned her gently to face him. "Are you angry with me?"

She shook her head. Her golden curls bounced with the movement. "No, but I think you've been a clunch. My brother gave a bill for that curricle to Papa and he paid, too. Hugh does know how to get his way." She laughed that same merry peal.

Raven supposed he should find the story funny, but he could not. It was too much like the stories he'd heard all afternoon of someone being duped or taken advantage of by another.

"Don't look so serious. Let's plan that ball of yours and forget my brother."