Chapter Six

T here was a day's delay before Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Verwood signed Sir Adrian's lease agreement. Further issues had arisen regarding which furnishings were to remain in the house and precisely which stalls in the stables were to be available for Sir Adrian's horses. In the end the ladies were to leave the public rooms furnished and to take only the items most personal to them to the dower house along with her grandmother's prized paintings of her horses.

Mr. Trimley, a notary, Cassie, and the duchess gathered in the red drawing room at noon. There was no sign of Sir Adrian, though his bold signature appeared on the document. The duchess took a seat at the console table and asked to see the clauses about renovation, the use of her stables, and her right to terminate the lease.

When she had reviewed those items, she said to Trimley, "Let's get on with it then."

As Trimley pointed out the places where she was to sign, the duchess batted away his hand, but she signed.

Cassie, who had spent the morning reading the document in all its legal detail, did not know whether she felt more relieved or more anxious about the move. There was a great deal to do in a short time, for which she was grateful. With cataloging what was to remain and packing what was to go, and with determining where things from the hall would find a place in the dower house, she would have little time to feel any sadness over leaving what had been her only home. It might be hard to see that home in the hands of another, but she supposed that in time she would become accustomed to the change. One could become accustomed to difficult things.

When Trimley indicated that the signing was complete, the duchess put aside the pen, and stood. "We're done, are we?" she asked.

Trimley grinned broadly. "I assure you, ma'am, you could not entrust Verwood into more capable hands than Sir Adrian's. Everything will be preserved and looked after with scrupulous care."

*

On the morning after the signing of the lease, the first carts rumbled up the drive and turned down the lane to the dower house. A boy came running to the hall for the key, and handed Cassie a note from Sir Adrian. The note laid out a brief plan for cleaning the dower house and asked if she had color preferences for the rooms.

Cassie put aside the list she was making, took up the keys, and put on her cloak. Sir Adrian was not going to paint her house without her approval. She sent the boy ahead to say she was coming, and a quick walk took her to the lane. At the dower house, a group of workmen unloaded ladders, brooms, and buckets from one of the carts, and a man with a scythe was at work on the grass. Sir Adrian stood at the back of another cart conferring over some papers with George Dawes, the building surveyor who had supervised the repairs to the roof of the village church.

No one observed her approach until the boy came to a stop before Sir Adrian. All heads turned her way as she sank into the low point of her uneven stride. She halted and straightened, and Sir Adrian stepped forward. He had changed from the polished London gentleman she'd first met to a man more comfortably attired for the country in brown wool and a plain cotton waistcoat.

"I didn't mean to interrupt your morning," he said.

"Didn't you? With such provocation as this?" She held up the little note. "What woman does not have an opinion about the color of her walls?"

He laughed. "I had to ask."

"The ink is hardly dry on the lease," she said, looking at the bustle of activity around her. He must have believed all along that he'd gain the lease for he could not have organized such a work party in a day.

"As I told you, I am impatient." His gaze did not meet hers.

"For the joys of discovering dust and damp?"

"If you'll open the house for them, these fellows will begin."

He stepped aside, and Cassie moved to open the door. Then the workers filed past, each with a little nod. She followed and peered into the drawing room. As she looked around, conscious of the gloom, Sir Adrian entered with his papers. "You think the place needs painting?" she asked.

"Cleaning first, but a little fresh paint never hurts. I have some samples for you to look at if you can spare the time. Your opinion counts."

"I hope so." To have her opinion solicited was something of a novel experience. She and Honoria and Grandmama lived such separate lives in the hall that there had been little occasion for her opinion to matter. It was only as they faced the prospect of leasing the hall that Grandmama had consulted her. Once again the details had been left to Cassie. Honoria and Grandmama had returned to their separate spheres, Honoria to her books, Grandmama to her horses.

Sir Adrian opened his sheaf of papers on top of a cloth-draped table. She was surprised to see the floor plan of the dower house.

"You have been busy. Where did you get this?"

"I have my sources." He laid some square chips of color on each of the rooms. "What do you think? Will any of these colors suit?"

He had chosen warm reds and golds for the lower rooms of the house and cooler shades for the bedrooms. For the bedroom she had imagined would be hers, he had chosen a pale thrush-egg blue. She picked up the little square. He did not know her taste. It was just an accident that the blue chip lay where it did, like a dealing of the cards for a game of Commerce.

"The colors are lovely," she said.

"Have I your permission to paint then?" he asked.

"You may paint," she said airily, putting down the blue chip.

"You liked that," he said with a grin.

It surprised her, but she did enjoy it. "Yes, this giving permission thing might grow on me."

"May I ask one more thing then?"

She waited.

"May I have Dawes inspect the hall for any signs of… decay?"

A crash from the kitchen interrupted him, and Sir Adrian strode toward the sound. Cassie followed. Two men emerged into the hall coughing and covered with soot.

"Dead bird in the chimney, sir," one of them managed to say, his eyes and teeth white in his blackened face.

"Clinker everywhere, sir," said the other man.

"Clinker?" she asked Sir Adrian.

He turned to her with one of his dark frowns. "Creosote from incomplete burning. If you'll pardon me, I'd best take a look."

She nodded. He simply stated a fact, but she knew what that creosote meant—neglect, years of putting off needed work, and getting by. "You'd best prepare Mr. Dawes for the worst."

She handed him her keys.

*

Two days before they were to remove from the hall to the dower house, Miss Pindock, her grandmother's able assistant, alerted Cassie that Miss Honoria had not completed her packing. Much as Cassie disliked Pindock's manner of telling tales, a visit to Honoria's room confirmed that Honoria was mired in book packing and had yet to tackle her clothes. Cassie offered to help.

She peered into the tall mahogany wardrobe where her aunt's clothes hung. Honoria sat on the bench at the foot of her bed her nose in a book, a packing case open on the floor beside her. Cassie had forgotten that her aunt had so many gowns. She pulled two from the wardrobe and held them up for Honoria's inspection. One was a leaf-green muslin with holes at the elbows and a frayed hem. The other was a gray silk gown in excellent condition, from the half-mourning period for Cassie's father.

Honoria looked up. "Oh, the green is a writing frock. Keep that. I must have my writing clothes."

"Aunt, it's falling apart."

Honoria shrugged and turned back to her book. "Nobody sees me."

"I see you."

"What dear?" Honoria mumbled.

"I see you." Cassie made a new pile on the bed for the faded green gown. Her aunt was not vain about her appearance, and it was certainly frugal to get the most wear out of one's clothes, but something in Cassie rebelled against her aunt's accepting invisibility. "I thought we might go to London for a fortnight."

"London? But you had a dismal time there." Honoria closed her book.

"I did, but that was during the Season. We won't go for the Season." At the moment, the Season was at its frantic peak, which Cassie remembered well. Packing her own gowns, now long out of fashion, had recalled that unhappy time. Each item came with a history that revived feelings she thought forever buried. "We could go in September. You might enjoy visiting the bookstores, meeting your publisher, and maybe seeing some of the settings you've used in your books."

Honoria sighed. "I would like to see Lackington's and Hatchford's. Will we have the funds for a jaunt?"

"I think so."

"Sir Adrian is shaking things up, isn't he? Like an earthquake. Makes me think I ought to put something of the kind in my new book. It's set in Lisbon after all. How much money do you think he's spending?"

"I have no idea." Cassie had tried not to notice, but with Dawes's fees and workers' daily wages and with the needed repairs to the hall that Dawes had already recommended, Sir Adrian's bills must be mounting. And yet he remained unstoppable. That was the thing one noticed most about him, his energy. All the activity around her made her restless, too. But in two days they would be moved, and she could settle into her old ways.

As Cassie lay the gray silk on the save pile, William appeared with one of Sir Adrian's boy messengers.

"My lady," said the boy, red-faced from his run. "Sir A wants to know if ye'll approve the new paint color for the kitchen."

"Did he send a paint chip?" Cassie asked. He was testing her. She had no time to tramp over to the dower house to look at paint samples.

The boy shook his head.

"Can you say what color it is?" She pulled a lovely lavender muslin from the wardrobe. She'd not seen Honoria wear it, but it might do for a Sunday.

The boy twisted the cap in his hands, his lips pursed tight. "It's an animal, miss."

"An animal?"

The boy, his brow furrowed, looked anguished. "I said it to meself three times to remember."

"How very odd," said Honoria. "An animal, you say? Like a bear or a badger or a Bengal tiger?"

The boy gave another shake of his head.

"Do you see the color anywhere in this room?" Cassie asked.

The boy looked around at the stacks of books and piles of linens and clothes. "There, miss," he said, pointing to the gray silk on the bed. "It's an elephant, miss."

"Sir Adrian wants to paint the kitchen, gray!" said Honoria. "How singular!"

The boy looked crushed. "That can't be right, can it, miss?" he asked Cassie.

"Take a deep breath. It will come to you."

He closed his eyes and inhaled noisily. Cassie waited until his eyes popped open, and he released a gust of breath. She offered an encouraging smile.

"Now I remember, miss. The color is called elephant's teeth ."

"Do elephants have teeth?" asked Honoria.

"Great long ones, ma'am." The boy nodded solemnly.

Cassie smiled at him. "Exactly. And they're called tusks ."

She should have a coin with which to reward his efforts, but she had not yet dipped into the funds available from the lease. "Well-done," she said. "Let me write Sir A a note of approval, and then, on your way back to the dower house, you may stop in the kitchen and let Cook give you some cake and lemonade."

She lifted the covering over Honoria's writing and found a pencil and paper.

Dear Sir A,

Did you know that your minions have taken to calling you ‘Sir A'?

"Elephant's Tusk" sounds a perfect, if fanciful, shade for the kitchen. You have my entire approval. Please reward your young lieutenant handsomely for the difficulty he endured in conveying your message to me.

Sincerely, C. L.

She folded her note and sent the boy off. Honoria had put her book aside and now watched Cassie.

"You're smiling," said Honoria.

"Am I?" Cassie asked. "I suppose the boy's earnestness amused me."

Honoria was watching her, really watching. "You know, dear, I think this move is good for you."

"For me?" Cassie took another muslin out of the wardrobe, a chocolate brown with a small purple sprig and the worn elbows and frayed hem of one of Honoria's writing gowns. She tossed it on the appropriate pile.

"Verwood is lovely, and no one appreciates it more than you do, but consider how refreshing new scenes are," Honoria suggested.

"I never tire of the woods and gardens."

"But you must admit that Verwood is a place of… loss."

Cassie could not deny it. Her mother had died giving birth to her. The news of her brother's death in the Anglo-Burmese War had reached Verwood in her thirteenth year. After that her father had lost all interest in the estate. In three years, he had wasted away. And when she emerged from mourning him, she met Oliver Torrington, Viscount Wycombe in London. For a few mad weeks in her abbreviated Season, Torrington had been her life. Then he had married another, and Cassie returned brokenhearted to Verwood and had her accident.

"I suppose one might associate Verwood with melancholy events, but I think of it as a safe, comforting place," she said.

"Safe, but… dull. You were never dull in London." Honoria began to twist the ends of her shawl. "I should have kept you safe, and now I make you dull here. It's my fault, isn't it?"

Cassie sat on the bench beside her aunt and took Honoria's hands in hers. "You must not blame yourself for what happened in London."

"I was your chaperone. I was supposed to protect you from men like Torrington."

"You could not have saved me from my folly. I was nineteen and smitten. There were warning signs, and I rushed right past them."

"You wouldn't be afraid to go to London again in my company?"

"I am no longer that green girl." She was also no longer a prize. Then she had been a duke's daughter with youth and looks and a fat dowry. "In any case, this time we will be sensible London visitors. We'll go to concerts and the theater and museums and bookstores, not balls and routs and pleasure gardens. We'll take long walks. Shall we go when your book is finished?"

"Who will put us up? We won't want to stay with your uncle Verwood."

"No. What about your Thornhill cousins in Brunswick Square? Might they take us in for a week or a fortnight?"

"A fortnight!" Honoria stood. "Perhaps I do need to keep some of these frocks."

"And wear them, too, Aunt!"