A Gentleman’s Game (3 page)

She raised a brow.

He laughed. “All right, maybe not. No compliments, then, Miss Agate. As you wish. Er—am I permitted to be friendly, or ought I to be serious all the time?”

“Can’t you be both?” She was beginning to ache, crouching on the floor, and with a wince she straightened up.

“I really don’t think I can.” With the long-bladed knife, he began to slice at the bale of hay.

“Just be…” She frowned. “I don’t know. Just be yourself, Mr. Nathaniel, and we’ll do fine.”

He turned his head to look up at her, an odd expression on his features. He looked as though something had clubbed him in the head and he wasn’t sure whether or not he needed to fall over.

“I’ll try,” he said at last, turning his attention back to the hay. “But you don’t know what you’re asking of me, Miss Agate.”

As he sliced at the bale, she located two cakes of salt and tucked them under one arm. Two more animals needed treatment. She was ready.

“Damnation.” Behind her, Nathaniel Chandler inhaled deeply. “Ah—sorry about that. Shouldn’t speak so before a lady.”

“Quite all right. My parents keep a coaching inn, and as a child I heard much worse from drunken customers.”

She bit her lip, cutting off further speech. When faced with a pair of twinkling blue eyes and a stable full of horses needing help, she was ready to drop every guard. She needed to be more careful.

And then she realized that he had cursed because he had got a good look at the inside of the bale.

“
Is
the hay moldy?” Dropping the salt blocks, she lunged to his side and grabbed for a handful of hay. Lucerne hay was among the finest types available, its scent pleasantly grassy and tangy when it was clean and well dried.

And this was. “It’s perfect. You’re not pleased?”

“Of course I’m pleased.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, where thin sunlight caught the golden glint of stubble. “Sort of. It means we still don’t know what’s wrong with the horses.”

“Sir William said it was colic.”

“True enough.” Rolling to his feet, he extended a hand to her and pulled her up as well. “But colic is a word that means everything and nothing.” From the floor, he picked up the two bricks of salt. “Colic can involve the gut or the lungs or even the hooves. The sort Epigram has can be due to a poison or simply to the horse not drinking enough water.”

“A poison,” murmured Rosalind. No…surely that was impossible. Aunt Annie had never destroyed anything without first making a plan for Rosalind’s departure. “How could someone have poisoned the horses?”

“It wouldn’t have to be a poison as we think of it. As something introduced with malice,” he said. “It could simply be something that disagrees with horses. Just as oysters should not be eaten during the summer months, but that’s not because they wish to hurt people.”

So he said. But some people
did
wish to hurt. “Could you tell if someone had intentionally poisoned the horses?”

His dark-gold brows lifted. “I can’t decide whether you’re the most conscientious secretary my father has ever had or the most suspicious.”

“Both, probably.”

“Probably.” He grinned and tossed a salt brick to Rosalind, who caught it in worry-cold fingers. “I don’t think Epigram has eaten something toxic. He didn’t have that look, and his belly didn’t have that feeling.”

“What is the look or the feeling?” She wanted to believe him. She wanted this all to be chance. Coincidence. She wanted to be just a secretary, doing exactly—and only—the work she was expected to complete.

Or a milkmaid, eager and confident. As long as she was wishing.

“I don’t know exactly,” he admitted. “I just…know them when I see them. You can tell the difference between a person with a rheumy cold and a person with her nose in everyone’s business, can you not? Both are disorders of the nose, but they show up differently.”

“Hmmm.” A question tumbled through her mind, only to fall from her lips a moment later. “Why
did
you check the hay again?”

His lips twisted. “Horse racing is a gentleman’s game. It’s a house of cards on a foundation of trust.”

This she had learned at once in her few weeks as Sir William’s secretary. So much of horse racing depended on trust. The trust that a horse was who his owner said, the trust that the jockey would race his best, trust that the odds would pay off and that bookmakers would honor the wagers scribbled in their little notebooks.

Such trust was a luxury for the wealthy. It was far too costly for those who could little afford to lose. At Rosalind’s father’s inn, travelers paid their expenses in advance.

The block of salt was dry and scaly on her hands. “‘Trust Nathaniel,’” she murmured. “You said it in your father’s study.”

“Exactly,” he said. “And I’ve got to make sure it’s a worthy thing to say, even if that means checking something I’ve checked before. Nothing’s too much trouble when the health of a horse depends on it.”

He waved a salt brick at her. “You might as well call me Nathaniel. Since you’re going to be trusting me and all that delightful stuff.”

“And you may call me Rosalind,” she said.
Trust Rosalind
, she wanted to add in echo of Nathaniel’s phrase.

But the letter hidden in her bodice poked her through her shift, and she dared not say another word.

“Nathaniel. You’re dirty again.”

At Sir William’s words, Rosalind looked up from the dazzling array of cutlery surrounding her dinner plate.

Nathaniel had just entered the dining parlor, a gray-walled room as sprawling and unadorned as Sir William’s study. Nathaniel had exchanged his travel-worn clothes for elegant dinner garments, but his cream-colored waistcoat was splotched dark.

“Wet, rather. Sorry about that,” he said easily as he pulled forth his chair. “Could have changed my attire again, but I didn’t want to be late for dinner.”

“Did you encounter another milkmaid?” Rosalind could not resist asking.

“Naturally.” He seated himself facing her across the broad table, which was covered with a cloth starched to such stiffness it could probably stand on end.

Sir William served himself a heap of boiled asparagus over toast. “In the house? I long to hear this tale.”

“She upset the water pump in the bathing room to get my attention. So that would make her a water maid, I suppose.”

“A nymph?” Rosalind suggested. “A naiad?”

Nathaniel snapped his fingers. “The very creature. You’ve seen her too, then.”

“No wine for Nathaniel,” grunted Sir William when the footman approached to fill his glass. “He is hallucinating.”

“Oh, surely a
little
wine for Nathaniel,” his son replied. “Half an inch?” He took the bottle from the footman and sloshed a careless amount into the goblet.

Sir William frowned but held his peace. “Miss Agate was just about to tell me what the pair of you thought of Pale Marauder’s condition.”

Was she? She had thought she was trying to pick the right fork. A girl raised in a coaching inn with a tavern was used to one size of fork for everything, and in her posts as governess for various households she’d never dined in company with the family.

“You can tell us about Sheltie too, if you had time to check on her,” added Sir William.

Nathaniel’s easy grin slipped. “Tell you. The two of you. Right. Sheltie has little strength, but I did get her to take some water. This was after you returned to the study, Miss Agate.”

Yet he did not look at Rosalind. He regarded his father with lowered chin and unblinking eyes. Almost as though he were daring the baronet to take issue.

This was not the first time Rosalind had seen tension flicker between father and son. Why was this? Of Sir William’s four grown offspring, Nathaniel was the only one who ever lived at Chandler Hall. Yet the two men were wary with each other. Like two horses that weren’t sure whether they were supposed to pull in tandem or race one another.

And there was no trainer for them. There was only Rosalind.

So she broke the weighty pause by picking up the stack of papers that had accompanied her almost everywhere within Chandler Hall—yes, even to meals—since the horses developed colic. Setting the stack down again with a flamboyant shuffle, she said, “You asked about Pale Marauder, Sir William. Your son’s treatment of the horse was like that of an experienced nanny with a misbehaving child. I could have watched them for hours.” She deepened her tone. “‘Now, then, my boy, you’re causing too much trouble. You need a bit of a walk. No, no biting. No kicking either.’”

Nathaniel coughed. “Is that
really
what I sound like? All froggy and odd?”

Rosalind waved a hand. “Close enough. What matters is you got that horse to obey you.” Pale Marauder was the most fractious of Sir William’s colts, as quick-tempered as he was curious.

“So you got him to walk.” Sir William served some roasted beef from a platter in front of his plate. “Good. Jubal prodded Epigram into a walk as well. And Miss Agate has begun another search through records related to the ill horses.” He indicated the pile of papers atop the snowy tablecloth, his expression grim. “This time, we seek to discover which servants cared for Epigram, Pale Marauder, and Sheltie before they took sick.”

“We,” sighed Nathaniel. Or maybe that was
oui
, and he was speaking French. Rosalind regarded him, puzzled.

He met her gaze after a moment, and his devil-may-care grin was back in place. “Miss Agate,” added Nathaniel, “I note that your appearance suffered no ill effects from the time in the stable. Which is
not
intended as a compliment.”

Time in the stable
.
That was one way of describing slipping to one’s knees in used straw when one tried to put a halter on that stubborn Pale Marauder
.
Or
coaxing that irritable colt from his stall with carrots and a half-remembered drinking song.

“I possess remarkable gifts,” said Rosalind. “One of which is to change my clothing before dinner.”

The spacious bathing room, with its piped hot and cold water, was a luxury at which Rosalind thought she would never cease to marvel. And yes, all right, she had washed her limbs and neck and face and tidied her hair when she changed her clothing. The dark-blue gown she now wore was her favorite. Though the style was plain, the fabric held a silky sheen that hinted at its original use in a much wealthier woman’s garment.

Sir William beheaded a stalk of asparagus. “Doesn’t anyone want to praise me? I was in the stable too, and I managed to get myself tidy before dinner, even though the pump mechanism in the bathing room was upset again.
Honestly
. Let’s all give ourselves a medal.”

Rosalind coughed to cover a laugh. “I’d love a gold one.”

“Make mine of lead. Like plumbing.” Nathaniel gestured toward the baronet with his fork. “Which reminds me, Father, that the pump is working again. You’ll get as much hot water as you wish.”

Aha. This must be the true cause of the supposed naiad’s splashes on his waistcoat. Rosalind had been wondering what the imaginary milkmaids across England represented. With no small sense of relief, she decided that they too were repairs and complications.

Not that it mattered if Nathaniel Chandler was regularly waylaid by lustful milkmaids. Or if he entertained a kept woman in every town.

In fact, it was better if he did, because then it would be easier for Rosalind to keep her head. The more she allowed herself to like him—and his father, of course, and the house and her work and the stable full of horses—the more she would hurt when she inevitably left.

And she already bore so many scars. She would rather not collect another, even if it were hidden within.

As Nathaniel began some carefully polite thread of conversation with his father, she noticed that his glass of wine had been left untouched.

* * *

Nathaniel had not remembered Rosalind Agate being so pretty. Now the realization was becoming rather distracting.

It wasn’t the sort of prettiness that came from some detail of form or feature or fashion. No, it was more that she was…
bright
, somehow. Her smile teased out his own, and even that of his gruff father. Her eyes were green, even in this giant candlelit cell of a room, and with a noticing look to them. He had the feeling everything that went into her eyes and ears stayed within her brain.

Maybe this was why noblemen usually kept male secretaries: so when their sons came home from a journey, unshaven and dirty, there were no lovely, noticing eyes in front of which to look like a fool.

He regretted the splash of water that had marred his waistcoat, but there was nothing to do about it now. Finishing some anecdote about his latest trip to London, he added, “You might be imagining, Miss Agate”—at table they must be formal again—“that since horse racing is the sport of kings, I dine with dukes and marquesses all the time.”

“I was hoping you dined with the king and the Prince Regent, actually. Now you have left me disappointed.” There was that smile again.

“If you dined with the Prince Regent,” Nathaniel said, “you
would
be disappointed. The man has no more manners than…”

“Pale Marauder,” suggested Sir William.

“Exactly. Anyway. When I’m in London, I often buy a meat pie off a street vendor and get on with business. And the grooms and stewards and others in the business of buying and selling horses are the same way.”

Though Nathaniel had dressed today for dinner in Hoby’s and Weston’s finest, in a cravat whiter and stiffer than meringue, he found the habits of the gentry more difficult to don. Only a highly leisured class could afford to waste time or money on the preparation of food no one would eat.

At this table, no one had yet touched the clear soup. Or the salad of spring greens. Or the boiled chicken with cauliflower, or the sliced jellied tongue.

This space could not have been more different from the one in which the Chandler family had dined throughout his childhood. That dining room had been warm, full of the tasty scents of freshly cooked meat and pickle and bread. Sir William had been striding about then—and actually, he hadn’t even been
sir
yet. Mrs. Chandler had been alive; Nathaniel’s elder brother, Jonah, had smiled sometimes; sister Abigail thought herself blissfully in love with one swain after another; and little Hannah clambered from lap to lap. The room had been too small for six people and a serving maid, so the red-walled space always roiled with people popping up and down from chairs, fetching this and that.

Here, a footman entered with another platter, each step of his shining shoes echoing over the stone floor. As he set down the dish, Nathaniel requested tea in place of wine. “Well, enough about my sad lack of dinners with the Prince Regent. Father, how did Epigram go on after I left his stall? You said he walked?”

Sir William sawed at his roast beef. “He did, and had a massive evacuation. Cheered him right up. It cheered Sir Jubal too, to see his horse lifting its head again.”

Rosalind looked up from the papers she had begun reviewing. “That is excellent. I am sure Epigram’s condition will improve rapidly.”

“It needs to, for I’ve promised Jubal a victory. Only Smolensko has won both the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby Stakes, and Sir Jubal is determined Epigram shall be the second double champion.” With his knife, the baronet counted the sawed-off bites of beef, then pushed aside the rest on his plate. “For my part, I’m determined his faith in us won’t be misplaced.”

In us
. In Epigram and Sir William?

This was as good a time as any to shoulder himself into that company. “May I hand you any dishes, Father?”

The heavy gray head looked up. “Hmm? Oh—yes, the soup.”

Nathaniel rose to slide the porcelain tureen within reach of his father, then took a deep breath as he seated himself again. “So if the horses seem to be recovering, we might begin to speak about how they’ll get to Epsom.”

“Sothern always takes them.” Sir William eyed the ladle, then served out a bit more soup.

“But Sothern is on his way to the stud farm. With the new broodmare.”

Sir William dropped the ladle back into the tureen with a
clack
. “He can be recalled.”

“Or. Well. I rather thought”—Nathaniel thanked the footman for the teapot and cup the servant set beside his plate—“that I could take them.”

He didn’t breathe while Sir William swallowed three deliberate spoonfuls of soup. “No need for that,” the baronet finally decided. “I shall find someone else. Jonah, maybe.”

“With a new horse to care for? He won’t want to go. Father, really—I travel to London more often than the Royal Mail. I think I can make it a bit farther to Epsom.”

“Bart might be able to go.” This was Sir Bartlett Crosby, the new husband of Nathaniel’s younger sister, Hannah. “He and Hannah could—”

“Father, Hannah is with child. She cannot make the journey. And Bart has his own estate to manage.” He considered his next words carefully. Pausing. Laying hold of his teacup. When he poured out tea, steam rose in the cold air. “I can do this, Father. I know you would not deny me simply because this is not the way things have been done in the past.”

“True. So I’ll simply say no.” Sir William counted bites of vegetables before forking up two more. Thus it had been for thirteen years: the baronet’s every bite and drink measured in an attempt to return his body to his control. “Nathaniel, you are good at—at the sort of thing you are good at.”

“High praise,” his son muttered. Shooting a glance at Rosalind Agate, he found her absorbed in her papers. Lifting a glass of wine to her lips as she turned a page.

He traced the swallow of it, the movement of her smooth throat, the way her tongue touched her lips to catch a leftover drop. How delicious it looked, and not only the wine.

He poured out a cup of tea and took a cautious sip. It was not what he wanted, but he drank it all the same.

“Surely you understand.” Sir William set down his fork. “You’re a flirt. A—a charmer of milkmaids. You have an easy manner that wins people over.”

Across the table, Rosalind made a choking sound and avoided his gaze.

“Again with the high praise,” Nathaniel said. “I feel a blush coming on.”

“It is praise in a way. It’s good at a horse sale or in a tavern. It’s not right for a trip of this seriousness when anything might happen. Our family’s reputation is at stake.”

Well, hell. Hoist with his own petard—was that the phrase? For years, he’d tried to earn Sir William’s trust by painting his every journey as effortless. And it had worked for a while, allowing those journeys to spin out longer and longer, covering much of England.

“I’m sure I can cope with whatever arises,” Nathaniel said. “I fixed the pump in the bathing room, you know.”

“Ah—yes, all right. Thank you. But there won’t be any bathing rooms along the road.”

“Then I’ll fix chamber pots and cisterns. And I’m extremely serious-minded. Or I can be. Hypotenuse? Philosophy? Er…a little help, Miss Agate.”

She looked up from her papers, a frown of concentration creasing her brows. “Iron gall ink. Penny post. Budget. Stitchery.”

“My thoughts exactly. See, Father?
So
serious.”

Sir William shook his head. “Also serious? Colic. I can’t risk further endangering the health of these horses.” He rubbed at his chin in thought. “Perhaps if trusted servants went with you. Miss Agate could—”