Joan Wolf (3 page)

“My lady!” Mrs. Fenton was at the farmhouse door, wiping her hands on her apron. I smiled at her, dismounted, tied Elf to the front gate, and went inside.

Susan Fenton was a few years older than I, the daughter of one Weston tenant farmer and the wife of another. She took me into the kitchen to brew tea, and her expressed sorrow about Gerald’s death was undoubtedly sincere. I thanked her and we took our tea into the small, chilly sitting room that was used only for “company.” Susan Fenton placed the teapot on a gateleg table and gestured me to an oak chair whose seat was softened by a blue-and-white embroidered cushion.

I arranged the full skirt of my gray riding habit. “I’ve come to apologize about the shrubbery,” I said.

Her pretty face, with its fresh apple-blossom skin, was very sober. “I know you’ll make good on the shrubbery, my lady, that isn’t my concern. But my Robby often plays out there by himself. It’s protected, see.” She sipped her tea. “Leastways, I thought it was.”

“I was looking at it from the road. The horse came right through it?”

“Aye. Fair scared the heart out of me.”

I could see how it would have. “It wasn’t one of the hunt members, Susan,” I assured her. “It was some fool of a visitor on a horse he couldn’t handle.”

“It don’t matter to me who it was, my lady,” Susan said very firmly. “I know this is Weston land, but Fenton has a lease on it, and I don’t want no hunt coming near my house again.”

The grandfather clock in the room chimed the hour, and I waited until it was finished before saying, “They aren’t supposed to come near the houses, Susan. Sir Matthew says that the rest of the field was a mile away.”

“Small comfort it would have been to Robby’s grieving mama and papa that the horse wasn’t supposed to come near the house,” Susan retorted swiftly. “He
was
near the house, my lady, and he could have killed my baby.”

Perhaps I should explain here that Susan and I do not have the sort of relationship that usually prevails between a countess and the wife of one of her tenants. She had known me since first I came to Weston Hall as a lonely and unhappy child. She had taken me to pick blueberries and had taught me to plant a vegetable garden. It was Susan who had first told me about a woman’s monthly flow.

“You’re right, of course,” I said with resignation. The delicious aroma of baking bread wafted into the room from the direction of the kitchen, and I sniffed blissfully. “That bread isn’t finished by any chance, is it, Susan?”

Susan knew how much I loved her bread. “It will be finished in a few minutes, my lady, if you can wait.”

“For your bread, Susan, I would wait an eternity
“
I
said.

She looked pleased, and reluctantly I returned to the business that had brought me. “You have never had any problem with our own hunt members, have you?”

Susan frowned thoughtfully at the row of pewter plates arranged decoratively on her oak sideboard. “No,” she finally admitted.

“Suppose I recommend that in the future no one will be allowed to hunt with us except members?”

She looked uncertain.

“You know all our members, Susan,” I said reasonably. “There is no one among us who can’t be trusted to stay away from houses.”

The Sussex Hunt was remarkably democratic, and Susan did indeed know all our members. Several of the more prosperous tenant farmers hunted with us, as well as the owner of the King’s Arms in the village. It was the disapproval of this last personage, Harry Blackstone, that probably weighed the most with Susan. If Harry’s hunting was spoiled by Bob Fenton’s wife, Bob would find himself unwelcome in the taproom of the King’s Arms. This would not sit well with Bob.

“There will be a great deal of ill feeling toward you and Bob if you refuse to allow the hunt to cross your fields,” I said, ruthlessly exploiting this advantage.

Susan gave me one of her “That’s one point for you” looks. I smiled guilelessly.

“Would the rest of the hunt members agree to eliminate guests, my lady?” she asked.

“They won’t be pleased,” I said frankly. “It will probably mean that their subscriptions will have to be raised. But I think you have a valid concern. Either we will have to hunt solely on the Downs, or we will have to be more careful about whom we allow to come out with us. Your Robby could indeed have been seriously hurt if he had been playing in the shrubbery when that horse came crashing through.”

Over a second cup of tea arid a few slices of Susan’s bread, I promised to send men over from the hall with fresh boxwood plants to replace her ruined shrubs. I had finished my refreshment and was getting ready to reclaim Elf when Susan said, “Did you know that Jem Washburn was back, my lady?”

I subsided back into my chair. “No, I did not know that Jem was back.” My surprise sounded in my voice.

One of Susan’s cats, seeing that my lap was empty, jumped up to make herself comfortable, I began to stroke her soft gray fur.

“Washburn is dying, but I don’t think Jem has come back to say good-bye to his dear old pa,” Susan said ironically.

“Washburn is a pig,” I said. “Everyone always knew that he beat Jem, but no one would ever do anything to stop it.”

“Mr. Stephen tried to stop it,” Susan said.

My hand stopped its stroking motion, and the cat turned her head, fixed a commanding stare on me, and gave a sharp, indignant meow. I began to pet her again.

“Bob says Jem has come home to take over his father’s lease on the farm,” Susan told me, “but he’s afraid Mr. Grandville won’t give it to him. Jem was wild as a boy, but I hear he’s steadied now that he’s older.”

I scratched the cat beneath her chin, and her purr got louder. I said, “It is not Mr. Grandville who will make the decision about who is to get the Washburn farm.”

Susan’s pretty face was full of anticipation. “Is it true, then, my lady? Is Mr. Stephen really coming home?”

“Lord Weston named him to be Giles’s guardian,” I said. “Under the circumstances, I cannot see any reason for him to remain in Jamaica.”

“It will make us all so happy,” Susan said, “to have Mr. Stephen home again.”

* * * *

The sun had burned off the rest of the clouds while I was inside Susan’s cottage, and after offering Elf a drink and tightening her girth, I mounted. Instead of returning home by the Weston Road, however, I turned my mare onto the well-trodden dirt path that led from the village to the Downs. Her ears pricked as she realized where we were going, and her trot became bounder.

I let Elf break into a canter as we drew closer to the rolling hills that marked the skyline to the north, and very soon we were cantering over the close, fine turf of the Sussex Downs. I felt the surge of Elf’s hindquarters under me as we began to climb. I was riding sidesaddle today, as I always did except when I was hunting, and I was careful to keep my weight balanced forward so as not to weigh her down as she drove uphill.

We reached the level top of the Downs and turned toward the double row of juniper bushes that made a sort of natural lane, about fifty yards wide, along the top of the hill.

Elf’s ears flicked forward until they were almost touching. She knew what was coming, and the instant I moved my hands forward, she accelerated into a full gallop. The wind whipped past my ears, and I clicked to Elf to go faster. She stretched out, a Thoroughbred in flat-out run, one of the fastest things in the world, and I bent low over her neck, and the ground streamed past beneath us, and the blood pumped strongly through my veins, and I wanted never to stop.

We did about a mile at full speed, and then we began to slow down. At the end of a mile and a half we were cantering easily. By the time we reached the point where I could pick up the path that would take me home, Elf was trotting.

The sky had turned a deep cobalt, with a few high white clouds sailing with infinite grace across an endless expanse of blue. I pulled Elf up and together we looked out across the small and sunny valley that was our home.

Weston Hall and Park occupied almost all of the eastern part of the valley. I could see the great stone house quite clearly, as well as the stables, the horse pastures, and the lake.

I could even make out the fishing pavilion on the lakeshore and the icehouse as well.

The village of Weston lay to the west of the park. From my vantage point on the Downs it looked like a mere cluster of trees and houses amid the spreading farmland. The church lay on the outskirts of the village, and its spire jutted up toward the blue heavens with graceful authority.

To the north of the village, nestled right up against the Downs, lay the second most import ant house in the neighborhood: Stanhope Manor, the home of Sir Matthew. I could see the beginning of the park, but the house itself was hidden from my view.

The rest of the valley comprised rich farmland, most of which was owned by the earl of Weston and leased out to tenants. I could not see beyond the ridge that formed the southern wall of the valley, but I knew that on the far side of that steep, wooded hillside the land sloped away for several miles before it reached the Channel and the small port town of West Haven. It was this ridge of land that sheltered the valley from the Channel winds and made it one of the most clement places in all of England.

After a few minutes, I sent Elf forward and we made our way downhill over the turf until we reached the dirt path that would take us back to Weston Park.

Chapter Three

When I reached home, Hodges, our
butler, met me at the door to inform me that Gerald’s cousin, Jack Grandville, had come to visit. Hodges had put him in the library.

“He came with a portmanteau, my lady, but I have not yet sent his bag upstairs.” Hodges had a great beak of a nose, which had fascinated me ever since I was a child. It was a perfect indicator of his moods, and at the present moment it was quivering with indignation.

Jack had been visiting Weston for as long as I could remember. He was the only son of Gerald’s father’s only brother, and as such, he stood next in line after Giles and Stephen to inherit the earldom.
As
the son of a younger son, Jack was chronically short of money, and he had long made a habit of coming to stay at Weston when he needed to live cheaply for a while. I didn’t understand Hodges’s sudden disapproval.

“Why haven’t you sent his bag upstairs, Hodges?” I inquired as I stripped off my gloves.

“He is an unmarried gentleman, and he should not be staying in the house with you while you are alone, Miss Annabelle,” Hodges said. His slip into the old childhood name was the measure of his distress.

“Nonsense,” I said. “Mr. Jack is family.”

The beak veritably quaked with outrage. “It isn’t proper, Mi... my lady. If he stays here, there will be
talk.”

As I regarded Hodges’s nose, it occurred to me that I did not particularly want Jack underfoot from morning until night. I slapped my gloves thoughtfully against my riding skirt, then said, “I suppose he could stay with Mr. Adam.”

The beak stopped quivering. Hodges smiled and said, “I will have Mr. Jack’s portmanteau sent to the Dower House immediately, my lady.”

“You had better check with Mrs. Grandville first,” I warned.

“Of course, my lady.”

I tossed my gloves onto a delicate Louis XIV table and said, “Have some lemonade sent to the library, Hodges, will you? I am rather thirsty from my ride.”

He was as pleasant as he could be now that he had gotten his way. “Of course, my lady.” He gave me a benign smile. “It is good to see you with some color in your cheeks.”

I couldn’t resist. I looked around the immense marble entrance hall in which we were standing, with its Roman-style columns and classical statues poised in pale green niches, and asked innocently, “Where is Mr. Jack’s portmanteau, Hodges?”

He said immediately, “It is under the stairs, my lady.”

We looked at each other. I knew, and he knew I knew, that he had sent it over to Uncle Adam’s even before I came in.

“It is nice of you to keep up the pretense that I am in charge here, Hodges,” I said amiably.

He had the grace to look abashed. I grinned and went across the gleaming black-and-white marble floor, past the great formal staircase, and into the corridor. Instead of crossing the corridor into the formal salon, I turned left and went along the passageway that led to the family part of the house. The door opposite the bedroom staircase was open, and I walked into the library, an enormous, chestnut-paneled room with book shelves that reached all the way up to the high, gilt-ornamented ceiling. Above the green and white marble fireplace hung a portrait of the first Earl of Weston, a man who looked remarkably like Gerald dressed in the gaudy finery of the Restoration.

There was a man standing by the front window, and even though my feet made no sound on the thick, Turkish carpet, he turned to face me. The sunlight glinted off his fair hair, and for a moment, even though I knew who he was, my heart leaped into my throat.

“Annabelle,” Jack’s voice said. He came toward me, then frowned in quick concern. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just... when the sunlight caught your hair... I thought for a moment that you were Gerald.”

“Oh, my dear. I am sorry. Sit down, you look alarmingly pale.”

I managed a smile. “I’m all right.” But I let him take my arm and lead me toward the group of four Chippendale armchairs that were arranged in a square next to the great globe. I sat and looked up into the face that bore the stamp of Gerald’s blond-haired, blue-eyed, good looks without Gerald’s geniality. There was a hardness about Jack’s mouth, a faintly hawk-like look about his nose that had not been present in my husband.

“Let me pour you a glass of Madeira,” he said.

My knees still felt a little shaky. “All right,” I agreed, and watched as he went to the Sheraton cabinet that always held a few bottles of wine and glasses. He poured, then handed me the glass in silence. I took one sip, and then I took another. I looked up into his concerned face and repeated, “I’m all right.”

He touched the bridge of my nose with a light finger, said, “You’ve been riding without a hat again, your freckles are out,” and went to pour some Madeira for himself.