Recklessly Yours (43 page)

“You'll accomplish nothing by fretting,” Willow reminded her, not for the first time. “Come take your tea. Colin will be safe with his valet, Kirkston, at his side, and they'll both be home before you know it.”

Holly knew her sisters were right, but she couldn't force herself to turn away from the window. Would Colin return with the colt? At least then the people of Devonshire would rest easy and continue with their lives, though she and Colin would have to face the queen's wrath.

Whirls of dust arose from the road. Her hopes surging, Holly craned her neck, only to be disappointed a moment later when an unfamiliar phaeton turned onto the drive.

“Holly, did you just groan?”

Willow's query turned her away from the window. She lifted the teacup Ivy had poured for her some five minutes ago and sipped the cooling liquid. As she did, she heard the front door opening. Voices drifted in from the main hall.

“I am sorry to say His Grace is away from home, sir.”

“Good gracious, is he indeed?” a man's voice said with surprise. “I had written to tell the duke of my coming, but my letter must have gone astray. How unfortunate. I am told by a mutual acquaintance, Lord Kinnard of the Jockey Club, that the Ashworth stud is the finest in all of England. Dear me, what to do now?”

A short silence ensued, whereupon the voice took up again with, “Might I speak with the duke's eldest son?”

“Lord Drayton is in residence, sir, but presently not at home. Perhaps Lord Bryce might be of assistance?”

“Ah, yes, Lord Kinnard mentioned Lord Bryce. Would you tell him Mr. Anthony Verrell wishes to see him about a certain of the family's Thoroughbreds.”

“If you'll kindly wait in here, sir, I'll see if his lordship is receiving.”

“Thank you, my dear man.”

The door of the receiving parlor opened and the footman stopped short, nearly causing the visitor to stumble into his back. The young man in the Ashworth livery blushed furiously, his startled gaze lighting on Holly and each of her sisters.

“I beg pardon, ladies. I . . . I didn't know anyone was in here. This room isn't typically occupied. . . .”

Ivy smiled up at him. “Quite all right. Perhaps Mr. . . . er . . .”

The visitor stepped around the footman and doffed his beaver hat. “Verrell. Anthony Verrell, at your service, madam.”

Willow lifted the teapot. “We were just having tea, Mr. Verrell, if you would care to join us.”

As the gentleman expressed his delight at the idea, the footman strode off to summon Bryce Ashworth and procure a fourth cup and saucer. After initial introductions, Holly sat quietly while Ivy and Willow made polite conversation with their guest. She found him to be a distinguished-looking gentleman of about fifty, tall and slender, impeccably dressed, his hair thick if slightly graying. She thought it oddly ironic that he should come now of all times to inquire about purchasing a racehorse, but perhaps news of the illness hadn't spread as far as London, or wherever he had come from.

Judging by the questions he asked, he seemed to know very little about horses, but Holly found she didn't have the energy to enlighten him. That would be Bryce's job, or Colin's when he returned home. She was nonplussed, therefore, when not only Bryce but also Sabrina entered the room, made Mr. Verrell's acquaintance, and bade Holly accompany them as they took the man on a tour of the stables.

“I'll come, too, if I may.” Willow stood up from the settee and smoothed her skirts. She glanced back at Ivy. “Unless, of course, you need me here.”

Ivy waved a hand at her. “You've been shut up in this house with me quite long enough. Go and enjoy.”

Holly eyed her youngest sister. Exactly when had Willow stopped hiding from Bryce Ashworth and begun volunteering to be in his company? Had Holly been so absorbed in her own concerns since returning to Masterfield Park that she'd missed a significant development?

She herself preferred to remain behind with Ivy so she could wait for Colin
and
discover what had transpired between Willow and Bryce in her absence. As the small group gathered to escort Mr. Verrell to the stables, she gestured Sabrina aside. “Surely you don't need me to come along.”

“On the contrary,” Sabrina whispered back from behind her hand. “You've worked closely with Colin these past several days. Should our guest ask questions about the ailment, who better to answer them? Who better to offer assurance that the cause has been found and the worst over?”

“But . . .”

Sabrina's features sharpened. “Do not think I am worrying about making a sale to this gentleman. You know how I view financial matters.” Holly didn't particularly, but she remained silent as Sabrina continued. “I couldn't give a fig whether he makes his purchase from us or from any of a host of other studs. As things now stand, we will have to withdraw most or all of our entrants from the Royal Meeting. It cannot be helped when the horses have suffered so. But there will be other races, and it is of the utmost importance that people perceive the Ashworth stud as settling back to normal. Otherwise, can you imagine the havoc to be wreaked in the betting boxes this racing season?”

Holly knew she was right. Fortunes were made and lost at the races. Inaccurate information could easily cause a panic and skew the betting in artificial, damaging directions.

But
had
the Ashworth Thoroughbreds been irreparably weakened? With that question in mind, Holly followed the others through the gardens and to the stables. As they proceeded, she kept an eye on her sister, but Willow showed no interest in Bryce other than the polite deference a guest owed her host.

As they moved from stall to stall, Bryce or Sabrina explained the particular attributes of the animals, along with their sires and dames. Meanwhile, Holly closely examined each horse: the color of the eyes, the rhythm of the breathing, the sheen of the coat. Whenever asked, she offered her opinions on their condition and soon held Mr. Verrell's attention more than did either Ashworth. But it wasn't until Mr. Verrell commented on her obvious devotion to the Ashworth stud that she gave an inner start.

The gentleman was right. Somewhere during the past several days, she had begun to think of the stud in very personal terms, and these horses as being as much a part of her as her own family. And that led to a further revelation that, in her heart, she had already taken on the role of Colin Ashworth's wife.

“If I may ask, where do you come by your expertise, Miss Sutherland?”

She hadn't noticed Mr. Verrell's accent before then, but now she heard something in his pronunciations that suggested English was not his first language; that hinted at a Continental upbringing. “Merely a lifelong interest in horses,” she replied.

“Ah, it must be more than that. The average rider boasts far less knowledge than you, miss.”

She smiled. “I suppose I was lucky in that the uncle who raised me was kind enough to indulge a young girl's fixation. I was always happiest either in the saddle or trailing our grooms as they went about their business. I cannot think but they must have considered me quite the nuisance.”

“I am pleased you were not shooed from those stables. Your uncle raised you, you say . . . ?”

He strolled with her down the stable's center aisle, the conversation turning to the pros and cons of purchasing either a filly or a colt for investment purposes. Again Holly answered his questions as best she could, advising him to wait for Colin's return before making any decisions. Once she glanced back over her shoulder to see her sister walking with Sabrina and Bryce, but it was with the latter that Willow quietly spoke. A vivid blush suffused Willow's cheeks, and in response to something Bryce murmured, her laughter echoed through the stables. Then Mr. Verrell once more claimed Holly's attention.

Colin stopped his mount just outside a pair of open gates that looked in jeopardy of falling off their hinges. At the other end of a drive choked with brambles and weeds, a stand of neglected elms and twisted hawthorn half concealed a smallish manor of whitewashed brick. Darkened, dirty windows, a number of them cracked, stared blankly back. Colin neither saw nor heard signs of habitation.

“It appears deserted, sir.” Beside him, his valet, Kirkston, lifted his face in a houndlike gesture as if scenting the breeze.

“It most certainly does.” Caution put Colin's senses on the alert. “The message said to bypass the house and go round to the stables.”

He clucked his gelding forward. Kirkston followed, a telltale click letting Colin know the older man held his pistol at the ready. Colin's own weapon weighted his coat pocket.

To the rear of the house, overgrown shrubbery signified what had once been a garden. A long stone building with a broken slate roof squatted off to one side, its narrow windows shuttered with splintering, weather-warped panels.

“The stables,” Kirkston said unnecessarily.

Stopping in the concealing shadow of the terrace steps, Colin dismounted and fished his double-barreled percussion pistol from his pocket. “Watch over the horses,” he said.

His valet was off his own mount in an instant. “I'm very sorry, sir, but that's one order I feel compelled to disobey. I'd prefer to watch over you.”

Colin regarded the man's squared jaw, tight mouth, and most of all his obstinate gaze, and thought better of arguing. Leaving the horses to graze, he led the way past the ground floor of the house, passing dusty kitchen windows and storage cellar doors. Like the house itself, the stables were small, more befitting a prosperous country farm than an estate. Heaps of dead leaves and what might have been kitchen scraps lay moldering against the back wall of the structure. Using the unkempt foliage for cover, they crept close, taking only shallow breaths to avoid the stench. Moving to one corner, Colin flattened himself against the granite stones and attempted to peer through the closest window.

He opened the shutter slightly and had just put his eye to the gap when a
thunk
from inside sent him back around to the rear. He came to Kirkston's side, and the valet put a firm hand at his elbow.

“Did you see anything, sir?” he asked in an undertone.

Colin shook his head, then eased forward again. To his mild annoyance, Kirkston grasped the hem at the back of his coat as if ready to pull him away at the slightest hint of danger. This time Colin heard no sound, and now that he thought of it, the original
thunk
might have been nothing more than a falling tree limb.

A snort reached his ears, followed by a soft whicker. He nearly set off at a run to the front of the stable. Kirkston, however, still held his coat.

“Prudence, sir,” he advised in a whisper.

Colin nodded, and the other man released him. Together they crept along the wall. As they went they heard more sounds of a horse inside, as well as a human occupant. The possibility of that person being Stuart Bentley raised spots of fury before Colin's eyes, until the man inside spoke again.

“There, there, my good boy . . .”

Not Bentley. Colin couldn't make out the rest, and it took him a moment to realize the man spoke in French. Then his brain began to loosely translate.

“We must return you to your rightful owner,” the man murmured, and received a whicker in reply.

Colin and Kirkston reached the stable yard and each straddled the low stone wall. A lone horse stood tied to a railing across the way, stretching its neck to munch the grass that had pushed between the stones. They moved soundlessly to the double doors. One stood open a few feet, admitting a triangle of light across the filthy, hay-strewn cobbles inside.

Swiftly Kirkston darted across the doorway so that they now flanked the opening. His vantage point giving him the better view, the valet leaned over to survey the scene inside. With his gun at the ready, Kirkston held up one finger to signal that he had spied a single man. He questioned Colin with a glance. Colin tightened his grip on his pistol and nodded.

Kirkston kicked the door wider. As it slammed against the inner wall, they strode inside, taking aim with their pistols at a tall, lean man who was about to feed the missing Exmoor colt a carrot.

“Put your hands above your head where I can see them,” Colin ordered.

The bright carrot floated upward in the dimness.

Colin raised the revolver higher. “Now turn slowly toward me, and make no sudden movements.”

The middle-aged face that met his gaze was that of a complete stranger. Somehow, Colin had expected to find someone at least partially known to him, a member of the racing world who coveted his success, perhaps even one of his recent guests. Colin took a moment to survey the colt, or what he could see of him above the stall gate. He noted the proud angle of the head, the forward, alert set of the ears, and the sharp gleam of the eyes.