The Wagered Miss Winslow (5 page)

So taken was Mollie that, as her mistress wielded the reins of the pony cart and she sat herself on the bed of the cart, her legs dangling over the rear edge, she waved good-bye to the man until a turn of the lane took them completely out of sight. And Mr. Remington, bless his heart, had waved back to her. Willie Shanks? Hah! He couldn’t hold a candle to Mr. Beaumont Remington. Mollie leaned back in the cart, smiling dreamily, in love for the third time that month.

And so, Beaumont “Bobby” Remington had come to East Sussex and, although his journey had not been without minor mishap, he had succeeded in making a favorable impression upon at least one of the local inhabitants.

Her mistress, sitting ramrod-stiff on the seat of the pony cart, was another matter entirely. Her mind was tumbling over itself with questions that had no answers. And, she knew, there would be no time to get those answers, for Niall was safely tucked up in London, with no hope of being reached. Besides, if she could magically transport herself into his presence, she would be entirely too involved in beating him heavily about the head and shoulders with her riding crop to pay much attention to his explanation—an explanation that would undoubtedly serve no purpose except to prove once more that her brother was a mean, revengeful, petty creature.

No, she would have to deal with this man, this Beaumont Remington, by herself. With only Riggs, a single young groom of limited wit, and a household of women behind her, she would have to stand fast, denying Beaumont Remington what he seemed to feel his right—entrance to Winslow Manor.

And possession of Winslow Manor. She could not forget that. The man actually believed he owned the estate. She had read the family tree traced on the inside cover of the Bible she had found on a high shelf in the library, of course, and should have recognized the Remington name at once. For Beaumont Remington was right to say that Winslow Manor had once been Remington Manor. Thirty-five years ago. A lifetime ago. Certainly more than
her
lifetime.

And the Winslows had won it in a card game? It had never occurred to her to ask how her father had come by the estate. She had first seen it when she was no more than ten, as it was their most southern, most minor holding, but she had fallen in love with it on sight. When the time had come to admit that her father was dying, she had gone to him and told him that all she wanted from him, all she wanted from life, was to own Winslow Manor, and her father, loving her, had agreed to turn over the deed to her.

There had been a hitch to the gift, of course, due to the fact that Rosalind was a female and, even worse, had not yet reached her majority. Niall’s name had been added to the deed, giving him ownership in half the estate.

But it had been purely a legality. They had been given duplicate deeds, one bearing her name, one his. Technically, she owned the buildings, and he owned the land that it and the surrounding farms stood on. She had nearly forgotten that, probably because she had wanted to forget. After all, everyone knew that Rosalind was the owner, that her father had meant Winslow Manor to be her inheritance.

“But half of the estate is still technically Niall’s,” she said aloud as another turn in the lane led her to the crest of a small hill and within sight of Winslow Manor. “Or at least it was.”

She pulled the cart to a halt and looked down at the rolling hills, the fields just now being planted, and the house she had lived in for the past five years.

Winslow Manor sat in the middle of a small dell, surrounded on three sides by artfully planted stands of trees, the whole of it encircled by a nigh brick wall in the same manner that Winchelsea had been surrounded by farms spread out to the east, north, and west. Where Wincnelsea had been designed with four gates, Winslow Manor had only two, but they were both in good repair, and with strong locks on them to keep out people not expressly invited inside.

Not that they were ever locked.

Not that they wouldn’t be stoutly secured the moment she could give the order.

The house itself was not all that imposing as estate houses went, containing only three salons, a music room, library, morning room and study, and only seventeen bedrooms. But it was home. Her home. And she loved every mellow pink brick in the H-shaped, four-storied building.

Late afternoon sunlight winked against the windows as she flicked the reins, urging the pony into movement once more, and she drove straight in through the rear gates, even though she knew Riggs would be waiting for her just inside the front door, wringing his thin hands as he paced the foyer, sure his mistress had come to grief in St. Leonard’s churchyard.

And, she thought wryly, sighing, in an oblique sort of way, she had.

M
orning arrived, as it always does, and Beau had not slept well, an occurrence that came as no surprise to him, as his shoulder had been hurting like the very devil ever since his spill, and even more after the good doctor had gotten through pushing and pulling on it. He hadn’t broken his arm after all, but only “suffered a slight dislocation of the shoulder, good sir, which I can put right if you were but to lie back and bite on this stick and let me work.”

As Dr. Beales’ idea of “work” was to all but stand on Beau, his foot on Beau’s chest (and the doctor was not a small man) while he pulled on his arm and Sam Hackett straddled his legs, Beau was supremely gratified to feel the bone move in his shoulder and hear the slight
pop
that told him his anatomy was now back the way the good Lord had intended it to be.

He had been brave about the thing, for his years in His Majesty’s Royal Navy had long since taught him that there weren’t that many people in the world who cared a snap if you complained. But that did not mean that he didn’t welcome his landlord gratefully when the man showed up bearing a full bottle of brandy.

Yet even the brandy did not guide him toward rest, though the saints knew he had made the most of it before giving in to the throbbing in his shoulder and taking to his bed, his boots still on his feet, as he could not remove them himself and he’d be damned if he’d ruin the leather on a bootjack.

He had simply been too excited to sleep, even if his shoulder had been fine. After all, the very next morning, only a day later than he had hoped, and after thirteen years of waiting, of wishing, of planning, Beaumont Remington was going home.

Out of bed just before six, Beau had called for help with his boots so that he could wash and dress, which ended with an ostler named Jake doing valet duty, an unlooked-for exercise in clumsiness that had Beau sorely missing his own man, Woodrow, a happenstance that he would have denied vigorously only a day earlier.

By nine of the clock Beau was on his way through one of the massive stone gates of Winchelsea once more, his bays hitched to his skillfully repaired curricle, his portmanteau tied behind the seat, and a smile on his face. It was a lovely day, a glorious day, even more glorious than yesterday, and if his left arm was still confined to a sling (a sober black square, thank you, and not a muddy blue scarf) he still was most firmly convinced that he was no less than the happiest of men.

He drew the curricle to a halt near the spot he was sure had been the scene of his mishap the day before and, frowning, alighted from the vehicle to inspect an odd-looking site in the near distance. It was another ruin, he recognized immediately, in an area he believed to be inordinately thick with the things. But this one was different.

Stepping carefully, he walked toward a large area in the very center of the ruined church that seemed to have been scraped of all grass and then staked out in a grid, with bits of wood and string marking each area. The dirt was dug out to a different level inside each grid, as if someone were lifting off an even layer of earth at a time, to reveal the next layer.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw something lying near one of the blocks of the grid and went to inspect it, only to find a wooden frame containing mesh screening, a few planks, and a small trowel.

“Well, I’ll be damned for a tinker,” he exclaimed in amusement when at last his brain had digested all that he had seen. He had heard about such things, of course. The whole country was mad for history, even going so far in the century just past as to build their own ruins wherever the Romans and other ancient races had been so uncooperative as to neglect to erect structures that would, once abandoned, eventually fall down.

As far as Beau was concerned, Miss Rosalind Winters, that prickly little female of the dirt smudges, sharp tongue, and outlandish clothing, had an odd notion of a suitable pastime for a lady.

Beau frowned. Scrabbling in the dirt, was she? And what did she hope to discover, some long-dead monk? Hadn’t the woman ever heard of watercolors, or needlepoint? Once he had established himself at Remington Manor he would make a point of learning her direction, for he knew himself to be more than mildly interested in just what the unusual Miss Winters would look like once she’d had a good wash and brushup.

He might have tarried longer, walking through the bits and pieces of a bygone age, but he felt his unease building. Silly, he concluded, that he should have this vague anxiety, this uncomfortable fluttering that he’d previously only felt just before a battle. This wasn’t a battle, he assured himself, this was victory, and he was cast in the role of the conquering hero.

Turning for one last look at the ruined church, and giving the long-departed monks a smart salute, Beau then climbed back into his curricle and headed off down the lane—injured, completely unarmed, and woefully under-informed—eager to claim the spoils of war.

The second time he reined in the bays was at the exact spot where, a day earlier, Rosalind Winslow had halted the pony cart, and his appraising look was no less appreciative of the scene that lay before him. The fields he saw were his. Every stone in the low wall surrounding the estate was his, every tree, every flower, every shining pane of glass in every window. His. By birth. As a reward for all the hard years, all the trials and tribulations, all the shattered illusions of a child named Bobby Reilly.

He hadn’t dared to visit this site before, believing that, if he did, his passions might cause him to act rashly, clumsily, too abruptly, leading to disaster and defeat. He had formulated his plans well, and executed them with precision. He had reclaimed his estate, his family’s honor, with calm, almost dispassionate cunning, but the time to pull hard on the reins of his thirst for vengeance was over. Now he would, and did, look his fill.

If Beau were a sentimental man, which he had always taken great pains to deny, he might have shed a tear or two as he looked over his home. But even a determinedly unsentimental man might be excused if he felt at least faintly misty-eyed, and that much Beau did allow himself before driving on.

A few minutes later he had arrived at the front gates, unsurprised to find that they were locked up tight. Niall Winslow was an absent owner, and Beau had not sent word that he was to be expected, although Bridget, Woodrow, and all that his own coach and two hired vehicles could carry would doubtless appear on the scene by late this afternoon, having made the journey from London in easy stages.

Beau was just about to climb down from the curricle yet another time—a deuced difficult maneuver, as his shoulder was beginning to ache abominably— when he spied a youth of about sixteen a short distance away on the other side of the iron gates, kicking a largish stone in front of him as he meandered down the well-maintained gravel drive.

“Hello there, lad!” Beau called brightly, to the boy who was dressed in a grooms smock and leggings, pleased to see the first of what must now be one of his employees. “Do the pretty for me, like a good fellow, and unlatch these gates, will you?”

The groom looked up, squinting, and Beau could see that he appeared puzzled by this simple request. He didn’t move from his current position, which was standing stock-still in the middle of the drive, his hands clasped behind his back and one foot lifted as if to give the stone another kick. “Ye be talkin’ ta me, sir?” the lad asked at last.

Oh, yes. Beau had been right. The groom was none too overstuffed in his brainbox. “Unless you have an invisible twin, yes, I do believe I was addressing you. Come now, it’s a simple enough request. Just walk forward and unlatch the gates. You can do that, can’t you?”

The groom shook his head, at last lowering his left foot to the ground, as the action of shaking his head had served to set him off balance. “No, sir, I cain’t do that. We’re under siege, whatever that be, and Miss Winslow said fer me not ta let a soul through these here gates. Said it twice, she did.”