Chapter One #2
She certainly had a strong grasp of circumstances and arguments, but then, she had always mastered whatever skills were necessary for the childhood games they’d come up with, even though she was generally the youngest and smallest. This must be her absent husband’s game she was playing now.
Well, good for her. But he couldn’t shake off his original impression of…wrongness.
In the meantime, it was a slightly unnerving pleasure to observe her. The kind, fun-loving child he’d adventured with, teased, rescued, and no doubt endangered in the first place had grown into a rather dazzling young woman whose real interests in life did not include him.
How sad…
“Well, Grande,” Lord Chadbon said amiably, easing himself into the chair next to his, “I hope this evening hasn’t been too much of a penance for you!”
“Not at all, sir. I count it a privilege.”
“Always important to hear the opinion of the younger generation—and the church,” said His Lordship portentously, though he spoiled the effect with a disarming, conspiratorial grin.
“Sorry, afraid we got rather into the habit of calling on the vicar at a moment’s notice to make up our numbers.
We seem to be treating you the same way.
Unexpectedly, Sir Gilbert sent his apologies with Lady Ambrose, so we were short of a man.
Don’t see that it matters, myself, but these things are important to the ladies, what? ”
Rupert vaguely recalled the issue infuriating his mother occasionally. Beyond that, he’d paid little attention. But his host’s gaze had found Kate, deep in animated conversation with two members of Parliament, Otteridge and Sir Colin Nye. Rupert looked too.
“Taking little thing, what?” Chadbon said, noticing it. “Clever, too. She’ll take Ambrose far.”
“Ambrose,” Rupert repeated, hoping for some information on the fellow, but Chadbon misunderstood him.
“The husband,” he explained.
“Lucky man,” Rupert said, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece.
Still another hour until his appointment, but perhaps he could leave the company before then by appearing to depart.
After all, he was the only guest not sleeping at Chadbon Court tonight.
He was under no illusion that this company would miss the lowly curate.
Accordingly, around ten o’clock, he ambled over to his hostess, thanked her for a very charming evening, assured her he would enjoy the walk back to the village on such a fine night, and bowed himself from the room.
Downstairs, in the entrance hall, from where he could hear the chatter of servants and the clatter of crockery, no footman was stationed by the front door. It was simple to collect his hat and overcoat without disturbing anyone and then find the orangery.
Opening off the far end of the hall via double, half-glazed doors, the orangery smelled strongly of old earth, humidity, and enclosed plants, as such places usually did.
Since the structure, built onto the back of the house, was made of steel and glass, it provided an excellent view of the courtyard garden beyond and the clear night sky above.
The moonlight was so strong that Rupert didn’t need a candle to find his way toward the far windows.
He threw his coat and hat on a bamboo chair and sank onto a comfortable sofa.
Stretching out his legs toward a slightly droopy orange tree, he folded his hands behind his head and waited.
He was almost surprised when she came.
Hearing the soft footsteps padding across the floor, he glanced up and saw her.
“I knew you’d be here,” she crowed, folding herself into the chair next to him. A faint, tantalizing waft of rose and lime and vanilla assailed him, already familiar from partnering her at dinner. When had she begun to smell so good? “But I can’t stay long.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d remember.” Whenever their families had met up, Rupert and Kate had escaped to the Winster orangery or the Hynde garden for a quick argument over the morrow’s mischief, or to compare notes over punishments, escapes, or any other news.
Rupert remembered the fun now, but she’d been there too for the difficult times…
Until he’d felt foolish having a little girl for his best friend and learned to stand on his own feet.
“How long are you staying at Chadbon Court?”
“Until the day after tomorrow, when I return to London. Probably.”
Though conscious of disappointment at that, he found he was smiling as he gazed at her. “I never imagined you as a political wife.”
“I never imagined you as a curate. Yet here we are. Do you like it?”
“Yes, I think so. Do you?”
“Of course.” For the first time ever, she was lying to him.
He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did, and she must have seen that in his face, for she shifted in the gloom, moving out of the beam of moonlight.
“Being Lady Ambrose gives me opportunity to learn and think and even influence men of power—indirectly, perhaps, and certainly in small ways so far, but I can make a difference, Rupe. How many women can say that?”
How long since anyone had called him Rupe?
“Barely any. I’m very glad such a fine strategic mind, which rescued all those princesses and pirates and captured all those castles, has not gone to waste.
” For an instant, he saw the white gleam of her teeth and was glad to have made her smile. “Will he come and fetch you? Ambrose?”
“One of the good things about being married,” she said tartly, “is that I don’t need a troop of chaperones and male family escorts to drive a few miles up to Town.”
“I know,” he said mildly. “Wanted to meet the man.”
“Another time, I’m sure,” she muttered, rising to her feet. “I should go.”
Rupert stood too, wondering if this would be the last time he saw her for another—what was it?—five years? Six? “Take care, Kate. I’ll look out for you.”
As she hurried past him, her skirts brushing against his leg, she cast him a quick, oddly fugitive smile.
“And I for you.” And then she was flitting away from him through the darkness of the orangery, a rustle of silk, a graceful, very womanly outline quite at odds with his memories of her, until she vanished into silence and gloom.
Rupert sat back down, thinking. He wondered if there was a way to interrogate his sisters, or even his mother, without giving away exactly where he was…
He glanced at his fob watch. Nearly ten thirty. There were more urgent matters to confront.
*
Sam Salter, formerly a sergeant of the 95th Rifles, was used to the outdoors.
Before he’d lost his left arm at Waterloo, he’d also been adept at climbing trees, walls, and hills.
But it was damned difficult to haul yourself up a seven-foot wall with one arm and no footholds.
Even if he hadn’t been bosky as a wheelbarrow.
Hanging on from sheer pigheadedness, he finally managed to see over the top.
Even though the muscles of his right arm screamed and shook, Salter was enchanted.
A square, pretty garden lay before him, divided by paths and lawns, with flower beds of late, still-scented roses, dahlias, camellias, and other flowers he had no names for.
It was a gentleman’s garden, belonging to the great house that hugged it on three sides.
But what really seized his wonder was the steel-and-glass building glinting in the bright moonlight.
It jutted out from the main part of the house, and Salter suddenly longed to be inside it, to lie down under that glass roof and fall asleep while gazing at the stars, sheltered from the cold and the rain.
There was no light in the glass room, although he had seen warm glows behind many other windows of the house.
He wondered how easy it would be to get into that room.
He could be away again by dawn, and no one would ever know he had been there.
He grinned to himself and tried to throw his leg up over the wall.
Instead, he heard his feet scrabbling against the stone.
He was too damn drunk. But where there was a will, there was a way.
And the glass room was calling to him like some fair siren.
One more big effort… As he hauled himself a few inches higher, managing to hook his shaking elbow over the top, he nearly fell off. Just below him, a shadow among the trees.
Somebody was skulking there. Well, Salter didn’t mind sharing the place with another. In fact, whoever it was might be able to help him over.
He opened his mouth to call down, only his tongue and his lips got tangled up and the world began to wobble and fade.
*
Dinah Fenn, prettiest of the Chadbon housemaids, as she very well knew, was also the most adept at avoiding work when necessary. From about ten o’clock it was necessary, if only to see who went into the orangery.
Mr. Kemp, however, would not cooperate. As he was the butler, she disobeyed him at her own peril, which was already extreme.
With ill grace, she carried bundles of table linen to the kitchen, but when she offered to polish the dining table and set the breakfast parlor up for breakfast, she was directed, fuming, to other tasks in the kitchen.
Mr. Kemp seemed to have made it his chief mission to prevent her going abovestairs again tonight.
As though he sensed she had an assignation.
And at this rate, she’d miss it.