He kept frowning. “Is this the maid who’s a socialist?”
“She’s not a socialist!” I cried, startling Dandy, who was returning with the ball. “Millicent was just making that up.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about Reilly, but I did know that much. And it felt so unjust for her brother and his children to suffer unnecessarily.
“Is her brother a socialist?”
“What does that matter?”
“It might matter a great deal to whomever I recommend the man.”
“Just because someone’s a socialist doesn’t mean they aren’t trustworthy or a good employee,” I argued. “You said so yourself, remember? He’s a good man; he’s just having a difficult time. You must have heard what it’s like up in the north these days.”
He sighed. “It’s miserable up and down the country.” He twisted his signet ring a few times. Then, “I’ll see what I can do. Is there anything else you need?”
“No, thank you. I think that’s enough for one day.” I smiled gratefully and his answering grin made my heart thump. Hard.
Dandy edged forward and dropped his ball at my feet. I bent to retrieve and throw it, suddenly thankful for the distraction. Back at the house, the others were spilling onto the terrace, cocktails in hand.
“We should go back,” I murmured. “We’ll miss Laura’s excellent mint juleps.”
Jeremy handed me a handkerchief to wipe my slobbery hand. “Well, if we do, I’ll make you a gimlet. They’re my specialty.”
“Of course you have a cocktail you make marvelously well,” I said, laughing. “Another of your hidden talents. Do you have many more?”
Again, his smile made my heart do strange things. “I may. It’s up to the right explorer to find out,” he invited.
“You do intrigue me, Lord Dunreaven,” I responded, unable to help myself. “I’m glad I have the whole summer to winnow these talents out.”
I slipped my arm through his, and we strolled back to the house, throwing Dandy’s ball as we went.
Chapter Fifteen
“You’re up with the larks!” Laura declared as I came down dressed for riding. “I daresay it’ll be worth it, though. Jem’s at the stables. Do have fun and be as naughty as you please.”
I rolled my eyes good-naturedly and headed for the stables, where Jeremy was waiting with a pair of grays.
“I have a dreadful morning planned,” he promised as a groom gave me a leg up into the saddle. “All ready?”
“Very.” I nudged the horse into a trot. “Where are we off to?”
“It’s a surprise,” he responded, taking the lead and urging his horse into a canter. I let my horse have her head as well, enjoying the freeing feeling of cutting through the damp, fresh morning air. The sun was just searing off a low-lying mist, and a salt-edged breeze had kicked up.
Jeremy glanced over his shoulder with a boyish smile. “Race you!”
He kicked his horse into a gallop, and I crouched down and urged my mount on as well. She responded instantly, relishing competition. We closed in on Jeremy and his gray. He looked over as we drew up alongside and laughed. I did too, momentarily forgetting all my cares, letting summery wind take them away.
We reached a river and slowed to a walk, letting the horses catch their breaths. I spotted a rickety bridge spanning the river and realized I’d been there before.
“We used to pick blackberries near here,” I recalled. “There were loads of them over there in the woods”—I pointed to a wooded area nearby—“and we’d come out and eat ourselves into stomachaches and take the rest back for the cook to make jam. She’d reward us with jammy dodgers once we could face fruit again.”
Jeremy laughed. “Do you think Monsieur le Chef would do the same?”
“Hardly,” I chuckled. “He wouldn’t deign to lower himself to jammy dodgers. The berries probably wouldn’t be ripe now anyway.”
“Well, there are wild strawberries where we’re going. We’ll feast on those.”
“And where is that?”
“Midbourne Abbey,” he announced, leading the way to a spot where the river was shallow enough for the horses to cross. As we splashed through the water, he turned and said, “You may be pleased to hear that I have a solution to the Joyce problem.”
“Do you? Gosh, you work fast!”
He shrugged. “I’d hate to be thought lazy.”
“That’s not the first word that comes to mind when I think of you.”
“Oh?” he asked teasingly. “And what is?”
“Grand,” I replied, teasing as well. “So what are you going to set her on?”
“Joyce is going to plan the annual fete,” Jeremy said. “I understand it’s quite the undertaking, and I’ve no doubt she’ll make it a fete to remember. She’ll soon receive a note from the head of the Ladies’ Benevolent Society and then should be on her way.”
“That’s a really marvelous idea, Jeremy. How clever of you to think of it! Now we just need to find something to distract Laura, before she kills us.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure I can help there.”
“Of course you can! With enough of us, we can work out a tennis-playing rota.”
Jeremy grinned. “Or we could just keep ourselves out of the way. If she can’t find any partners, she can’t play.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “Escape and enjoy a nice spot of fishing, perhaps? A walk through the fields? Country pleasures, as the poets say?”
His eyes slid toward me. “Is that what they were talking about?”
“Of course.” I turned to him, all wide-eyed innocence. “What else could they mean?”
He studied me for a few moments with a slightly wicked smile I couldn’t help but return. “What indeed?” he murmured, almost too quietly for me to hear.
“Careful, Lord Dunreaven. You’ll scandalize me.”
“I doubt that,” he chuckled. “It would take a lot to scandalize a friend of Laura’s.”
I laughed. “Very true. She was always a bit wicked. Runs in the family.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him make a strange movement. Like a flinch.
“God save us from our families and their unhappy legacies,” he said darkly. He noticed my startled look and shook his head. “I’m sorry. Only, like Laura and David, I know what it’s like to grow up with parents who weren’t well suited.”
“I’m very sorry about that,” I said quietly.
Jeremy shrugged. “There’s no changing it now. I understand things were very different in your family?”
“My parents were certainly devoted to each other,” I agreed. “Though there are downsides to that.”
He glanced my way. “Such as?”
“They insulated themselves. Kept things from me. Important things, which I should have been told.”
He thought about that for a little while. “I suppose everyone’s entitled to a secret or two,” he finally observed. “Surely you have a few of your own?”
An uncomfortable frisson shivered through my belly. I tried to play it off with a toss of my head. “No woman reveals all her secrets, Jeremy. Not even to her husband. She must preserve some allure, don’t you think?”
“You have plenty of allure. You don’t need secrets,” he said.
Another simmer in the belly, but for another reason entirely.
He turned away from me and gestured. “There.” I followed his hand and saw, rising on a slope ahead, the ruins of a magnificent old church and abbey.
We tied the horses at the bottom of the hill and walked up, enjoying the unfurling view over the valley below. To one side was the river, sparkling in the distance; on the other, a thick forest that marked the easternmost edge of Midbourne’s park.
Midbourne Abbey, Jeremy explained as we climbed, was once a sprawling complex with a soaring, stately church. But the Reformation came, the nuns were turned out, and the place was left to molder and decay.
“It’s luck
y follies came into style,” Jeremy said. “My great-grandparents turned what was left of the abbey into a showpiece. Both Turner and Constable came out to paint it. Tourists still visit, now and then.”
I could see why. What a glorious place! A Wordsworthian fantasy of crumbling pale-gray walls and soaring archways that stubbornly refused, for now, to give in to the abuses of time. Bits of the flying buttresses remained, arching into the sky, still supported by carved figures of writhing sinners and benevolent saints. Ivy and climbing roses twined up the carved columns along the nave, and bluebells grew underfoot.
Jeremy watched me drink in the ruins. He seemed pleased that I liked the abbey and continued telling its story. How centuries ago the order was established and financed by a wealthy and pious countess who was buried in the nave. About a king’s mistress who fled there for safety from his vengeful queen. How a brave abbess had hidden the church’s vital relics under her gown when William the Conqueror’s men flooded in, bent on pillage and conquest. About witches tried and heretics burned. How a piece of the sword St. George used to slay the dragon was said to be buried beneath the altar. I had never seen him so lively and almost childishly excited, gesticulating and weaving stories, pointing out details here and there that hadn’t—yet—been worn away by time and weather. It reminded me of my father, breathing life into his favorite haunts through the vibrant histories of the people who lived, loved, and died there.
We walked the footprint of the old abbey, wandering through dormitories that were now just knee-high walls in danger of being grassed over. Feeling bold, we risked the climb up the tower flanking the church’s entrance for a better view of the countryside. From there I could see that the river forked, far in the distance, and ran down on either side of the estate, making it seem as though we were on a lovely island.
“Oh, Jeremy,” I breathed, “it’s wonderful.”
He looked out over the estate, a strange mixture of emotions playing across his face. Pride, certainly. And sadness. “We can see the house from there,” he said at last, gesturing with his head toward the orchard on the other side of the dormitories. He helped me down from the tower, and we wandered over. The orchard had been left to go wild, of course, but some of the trees were still producing. He tugged a pear off one and handed it to me.
We paused at the edge of the orchard, overlooking a sweep of land that led right to Midbourne, an enormous red brick house glowing warmly in the distance. It boasted a wide central tower with a clock edged in gold that caught the morning sun. Two wings, each comprising three stories, spread to either side, finishing in smaller dome-topped towers. Decorative pinnacles and chimneys thrust upward, turning the roofline into a hedgehog’s back. I spotted a large glasshouse and formal gardens basking in the golden light.
“What a lovely old place,” I said.
“Do you think so?”
“Don’t you?”
He was silent a few moments. Again the strange looks. “I do,” he agreed at last.
“Could we go see the gardens, Jeremy?”
He twisted his signet ring a few times. “Not today,” he finally answered.
“Why not?” I gave him a teasing look. “What are you afraid I’ll find? A mad wife locked up in the attic?”
He chuckled. “Not at all. We keep the wives locked in the wine cellar. The Madeira keeps them quiet, and the walls are less flammable.”
“Well, then?” I arched an eyebrow.
He leaned against an apple tree. “You’re very eager to see what’s under my roof.”
“I only want to see where you grew up. What sort of place made Jeremy Harris the man he is today?”
“I don’t know that it was Midbourne that made me.” He laughed. “Surely it’s the people inside rather than the houses themselves that make us what we are? I think you would be much the same whether you grew up at Hensley or in a crofter’s cottage or”—he indicated the mansion—“there.”
“Possibly. In that case, who made you? Your father?”
He barked a laugh. “Not at all. My parents were strangers. Father was with us long enough to teach me to sail and use Morse code, and then I was off to school, and then he died in the war. And Mother …” He sighed. “She never liked children.”
I tossed the pear between my hands. Thought of Laura’s parents and Joyce’s father. “Not everyone’s suited to parenthood, as you said.”
“Your mother was, from what I hear. Joyce says she took all your motherless little friends under her wing.”
I smiled, remembering it. Mother always urged me to bring my friends to Hensley during the school holidays. We’d help in the garden and ride ponies and make jam and biscuits. Those were sunny, idyllic days, just like this one.
And then, of course, there was Raymond. Another motherless child, perhaps, whom she took under her wing, even though she didn’t have to.
I’d been quiet too long: Jeremy was looking at me curiously. Puzzling me out again. I took a bite of the pear (a little hard and underripe) and perched on the edge of a nearby wall, trying to look nonchalant.
“How long has your family been here?” I asked, nodding toward the house.
“Nearly four hundred years.”
“Ahh, then this place is in your bones.”
“Do you really think so?” He chuckled.
“I’ll prove it! Would you sell it? Have you ever considered selling it?”
“Oh yes, from time to time. It would certainly make my life simpler.” He chuckled again, though a little bitterly, I felt.
“But you didn’t,” I pointed out. “Why not? Surely you could find a buyer for this fine piece of land? It could be the site of more Homes Fit for Heroes.”
He paused for a little while. “The thing is, it doesn’t feel like it’s mine to dispose of,” he admitted. “Certainly not so the house and farms can be pulled down and turned into a cluster of soulless semi-detatcheds. I’m meant to care for it until the next generation comes along. It seems wrong for me to get rid of it simply for my own comfort. And it would be a wrench,” he allowed. “There are some good memories there.”
“Tell me one,” I urged, yearning for a glimpse into his life. What made Jeremy Harris the man he is today?
He smiled, thinking. “My grandmother used to have the most wonderful parties,” he recalled at last. “There was one to celebrate King George’s coronation—I must have been around six or seven years old. They put lanterns up throughout the gardens, and I remember thinking it looked like a fairy’s paradise. There was dancing in the main hall, and I snuck out of bed to go peek through the banisters and watch. Swirling silks and lace and so many jewels it was blinding. My nanny found me and scolded me for being out of bed, but Grandmother came along and sent the woman away, and we watched the dancers together, she and I. She was wearing a blue silk dress and a diamond tiara. She smelled like”—he closed his eyes for a moment, recalling—“lavender and peppermints. She told me funny stories about all the people below.”
He was deep in a reverie now, and I was afraid to breathe lest I intrude. His eyes shone, and he smiled so sweetly it broke my heart. We stood in silence for a while, then he seemed to remember I was there, and pulled himself back into the present.
“I wish you could have seen it,” he murmured.
“I feel as if I have,” I responded with a smile. “Your grandmother sounds lovely.”
His smile turned sad. “She was. I wish I’d spent more time with her.”
“Everyone has those regrets. We convince ourselves that the people we love will always be there, because it’s too awful to think otherwise. And then they go and suddenly the world seems … chillier.” I laid my hand on his arm, and he placed his own hand on top of it. My arm tingled a little.
He considered what I’d said for a while. “Perhaps that’s what makes us want to start families of our own. Filling up that space and warming ourselves again.”
“As much as we can,” I agreed. “But they can never really be fille
d.” I looked at the house for some time and murmured, “Nearly half a millennium your family’s been here. No wonder you don’t feel you can leave: It’s hard to ignore roots that deep.”
“It is,” he agreed. “And I’ve found it intimidates as many people as it impresses.” He looked at me seriously for a few moments, then suddenly asked, “Could you imagine living in a place like that?”
Startled, I answered, “I don’t know. It seems like a lot of rooms to fill up.”
He nodded. “It is. Room upon room upon room.”
Something about his tone saddened me, and I squeezed his arm. “You sound lonely, Jeremy.”
“I am.” He chuckled. “It’s why I wanted to start filling the place up.”
I could feel a blush rising up through my cheeks. I looked away and cleared my throat. Tried to clear my head too.
“You can’t be that determined,” I commented. “If you were, you’d have found a companion by now. I’ve no doubt you had plenty of willing ladies.”
“There are plenty willing,” he agreed. “But my bar has been set higher, these past several months. I’m not just looking for someone to choose wallpapers and write guest lists. I want someone who understands.” He looked at me, and I could see he was hoping I grasped what he meant. I did. He wanted someone who understood him and what he needed, and what was important to him and why. He wanted someone who knew his hurts and sore spots and was willing to soothe them, or toughen him, when necessary. He didn’t want an ornament; he wanted someone to help make Jeremy Harris the man he’d be tomorrow.
And I knew instinctively that he would be that same person to his partner.
I nodded slowly, and his look changed. It heated. I felt the sear of it, as if he wanted to strip everything away, expose me—body and mind. To know it all, and to know me. I stared right back at him. I couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to.
After a long pause of quickened pulses and dry throats, he swallowed hard and said, “We should get back, or the others will be suspicious.”
I nodded and laughed a little shakily. “Yes. And I can’t go adding more scandals to my name now, can I?”
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