At the door he turned a cryptic look on Thorne. Sounding oddly apologetic, he said, “Get some rest, man. You’re going to need it.”
*
Tea, the eastern ritual Thorne had borrowed from the Townsend family, was served in the parlor for the women, while in the gaming room the men discovered heartier fare of meat pies and honey cakes with a token pot of tea and several pitchers of ale.
“I say ‘tis time the Drakes handed over the reins in Amersham to new blood,” Sir Dennis grumbled to Sir Kenneth Clifton. “What say you, Neville?”
Thorne eyed his ill-placed ball on the billiards table. “There will be a movement for it in Parliament, sir, but I doubt it will come to much. Not this session, at any rate.” He angled his stick and shot off the bank, missing the leather pocket by a hare.
“Egad, Neville.” Townsend approached the table with a look of relish. “If you’d only wagered your horse on this game.”
Thorne eyed him skeptically. “I can’t imagine why you’d want that devil of a beast back in your stables. We’ve yet to explain his attack on the groom.”
“Yet you ride him still,” Townsend countered. “What say we have him on the table before the week is out?
“I’ll consider it.” As his friend blasted a ball into a pocket, Thorne added with a wry grin, “But it won’t be a billiards table.”
*
“And tell the ladies, Bernice, what you are learning,” Lady Townsend coaxed.
“The pianoforte,” her daughter grumbled, frowning over her tangled embroidery.
“Perhaps you could play us a piece from your lessons?”
“I’d rather not, Mama.” Bernice looked up with an angelic smile, only to see an expression that would have plastered most young ladies to the wall.
With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, she walked to the stool, spread her skirts and sat down, then straightened her back and poised her hands over the keys.
*
“What in bloody hell is that?” Sir Dennis barked, in the gaming room.
“Need you ask?” Townsend quipped. Thorne grinned.
“My cousin, no doubt,” guessed a young man named Granville. “Poor Mistress Dearbourne shall have a heart attack straightaway, though how she can be shocked at anything Bernie does…” He shook his head.
“Rather unorthodox,” agreed Mister Dearbourne, “A lively tune, though.”
Sir Dennis chortled.
To no one’s apparent surprise, the piece ended as abruptly as it had begun.
*
Entering the dining room early, Thorne found most of the male guests standing around with apéritifs in hand. At a table set to the side of the main table, Bernice Townsend sat laughing and arguing with three male cousins.
Thorne winked at Townsend, then approached the table and bowed as the gangly redhead looked up to see him for the first time since his arrival.
“Thorne!” Springing up so fast that Granville and the other boys nearly fell over themselves getting to their feet, Bernice embraced Thorne, something she’d never dare do if her mother were watching. “Oh, you look lovely!” she cried, stepping back to admire him at arm’s length.
Returning the compliment with a laugh, Thorne saw Townsend shake his head and smile.
“But what is this I hear,” Thorne murmured near Bernice’s ear, “of your expulsion from not one, but two, young ladies’ schools?”
Bernice glared at her brother, then gazed sweetly back at Thorne. “I should much rather be at home, where a ‘young lady’ can climb trees and ride and fish. Stitching and weaving are impossible, I shall have a seamstress when I am married. Besides, Papa insists Richard’s old tutor is sufficient for my education.”
“Nothing to do with keeping an eye on you,” Thorne teased.
Behind Bernice, one of the cousins yanked on her skirt, and without batting an eye she swung her heel backward into his shin. “Papa,” she allowed over the groans and titters behind her, “is a sly old fox.”
The sound of feminine voices and laughter swelled from the hallway, and everyone turned as a bevy of women led by Lady Townsend poured through the doorway in a billowing sea of silks and laces.
One head rose above the others, its stunning face framed in coils of in raven-black hair. As Thorne froze, struggling to make sense of what he was seeing, the head turned, and his gaze locked on the dark, sultry eyes of Caroline Sutherland.
*
As his fog cleared, Thorne found himself seated for supper next to Caroline.
“No doubt you’re thinking,” she said below the hubbub of conversation, “that I should be at home. Mourning.”
He glanced down at her gray silk frock, an apparent compromise with the customary black, its modest fichu a hopeless strategy to hide her voluptuousness.
“If I’m thinking at all,” he said, eyes darting away around the table, “‘tis merely that I’m surprised to see you.”
“Particularly as you thought I’d be home, mourning,” she countered. “I rest my case.”
“Practicing law now, are you? Well, put this in your pipe and smoke it, Madam Barrister—you are no mind reader. Townsend never said he’d invited you, is all.”
“I see. And does he generally submit his guest list for your approval?” She turned away to pass some gravy.
“You know bloody well what I mean,” Thorne muttered. “I’d no idea he’d even consider-”
“Inviting me,” she supplied, taking up her fork. “Particularly as I should be at home, mourning.”
Thorne felt a tic in his jaw; it seemed she had the advantage in every situation.
“Where is Gwynneth?” she asked, far too casually.
“In Seagrave. Evelyn is ill.”
As dessert arrived, conversation rose to a dull roar punctuated by a debate between Sir Kenneth and Sir Dennis over contested elections.
“But Papa,” Bernice called out from her table, “just the other day, you said it would be a bloody good-”
“Quiet, child!” Sir Dennis barked. “Women have no say in this matter.”
An immediate argument ensued at Bernice’s table, her voice as strident as the boys’ voices until one of them made an unsociable noise and sent the rest into gales of mirth. At the main table, flatware danced as Sir Kenneth made his point with a hammering fist.
“Oh, indeed!” Mistress Dearborne clutched her throat and plucked her fan from a sleeve with the finesse of an illusionist, then waved energetic blasts of air onto herself and Thorne in the process. “I shall faint from all this dissent!” she declared, the relish in her voice belying any cause for concern.
“You’ve known this family for some time,” Caroline said from his other side. “Are they always this colorful?”
Thorne chuckled. “There’s a tactful epitaph. They’re downright barbaric at times,” he admitted, “excepting Lady Townsend. I find them all delightful, and if I thought they could be convinced to live at Wycliffe Hall, I’d have asked them long ago.”
“Spoken by a man in need of a family,” Caroline said softly, then touched his sleeve. “Forgive me, I spoke without thinking.”
Thorne smiled crookedly. “‘Twas your due. I’ve spoken out of turn a time or two myself.”
“We’re only human, my lord,” she said, a suggestive note in her chuckle before she sobered. “You and Gwynneth shall soon have your own family at any rate.”
“Will we?” Biting his tongue, Thorne tasted blood.
Townsend came innocently to the rescue, dragging Caroline into a conversation with Miss Victoria Clifton, daughter of Sir Kenneth and Lady Clifton. Caroline drew the girl out, encouraging her obvious attraction to Townsend, whose face soon turned red as his hair.
Crystal rang out as Sir Dennis tapped a spoon on his goblet. “Gentlemen, join me in the library for a glass and a cheroot. Ladies, we’ll meet with you presently in the drawing room for some music. Only those with talent,” he said with a sidelong glance at Bernice, “will be asked to play.”
Townsend coughed to cover a chuckle while Granville gleefully nudged Bernice. Not to be outdone, she neatly tripped him as they left the dining room.
Lady Townsend played music and recited poetry in the drawing room; then Bernice and her cousins performed an outrageously funny skit. While the audience applauded, Thorne slipped out the door, hoping to escape unseen to his room for a brandy before turning in early.
And found the very person he wanted to escape in the hall.
“I’m glad to catch you alone,” Caroline said, drawing near. “I’ve something to ask.”
He tried not to stare at her mouth. “Ask away, then.”
“I’m wondering why Gwynneth hasn’t answered my letters.”
Dragging his eyes off her full, carmine lips, Thorne met Caroline’s searching gaze.
“Something isn’t right,” she said, her voice softly urgent. “And you, Thorne. You look…haunted.”
He managed a crooked smile. “Haunted?”
“Yes. I’d expected to find you fat and jolly. Married life generally suits men like you.”
He grimaced. “Men like me?”
“Yes. You’re not unlike Horace, and he found great contentment in matrimony. I thought you’d settle quite comfortably.”
“Did you.” Thorne couldn’t keep the steel out of his voice. “And how did you suppose my wife would take to wedded bliss?”
Caroline shrugged. “She is more likely to chafe at the change, but…” She lowered her gaze, then looked coyly at Thorne through her long lashes. “Under the tutelage of an affectionate husband, she might soon bend and mold to his will.”
Thorne suppressed a harsh laugh at her faulty theory. But knowing she spoke from experience, he felt his groin tighten. He could all too clearly imagine Caroline “bending and molding.”
Fearing his eyes would betray him, he shifted his gaze to a portrait on the wall. “I shan’t presume to know the workings of my wife’s mind,” he said brusquely. “Her reasons for failing to respond are known only to her.” He met Caroline’s eyes again. “May I escort you back to the drawing room?”
“Thank you, but I believe I’ve troubled you enough for one evening,” she said coolly, and walked away before he could say another word.
*
Watching the sun rise to a chorus from the meadowlarks and orioles in the pine-scented hangers bordering the valley, Thorne eyed a stand of weeping willow at the river’s edge. The mists would be lifting by the time he grabbed a trout pole from the potting shed. Perhaps he could hook one or two for breakfast.
He stopped short in the gallery. Beside a closed door sat two small trunks he recognized. As he wondered what their owner was up to, she opened the door and stepped out, barely glancing his way.
“Where are you going?”
She bent down and locked the trunks. “Home, if you must know.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“Because I shouldn’t have come.” Pocketing the key, she smoothed the tiered black lace at her elbow and turned to face him. “I am in mourning, after all.”
“Bollocks. You’re leaving because of me.”
“I’ve left a note,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken, her expression aloof. “I wouldn’t think of insulting the Townsends by leaving without word.” She went back inside her room.
She returned with a folded parchment, only to find Thorne blocking her doorway.
“Don’t go,” he said. “Especially not on my account.”
Caroline narrowed her eyes. “I can see you’ve passed a bad night. I might have sympathized before our talk in the parlor, but I’ll be damned if I try drawing you out again. Stay inside your miserable shell and rot, I’m going home.”
She gasped as Thorne grabbed her hand. Apparently too stunned to protest, she watched him take the note she’d written and wad it up in his fist. “Why, of all the arrogance!” Her eyes snapped. “What bloody difference does it make to you if I stay or go?”
“Stay. Please.”
His unveiled entreaty seemed to stun her. She blinked, found her voice. “Perhaps you should go home.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Then I shall stay.” She looked surprised at her own words, then vexed; she’d obviously meant to be harder on him.
Thorne headed downstairs for the potting shed, but only after he had set Caroline’s trunks back inside her room—and only then because she drew the line at letting him watch her unpack.
*
“I do not understand how he can desert you again so soon, my lady. First London, and now Chigwell.”
Lady Neville elevated her head and fixed her eyes on the road ahead. “His lordship did not desert me, Hobbs. But your concern is well marked.”
Hobbs’ gaze fell upon his greased boots and coarse woolen cloak. Leaving Saint Michael’s after Sunday Mass, where he’d stared the whole service long at Lady Neville from the rear of the church, he was prolonging their time together by keeping their horses at a trot.
But only until lightning ripped the sky. As Lady Neville shrieked like a banshee at the earsplitting crackle that followed, Abigail bolted.
Cursing, Hobbs dug his heels into Bartholomew. In a torrent of rain, he bore down on Lady Neville, who had lost the reins and clung to Abigail’s mane instead. Hobbs grabbed the mare’s harness, hauled her rider onto his own mount, then shouted a command and smacked Abigail’s haunch to send her galloping home.
Shivering and soaked, Lady Neville huddled against him. Hobbs managed with some difficulty to open his lanolin-rich cloak and wrap it snug around both of them. Clasping the mistress in one burly arm, he kicked Bartholomew into a canter.
Steam poured from the gelding’s nostrils while the air grew pungent with the smells of wet leather and horsehair. Hobbs felt his shirt turn damp against Lady Neville’s soaked frock, but knew he was beyond any danger of taking a chill, what with those ripe curves molded against him and only two or three layers of fabric between. She, on the other hand, was drenched to the bone and terrified, risking illness or worse. It was that which prompted his hoarse shout for help as he carried her into the Hall.
While Bridey hurried to brew fresh tea and scolded Hobbs as if he’d caused the thunderstorm, Byrnes rushed in to fetch her mistress away to dry blankets and a roaring fire.
“Let me carry her to her chambers, or at least up the stairs,” Hobbs insisted. Bridey refused, saying he’d done quite enough as it was.
Back in the stables, he went about his chores mechanically, not daring to stop and dwell on what he’d realized in the last hour.
He was falling in love with his master’s wife.
*
Midday found the entire Townsend party at the river, a feast in tow. Wearing shawls in the early September air, several ladies paddled rowboats about under the huge willows, while Bernice and the men dropped lines further upriver.
“They love the crickets,” she enthused to Thorne. “But you must hook them through their bodies. Their little heads will come off faster than Ann Boleyn’s.”
“Bernice,” her father growled.
“Oh, Papa, you’re just cross because I’ve hooked two to your one. Try my crickets!”
“I’ve fished these waters since long before you were born, young lady, so ‘tisn’t likely you’ve anything to teach me,” he retorted over the other men’s chuckles.
Down the bank, Lady Townsend, abandoning the boats for her tatting, shook her head. “They’re at it again.”
Tying the rowboat to a stake, Caroline squinted upriver at Bernice and her father. “They seem quite fond of one another, for all their spats.”
“One wouldn’t know what to do without the other,” Lady Townsend admitted.
Caroline gasped. “Why, she’s just slapped Mister Dearbourne upside the head with a fish!”
Lady Townsend clicked her tongue. “She does haul them in rather vigorously. Well, Mister Dearbourne will take it in stride and have a good laugh. He is quite charmed by her, as so many gentlemen
seem to be.” She kept her eyes on her tatting. “Lord Neville, for instance, is extraordinarily fond of her. The sister he never had, I suppose. Just between us, I think she reminds him of a girl he once knew.”
“Lena,” Caroline said without thinking.
“Yes, Lena.” Pausing, Lady Townsend looked up from her work. “He’s mentioned her?”
“Only in passing.”
“Oh, I doubt that. You must know him better than I’d supposed.”
Caroline only smiled.
“Well,” Lady Townsend went on as she resumed her tatting, “then I don’t mind telling you that we thought this Lena had spoiled Thorne for other prospects, and hence were quite surprised when he decided to marry. If he dotes on his bride even half as much as on our Bernice, she’ll be a happy wife, indeed.”
Caroline held her tongue; was the woman blind? How could she begin to think that there was any ‘doting’ being done by either of the Nevilles? One look at Thorne should tell her otherwise.
As Lady Townsend turned to compare stitches with Mistress Grindall, Caroline wandered up the bank toward the fishing party.
*
Bernice snorted. “Look at Richard. Does he really think he’s teaching her to fish? Mistress Sutherland is no dolt, I can tell you.”
Thorne smiled to himself at the girl’s perception.
“I’ll wager she could put him to shame,” Bernice went on, “yet she looks at the bait like she’s never seen such a disgusting thing in all her life. Ha! Now I see why Miss Victoria Clifton can’t get so much as a nod from my brother. Oh Richard, you are dreaming!” she said with a laugh.
“Hush, Bernie, he’ll hear you,” chided her father, and something in his tone seemed to sober her.
Thorne slid his gaze downriver, all the while silently denying his interest in the little fishing lesson. He continued to deny it even as he sauntered down the bank in that direction as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
*
“I’ve come to inquire as to Lady Neville’s condition.”
“What?” Bridey stared at Hobbs as if he’d grown horns. “Her ladyship’s condition is no concern of yours, Toby.”
The Heart Denied Page 18