A Gentleman’s Game

by Theresa Romain

  It was both less and more than what she had hoped for, and all she could say was, “Oh.”

  Then a memory made him smile. “Hannah was only six years old when we got Sheltie as a yearling. She’s the one who named her.” He chuckled. “Naming a pony ‘Sheltie’ is like naming a hound ‘Doggie.’ But how can one correct a six-year-old who thinks everything has to have a literal name?”

  “You could have called your sister ‘Girl,’” Rosalind suggested.

  “I’m sure I called her a lot more than that.”

  “I can imagine. I don’t think there’s a single name I haven’t been called—or called one of my brothers or my sister.”

  “Brothers, plural? How many Agates are there in the world?”

  “I’m one of nine children.” Idly, she plaited a section of the pony’s mane.

  “A crowded household. And you grew up in a coaching inn, you’ve mentioned?”

  “Not grew up, exactly. I haven’t lived at home for a decade, since I was thirteen.” The pony’s coarse mane slipped through her fingers, the plait unraveling at once. She had once found talking about her family a comfort, but it was never wise to reveal too much. And now those memories were so old they’d gone gray and indistinct.

  But she supposed she liked telling Nathaniel things too, even though—or because—she’d been trained for the past decade to be ever alone.

  Distraction. That was what she needed. She would help; she’d find something that would help the pony drink more rapidly.

  She pushed herself upright, biting her lip against the usual tiny tugs and aches across her back. Nathaniel handed her the currycomb, which she replaced where she had found it—both conscientious, they were—then skimmed the storage shelves for something useful. A dented funnel? That might do.

  Resuming her place, she tried dipping the funnel and stopping its stem with her thumb. She had no desire to feed her thumb to a pony, though. Somehow she managed to slip it away and let the water dribble into Sheltie’s mouth.

  “I could say the same,” Nathaniel spoke up. “As what you said when we came into the stables.”

  Rosalind squinted at him, trying to remember. “What, that you…ah…called your siblings all sorts of things?”

  He snorted. “That I am being punished.”

  “Oh. No, I was joking.” Turning toward the bucket, she hid her face as she dipped up more water. “A secretary’s job is not all organizing papers and sharpening quills—at least, not if one is Sir William’s secretary. I’m glad to spend so much time in the stables.”

  “Yes, but do you expect to watch over a grown man?”

  “It’s not what I’m accustomed to, though I was formerly governess to an earl’s children.”

  “And now you’re being asked to govern me.” He sighed. “I need your help. I need you to come to Epsom with me, because I have the distinct feeling that’s the only way my father will agree to hand the horses into my keeping.”

  So he too had noted that Sir William’s confidence lay in unexpected places. It made her uneasy, as did the idea of leaving Newmarket without permission from Aunt Annie. So instead she seized upon a young woman’s most hackneyed excuse. “It would be improper for us to be alone on the journey to Epsom, wouldn’t it? Surely it must take days.”

  He laughed. “Is that what’s worrying you? We wouldn’t be alone at all. There are outriders and grooms and—oh, you could even take along a lady’s maid for propriety’s sake.”

  “I don’t have a lady’s maid.”

  “Well, a footman, then. Whatever sort of company would make you feel that your virtue wasn’t in danger.”

  She dipped some more water, mulling over his staccato suggestions. “You speak as though you don’t even consider me female.”

  Now, why had she said that? It was an invitation for him to look at her—the sort of thing Anweledig’s agent, slipping in and out of different posts, ought to discourage.

  Water rippled in the bucket, turning her reflection into a dizzy spiral. When she looked up, Nathaniel was gazing at her.

  Just as she had feared. But she was not afraid, even as he traced her, line and angle and curve, with his shadowed blue gaze. She could almost feel it drifting over her like a whisper over skin. Her stomach gave a little flip; her hands became unsteady.

  “I suppose,” he replied at last, “I have been trying not to think about it.”

  “Why should you try to—not to…” She stumbled over the words, her tongue shy. Unable to say think of me as a woman. Everyday words, but somehow very personal ones.

  “Don’t you think that’s wise? A man who travels England and meets milkmaids everywhere he goes?” The corners of his mouth turned up.

  “All well and good, but you have no idea of the sort of people I’ve met.” Her voice was husky, a little breathless.

  “How you rouse my curiosity.” He looked around the secluded corner. “I should have been more attentive to the demands of propriety. I should be thinking of that even now. If we were hanging about the ton, they’d consider us unchaperoned. Your reputation would suffer.”

  “Anyone who could manage impropriety beside a colicky pony is more determined than I am.”

  He grinned. “Well put. This is hardly a spot for seduction.”

  Now, why had he said that? Because once he said the word, her thoughts took wing. Where could one pursue a seduction, if one were perfect and unmarred and blithe? Ought it to be in a bed draped with silks? On the velvet squabs of a bespoke carriage? Would there be perfume and rose petals?

  Curled against Rosalind, Sheltie took another drink, then let out a low animal sigh—and a shuddering burst of flatulence.

  Such was always the fate of rose-petal dreams, was it not? Rosalind had to smile.

  Five

  When Sheltie again fell into a peaceful doze, Nathaniel called an end to the morning’s work in the stables. Though Rosalind hadn’t mentioned the passage of time, he knew she still had to complete her usual tasks in the study.

  “I am the one with the watch”—he made a show of pulling it from the pocket of his old brown waistcoat—“so it must be up to me to dismiss us. Shall we meet again at three o’clock? You, me, bucket, salt, Sheltie: we make a formidable team.”

  “Don’t forget the currycomb,” she added. “Yes, all right. As long as I am back in the study when it’s time for brandy.”

  Sir William’s brandy. One of the only rituals that had changed over the past thirteen years. He used to take it after dinner; now he took it before. Nathaniel couldn’t argue with that. He would be fortifying himself all day, if—if only he could trust himself to be himself.

  He helped Rosalind to her feet. Then, following Sir William’s edict to the letter, Nathaniel and Rosalind found a pair of grooms, and as a foursome they walked to the exit.

  Rosalind began to slice an angle across the grounds. Then—with a glance back over her shoulder—she hopped onto one of the smooth stone paths instead.

  Nathaniel stood in the doorway to the stable and watched her get smaller, though somehow she still loomed large for him.

  Not for the grooms, though. They took advantage of this interlude to slouch against the wall and gossip. “They’ve been eating sand, them sick horses,” said Peters, a large red-haired man. “I’ve seen the signs before, and that’s a fact. There’s no kind of colic that looks like a sand colic.”

  “Sand colic, pah.” Lombard, who always chewed at a straw, spit on the stable floor. “Where’ud they get sand? This ain’t a desert.”

  “And it cannot be in the hay,” murmured Nathaniel. “Miss Agate and I checked it ourselves.” Rosalind was dark and spare against the white crushed stone of the path. In another moment, she would be out of sight.

  He turned to face the grooms. They both snapped to attention, uncle and nephew. Lombard’s gulp and grimace was a sign that the grizzled older man had been about to spit again.

  Grooms were as gossipy as old maids, and these two had served the
Chandlers for long years. “What are the other grooms saying about this run of illness?” Nathaniel asked.

  Lombard rolled his straw from one side of his mouth to the other. “Some were sayin’ it was moldy hay.”

  If Nathaniel had been closer to the wall, he would have beaten his head against it.

  “But it ain’t the hay. No, and it ain’t sand neither.” The wiry man elbowed his large nephew, who looked as though he wanted to speak up. “If you’re askin’ me, Sir William was right to keep a closer eye on this place. Can’t be too careful durin’ race season.”

  “So you think someone poisoned the horses.”

  “Could be.” Lombard’s shrug was as elaborate as a ballet. “Time was I’d a-blamed the Crosbys. But with Miss Hannah married to one—nah, they wouldn’t hurt their kin. It could be anyone else though. Plenty of people don’t want Sir Jubal to be winnin’ two classics in the same year.” He spit again, then wiped his mouth with a muttered apology to Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel nodded. “Such as?”

  “The Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby,” piped up Peters.

  Spit. “Not the races, you clod.” Lombard spoke with affection. “I mean the bookmakers, o’course, Mr. Nathaniel. The whole lot of ’em don’t have the conscience of a snake.”

  “Bookmakers,” Nathaniel repeated. They could be ruthless, with their livelihoods at stake as odds tipped and tilted from horse to horse. But why would they bother to hurt Sheltie and Jake, who had never raced in their lives?

  Lombard ventured a comforting clap on Nathaniel’s shoulder, though the slight groom had to reach up to do it. “Don’t you be worryin’, Mr. Nathaniel. I’ve worked for your father longer’n you’ve been alive, and there ain’t no problem yet he han’t solved.”

  When, though? And what would the answer be?

  Even if Sir William’s new strategy for protecting the stable worked, that still meant that someone had intended to harm the horses. Would they recover? The pride-puffing opportunity to guide and train a double champion might already be destroyed.

  The grooms’ chatter was just speculation; they had no more answers than Nathaniel himself. But just in case, he told them, “Come to see me—the pair of you together—if you find out anything more definite.”

  When he left the stable, spring sunlight made him squint. A breeze teased and rumpled his hair. He felt as if he had exited a cave, his system shocked by the reminder that there was such a thing as daylight.

  The shaded moments he had just spent sitting with Rosalind Agate in a corner of the stable, dribbling water into the mouth of a tired pony, were some of the most pleasant he had experienced since leaving London.

  Rosalind did what needed to be done. She helped. She even smiled, even laughed.

  When she did, it was difficult to remember that she was Sir William’s secretary. Sir William’s choice, trusted above Nathaniel. What was he to make of her? How could he get her to agree to journey to Epsom? What did she want?

  She had a way of diverting his questions with quips. He knew that she had been raised in a coaching inn, that she’d been governess to an earl. But what were the steps in between, or the ones that led from the earl to Sir William?

  Again, he had nothing but questions. And he couldn’t ask his father; it would be unwise to bring up Epsom before the arrangements were completed. Otherwise, Sir William might decide to make his own plans. Plans with no place for Nathaniel in them at all.

  But Hannah might know the answers. Nathaniel’s younger sister had met Rosalind before she was hired.

  Until three o’clock, Nathaniel’s time was his own. So he decided to take a walk.

  * * *

  No one in Newmarket lived far from the racecourses, which meant none of the horse-mad members of the Jockey Club were far from each other either. The Crosby estate was no more than an easy ride or a mildly strenuous walk from Chandler Hall, yet Nathaniel could count on one hand the number of times he had ventured onto Crosby land.

  Over the span of a few generations, the Crosbys and Chandlers had developed a proud tradition of detesting one another. They hired away stable staff and jockeys; they bet against each other and bribed and undermined the other family’s success on the racecourse. No one was sure how the rivalry had started, but all good Chandler children had been raised to hate the Crosbys.

  With her marriage to Sir Bartlett Crosby the year before, Hannah had been a very bad Chandler indeed.

  Though her new home hardly appeared that of a gothic monster. The brick pile of the Crosby home was worn and archaic compared to Chandler Hall’s shining modernity, but it had the elegance of a home that had been loved and built onto over generations.

  Sir Bartlett’s mother had been a slave to the betting book, and to pay off family debts, the young baronet had sold almost everything—except his best horses. Hannah had brought a generous dowry to their marriage, and she had replaced the household staff and begun to furnish the house anew. As Nathaniel was shown into the drawing room, he saw that his favorite sister had worked a small miracle in the weeks since he had last visited.

  Gone were the bare walls he remembered from his brotherly I can’t believe you married a Crosby, though I suppose if you press me, I’ll admit he seems a decent enough fellow post-nuptial visit. The bare floor was now covered by a carpet, its softness a contrast to Chandler Hall. There the marble floors felt like sliding over ice. This made for a nice change, these patterns and colors like curling wheat underfoot.

  Hannah had changed too. Usually brisk and active, she was reclining on a sofa, bolstered by cushions behind her and beneath her feet.

  “Nathaniel! I’m so glad you’ve come to visit. I’ve been bored today.”

  He dropped a kiss on her head. “You look lovely, sister dear.”

  “Liar. I have turned into a decorative person who lolls around all day wishing for sweets.” She wiggled her slippers. “My feet started to swell as soon as the weather turned warm. Until then I felt all right.”

  She had told the family she was with child a month before; since then, her belly had puffed out all at once. Instead of the riding habit she used to wear daily, she was dressed in one of those filmy gowns that ton ladies wore in the afternoons.

  Nathaniel had seen more pregnant horses than humans, and he suspected that if he made any comparison, he would find out how hard a swollen foot could kick him. But if she were a mare, judging from the state of her belly, she would be nearly done with her pregnancy.

  “Not much longer until we get to meet the spawn?” This was, he hoped, diplomatic enough.

  “Says you. I have three more months, I think. I’ll have the pleasure of swollen feet and a huge belly through the hottest months of the year.”

  “You can come sit in the icehouse at the Hall.” Nathaniel settled into a chair opposite her.

  She began to laugh—then considered. “That sounds pleasant. Huh. Trust a brother to come up with an idea that sounds stupid but actually might not be.”

  “I am not sure why I’ve got into the habit of thinking of you as my favorite sibling,” he murmured.

  In truth, it was because they had grown up together. Jonah and Abigail were only two years older than him, but the twins had always seemed ages ahead. Jonah was the only one of the Chandlers who had gone away to school, and Abigail had always had some beau or another before running off with an Irish lord at the age of seventeen and settling in County Tipperary.

  Hannah, of course, had an answer of her own. “It has to be because of my kind nature, which matches your charming one.”

  “I am charming.”

  “Which implies that I’m not kind? Phoo. Of course I am.” She winked. “Also good-looking.”

  Hannah and Nathaniel shared the same straight hair that fell somewhere between blond and brown, though she had inherited Sir William’s hazel eyes and Nathaniel their mother’s blue ones. To Hannah’s dismay, she also had freckles, which faded each winter and speckled her anew each spring and summer.r />
  “Watch how kind I am. I’m about to feed you.” She rang for a servant. “What would you like after your walk to visit me? Scotch? Brandy? I know how you love them.”

  Yes.

  But Nathaniel clutched at his resolve. If he could never have enough spirits, then he ought to have none. “Tea would be fine,” he said. “It’s a bit early in the day for the sterner stuff.”

  “Very well. I never used to imbibe, but Bart has this newfangled notion that I ought not to drink spirits until the baby is born, and it makes me want to gulp an entire bottle of brandy.”

  “How contrary you have become. I see marriage agrees with you.”

  She wiggled her feet again. “I wouldn’t do that, of course. Maybe Bart thinks I would pickle the baby.”

  Nathaniel reared back in horror.

  “Maybe, I said. Maybe. You turned squeamish spending all that time with your fancy friends in London.”

  “Is that what you think I do?”

  She shrugged, which took a great deal of effort considering the number of cushions stuffed around her. “Well…”

  “Hannah, honestly. I buy drinks, and then I buy horses. It’s between friends, yes, but not fancy ones. A duke’s man of business doesn’t get nearly enough to drink when one considers the amount of ridiculousness he has to put up with in his post.”

  “I believe that. Serving as Father’s secretary was challenge enough, and since we’re related, he could hardly give me the sack.”

  “Perhaps that was why it was so difficult. You couldn’t leave.”

  Except she had, hadn’t she? Somehow Hannah had managed the conversion from secretary to daughter. Then she had married and set up her own household. True, it was with a Crosby—but even so, Nathaniel’s younger sister had leaped ahead of him, when once she had looked up to him.

  When their mother died, Nathaniel bore it stolidly so he could comfort Hannah. When Sir William went to Spain, he bore that too. But when his father returned because his body had been wasted by palsy, Nathaniel couldn’t bear it anymore. He’d been fifteen years old, alone with his younger sister and their servants. And Sir William came back to his family only when he was unable to walk away from them anymore.