“Glad to hear it, Viscount,” Mr. Kendrick said, waving to someone in the box above, “since she’s to be your wife. Like the King said, sooner than later, vicar or no vicar.”
“The vicar was murdered, Daddy,” Miss Kendrick chided.
“Tragic, yes, but why should it affect our plans, eh, Viscount? You do want full ownership of Orson, don’t you? Your own valet again?”
Lyndy cringed as Mr. Kendrick included him in the collusion to bargain away his daughter in exchange for her fortune and a horse. As Mr. Kendrick waved to someone else in the crowd and tottered over to greet them, Miss Kendrick frowned. Miss Luckett frowned. Mrs. Westwoode frowned. They all glared at Lyndy. He hadn’t done anything, and the women were against him. Moments ago, everyone had been cheerful and lively. He wanted to see Miss Kendrick smile again.
“Any more on who the police suspect?” Westwoode said, redirecting the conversation. Though Lyndy was grateful, it was a poor choice of topic.
“If you’d been around more, you’d know they don’t know anything,” his wife scolded.
“I say, he’s become quite the popular chap,” Hugh said, deflecting the talk away from the vicar’s murder. All eyes followed his gaze. Several people Lyndy recognized and should know by name were gathered around the American like flies on steaming horse dung. Mr. Kendrick shook hands with every one of them.
“Wonders never cease,” Miss Kendrick whispered.
When her father returned, she said, “That was nice of them to congratulate you on Cicero’s win, Daddy.”
“No,” Mr. Kendrick said, a smug, satisfied grin on his face, “they were congratulating me on making such a fine match for my daughter. So, let’s keep your mouth shut. We wouldn’t want them changing their minds.”
“Like the proverbial gift horse, Daddy?” she said through clenched teeth.
“Gift? Ha! This horse cost me millions.”
Lyndy, like Hugh and the Westwoodes beside him, blanched at the vulgarity. No one spoke of money or the delicate details of a marriage arrangement, especially not in public.
Mr. Kendrick waved his betting ticket about before sauntering down toward the betting ring.
“Well, I’m glad to hear I am worth something to you, Daddy,” Miss Kendrick grumbled bitterly. She glanced at Lyndy but hastily shied away. The pain in her eyes was piercing. Lyndy had to do something.
“If you’ll excuse us.” He grasped her hand and pulled her away from the Westwoodes, Lord Hugh, Miss Luckett, and any other prying eyes. He counted on the old chaperone’s fragility to get Miss Kendrick away before the aunt caught up with them.
“What are you doing?” Miss Kendrick said.
Lyndy led her up the stairs until they were under cover, away from the crowds, and snuggly behind one of the wide pillars that held up the grandstand. A swallow’s nest perched under the eaves above their heads. It was empty. Lyndy stopped abruptly, and the brim of her hat collided with his chest. Before she could retreat, he flung his arms around her and filled his lungs with the scent of her, that mix of floral and woody tones that reminded him of the New Forest in spring. She didn’t struggle, she didn’t complain, nor did she pull away. She tilted her hat back to look up at him.
“What are you doing?” she asked again.
“I’m taking the advice of my monarch.” He’d seen the way the men looked at her. She was natural, she was honest, and she was strikingly beautiful. But Lyndy didn’t get jealous, except over a horse, perhaps. Did he? “I wouldn’t want you to find a more ardent suitor.”
“As if I have a choice.”
Her comment stung, the cruelty of it, the truth of it, and he considered letting her go. But something—lust, definitely, and maybe hope and curiosity too—kept his arms around her.
“Neither of us does. Daddy has made sure of that.”
Lyndy leaned into her ever so slightly, relieved that she was aiming her bitterness at Mr. Kendrick, where it rightfully should be, and not at him.
“I wasn’t joking about feeling like a gift horse. Is that all I am to you?” Her blue eyes stared at him in earnest; not a hint of animosity tainted her voice. “Be honest.”
“If you weren’t, could I do more than look you in the mouth?”
Her eyes widened, and her back stiffened. He couldn’t decide if she was mortified by what he’d said, the way he’d said it, or its implication. He didn’t care. He’d been staring at her lips for too long.
“Lord Lyndhurst, are you asking—”
He didn’t let her finish. She wanted him to be honest. So, he would be. He pulled her to him in a tight embrace.
“Do call me Lyndy,” he said. Then he kissed her.
* * *
“Herbert?”
Having ridden all the way from Christchurch, Gates’s legs were weak and his balance was off. Despite the improvements they’d made to the road, enough ruts remained to make the journey a bumpy one. Give him hours on horseback to a carriage any day. But the journey, despite its discomforts, was always well worth it. Annie, his niece, and her husband, John, were pleasant people who fed him well, plied him with jars of John’s homemade cider, and were always eager for news of Morrington Hall. With his feet up and the baby on his lap, he’d regaled them with the story of the Americans’ arrival and their peculiar behavior. Annie had had him retell the story of Miss Kendrick appearing unannounced in the stable yard three times. But this visit had naturally been dominated by talk of the Derby races, the new thoroughbred horses, and the vicar’s murder. He’d told that tale but once, and due to Annie’s sensitive nature, he’d told it with as few gruesome details as possible. He hoped he’d never have to speak of it again.
“Herbert?” Gates called again, purposefully stretching and shaking his legs out, one at a time, as he strode into the yard. It was late, but he’d left the groom in charge. Someone should be about. He looked up at the second-story windows. They were dark. Had all the lads gone to bed?
Gates longed for his bed, but without reassurances from Herbert that all was well in hand, he’d have to check. But where was Herbert? Despite the incident with Miss Kendrick, Herbert was normally a reliable lad. It wasn’t like the groom not to be here to greet him.
Gates glanced about the yard. It was swept, and the lamps had been dampened. He tugged on the coach-house door. It was latched. He unlatched a side door and strolled past the feed box, the coal room, and the standing stalls. He nodded with approval. Everything was as it should be. He passed the loose boxes. They’d all been mucked out, clean water had replaced the day’s dirty water, and clean, fresh straw covered the floors. All the doors were secure. Beau and Lister were sleeping. Sugar and Spice, the Hanoverian carriage mares, were drowsy but content to take the pat Gates offered.
When Gates reached the loose boxes that housed the new thoroughbreds, Tully, the gentle filly Miss Kendrick favored, approached him and whinnied in greeting. He reached through the iron grating of the sliding door and patted her neck. Tupper, the three-year-old, stuck her head out of her loose box.
“Don’t worry, girl. I won’t forget you.”
Gates stepped over to the other filly and rubbed behind her ear. She pushed against his hand to get a deeper rub. Gates listened for the stomping and snorting from Orson, which he knew would come. The stallion wasn’t one to let the fillies get all the attention. But the ruckus never came. Gates glanced across the aisle as the filly nibbled his coat sleeve, hoping for a bite of apple or one of the peppermints Miss Kendrick gave her. Orson wasn’t at the door. Could he be sleeping? Gates dismissed the thought as swiftly as he crossed over to the stallion’s loose box. He wasn’t a man to panic, but the hairs stood up on the back of his neck.
If anything happened to this horse . . .
At the Jockey Club, they were celebrating Cicero’s win. Tomorrow Annie would be boasting to her neighbors about how her uncle cared for the most valuable stud in England. Lord Lyndhurst and the Americans would return from Epsom, triumphant. The irony of the timing wasn
’t lost on him.
In less time than it took to cross the aisle, Gates considered every conceivable reason why Orson wouldn’t be responsive—shock, fever, blood loss, dehydration . . . death—and what immediate steps he must take in each case. In his haste to open the door, he laid his hand on the jagged edge of the doorjamb, where the stallion had gnawed the wood.
“Ow!” He jerked back his hand and teased a splinter from his finger with his teeth.
He heard a muffled response from inside. The horse was alive. Thank God! Gates blew out a pent-up breath. He hadn’t realized how much he’d feared the worst.
With extra caution, Gates slid the box door open. He stepped into the dark, bracing for what he would find. Fresh hay crunched beneath his boots. He stared down at the figure on the floor. It wasn’t the stallion lying in the fresh straw, spread thickly less than an hour ago, whimpering in pain or struck by fever. It was Herbert, lying on his side, his hands and feet tied, his mouth gagged with a polishing cloth. Orson, the stallion, was gone.
CHAPTER 14
“If only my darling Elizabeth had been there,” Mrs. Westwoode said, for the tenth time, as they alighted from the carriage that had met them at the train station. Neither the evening spent in Epsom the night before, dining late into the night at the Jockey Club’s Derby Day dinner, nor the journey back to Morrington Hall this morning had diminished the lady’s regret that Stella, and not her daughter, had been granted an audience with the King. The warmth and affection she had shown Stella at the time had lasted only as long as it took her to realize the opportunity missed. “Why give an audience to an American, after all?”
Stella wasn’t listening. Instead, she savored everything around her: the dark line patterns crisscrossing between the stone bricks of the sprawling house; the burst of lavender, pink, yellow, green, and white popping from the peony, hydrangea, and rhododendron bushes and the rosebushes; the ripples across the pond as a fish surfaced to catch a low-flying dragonfly; the individual pebbles, like a sea of stone, beneath her feet; the ripples in Spice’s sleek gray coat as Stella rubbed the carriage horse’s neck. Stella’s lips remembered the pressure of Lyndy’s. She swore she could still taste the champagne on his breath. His kiss had startled her, shocked her even. But was it his audacity or her own ardent response that surprised her more? She couldn’t say.
“Welcome back,” Lady Atherly said, stepping forward to greet the returning travelers. Was that a smile on her face? “Quite the coup, I must say.”
“I knew you’d be pleased,” Lyndy said to his mother, then placed a light kiss on her cheek.
He and Stella had spoken little since their kiss. At dinner, they’d been seated far from each other, and Stella, exhausted by the excitement of the day, had retired early. On the train ride home, he’d diverted himself by discussing the relative merits of flat racing versus steeplechase with Lord Hugh. Stella had stared out the window at the miles and miles of rolling fields of green, stone walls, and flocks of sheep, trying to puzzle out what had happened, while half listening to Mrs. Westwoode complain. Was she pleased he had kissed her? Would she regret it? Could she trust him? She didn’t know. But neither the distance across the dining table nor the divergent discussions had kept them from stealing glances. What was he thinking?
“A coup is winning at ninety-nine to one. Cicero was favored to win,” Daddy said.
Lady Atherly pinched her lips. Stella knew the smile wouldn’t last.
“I’m sure my wife meant Miss Kendrick’s audience with His Majesty,” Lord Atherly said. “We’ve had a dozen cards left this morning. All our neighbors want to meet you, Miss Kendrick.”
“The girl did nothing but stand there. What’s so special about that?” Daddy said as he stomped past Lord Atherly and into the house.
Daddy had relished his role last night as society’s newest welcomed member, accepting toasts, handshakes, and congenial pats on the back. That was, until all the questions, all the compliments were directed at or were about Stella, and not him. He’d tried all evening to recapture some of his early glory, telling his rags-to-riches story to anyone who would listen. As the evening had worn on, few would.
“Have the police told you any more, Lord Atherly?” Stella asked. Despite the distractions, Lyndy’s kiss the greatest of them all, she hadn’t forgotten for a moment about the vicar.
Lord Atherly shook his head.
“I do wish Elizabeth had been there,” Mrs. Westwoode muttered.
Mr. Westwoode rolled his eyes and chewed on his upper lip.
“Where is my darling daughter, anyway?” Mrs. Westwoode asked.
“Taking a stroll in the garden,” Lady Atherly said.
“Welcome back, my lord, Miss Kendrick,” Fulton said. He and Mrs. Nelson, along with two maids and the footman that hadn’t accompanied the party to Epsom, prepared to orchestrate their party’s smooth return.
Lyndy nodded in acknowledgment, Aunt Rachel winked as she hobbled by, but Stella stopped in front of the butler, then placed her hand on his arm.
“Thank you, Mr. Fulton. It is so nice to feel welcome.”
The butler raised an eyebrow.
Lady Alice stepped over and looped her arm in Stella’s. Unlike the butler and the housekeeper, who would have bitten their tongues off before losing their composure, the maids’ and the footman’s faces betrayed their bewilderment. As Lady Alice led Stella through the front door, Stella glanced over her shoulder. The two maids, despite having been dismissed, stood rooted to the gravel drive, their eyes following Stella. Stella smiled at them, and the girls, wide-eyed, hastily retreated toward the servants’ entrance around the side.
“Did I do it again?” Stella said.
“Do what?” Lady Alice asked.
“Break some unspoken rule of etiquette? I smiled at the maids, and they stared at me as if I’d grown antlers.”
“We aren’t familiar with the servants. They were surprised, is all.”
“It seems I’ll never learn to act like everyone else.”
Lyndy handed Fulton his hat and leaned in toward Stella. “And I hope you never do.”
He didn’t smile. He didn’t wink. His face betrayed no emotion. Like the pompous man she’d met that first day. If Stella hadn’t felt the pressure of his hand on the small of her back as he kissed her yesterday, she’d think he was mocking her again now.
“Don’t mock, dear brother,” Lady Alice said, believing the same thing. “Miss Kendrick is genuinely trying to fit in.”
“And I urge her to resist the temptation.”
“She is to be Countess of Atherly one day,” Mrs. Westwoode said, piling Fulton’s arms with her cape, hat, and parasol. “Miss Kendrick must be the picture of English gentility, despite her . . . upbringing.”
“With all due respect, Mrs. Westwoode, she’s going to be my wife, not yours.”
Mrs. Westwoode glared at Lyndy but held her tongue. Her husband, however, did all he could to stifle a chuckle.
Lord Hugh glanced at his future in-laws. “To have His Majesty’s blessing is most fortuitous.”
Mrs. Westwoode nodded vigorously.
Lord Hugh went on. “I say, lucky you that she is to be your bride.”
“That she’s to be my wife is not up for argument,” Lyndy said.
Stella flinched. Must he remind her? They’d shared one kiss. It guaranteed him nothing.
“And, as your wife, she will have to learn how to conduct herself properly,” Lady Atherly said. “And she can start this evening. I’ve invited a few friends over who are most eager to meet you, Miss Kendrick.”
One comment from the King and everyone wants to meet me? Gawk at me, more likely.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Stella said. For her, social events tended to end badly. She said so.
“Pity. It has all been arranged,” Lady Atherly said, dismissing Stella’s concerns. “Now, I’m sure the ladies would like to rest before we must change for luncheon.”
Now, that
sounded good. Stella longed to soak in the bath, to let the neck-deep hot water steam away all thoughts of Lyndy, their kiss, their future, and this evening’s party, and to feel warm again, finally. She still wasn’t used to the damp, cool air inside or out. Would she ever be?
But as she followed Mrs. Westwoode and Aunt Rachel up the stairs, she heard Lord Atherly say, “I didn’t want to say this with the ladies present, but the police are waiting for us in my study.”
When she reached her room, she splashed cool water on her face from the basin, grabbed the woolen shawl Lady Alice had lent her, and hurried back down the stairs. A bath could wait. If the police had caught the vicar’s killer, she had to know.
* * *
“We think the two crimes, the horse theft and the vicar’s murder, might be related,” Inspector Brown said.
Lyndy was beside himself. How could this have happened? Grandfather must be turning in his grave. As the inspector had related the details of the thoroughbred’s theft and the discovery of the groom tied up in its loose box, Lyndy had wanted to pace, but the room was too small. Instead, he’d picked up one of the many fossilized horse bones and fiddled with it in his hands. Papa had cringed but had said nothing. Lyndy had returned it to its place.
“How?” Stella asked. “The horse didn’t belong to the vicar, and he was dead before the horse was taken.”
The men turned at the sound of her voice. They’d convened in the privacy of Papa’s study to hear what the police had learned. She must’ve slipped in unseen.
“Miss Kendrick,” Papa said, startled to find a woman in his study. Neither Mother nor Alice ever entered Papa’s private sanctum. “I don’t think you should be here.”
“But I’d like to be, Lord Atherly, if it’s all the same to you,” she said, holding a wool shawl tight around her shoulders. She looked about the room, her eyes darting from fossil to fossil.
Papa looked at Mr. Kendrick, who shrugged, then at the inspector, and then at Lyndy. None offered their objections.
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