by Jan Jones
‘Good girl,’ praised Caroline as her mount merely twitched her ears in annoyance at the shout, ‘but I fear our exercise is over for the day.’
She was proved correct. As she remarked drily to Mrs Penfold, they had never been so popular. If it hadn’t been for the loss of the riding time, it would have been quite amusing waiting for the various visitors to lead up to a casual reference to Penfold Lodge’s illustrious guest. In each case Caroline said he was still under the doctor’s care and it was a shocking thing that an assault like that should have taken place in a respectable part of Newmarket. This turned the conversation very neatly, but she did not discover that any other attacks of the same kind had occurred recently.
As if their own visitors were not enough, they also had to contend with Mr d’Arblay calling in straight from the finish of the day’s racing, just as Caroline had persuaded Alexander back into his bed. There was by now quite a nip in the air and remembering Giles’s thoughtless fidgeting with the terrace door on a previous visit, she called a footman to move the screens across the window.
‘Whatever are you doing?’ said Alexander testily.
Telling him she was preventing his friend from compounding his injuries by adding a chill to them did not seem a politic answer. ‘Masking the nurse’s table, my lord. You will not wish the evidence of your enfeeblement on view to your friends.’
‘Good God, as if Giles will even notice! It will be nice to have some company that doesn’t cosset me beyond bearing, I can tell you.’
He had the drawn look of one who had been up for too long, but if Caroline suggested as much he would likely blast her clear across the room. After showing Mr d’Arblay in, she hovered in the passage, not liking to go too far out of earshot in case she was required.
‘I’d have thought you’d have that bandage off by now,’ she heard Giles say by way of a greeting.
‘Tomorrow, I’m told,’ came the reply.
‘And still abed! I never thought to see that. Getting feeble in your dotage?’
‘For your information I have been up all day and am only just returned here. Under duress, I might add.’
Caroline snorted. Men were so boastful. She moved down the passage to avoid eavesdropping further, but Mr d’Arblay’s voice was tiresomely penetrating.
‘… shocking bad luck yesterday,’ he was saying. ‘The only good horse on the whole damn heath was Wilson’s colt. Lord, Alex, do you really need all these medicines?’
‘No, of course I don’t. I wish you would desist from roaming around the room, Giles. It’s enough to make one dizzy.’
‘Today wasn’t much better. Of course we all went for Manfred or Sylvanus for the Newmarket Stakes after yesterday’s showing, and the blasted nags were nowhere in sight at the finish!’
‘Who took it then? Gazelle?’
‘Yes. How the devil did you guess that?’
‘Do you never study form, Giles?’
Caroline grinned to herself. Study form indeed. Alexander had got that straight from talking to Harry last night.
‘Heigh ho, thank God it’s a fuller programme tomorrow. Shall I put something on the One Thousand Guineas for you?’
‘Do sit down, Giles. And thank you, but no. I have lost quite as much as I want to the Newmarket roughs.’
‘Pshaw. Small change.’
‘If you consider the contents of my pocketbook small change, no wonder you are always sailing close to the wind. Do you dine at Cheveley tonight?’
‘Yes. What o’clock is it? I’d better be off if I’m to make myself ready.’
Caroline snorted again. An extremely short visit. She wondered Mr d’Arblay had bothered to call at all. She went towards the entrance hall, meaning to see him firmly off the premises, but was arrested by the sound of his voice.
‘Sure you don’t want a flutter? Trictrac’s supposed to be a dead cert. Oh, by the by, I’ve been looking about for you, but I haven’t seen anything smoky. Not unless you count your precious host collecting indecently large rolls of soft this morning from the bookmakers.’
‘Giles, we have had this before. He is a trainer. And an owner in a small way. What is it Bunbury always says? That if it wasn’t for the betting, no racehorse owner could afford to keep a string at all?’
‘Ha! Seems damned unlikely that his untried colt should run the legs off Grafton’s the other day with all that pedigree behind it. Lost me a pretty packet, I can tell you.’
‘Your losing bets are always the unlikeliest of occurrences. Leave it.’
Caroline retained just enough presence of mind to whisk up the passage as the bell sounded for the butler. She was so angry she found it difficult to give Mr d’Arblay even the coldest of nods as he bid her a cheerful farewell.
‘I knew Alex wouldn’t let himself be hedged around with nurses and suchlike for long,’ he said as he straightened his hat in the mirror.
‘No indeed,’ she said. ‘He is so improved that I daresay he will be back at the White Hart with you in short order.’
Mr d’Arblay looked a little startled. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Oh, certainly.’
The shorter the better as far as she was concerned.
It wasn’t until after Lord Rothwell had dropped off to sleep that a messenger arrived with the news that the night-nurse was very sorry, but she’d been called to a confinement.
Caroline was not best pleased. Lord Rothwell may not share his friend’s conviction that Harry must have fixed Fancy’s sweepstake, but she did not feel very friendly towards him nevertheless. She had been prepared to talk him out of any dream terrors, but she didn’t want him falling asleep on her shoulder again and she would have much preferred to spend the rest of the night in her own bed for once rather than the wing chair.
‘I’ll sit meself in the passage, Miss Caro,’ said the footman obligingly. ‘I’ll soon hear if you need me.’
‘Thank you,’ said Caroline, capitulating with a sigh. She fetched her book, moved the chair so she would not keep catching glimpses of Alexander whenever she looked up, and prepared to wait.
She was still waiting some hours later. Or rather, she was curled up in the chair fast asleep when a noise woke her. She blinked, disoriented. Certainly she had heard a thud, as if Alexander had flung an arm out of bed preparatory to his usual tossing and turning, and that was the first direction she looked. But he was sleeping soundly. Besides, the noise had come from quite a different part of the room. Caroline stood up, puzzled, stretching cramped muscles as she traced back her waking memory. Not from the passage, it must have been something outside. Curious, she crossed the room in her stocking feet and pulled back the curtain. And screamed as a masked face leered through the glass at her.
The masked man turned and ran straight away across the lawn, disappearing through the archway leading to the road.
‘I’m here, Miss Caro,’ yelled the footman in a sleep-befuddled voice. He wrenched the door open wider and stumbled into the aperture.
‘Intruder,’ she gasped. ‘On the terrace. He ran towards the town. If you hurry you might catch him.’ The footman swore and staggered off.
‘What the devil is going on?’ said Alexander, sitting up in the semi-darkness. ‘Who’s there? What o’clock is it?’
‘There was a man,’ said Caroline, her voice shaky. ‘Outside the terrace door. He – he had a mask on.’
Alexander rubbed his eyes. ‘Sit down before you fall,’ he commanded. ‘What moonshine is this?’
Caroline regarded him with indignation, but as her legs were indeed about to fold up on her, she tottered to the edge of his bed. ‘It is not moonshine. A noise woke me and it wasn’t you so I opened the curtain and … and …’ To her horror she almost retched. She held it down. ‘I am never ill,’ she said fiercely. ‘Never!’
A warm arm came securely around her shoulders. ‘Easy. I believe you.’
‘So I should think,’ she muttered. His arm both helped and worried her. And she would be a lot happ
ier once she had persuaded her stomach to behave.
‘I meant I believe you are never ill. I’m reserving judgement on the housebreaker.’
Furious, Caroline tried to wriggle free, but he held her more firmly. Warmth seeped into her, dispelling both the incipient hysteria and the unruly behaviour of last night’s supper. ‘Better now?’ he asked after a moment, his voice holding a suggestion of a laugh.
Caroline was better. She was also, if possible, even crosser. She was supposed to manipulate him, not the other way around.
‘He got away, Miss Caro,’ called the footman, puffing back up the passage.
Instantly, Alexander let her go and Caroline discovered she could stand very well after all.
‘I heard him running, like,’ continued the man, appearing in the doorway holding a hand to his side, ‘but he must’ve dodged down between the inns.’
‘It can’t be helped. You did very well. The house is still secure which is what counts.’
‘And he is unlikely to try again,’ said Alexander. ‘I daresay you gave him as much of a fright as he gave you.’ He glanced meditatively at her. ‘I believe a hot drink might be of service.’
‘You’re not wrong, sir,’ said the footman with enthusiasm. ‘There’ll be some warmth in the kitchen range still. I could mix a nice bumper or …’ His voice trailed off as he looked at Caroline. ‘Or perhaps a pan of cocoa.’
‘Cocoa,’ said Caroline.
‘Both,’ said Alexander at the same moment.
The footman hurried out.
‘Now sit down again,’ said Alexander, ‘and tell me properly what happened.’
‘I did tell you. I was woken by a noise and—’
‘I said properly. What, for example, were you doing in this room?’
‘Oh, well, the nurse had to go to a confinement.’
‘The nurse? Dr Peck was not of the opinion that I needed a nurse any more. There was no nurse here when I went to sleep.’
If Caroline had ever given into the urge to howl in her life, she would have howled now. First the face at the window, then Alexander’s arm around her shoulder, now she had to tell him he’d been having nightmares. He would hate it, hate this evidence of weakness. ‘You do not need a nurse during the day,’ she began falteringly, ‘but at night you … that is, when you sleep you….’
His temper snapped. ‘Caroline, sit down here and tell me why the devil you were in my room overnight, completely unchaperoned.’
She had been about to resume her seat on the bed. Now she shot up as if there were live coals on the coverlet. Compromised! That was another complication she hadn’t thought about. A firm hand on her shoulder pressed her down again. ‘Will you be easy.’
‘You are still having nightmares,’ she said, too rattled to be anything but blunt. ‘And the door was ajar and Thomas just outside so I was not unchaperoned.’
‘Your parents may take a different view! Good God, I simply don’t believe it! Of all the ill-considered, idiotic schemes—’
‘They will not know! Have no fear, my lord, no one in this house is likely to acquaint them with the particulars. There is not the least danger of you being constrained to make me an offer.’
She felt a jolt of distaste from him. He did not like her to speak his thoughts out loud. ‘Has my valet perhaps left the house?’ he said icily. ‘Should he not have been the one to occupy that chair? He has been doing remarkably little else to earn his wages recently.’
A valet who had recourse to the sal volatile at the sight of a pinprick and who wore himself out just pressing a neck-cloth to perfection? Caroline gritted her teeth. ‘You do not understand. When you are in the grip of the nightmares, you grow extremely anxious – disturbed, even – and could easily injure yourself.’
His face grew grimmer. ‘And you – a slip of a girl – can cope with that better than a full-grown man, can you?’
‘I can cope with it better than your valet, certainly.’
He was surprised into a crack of laughter. ‘He is very good at what he does.’
‘He would have to be,’ said Caroline. She took a cautious breath, hoping she had diverted him.
‘But that still doesn’t explain why you, and not a burly footman for instance, should be the one to restrain me.’ He said this with measured revulsion, as if the thought of not being in control of himself was repellent.
Caroline moistened her lips. ‘Because my voice soothes you. I don’t know why, my lord. It just does.’
He frowned at her. She had the impression he was casting back through fevered memories. She hoped they weren’t the ones associated with Rosetta. ‘Say my name,’ he said in an odd voice.
‘Lord Rothwell.’
He shook his head impatiently. ‘Say my name.’
She looked at him. ‘Alexander.’
There was a moment of utter stillness. A nearly burnt log settled in the fireplace with a soft whump. Alexander sat back, shifting uncomfortably.
Caroline slid to her feet. ‘Your pillows are awry. Lean forward and I will straighten them for you.’
‘Thank you.’ He held himself stiffly until she had plumped them up. Then, ‘Did I dream tonight?’
His manner was casual, but Caroline was not fooled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Dr Peck said you might not, the more active you became. It encourages me to hope that you really are recovering.’
‘Then there is no need for you to stay once you have had your cocoa.’
‘No, my lord.’
More cinders fell through the grate. Caroline crossed the room to put on another log.
‘What … what do I seem anxious about?’
Again it was said off-handedly. Caroline kept her face turned towards the fire. ‘Oh, you are not coherent for the most part.’
‘Caroline, please answer me.’
She walked slowly back to the bed. ‘That is twice tonight you have used my name.’
‘Please tell me,’ he repeated. On the coverlet his hands were clenched.
‘I think you must already know.’ He was hurting; she could feel him hurting. She sat down on the bed again and took one fist between her palms. This was no time for maidenly affectation. ‘When you dream, you are overwhelmingly anxious to reach someone called Lizzy before nightfall.’
He let out a sharp breath. From the way his fingers jerked, she knew she had understood his apprehension aright. This was the secret he did not want the world to know about, and no wonder. An elopement, if such it had been, was a scandal that no family would want spread about. ‘No one has heard you except for me and the nurse,’ she continued quietly. ‘I do not pry, and she has a score or more years of discretion behind her.’
There was another long silence. ‘Why did you not tell me?’
‘That you were still having nightmares after the fever had passed? Because I did not want any daytime anxiety to interfere with your recovery! I wish for you to get better and resume your normal life.’ Away from here. Away from me.
Footsteps in the passage heralded the imminent arrival of hot drinks. Caroline retreated to the wing chair.
‘Go to bed,’ said Alexander with finality once she had finished her cocoa. ‘I shall not dream tonight.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAWN STREAKED THINLY through a gap in the brocade curtains. The fire was down to rosy ash. Alex lay in the unaccustomed silence of his room and contemplated the events of the night.
It seemed he’d added his sister’s thwarted elopement to his repertoire. That in itself was hardly surprising. He’d been out of his mind with worry that day – knowing he was to blame for not making his point more forcefully, knowing he’d been found wanting, all the leads sending him wrong, and time marching relentlessly on. Small wonder his unconscious mind kept reliving the agony. The astonishing thing was that he ever had a night’s respite.
He felt his hands ball into fists. He loathed the idea of nightmares he couldn’t control, but he had sweated them out before with no ill effects. What was fa
r worse was Caroline now being conversant with his weaknesses, his lowest moments. And taking it upon herself not to inform him what was happening. Damned chit of a girl, thinking she knew best yet again. She seemed honourable enough, but just let him catch one hint of pity in her eyes and he’d … he’d….
He took a calming breath. This wasn’t solving anything. He would cultivate composure, become more active during the day, and the dreams would go away. That was the way it worked. He slid from the bed, testing the strength in his legs. He was infernally weak still. But he made it to the window in less time than it had taken yesterday and pulled the curtain aside.
Nothing. Nothing to show that there had ever been a face pressed up against the panes. Just a terrace, a lawn with a shrubbery and ornamental bridge, and the stable block over on the right leading to paddocks where horses and grooms were already at work. All perfectly innocent.
But, impossible as it seemed, something smoky must be afoot at Penfold Lodge. Last week he had been very efficiently put out of the way before he could, presumably, stumble on some compromising occurrence, and this week there had once again been an interloper in the grounds.
Who? And why? And who had they come to see?
He focused on the back of the stable block where a stripling was bent low, patting a horse’s neck before dismounting and leading it inside. That lad again. Was he part of the mystery? It was infuriating to be on the spot yet constrained by his injury not to take part in the routine of the house.
Frustration gave him the answer. He must make an attempt to alter the circumstances. In the first instance he needed to expand his boundaries. He was never going to learn anything if he kept to this room. He would start by breakfasting with the family.
Lord Rothwell’s declaration, delivered by the maid who had crept into his room to make up the fire, caused not a little consternation in the kitchen.
‘Eat with the family?’ repeated Caroline, a forkful of ham suspended halfway to her mouth.