‘I did indeed have local attractions in mind,’ Lady Sally said, stretching out a languid hand to pour herself another cup of tea, ‘but nothing so tame as the river, Olivia. I had in mind pictures of local gentlemen.’
Olivia almost choked on her tea and had to be patted on the back by her sister. Helena Lang, a buxom beauty given to vulgarity, gave vent to a thoroughly over-excited scream.
‘Portraits of gentlemen in a book? Lady Sally, you are so wicked!’
‘I know,’ Lady Sally said calmly. ‘Conceive of the potential profit to my charity, ladies. A few drawings of eligible gentlemen, with a little bit of text giving some essential information about them-’
‘Such as whether they are married and the size of their estate,’ Deborah Stratton suggested. She laughed. ‘It will be like a gazetteer!’
‘Precisely.’ Lady Sally nodded. ‘I had it in mind to host a ball in town during the little season and hold an auction. The ladies would be queuing out of the door to place a bid on a book that gives details of the most eligible gentlemen on the marriage mart! I am persuaded it would be all the rage, particularly if the gentlemen in the drawings were to attend as well.’
Lily Benedict was laughing. ‘It’s an outrageous idea, Sally! No one but you could get away with it.’
‘Which gentlemen will be featured?’ Helena Lang enquired, putting the question that everyone else was too reticent to ask.
Lady Sally ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Sir John Norton has already agreed to pose for me, as has Lord Northcote-’
‘But he is married already,’ Helena protested, pouting, ‘and Sir John Norton is a dreadful bore. You must have some more attractive gentlemen, Lady Sally. Positively you must!’
‘It would certainly make the watercolour book more popular,’ Lady Sally agreed. ‘Now that Justin Kestrel and his brothers are here for the summer, I intend to persuade them to take part…’ she gave a little smile ‘…and then I do believe we shall be overwhelmed with eager purchasers!’
Rachel, who had been listening quietly, saw Deborah Stratton look quickly away and fidget slightly with the cover of her copy of The Enchantress. Her colour had risen at the mention of Justin Kestrel and his brothers and Rachel could not help wondering which Kestrel brother it was that could cause such a reaction. Fortunately Helena Lang distracted everyone’s attention before Deborah’s discomfiture became too evident.
‘However will you convince the Duke to pose, Lady Sally? I heard tell that he is very high in the instep, for all that he is a thorough-going rake!’
‘I shall use my native charm, Miss Lang,’ Lady Sally said. ‘And if I fail, I shall ask one of you to approach him instead. Justin is very susceptible to a lady’s persuasion, I assure you. In fact, that is where I need your help.’
The ladies looked enquiring.
‘I need you to work your charms on all the gentlemen visiting Midwinter,’ Lady Sally said, smiling. ‘A little flirtation can work miracles, ladies! If you can persuade the Duke and his friends to take part in my book of watercolour drawings, then I shall be able to establish another school for the ragged children in Ipswich. No one can deny that it is for a good cause.’
‘You are still a few gentlemen short,’ Deborah observed. She appeared to have regained her composure. ‘Did you have any others in mind?’
Lady Sally smiled at Olivia, who had remained quiet throughout most of the discussion, as she often did.
‘I had thought that Lord Marney might be persuaded to take part,’ Lady Sally said. ‘I wondered if you might speak to him, dear Olivia.’
Olivia Marney’s head jerked up and bright colour came into her cheeks.
‘My husband pays no attention to my requests,’ she said sharply. She brushed the biscuit crumbs from her skirt with sharp little movements. ‘You would have better success were you to ask him yourself, Lady Sally!’
The atmosphere in the room was suddenly tense. Rachel had no notion why matters should be so awkward, but she could not miss the significant glance that Lady Sally shot Lady Benedict. The only person who appeared unaware of her sister’s tension was Deborah Stratton.
‘I will ask Ross if he will take part, Liv!’ she said cheerfully. ‘I am sure he will agree.’
‘Oh, well, if you ask him, Deborah, I am sure that there will be no difficulty at all!’ Olivia Marney said, and the bitterness was suddenly clear in her voice, so marked that even Deborah fell silent.
There was another awkward pause.
Lady Sally threw herself into the breach. ‘How splendid,’ she said, quite as though there had been no undercurrent to Olivia’s words. ‘And if I might prevail upon you, Miss Odell, to speak to Lord Newlyn, then I think we might rightly be proud of the collection of truly distinguished gentlemen who will grace my watercolour book.’
Rachel jumped. She had just been reflecting that Cory would detest being part of a project such as this when she realised that Lady Sally was addressing her. Rachel felt the eyes of the group fixed on her. Helena Lang was looking rather envious all of a sudden.
‘I doubt I have any influence with Lord Newlyn,’ Rachel said. ‘It is true that I have known him for years, but I would not say that he was a very persuadable gentleman.’
Lady Sally’s eyes widened with amusement. ‘Oh, do you think not?’ she said. ‘A great pity, for he is quite the most charismatic man of my acquaintance.’ She smiled gently at Rachel. ‘Would he not be susceptible to a little flirtation, Miss Odell?’
‘Not if I was the one doing the flirting with him,’ Rachel said, laughing at the very idea. ‘I believe he would ask me if I had had too much sun!’
Everyone laughed, although Lady Sally looked pensive. ‘It seems a pity,’ she said. ‘Lord Newlyn would look vastly attractive in watercolours.’
‘He would look vastly attractive in anything,’ Lily Benedict added drily, ‘or nothing.’
Rachel bit her lip and concentrated very hard on not thinking about Cory wearing nothing at all. She had only just managed to banish the image and here it was back with a vengeance. She fanned herself surreptitiously with her book.
‘Oh, please try to persuade him, Miss Odell,’ Helena Lang interposed. ‘Lord Newlyn would be the most perfect choice. He is so dashing.’
Rachel looked at the pleading faces. Her strongest impulse was to refuse. The thought of asking Cory to grace Lady Sally’s watercolour book was an excruciating one.
‘I really do not think-’ she began.
Lady Sally put out a consoling hand. ‘Please do not worry. I would not wish you to feel obliged to approach Lord Newlyn, Miss Odell, not if it would embarrass you. Perhaps one of the other ladies could exert a little charm to persuade him.’
‘I am sure that we shall be drawing lots for the privilege,’ Lily Benedict said.
Rachel frowned. The idea of another lady flirting with Cory made her feel rather possessive, although she knew this was entirely inappropriate. She looked at Lily Benedict’s face, with the slanting dark eyes that held a flicker of malice, and decided that she did not like her very much nor would she give her the chance to flirt with Cory. The same went for that vulgar Miss Lang.
‘I suppose I can at least talk to him,’ she said. ‘I should be happy to do that.’
‘Oh, goody!’ Helena Lang exclaimed. ‘How exciting to have such a famous adventurer in our midst! Was it not Lord Newlyn who wrestled a crocodile in the Nile and survived the curse of Amenhopec? He is the most complete gentleman, is he not?’
‘The crocodile incident was much exaggerated,’ Rachel said coolly, wishing to depress Helena Lang’s pretensions and reduce Cory’s appeal at the same time. ‘As for the curse, I do not believe that Lord Newlyn escaped so easily. He had a dreadful stomach upset for weeks after he excavated that tomb. They call it the Pharaoh’s Revenge.’
There was a ripple of scandalised laughter from the group as the ladies took her meaning. ‘My dear Miss Odell,’ Lady Sally said, wiping the tears from her eyes, ‘I do bel
ieve that you have demolished Lord Newlyn’s dashing reputation in one move. An upset stomach indeed! How very unromantic! I cannot wait to tease him about this.’
‘You might sketch Lord Newlyn wrestling a crocodile, ma’am,’ Helena Lang said hopefully to Lady Sally. ‘Without his shirt, perhaps-’
‘In the waters of the Winter Race?’ Lady Sally said. ‘What a fertile imagination you have, Miss Lang. Not that I totally discount the idea. So, ladies-’ she looked around the group ‘-to work! I am relying on you.’
The meeting broke up on that note. Rachel declined Olivia Marney’s offer of a ride back to Midwinter Royal in the gig, preferring instead to take the footpath that skirted the riverbank. The air was fresh here, straight off the water, and held a tang of salt. The Winter Race was a small tributary of the larger River Deben, originally feeding the watermill at Midwinter Bere, but these days the mill was derelict and the water flowed sluggishly between low banks in the summer and in the winter flooded the mud flats and marshes. On such a clear day she could see directly across to the Deben, where the yachts and wherries were moored on the quay at Woodbridge.
The sand track was soft beneath Rachel’s shoes. A rabbit scuttered through the undergrowth, startling a pheasant out of the bracken. As she walked she thought about Lady Sally’s reading group and the planned book of watercolour drawings. It was the most shocking matchmaker’s charter and as such she was certain it would be a raging success.
Rachel paused to look out across the Winter Race. The breeze teased tendrils of hair from beneath her bonnet and she stopped to tuck it back in. Ahead of her the riverbank sloped up towards the Midwinter Royal burial ground. There was a knot of pine trees that gave a sheltered lookout across the river in one direction and over the fields to Midwinter Royal in the other. Last year’s pine needles were a soft carpet beneath Rachel’s feet and they gave off a sweet, resinous scent.
She paused on the top of the hill to watch the excavation. Sir Arthur and Lady Odell were working in the southernmost corner of the field, digging one of the long barrows and sorting the earth into a huge spoil pit. Rachel sighed. It all looked so messy and she detested untidiness.
Cory Newlyn was much closer to her, digging a trench into the side of a burial mound. Cory did not favour the accepted method of digging straight down from the top of a barrow; he maintained that this could damage the finds buried inside. Instead he would open a small, exploratory ditch and work inwards from there. Rachel could not see that it mattered one way or another. Soon her parents would be tramping the dirt through the house and she would have to spur Rose into action to clean it all up again. Then the scullery would be full of bits of pot to be washed and the dining room would have bones laid out on the breakfast table. It was always the same.
She watched as Cory paused in his digging and leaned on his spade, rubbing a hand across his forehead. His disgusting broad-brimmed hat tilted at a more rakish angle still. Rachel looked at him and tried to work out why Lady Sally had described him as one of the most charismatic men of her acquaintance. She had an appreciation of classical statuary and by those standards Cory was not particularly good looking. His face was too thin and his features slightly irregular. Nevertheless, the hard, clearcut planes of his face were somehow pleasing to the eye and it was difficult to tear one’s gaze away. Then there was his thick, tawny hair and his cool grey gaze and his long, rangy body that looked so good in the saddle-or emerging from the river…Oh, yes, Rachel could appreciate Cory Newlyn in a completely objective manner. Even so, there was nothing objective about the strange pit-a-pat of excitement in her stomach as she watched Cory at work, and when he turned to look at her, she looked away and hurried off without speaking to him. She felt strangely embarrassed and certainly not brave enough to broach the subject of the watercolour book. That would have to wait for another day.
As Rachel hurried along the path towards the house she imagined that she could feel Cory’s gaze on her retreating back. Impartial appreciation…Yes, she understood how attractive Cory might appear to another lady. For a brief moment, though, impartial was not how she felt at all, and she did not like it.
Chapter Four
Cory Newlyn straightened up, drove his trowel into the sand and reached for the earthenware pitcher of water. It was a hot day for an English summer, with a dry heat that reminded him more of archaeological excavations in Italy or Greece. He tilted the pitcher to his lips and took a long swallow. He felt the liquid spill from the pot and the refreshing coolness of the water run over his chin and down his neck under the linen shirt. After a moment he took off his hat and tipped the remains of the water over his head, slicking his fair hair back and shaking the droplets from the ends. The cold water raised the hairs on the back of his neck and he enjoyed the sensation of chill on such a hot day.
Despite the heat, the excavation site was a hive of activity. Sir Arthur Odell was directing operations in the far corner of the field, where the Odells’ footman and gardener toiled over a wheelbarrow, moving piles of earth from the largest burial mound to the spoil heap some yards away. Lavinia Odell was sifting the earth through a huge sieve and picking out a few bits and pieces that caught her attention. So far the excavation of the Midwinter burials had been disappointing. Sir Arthur had turned up a few battered pieces of gold and some broken bits of pottery dating from Anglo-Saxon times, but most of the tombs that they had opened had been robbed out years before. This had happened to Cory time after time, and he was too old a hand to let it dismay him unduly. Since he had another reason for being in the Midwinter villages that summer, the Odells’ excavation was a convenient and enjoyable excuse. Besides, Cory’s instinct, which had never failed him before, told him that there was something there to find. Something big. Hidden treasure. It was just a matter of discovering where it lay.
Perhaps they might even find the Midwinter Treasure itself, although Cory was sceptical. The legend related that the gold cup had been discovered by an awestruck peasant in the fourteenth century, but when he had tried to take it from the tomb, a voice had stopped him in his tracks and he had run away, too frightened to carry out his intended looting. When he told his story later, a group of Midwinter villagers more hardy than he had gone to find the treasure, but had never returned. Neither they nor the cup were ever seen again, and there was a myth that if anyone tried to take the treasure they would come to an untimely end.
Cory stretched, then replaced the battered hat on his head. In the dining room of Midwinter Royal House there would be a delicious cold luncheon waiting and no doubt they would all be in trouble with Rachel for neglecting it. He could see her now, making her way up the path that ran alongside the burial ground towards the house. She had removed her bonnet and the sunlight gleamed on the rich chestnut of her hair, so ruthlessly plaited that not a single bright strand broke free of its constraints. Her pale blue dress was pin neat and she stepped over brambles and rabbit holes with precision. Cory smiled slightly. He remembered Rachel as a child of seven lining up her abacus with absolute accuracy. Ten years later, he could remember her picking a loose thread off his evening jacket when he had attended her come-out ball. She had always been the epitome of order and he had always nursed a subversive desire to shatter that composure. In the interests of friendship, he had resisted it.
The same desire to shake her self-possession had overcome him that morning when he had met her by the river and she had been so stunned to see him in the nude. He had known then that Rachel was not completely indifferent to him as a man. Some of her embarrassment had understandably sprung from the shock any well-bred girl would sustain when confronted by a naked man. But, more tellingly, he had seen the first long, intent stare that she had given him before she had realised who he was, and later the struggle she had had to resist the impulse simply to forget modesty and look on his nakedness. Cory smiled to himself. He was no gentleman to have prolonged the encounter as he had done, but he had been enjoying Rachel’s consternation too much to put an end to it
. It was fortunate that her flailing hands had touched his arm rather than any other more sensitive part of him. He would not have wished to make the situation any more difficult than it already was.
Cory deliberately dismissed the encounter from his mind and turned his attention instead to Rachel’s situation within the Odell household. In some ways it seemed to him that Rachel had exchanged roles with her parents, worrying about what they wore and what they ate, making sure that their lives ran smoothly whilst they ran around collecting antiquities like irresponsible children gathering conkers. It infuriated Cory. He felt that someone ought to be looking after Rachel rather than the reverse.
Cory scraped the sand off his boots with irritable swipes of the trowel. The only time that he had expressed his views to Rachel, she had accused him of hypocrisy. And it was true, Cory thought fairly, that he also enjoyed the sort of life that the Odells pursued. But he was not married and nor did he have any children. His love of travel was the reason why he had never married. He valued his liberty too highly to compromise it.
His gaze returned to Rachel. She had caught the hem of the blue promenade dress on a trailing bramble and had bent to release her skirts. She was by necessity displaying her very attractive ankles, which she had kept demurely hidden from him since she was about ten years old. Cory grinned. Rachel had a figure as luscious as any of the Greek statues that adorned her parents’ hall, but no one was ever likely to get a glimpse of it. Her necklines were always high and her hemlines low. She was as neatly tied up as a parcel packaged with string.
He felt a wayward male urge to unwrap that parcel.
Cory sighed and ran a hand over his hair. He was not sure when his feelings for Rachel had started to change. Certainly he did not feel remotely brotherly towards her. Cory had plenty of sisters and his feelings for Rachel were quite different. At some point he had started to notice her in an entirely masculine way, and having started, had been unable to stop. It was utterly pointless and he knew it. Rachel saw him as a reliable elder brother and he was honour bound not to step outside the part. Besides, even he was not so disreputable as to have dishonourable intentions towards the daughter of his mentor and friend.
The Notorious Lord Page 5