She leaned one hand against the cool stone wall and pressed the other to her suddenly aching forehead. She could pretend ignorance of Miss Lang’s flirtations, but she could not ignore what she had overheard and it disturbed her. Could Cory have had some sort of wager with the Kestrel brothers to flirt with the ladies of Midwinter for their own entertainment? She remembered the occasion on which Richard Kestrel and Cory had come into the teashop in Woodbridge. Cory had been most attentive to Deborah Stratton whilst Richard had made himself agreeable to her. And tonight Cory and Richard and Justin and Lucas had flirted with a great many ladies, damn them…
‘I think you must have dropped something, Rachel.’
Cold dread clutched at Rachel’s stomach, to be followed by a prickly heat running down her neck. She turned slowly. Cory was standing directly behind her, her handkerchief hanging limply in his hand. It had the letter ‘R’ embroidered on it, and the way Cory was holding it made this quite visible. Both of them knew that there was no point in her denying that it belonged to her.
Rachel licked her dry lips. Now was the moment to challenge him on what he and the Kestrels were up to. Now was the moment to speak, to be as open and honest as she had always been with him. She looked into his silver grey eyes and he looked back at her. His gaze was hard. Their earlier quarrel seemed to hang heavily between them.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel said. She took the handkerchief from his grip and tucked it into her reticule, hoping that her hands were not shaking too much. She had no idea why she felt so nervous. Perhaps it was guilt, or anger, or disappointment, or a mixture of all three.
‘I must have dropped it when I went outside for some air,’ she said.
There was a sceptical lift to Cory’s brows. ‘I did not see you when I was out there just now. Did you see me?’
Rachel hesitated. She had never told Cory a direct lie in her life. She took a deep breath.
‘No,’ she said, adding with deliberate flippancy, ‘were you taking a young lady outside to look at the stars?’
Cory did not smile. ‘No, I was not,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ Rachel felt slightly at a loss. ‘Well…thank you…’ she gestured vaguely towards her bag ‘…and goodnight. I believe that Mama and Papa are ready to leave now.’
Cory bowed slightly, his handsome face as still as carved stone. Rachel was uncomfortably aware that he watched her progress across the room to Lady Odell’s side. When she was almost there she could not help half-turning to look back at him, and saw that Richard Kestrel had come across to engage Cory in urgent conversation. She saw Cory shake his head once, decisively, then he looked across the room and met her eyes. His own expression was veiled.
The anger took Rachel again. She had liked the Kestrels and, whilst she had not deluded herself that they had any serious intentions, had at least thought them sincere in their compliments. The idea that they had made some odious wager made her feel quite furious.
She could scarcely exact revenge on the Duke or Richard Kestrel, but Cory at least was within her scope. She had thought earlier that he was too arrogant and needed to be cut down to size. Now she was doubly certain. She would surely take her revenge. And it would be sweet.
‘What a delightful evening,’ Lady Odell said, smothering a yawn as the carriage pulled away from the door of Saltires in the July dawn. ‘I have not enjoyed myself so much since Lord Coate hosted the Egyptian Revue! Lady Sally’s guests were remarkably cultivated and knowledgeable. Why, Lord Richard Kestrel knew all about Barrington’s work in Oxfordshire and spent over a half-hour asking me about our progress on the dig.’
Rachel stifled a yawn of her own.
‘Sound fellah,’ Sir Arthur grunted. ‘Told me he had come across some uncommonly interesting ruins on his travels in Asia. Thought I might look into it one day…’
Rachel felt her heart sink. There she had been trying to persuade Cory from inviting her parents to excavate in Cornwall so that they might be settled in Suffolk for a while, and instead her father was contemplating the deserts of Asia.
‘Are you quite well, my love?’ Lady Odell enquired, patting Rachel’s hand. ‘You seem quite done up and it is not at all like you.’
‘I am a little tired,’ Rachel conceded. ‘I fear I did not enjoy the evening as much as you did, Mama.’
‘Not surprising, quarrelling like that with Cory,’ Sir Arthur said, displaying one of his rare but blinding flashes of perception. ‘You are always miserable when you cut up rough with the boy, Rachel. Remember how matters were that time in Patagonia? You did not eat for three days.’
‘I was only twelve then,’ Rachel said, trying to quell her bad humour, ‘and Cory deserved for me to wrangle with him. He was an odiously self-important young man! And he has not changed much either,’ she added, with sudden bitterness.
‘Best to make up with him,’ Sir Arthur grunted, closing his eyes. ‘You know you are always happier that way.’
Rachel looked out of the carriage window at the pale light streaking the eastern sky. The suggestion to make up with Cory sat ill with her intention of bringing him down a peg or two by sketching him for Lady Sally’s watercolour book. She admitted to herself that such a revenge did seem a little childish. Yet Cory’s discourtesy still rankled; as for the business of the wager, that was outrageous.
‘I think I shall go straight out to the field when we get home,’ Lady Odell said. ‘It will be light enough in an hour or so to get an early start, and we wanted to open up the largest burial mound today, did we not, Arthur?’
‘Good idea,’ Sir Arthur concurred. ‘Wake the servants, what, and get digging.’
Rachel wrinkled her brow. ‘Is it really a good idea, papa?’ she besought. ‘You are likely to put a spade through your foot in the half-light.’
Sir Arthur chuckled. ‘By goodness, do you remember when I did that at Jericho? What an outcry that caused! Had to send fifty miles to find a quack to treat me.’
‘Precisely,’ Rachel said. ‘I am persuaded that you would not wish to cause such trouble again, Papa.’
Lady Odell leant forward to peer out of the window. ‘I do not believe there will be any danger. There is a very good doctor in Woodbridge.’
Rachel sighed. ‘At least take the time to change your gown before you go out, Mama. Yes-’ she forestalled Lady Odell’s next remark ‘-I am aware that you excavated the ruins of Delphi in a ball gown, but such eccentricity is not to be encouraged.’
There was a small silence in the coach. ‘Am I truly eccentric?’ Lady Odell sounded rather pleased.
‘Yes, Mama,’ Rachel said, thawing a little. ‘You and Papa both.’
‘Nonsense!’ Sir Arthur rumbled. ‘Just a little unconventional, Lavinia dear. And who would wish to be ordinary anyway?’
I would, Rachel thought, pressing her gloved fingers against the cool pane of the carriage window. That is exactly what I wish to be.
Cory Newlyn walked back to Kestrel Court in the midsummer dawn and this time he walked unmolested. He had dismissed Richard Kestrel’s offer of company a little abruptly, but he wanted to think. Specifically, he wanted to think about Rachel Odell.
It was ridiculous to suspect Rachel of being the Midwinter spy. He had said as much to Richard on the night of the discussion at Kestrel Court and he still thought it. Every instinct that he possessed told him that Rachel would never commit such treachery. And yet there was no denying that she had been out on the terrace that night when he and Richard were talking. Worse-and quite inexplicably-she had denied that she had even seen him. Cory had known she was lying, but he had not known why she should do so. As far as he knew, Rachel had never lied to him before. It disturbed him that she should start now.
It was another clear, moonlit night. Cory pulled his neckcloth free with impatient fingers and screwed it up in his hand. He felt better without the constriction of tight evening dress. He felt better out in the open air, if it came to that. Dancing with the likes of Lily Benedict and Helena Lang had bee
n a sore trial to him. Lily had been surprisingly discreet and whilst gossip had fallen from Helena’s lips with no encouragement from him, he had learned nothing of interest. Instead he had been obliged to endure her prattle whilst watching Rachel being charming to that tailor’s dummy James Kestrel.
He acknowledged to himself that the argument with Rachel had been foolish, but she could be a provocative creature when she chose. Her accusations of insincerity had got under his skin when he had tried so hard to court her gently. But Cory knew the reason for the unresolved tension between them even if Rachel did not. He knew that the kiss in the billiard room, mistake or not, could never be forgotten.
We should pretend that it never happened.
Rachel was trying very hard to make that pretence a reality, Cory thought, but she was not succeeding. Nor could she quite hide her anger when he paid attention to other women. She was jealous and he found that rather encouraging. He was obliged to admit that he was jealous too. Rachel could arouse such an emotion in him without difficulty. It was a new experience for him and one that he acknowledged with rueful recognition. Miss Rachel Odell was his nemesis. He would never escape.
Chapter Eleven
It was several days before Rachel saw Cory again. On the morning after the ball he failed to arrive at the excavation and though Sir Alfred and Lady Odell were inclined to dismiss this indulgently as the results of a late night, Rachel felt even more out of sorts. Secretly she had been hoping that Cory would arrive early and apologise for his ungentlemanly conduct towards her, after which they might be easy together again. It did not happen.
Instead, Rachel checked the contents of the stillroom with Mrs Goodfellow, who was making jam, and spent the rest of the morning reading about the Midwinter Treasure. She had borrowed some of the local records from the Reverend Lang and, though they were in Latin, found the reading very stimulating. It was interesting to see how the myths and legends had grown up around the story of the Treasure, and how deep was the belief that if anyone tampered with it, they did so at their peril. Jeffrey Maskelyne’s maps and clues were making little sense to her, but they did seem to confirm that there was something hidden on the burial site. She did not intend to involve Cory in the search, however.
In the afternoon she went driving with James Kestrel, who was, of course, far too moderate in his habits to fail to get up the day after a ball. They had a pleasant hour’s drive by the river and at the end of it Rachel knew him for a man with many opinions on a wide variety of subjects and no sense of humour whatsoever. As a marriage prospect he had initially seemed a promising choice, but that was before she had seen him dallying with Miss Lang in the gardens. She felt that this argued a sad unsteadiness of character.
James pressed her to drive with him again soon, but Rachel declined, softening her refusal by agreeing to accept his escort to the Deben Regatta in a few weeks. She wanted to see the spectacle of the Regatta and thought it unlikely that the rest of the family would attend. She felt slightly guilty over this, for she was aware of using James Kestrel almost as much as he appeared to be using Miss Lang.
It rained on the Thursday of that week, shrouding the excavation in a light grey drizzle that sent Sir Arthur grumbling indoors to read the annals of the Archaeological Society and Lady Odell to the library to write some letters. In the evening there was a musicale at Midwinter Marney Hall, but Cory did not appear and Rachel found herself missing him. Sir John Norton was present, pressing in his attentions and flatteringly pleased that he was driving her into town the following day. Rachel wished that she could summon a greater enthusiasm for the outing, but found she could not.
Saturday was bright and hot again and Rachel took her sketching pad and went down to the fields. She walked slowly up to the knot of pines above the river and settled down and was soon engrossed in her drawing. She had seldom drawn people before-all her efforts had been confined to pots and vases and ornaments, to illustrate her parents’ extensive collection. For a little while she sketched her mother, trying to capture the movement of the trailing sleeves and flapping scarves, but Lady Odell’s round figure looked like a butterball on the page, so with a sigh Rachel turned to her father instead. Sir Arthur was digging out a trench at the easternmost extent of the burial ground and his thin stooping figure looked like a stick man in Rachel’s first attempt. She sketched him again, with concentration, only slightly distracted by the thought that his tweed jacket would be thick with dust by the end of the day and would require a good beating.
It was quite late in the afternoon when Cory Newlyn suddenly appeared, strolling down the path from the house, raising a hand to greet the Odells and walking across to the trench where Rachel had sat with him a few of weeks before. He moved with a casual grace. Rachel caught her breath as he approached. The passage of a few days had only hardened her intention to make him suffer for his cavalier behaviour at the ball, for she had been hurt and annoyed that their quarrel had meant so little to him that he had not hurried to apologise. Now that the moment of revenge had come, however, she felt strangely nervous.
She watched Cory as he exchanged a few words with Bradshaw, discarded his jacket and set to work. Not for Cory the formality of a tweed coat on a hot day. He was not wearing his disgusting hat today either and the breeze tousled his fair hair and tugged at his linen shirt, flattening it against his chest. His buff-coloured breeches hugged the taut lines of his thighs. Rachel blinked, decided that she had been staring for long enough, picked up her pencil again and set to work on the sketch.
Her first attempt was hopeless. She had got the proportions all wrong so that Cory ended up looking like a giant with a tiny head. It was ridiculous to think that such a picture could ever be the basis for one included in Lady Sally’s watercolour book. Far from humiliating Cory, she would embarrass no one but herself. She was ashamed to even think of approaching Mr Daubenay with the draft of the sketch. Impatient, Rachel flicked over another sheet and tried again. When her second attempt also failed she stopped and bit the end of her pencil thoughtfully. Perhaps she had not given her subject the attention that was needed. Perhaps she needed to study him properly and analyse his physique.
Cory was about a hundred feet away from her, but he had his back half-turned to her so there was little likelihood that he would see her. Rachel rested the drawing pad on her lap and studied him for a good five minutes, watching the way that his body moved with such smooth precision. She examined him with the dispassionate gaze of the artist and felt quite undisturbed. Then she began again.
She started with his face, for she could see it in profile-the clear-cut line of his cheek and jaw, the dishevelled tawny hair that fell across his forehead. He had his loose linen shirt turned up to the elbows now, and the muscles in his arms corded as he worked, lifting and digging, moving with a fluid energy and elegance that was a pleasure to watch. Every so often the breeze would flatten the shirt against the hard, sculpted lines of his back. Rachel started to sketch his torso and this time she got the proportions perfect. She was extremely pleased with her progress.
And then Cory took off his shirt.
One minute he had been engrossed in shovelling a pile of soil out of the trench, the next he had put down the spade and with one movement pulled the linen shirt over his head. The late afternoon sun shone upon him, burnishing his skin to gold. Rachel’s pencil fell from between her fingers and rolled away into the grass. She blinked, frowned and discovered that her mouth had fallen open. She closed it again quickly.
In a way, the experience down by the river should have prepared her for such an eventuality and yet it had not. In that moment it was as though a flame had been lit within her and it was utterly impossible for her to view Cory with the detached eye of the artist. Instead she was compelled to see him as clearly as she had seen him once before, strong, virile and devastatingly attractive. The knowledge was like a blow to the stomach, knocking all the breath out of her.
She looked down at her sketches and suddenly the
idea of trying to humiliate Cory for his treatment of her seemed shabby and underhand and, above all, desperately sad. Rachel could see now that it had been a foolish idea from the very first, born of jealousy and frustration because she disliked the attentions that Cory was paying to other women. It was a mortifying thought and she understood neither why she should feel like that nor what she could do about it.
And whilst she sat there, frozen between shock and horror and desire, the breeze caught the edge of her sketch-pad, scattering the pages in all directions. She made an instinctive snatch for it and Cory glanced up from where he was working and looked directly at her. He grabbed his shirt in one hand and leapt out of the trench.
Rachel jumped to her feet, overcome by total panic. She did not know where to look or what to do first. The pages of the sketch-pad were dancing in the wind, evading her desperate attempts to gather them together. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Cory shrug himself back into his shirt and heard the crunch of the sand under his boots as he came up the slope towards her. It was bad enough that he should have caught her watching him, but if he realised that she had been drawing him as well…Rachel grabbed at the nearest pieces of paper with trembling fingers, feeling slightly sick as she saw Cory bend to pick up a couple of the sheets and glance at them with a casual interest.
He joined her in the lee of the pines and held the pages out to her politely.
‘Hello, Rachel.’ He did not sound in the least bit out of breath from the climb up the slope.
Rachel, in contrast, found herself gasping for air. ‘Oh! Um…hello, Cory!’ She snatched the paper from him and pressed it against her chest. ‘Ah…thank you!’
‘My pleasure,’ Cory said. ‘It is a windy day for sketching.’
Rachel risked a quick look at the sheets he had found. They were the pictures of her parents. Thank God. That must mean that she had already scooped up the incriminating drawings of him and he need never see them.
The Notorious Lord Page 16