“Brett and I will support you in every way,” he replied with rising interest.
Unhappy impatience got the better of her. “How can you be so false when I heard with my own ears your plotting with Brett to fix the race at Newmarket with an older horse bearing an-other’s name!”
He stared at her with lifted eyebrows and widening eyes. Then he laughed uproariously, tilting back his chair and showing every white tooth in his handsome head. “You thought that of me, did you?” He let the front chair-legs crash back to the floor again and with his heels he brought himself and the chair sliding forward in a single motion, his knees coming hard against her skirts, and he seized the wicker arms on either side of her, making it impossible for her to move back away from him. “No wonder you’ve been as touchy as a spitting cat more times than I care to remember!” His eyes, half-closed, glittered with merriment. “What Brett will say when he hears what you thought of him I cannot imagine! We were exchanging points on how to thwart Hedley’s attempt to commit that very crime you thought us guilty of. We realized that if we failed it could jeopardize all chance of pinning him down at a later date, but we considered it worth the risk, having gathered plenty of information about what was afoot. We did manage to get the switch revealed, but he was crafty enough to dispose of the evidence, getting the horse away in the nick of time. It has been imperative all along for me to appear to be linked with the renegades of the racecourse while working in close co-operation with the Jockey Club, whose aim is to clear the Turf of scoundrels like Hedley and his ilk, who will stop at nothing to achieve their nefarious aims.
She was between laughter and tears in her relief at his words, radiant in her happiness.
“I thought my father mistrusted you and that’s why he wanted to remove Young Oberon from your stables.”
“No, no. It was simply for the reasons I gave you. I’m no saint — far from it, I fear! — but I’ve never taken part in a crooked deal in my life and your father knew that.”
“But Amelia was blackmailing you!”
“What?” He laughed again. “Good God! Whatever gave you that idea?”
“How else did she get the money from you to leave Rushmere and start a new life elsewhere?”
“A simple business transaction. She had three old and precious books that your father had given her several years ago as security against her old age after deciding to leave you the house, and she gave me first chance to buy them from her for my own collection. They had been valued at a considerable figure, but she pressed me for a much higher and quite exorbitant price.” He compressed his lips, eyeing her warily. “You won’t care to hear it, I suppose, but in truth I considered them cheap at three thousand guineas, because I guessed I was being instrumental in procuring you your freedom from her. It was no surprise to me when her letter came telling me she had left Cudlingham.”
She was looking down at her hands folded in her lap, remembering the gap on her father’s bookshelves that had been filled with rubbishy editions that she had removed. “Were they books on horses by any chance?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes. Three superb volumes printed once and once only in the late seventeenth century for a private individual, who had the most exquisite illustrations, some drawn, others watercolours, inserted into them. Scenes of racing on the Epsom Downs in centuries gone by.”
“Tell me about some of them,” she requested, scarcely able to comprehend Amelia’s deceit in stealing and disposing of them.
“Well, there’s the racing that took place in Henry II’s time, and some splendid views of Nonesuch Palace — gone now, more’s the pity! — when Elizabeth stayed there and with her court watched her gallants compete on horseback for the favour of a Royal glove or riband. Farther on there’s a picture of James I enjoying the sport. Best of all I like the amusing illustration on that day in 1618 when the country fellow, Henry Whicker, couldn’t get his cattle to drink water in an Epsom field — the discovery of the mineral spring that was to bring people from afar to sample its medicinal properties, and eventually to produce by refinement the famous salts. A series of pictures shows the people coming in their coaches and wagons — first to drink the water and then to attend the races, while all the time Epsom village grew on its new prosperity.”
“What else is there?” she asked with wistful fascination.
“A double page shows the panorama of Charles I and his cavalry gathering on Epsom Downs to do battle with the Parliamentarians, and there are several delightful contemporary illustrations of Charles II and his ladies, trailing scarves and fans and the Royal spaniels, arriving and staying at the King’s Head tavern in Epsom for the races.” He frowned in smiling puzzlement. “I can’t understand why Amelia did not show the volumes to you. You may look your fill of them now at any time.”
Those books had been the jewels of her father’s collection and, in that respect, hers too. The words of Amelia’s farewell letter came back to her with a new meaning. Almost incredulously Tansy recalled the toil and labour she had gone through, the millstone of debt about her neck that would weigh her down for many years to come, and all the time she had had a fortune at Rushmere, which Amelia had taken from the bookshelves — yes! on the very night of her arrival at Rushmere — and hidden away. Those books, given to Dominic in lieu of payment to settle Oliver’s debts, would have set her free. Free even to love this man who was still divided from her by a gulf of those outstanding obligations that had never pressed harder on her than at this moment.
Wrenching her mind away from a vain contemplation of what might have been, the chance of it gone forever, she drew breath and spoke again on the matter of gathering evidence against Hedley.
“When Epsom race week comes to an end,” she said, “two gentlemen, as well as Hedley, will be staying on to attend another meeting at the Redstead course, which is only a comparatively short ride away. Let Brett stay on too.” Briefly she outlined the plan she had in mind.
Dominic looked doubtful. “I don’t know that we should try it. It could place you in grave danger.”
“How could it? With you and Brett on hand to protect me nothing can go wrong,” she said confidently, with a smile.
His gaze was warm and very tender. Taking both her hands into his he drew her forward, leaning over himself from the waist to place a kiss on the corner of her mouth. She became self-conscious about her appearance, dropping her head to hide the black patch over her eye, knowing her lower lip was still swollen, her cheek darkened by a bruise, but he continued to pull gently on her hands and as though it were the most natural thing for her to do she obeyed his unspoken request and pushed her chair away to slide onto his knees. His arms enfolded her and her head came to rest on his shoulder, her brow against his neck.
It was as if her heart surrendered at last after its long and vigilant battle against him. She knew only joy and contentment and peace in his arms. Though she was temporarily disfigured and unsightly, he still found her beautiful and showed it in his gentleness. With a lover’s sensitive fingertips he stroked her hair away from her face.
“I love you, Tansy,” he said softly. “I tried to tell you once before when I took your glove from your hand on the stairs at a party, but you gave me no encouragement. I have longed for this moment to come.”
Even now she could not tell him that she loved him in return. The bright flicker of her independent spirit made it impossible. She had to be free of him to become his. One day she would be able to tell him. One day. When there were no more barriers between them.
On the wall the ugly kitchen clock, not wanted by Amelia when she departed, ticked languorously, its pendulum swinging to and fro, but neither Tansy nor Dominic noticed how the minutes passed and the hands moved on. Cocooned in love, she did not wish to stir, and he, holding her to him, inhaled the young bouquet of her, the fragrance of skin and hair, and marvelled, as though he were a boy again in love for the first time, at the magic wrought upon his heart by her nearness. But perhaps it was the
first time. Never, indeed, had he loved as he loved her.
It was Judith who finally disturbed them. Hearing no sound and thinking he must have departed, she opened the door and was in the room before she saw that Tansy was seated on his knees, his arms about her.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, blushing at her own intrusion. “I didn’t know — I mean, I thought you had gone, Dominic.” Then she saw by the way they smiled at each other, Tansy moving as lazily and luxuriously as a contented cat disturbed in sleep, that something inexplicable and wonderful had happened to make their enmity a thing of the past. The impact of what it meant to her personally made Judith speak out on a gust of relief: “I can tell all is well between you at last. It gladdens me for many reasons, and an ambition close to my heart can now be realized.”
Tansy looked at her in mild surprise, her face still blissful. “What is this?”
“Some time ago — at the first musical evening we spent at the Manor — Dominic said he had a mare that would make a very quiet ride for me if I would like to make use of her. When I said I didn’t know how to ride, never having been very strong, he
said it should prove the best exercise for weak muscles and he would arrange that Mr. Kirby’s son, Matthew, should teach me. I refrained from doing anything more about it, knowing how angry you were with Dominic and everything to do with Ainderly Hall at the time, but now!” She was radiant as she spoke. “Now I intend to have my first lesson very soon!”
Tansy swept forward and hugged her. “What a splendid idea.” She knew Judith understood that she was giving a blessing on her falling in love with Matthew.
When Dominic left them they stood with arms about each other’s slender waists. He kissed them both, Judith on the cheek and Tansy on her loving lips.
12
Epsom race week came to an end. All the guests, except the four men staying on, Brett having fallen in with Tansy’s plan, settled their bills with much voicing of appreciation. Judith dealt with them, as Tansy had kept out of sight of her guests and their servants since the night of the attack on her person, not now because of her unsightly appearance, but because it was decided that an element of surprise should be used in the trap that was to be set for Hedley.
Nina came home the same day. She brought no baggage with her, a bedroom having been set aside for her at the Manor where she kept overnight necessities and some of the new clothes that Edward had paid for. At first she would not leave her plain and serviceable underwear to be laundered there in her absence. But since it now had been replaced with the frilliest of petticoats, the most delicate chemises, and pantalets afoam with lace and ribbons, which she had purchased on shopping trips with Sarah, who was her close friend and constant chaperone, she was able to flit to and fro between Rushmere and the Manor with not so much as a comb to carry in whichever dainty little reticule was swinging from her wrist.
After sympathizing profusely with Tansy’s bruises, having received an account of the attack, although the true reason for Tansy’s presence in the vicinity of the Ainderly Hall stables had been kept a secret in spite of the incident being common talk in the village, Nina flitted about the room adjoining the kitchen. Tansy sat with a ledger, doing the accounts, while Nina pulled her French kid gloves from her hands by the tip of each finger, recounting the quite marvellous time she had had at the races. Judith paused in her sewing to listen with rapt attention. At first Nina was full of a tale being circulated about Lord George Bentinck, a prominent figure in the racing world, in whose party she had been with Edward and Sarah on Derby Day. All his life Lord George had longed for a Derby winner and he had sold Surplice with his stud only two years before, so his state of mind was one of regret and distress, to say the least.
“When he returned to the Houses of Parliament the next day,” Nina continued, “he was sitting in the Library there — very glum, as you can imagine — and Disraeli came to offer his condolences. Lord George gave a long, deep groan, poor man! But here’s the interesting part — Disraeli called the Derby the Blue Riband of the Turf. He was comparing it to the Order of the Garter, which has that special riband and is the highest honour in the land, as you know. I tell you, the phrase has quite caught on. Everyone is using it now to describe the Derby stakes.”
She also had a fund of other tales to tell, accounts of her meetings with famous people in the political world and other spheres of society, her head quite turned with it all, the compliments paid to her repeated with relish and at great length.
Yet in spite of her turning up her nose at Rushmere, looking about her with a disparaging air as if after being at the Manor any other surroundings were hard to live with, she did not seem sorry to be back. Tansy noticed how often she glanced at the clock as the evening wore on, although no mention was made of a walk and all three girls went to bed at the same time. With Tansy still keeping away from the others in the house, she and Judith retired as usual to their room in the kitchen quarters, but Nina went upstairs to the box room, the guest who had occupied it having departed. Judith fell asleep almost at once. It took Tansy a little longer to drop off, because she thought she heard a faint creak on the rear stairs and then a sound that might have been the click of the kitchen door latch, but she knew herself to be mistaken, having bolted it with her own hands on the inside before retiring.
Every detail of the plan to trap Hedley was worked out among Dominic, Brett, and Tansy herself. The two men decided that Judith should be told, as she would be in the house at the time, but not Nina, who would again be staying at the Manor for some event, the fewer people who knew of the plan the better. When Judith discovered that Hedley did not intend departing on the same evening as the other two guests, but would be leaving the following morning, Brett and Dominic came to the conclusion that it would be the right night to carry out their plan. Only Silas had to be reckoned with, but he normally retired to the stable loft before his master, who was always late to bed, went upstairs. Judith was given the task to keep watch and make sure he was out of the way.
Tansy woke on the morning of the appointed day with an uncomfortable flutter of nerves in her stomach. She could tell that Judith felt the same, and she was glad that Nina was at the Manor and out of it all. The day seemed incredibly long and she was reminded of Nina again many times in her own constant glancing at the clock as if the passing of time were all too slow an affair.
The two last guests returned from the Redstead races to collect their baggage and depart. Hedley arrived soon afterward and Tansy felt a twinge of misgiving when she saw that he was driving the four-in-hand himself and Silas was not with him. Obviously Hedley did not expect Silas to return to Rushmere within the next hour at least, for he unharnessed the horses himself and fed and watered them. Watching him from behind the kitchen window Tansy thought he appeared to be in a black mood, pulling on his thick lower lip, his huge black brows drawn into a straight line bushy as a hedge. She put a hand across her heart, aware of its nervous beating, when she heard his heavy footsteps go past the baize-lined door as he made for the stairs. When next he went up them she would be at the top of the rear stairs, ready to challenge him as he crossed the landing, coming face to face.
When it came to his dinnertime Judith wheeled the courses in and out of the dining room on a trolley, which enabled her to dispense with her stick, except when setting something down singlehanded on the table. She made conversation, letting him know that he was the last guest in the house, Brett having appeared to leave with the rest, but being in fact already installed in Nina’s box room. While setting the fish course under its silver cover on the sideboard Judith inquired as casually as she could when she might expect Silas back for supper.
Hedley, slurping up the last spoonful of soup, a napkin tucked in his cravat, took a piece of roll and stuffed it into his mouth before replying in a spitting shower of crumbs. “I ain’t certain.” His voice growled with ominous displeasure that boded ill for his servant. “Shove a bowl of leavings on the stable loft steps. Th
at’s good enough for him if he should return.”
At that point, quite without warning, the dining room door opened and Silas came sliding into the room, a wide, gap-toothed grin on his ferrety face, his expression one of supreme satisfaction, but the grin vanished and fear became stamped upon his features when Hedley gave a great roar at the sight of him, threw his chair back, and sprang across with an amazing speed for a man of his bulk. He seized Silas and shook him like a dog with a rat.
“You infernal idiot! You brainless fool! You lost me a pretty pickings and made me pay out half my Derby winnings in the bargain.”
“I couldn’t help it!” Silas whined on a high, shrill note of terror. “How was I to know they had switched stalls —”
“Shut your gab!” Hedley dealt the wretched man a violent blow across the mouth. “We ain’t alone!” With a jerk of his head he indicated Judith, whom Silas had failed to notice. She was standing stunned by the scene. Hedley threw his servant from him contemptuously. “Get out of my sight!”
Silas needed no second bidding. Hedley returned to his chair and fell back in it. He had dropped his napkin in the skirmish and Judith picked it up and handed it to him.
“Thank you, my dear.” He managed a kind of sick smile, but his thoughts were faraway. He ate the rest of his meal absently and with none of his usual gluttonous relish.
In the kitchen, with Tansy out of sight in the side room, Judith served Silas his supper. He was even more talkative than usual, telling her that the racecourse he had been to over the past two days could not compare with Epsom. “Not fashionable like Epsom is with the gentry,” he said, tucking into his supper, his appetite unimpaired by the treatment he had received. “You wouldn’t like it. No fancy bonnets and touch-me-not shawls, but solid racing folk aimin’ to make a bit of money and have a bit of good sport like what they do at smaller meetings all over the country.”
The Marlows Page 26
