The Sport of Baronets

by Theresa Romain

  His voice had become low and soothing, just as it had been in the stable yard. How did he change its timbre so easily from sandpaper to satin? Its calm resonance made Hannah want to sway toward him, to set one foot before the other.

  No. To shrug it away. That was what she wanted to do. “If you can find the papers related to Nottingham’s purchase, that might settle the matter.” She looked scornfully at the tumbled stack of papers atop Crosby’s table.

  “That is a reasonable suggestion.” He eased around the table and faced her before the door of the stall-turned-office. “For a Chandler, you impress me.”

  “I would say the same if I could,” she replied, and his mouth crimped into an unwilling smile.

  That small curve of lips felt like more of a victory than any of her spiked words, and she let herself look up at him, wondering for just a moment.

  What was it like to own things outright and not just serve as an emissary?

  What was it like to travel where one wished? To attend a ball, to spin through a waltz and steal a kiss?

  Had Bart Crosby always been free to leave and return as he chose? And what had hardened his features and dusted gray through his night-colored hair? Surely not the foreign pleasures of London, which Hannah had neither sipped nor tasted.

  Perhaps he had always looked thus, and time had smoothed her recollections of the neighbor boy to whom she was never allowed to speak.

  Her throat caught on so many questions. Crosby spoke instead. “Any document dating to 1801 would more likely be in the house than in this office. I shall search at my first opportunity, Miss Chandler. You have my word.” He held up his hand, bare-skinned and strong-fingered. “I realize that means less than nothing to you, but that is your misfortune.”

  “I will accept your word,” she decided, “if I may look along with you to ensure the worth of the search.”

  “That is remarkably presumptuous, but I’ll consider the matter.” Again, the tiny curve of a smile, and Hannah had to bite her lip not to return it. He reached over her shoulder—to touch her? No, only to fiddle with the latch and let the door swing open behind her. “After you,” he said.

  She took one step into the open air—then froze. Stunned by the scene before her. Heedless of Crosby’s muffled curse as he collided with her back.

  Sothern, her groom, lay prone and still at the center of the stable yard, his forehead bleeding from an ugly cut. Crosby’s stable boy had been gagged, tied hand and foot, and tossed beside him.

  And Golden Barb—the colt who was to carry her future—was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter 2

  A tangle of shocked words ensued. Hannah hardly knew which were hers and which were uttered by Crosby. The world was What has happened? and Are they breathing? and Good God! and Where is my colt? As though she were the one struck, the world turned distant and buzzing and unreal.

  Crosby jostled her as he shoved through the doorway, and that was enough to shake her back to the present. As he ran toward the youth, Hannah dashed to Sothern, cursing the long skirts that caught around her ankles. She fell to her knees in the damp grass and, stripping off a glove, felt for a pulse.

  Sothern was a thin man of about her father’s age, and the blow had already caused his forehead to swell and purple around the cut. Yet his pulse was steady, and he was breathing, each inhalation shallow but regular.

  At her side, Crosby pulled the stable boy’s gag free.

  “Taken,” gasped the boy.

  “The colt? Was he taken by Northrup?”

  But the boy had already fallen into a faint.

  Crosby sprang to his feet, prowling the edges of the stable yard. Hannah released Sothern’s wrist and tracked the baronet with her eyes. “What on earth are you doing, playing at Daniel Boone?”

  He broke stride long enough to toss an impatient glare her way. “The ground is soft. Any hoofprint or footfall will have left a flattened patch, so I can see which way they went.”

  Hannah refrained from pointing out that many horses and people had crossed the ground, so it would be impossible to tell where taken meant, or by how many. “Fine. Be an intrepid explorer if you must. Might I order your servants to summon a doctor for these men?”

  He seemed not to hear her at first, crouching to study a patch of grass that, as far as Hannah could tell, looked like every other. “That’s fine,” he answered her at last. “I’ll—”

  “Keep toddling about the grass? Yes, I assumed as much.”

  “Correct.”

  If he had sounded angry, she would have thought her barb was justified. But he sounded distant and vaguely amused as he continued to search. As though he were not talking to a person, but instead observing a filly gamboling on a longe line. How often had Hannah done the same with half-broken horses? The poor creatures never knew when they were at the end of their rope.

  She flung herself to her feet, brushing at her damp wool skirts, and marched to the nearest open stall door. Her halloo brought nothing but a chestnut with a white blaze that poked his head over the stall door and whickered.

  “Not enough staff,” she muttered. At the stables of Chandler Hall, new and spacious, she would have exchanged greetings with several under-grooms and stable boys by now. The correct number of servants assured the horses’ comfort; so many observant eyes kept the staff honest as well.

  A groggy stable boy finally made an appearance, his clothes creased and rumpled and his hair woven with straw. At Hannah’s crisp questioning, he revealed that he’d been asleep, because it was his task to keep watch on the stables all night.

  “At least your master has some sense,” she granted, though one scrubby youth was unlikely to serve as much of a deterrent to the dishonest. In the weeks before a race, wise owners placed extra security about their horses, because bookmakers had been known to injure or steal horses to affect the odds on a race. The Two Thousand Guineas always enriched more than just the owner of the champion.

  Quickly, she explained the need for a doctor and sent the now wide-eyed stripling on his way. A dozen strides carried her back to the edge of the yard, where Crosby still paced.

  “Your boy is fetching a doctor. You will want to summon a constable too, I imagine.”

  He planted his feet, fixing her with a gaze like cold coffee. “No imagining. No speculating. And no summoning the constable.”

  “But these men were attacked.”

  “Yes, they were. So quickly and silently we heard nothing. Not from them, and not from the horse. What does that tell you?”

  “That the attacker carried apples and a flask of gin?”

  “That the attacker was known to them all.” He kicked at a clod of dirt. “Northrup. My own groom. I can hardly credit it. He’s been with the family for decades.”

  “Maybe a bookmaker passed by, swung him onto the colt’s back—my colt, I might remind you—and thundered away.”

  “I did request that you not speculate, Miss Chandler.”

  “There’s no need, since what happened is perfectly obvious. Your groom stole my colt. Now, where would he have taken Golden Barb?”

  Crosby squinted at the low brick building. “To a stable.”

  “That’s impossible. Your chestnut over there would have whinnied like a bugler. He’s a better watchman than your human staff.”

  “Not to my stable, Miss Chandler. To a stable. Northrup will keep the horse safe somewhere, though whether for ransom or racing I cannot know.”

  Hannah bit her lip. “If we let it be known the horse was taken, it will set the odds against Golden Barb in the Two Thousand Guineas. Once the colt is found in good health, that increase in odds will work in favor of anyone who wagers on him. Small investment, large payout.”

  Not if the colt were found. She could not allow the possibility of if. That colt was going to change her life. He would race if she had to build him new legs out of wood and hinges.

  Crosby was studying her with an o
dd look on his face. “How deviously you think, Miss Chandler. I had not considered that the disappearance of my prize colt could be turned to financial advantage.”

  She wasn’t sure whether to translate this statement as You are a genius or You are the most coldhearted shrew in the world. Deciding not to respond to either, she said, “You might as well call me Hannah. Your discourtesies go ill with the respect of a surname.”

  He abandoned his path about the edge of the stable yard to draw closer to her. “You think I’ve disrespected you, so you’re inviting me to take greater familiarity?”

  “I’m not used to being called anything but Hannah,” she explained. “Youngest in the family, and all that.”

  “Yes, I am the youngest in my family too. It can be detrimental to one’s dignity, can it not?” He scrubbed a hand through his short, wavy locks. “Hannah, then. And you may call me Bart.”

  “But your name is Bartlett.” She felt safer, somehow, trying out his name in the course of an argument.

  “Sir Bartlett, if you want to be pedantic about it. Though I assumed you do not, considering you couldn’t get my title right earlier.”

  Her face went hot, which she knew would make her freckles stand out even more. “Chose not to, rather than couldn’t. If you want to be pedantic about it.” At once she regretted the sharpness of this reply, which seemed petty when men lay hurt on the ground. “I—did have your servant summon a doctor, Bart.”

  He accepted this with an incline of his head. “Good. Thank you. As for the horse and groom, impossible to tell which direction they went.”

  “Has your groom any friends in the neighborhood?”

  “Not an hour ago, I would have sworn they were all here on my staff. Now I see he must have a close acquaintance somewhere else.”

  “We could search his quarters for clues.”

  Bart appraised her for several seconds. “Devious again. I am fortunate that you have not turned your wit against me before today.”

  “Maybe I have, but in so devious a way that you haven’t realized it yet.” The words made her heart beat quickly, as though speaking them was an exertion. Was she threatening him, or flirting? Surely the two should not be so difficult to tell apart. But then, Hannah had little practice with either.

  He seemed not to know which she meant either. He lifted a hand as though to remove his hat, only to squint, discomfited, when he recalled he was bareheaded. “Let us search, then, as soon as these men are cared for.”

  ***

  By the time the physician arrived, the stable boy had revived enough to confirm that Northrup had indeed galloped off with the colt.

  “So the groom was lying about Golden Barb favoring a foreleg,” Hannah observed. “He must have meant to distract you.”

  “Hardly necessary, considering Chandlers were flinging themselves about my estate. That ought to have been distraction enough to cover any crime.” Bart’s reply lacked heat. He could not muster any ire for an old foe when a new one had so suddenly arisen. Horse racing was built on loyalty and trust: that of a horse for its trainer and rider; that of an owner for his staff. Bart’s trust had been misplaced, and he had not even suspected it.

  The physician was a spare, pragmatic native of Newmarket who was used to treating the violent injuries that sometimes resulted from people and large beasts moving at high speeds or in close quarters. Bart let him assume what he would, overseeing the safe transport of the stable boy Russ and Hannah Chandler’s groom to spare chambers within the servants’ quarters.

  “They’ll be all right within a few days, Sir Bartlett,” stated the doctor. “Keep them still, and give them plenty of beef tea and nourishing broth.”

  The housekeeper grumbled at these additional duties, but Bart knew Mrs. Jarvis’s kind heart and sense of hospitality would ensure the care of the injured.

  Well, he didn’t know; he only assumed. Even as he made the proper replies all around, his mind whirlpooled with doubt. Whom could he trust, if such a longtime servant as Northrup could attack and steal?

  Where had Northrup taken the colt?

  What ought he, Bart, to do next?

  So recently, he had answered the last of those questions with careful plans, balanced on a knife edge. Now they were scattered and toppled.

  He seized on the one sturdy suggestion that remained. Turning from the housekeeper, he caught Hannah Chandler’s gaze. “Miss Chandler”—for the sake of the others listening, he retrieved formality—“your suggestion of a search was, I think, a good one.”

  A lift of one dark gold brow. “I agree, Sir Bartlett.”

  A few words of farewell and thanks to the doctor and housekeeper; then he and Hannah again exited the house. “Northrup’s quarters are in the stable,” Bart explained, leading her in that direction. “If he has left behind any personal effects or correspondence, they’ll surely be there.”

  She matched his long strides. “You are beginning to think in a devious manner after all.”

  “I’m not made for deviousness,” he admitted. “If I were, I’d probably not be a bachelor any longer.”

  “Such a statement smacks of bitterness.” She tipped up her face, letting the sun edge beneath the brim of her tidy little black hat. “Perhaps that is why you are a bachelor.”

  “You know nothing about the matter,” Bart muttered.

  “So tell me,” she said. “Enlighten me.”

  What an odd woman. She sounded sincere.

  But he didn’t feel like acquainting this near-stranger with his struggles in London. There he found himself following the fashion to be sure he wouldn’t set a foot wrong, but taking little pleasure in it. Only when he held the reins of his curricle did he feel he was setting his own pace. Only as he threaded his horses through crowded, colorful streets was town the garden of delights others seemed to think it all the time.

  “We have a search to conduct,” he replied. They had again reached the stable, and Bart led her to a door.

  As soon as he entered, he felt more at ease. The earthy smell of horses—their feed and sweat and manure—pervaded the space. Though few animals remained to the Crosbys, the stable was in impeccable repair, from sound roof to clean-swept floor, from sturdy walls to white-painted stall doors. Horses could not win races when fed on moldy hay or short rations of oats, or with hooves grown spongy from standing in foul straw.

  Most of the hay was stored in a room for that purpose, as were the oats that gave racehorses their vigor and speed, but a small loft was also tucked beneath the stable’s gabled roof. As the head groom, Northrup had claimed private quarters up there. Bart directed Hannah to the ladder leading to the loft, then followed her. For politeness and security, of course, to make sure she did not topple.

  Though it was no hardship to see the sway of her hips as she climbed. For a minute, it was a pleasant distraction: slender curves cloaked in costly green wool. A determined tread, as though she were forging a path with each step upward.

  When they reached the top of the ladder, Bart drew in a deep breath. He loved the scent of the hayloft, like clean grass and the warmth of late summer. Like foals untangling long legs for their first gallop, or colts sure and fleet of foot.

  Beneath the stable roof, the ceiling sloped, its rafters and beams and trusses all exposed. The short span of wall above the platform and below the roofline was dotted with squat windows, which made it necessary to stack and shape the hay carefully.

  Something that had been undone since Bart’s last visit to the hayloft the day before. Facing them was a fallen tousle of hay, haphazard as though it had been kicked about and shuffled.

  Hannah tapped at a tangle of straw with one boot. “This is—”

  “Not acceptable,” Bart finished. “I know.”

  Her mouth opened, then closed again, and she gave a little shrug. “Not quite what I was going to say, but I bow to your authority. Since this is your stable.”

  And the work of your w
ayward groom, she did not say, but Bart felt the awareness within himself, heavier than words. Whether Northrup had been careless or malicious, Bart should have checked more. Trusted less.

  That was what they were here to do, at last. “His chamber is over the tack room. There—that door. Do you see it?” The smaller rooms next to Northrup’s, portioned out for under-grooms and stable boys, were empty at the moment. Some had been empty for the past year.

  Hannah looked into the empty rooms with a sniff. “If you kept the number of grooms you ought, you would never have had any trouble with Northrup.”

  “Is that some sort of I told you so? Because those cause freckles.”

  She clapped her hands over her nose and cheeks. “I would disagree, but in my case, you are right. Everything causes freckles.”

  “And I had as many grooms as I could. I had no hesitation about trusting Northrup, because I have known him longer than I’ve known…

  “Me, for example?” she suggested. “And you see how correct you were about me. As you divined within an instant, I am an evil Gorgon who wishes only to cheat you and lie to you.”

  “There’s one honest statement from you, at least.” He found a hay rake and began drawing the untidy scatter into neat piles. “As it turns out, I did not turn to stone, and therefore you must not be an evil Gorgon.”

  “That might be the kindest thing a Crosby has ever said to a Chandler.”

  He fumbled the hay rake, and it clattered to the floor. “Is it? And what is the kindest thing a Chandler ever said to a Crosby?” He stumbled to right the rake. When he stood again, his face was flushed.

  She blinked back at him. Her eyes were like a forest, dark about the pupils, then tawny and shading to a deep and verdant green.

  “I’m going to search his belongings,” she said, which was when Bart realized he had been staring at her. Just a bit.

  Well, it was only because he hadn’t seen her in a long time. One must study one’s foes to understand them. Or…something.