by Issy Brooke
“Change they must,” he said, with the hint of a laugh at last. “You ought to be married again, and therefore protected from the terrors of society.”
“Married? Caged, you mean.”
“Caged? Ah. You read novels, do you not?”
“I do,” she said fiercely. “And it is as well that I do, for I had to instruct the silly shoemaker constable in his duties! It was I that insisted the doctor, and the coroner, were called to the scene.”
Carter-Hall took the chance to change direction. “The coroner is now here,” he said. “He arrived as I left my house. He is a fat and comfortable man, John Barron. I should imagine he rather resents being dragged away from his Cambridge dinners and forced to come out here. By the time the sun is risen again, he will have sworn in the jury, held the inquest, adjourned it for investigation, recalled it, discovered a verdict to send to the judge, and he’ll be home for dinner that same night.”
“Is he that good at his job?”
“No, but he’s that quick, and what does it matter to him, the death of a troublesome lad?”
“Did you know him, the dead man?” Cordelia asked. She began to repin her bonnet which had come loose. She did not want to tarry too long and let the horses become overly relaxed before they headed back to the manor.
“Oh, only by reputation, slightly, which is the way of things in small towns like this,” Carter-Hall said, shrugging. He took another swig of the alcohol but Cordelia shook her head in refusal when he offered it to her. “After all, how would our paths ever cross? He was of a lowly station. He was an argumentative sort, from what I hear. You must ask Hugo, if you must, but it’s not a fit topic for a lady, and a visiting one at that.”
“Speaking of Hugo,” she said, “we ought to get back. He will be returned now.”
“I much prefer your company,” he said, sidling closer. His hot breath tickled her neck. He was too near.
She stepped back very deliberately and continued to repin her hair and hat, using her elbows as a pointed defence. “How very kind of you to say so. Would you check the girth on my saddle, please?”
He let his gaze drop to her nipped-in waist, and she frowned. Slowly she pulled one long hatpin free in a deliberate movement, and held it between them, keeping her eyes on his face.
He glanced at the sinister point, and laughed. “Lady Cornbrook, you are a singular woman with a definite streak of unconventional manners,” he said. “But do you reject polite society as much as polite society rejects you?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
He regarded her levelly. “If you seek not to be married again – caged, as you say – then what will you do for company? By which I mean, male energy? By which I mean, of course, the tender embraces and fires of passion that once you knew in sacred matrimony that, once lit, can never be fully doused? I, too, am a married man, as you know. Yet I am prepared to extend my burning fires, my male energy if you will, to your very great benefit…”
Cordelia took a moment to unpick what he was proposing, then threw back her head and howled with laughter. She pushed the pin back into her bonnet, and let her guffaws recede to a more acceptable smile. Most men pursued her for her imagined money, but Carter-Hall was a different sort of man, and she had not expected anyone to want more of her than her marriageable portion, cash and stocks and status. She extended her hand and took the flask of brandy from him.
“I am honoured,” she said. “You have brightened my day considerably. But…”
He knew the shape of the rejection. “I understand,” he said, with placid acceptance. “It is not to be undertaken … today. Tomorrow, who knows?” He recovered his flask, tucked it away, and turned to the horses.
She watched the slant of his shoulder as he went about his business, and felt a strange sadness wash over her. Oh, what could have been! Not today, and not tomorrow, she told herself. That was not a path she wished to walk. It was not a path she could tread part-way to see if she liked it; once set upon it, her ruin would be certain. She would have a life, still, but not one that she chose.
They rode back to the manor briskly, and Carter-Hall chattered lightly about the SS Great Britain’s progress across the Atlantic Ocean, and other such current marvels.
In her head, she was now calling him Ewatt.
Chapter Eight
In spite of her predictions, there was no sign of Hugo Hawke’s grand carriage when Carter-Hall and Cordelia returned to the manor. They trotted around the side of the house and into a fine cobbled stable-yard, where her own coachman, Geoffrey Bloor, was attending to her almost-comfortable travelling chariot. More specifically, he was supervising the boy, Stanley Ashdown, while Stanley knelt in his shirt-sleeves, repainting the Cornbrook crest on the door of the coach.
Stanley didn’t look up at her directly. She could not remember the youth ever making eye contact with her. Surely he would explode if such a transgression accidentally occurred. He could barely get a sentence past his lips when in her presence, and he’d been in her service since the age of fourteen; a good seven years, now. He had followed her from her childhood home where he’d worked for her father, and stayed with her. He was as awkward and gangly as ever he had been. She wondered at what age he’d grow into his elbows-and-knees frame. It didn’t look likely to be any time soon.
Unlike Stanley’s painful shyness, Geoffrey had no such reticence. He was a large, heavy-set man of darkness and muscle with a street-smart mouth and a well-stocked sword case on the back of the coach. He made the bare minimum of obsequiences to Cordelia, and turned his assessment, quite boldly, to Ewatt Carter-Hall.
It was almost as if he expected to be introduced to Ewatt, which simply wouldn’t do. Cordelia sighed at Geoffrey’s manners, and did the most effective thing, which was to ignore him. She frequently chose the easiest path when dealing with Geoffrey; a simple denial of his rudeness. She urged her mare forward and this time made use of the block to dismount. Still standing atop the mounting block, she turned to Carter-Hall and looked at him over the top of her mare’s saddle.
“Thank you, sir, for a wonderful time,” she said. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Ruby and Mrs Unsworth, her surly cook, approach from a back kitchen door. Now she was being watched by all the members of her retinue – Geoffrey, Stanley, Ruby and Mrs Unsworth – and she rather wished they would all go away.
And yet, for what purpose did she want privacy with this man? She had already established – to him, and to herself – that there was to be no impropriety here.
Still, it was nice to have the chance. She had enjoyed being admired and propositioned.
“The pleasure was all mine,” Carter-Hall purred. He sat comfortably in his saddle, his stocky frame solid and reassuring in the way that he settled there. He might have had the hint of ungainliness about him when on his own feet, but he was an appealing figure when mounted. She tried not to look at his breeches. “You were a magnificent rider and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the manner in which you handled your horse.”
The way his voice rumbled, with his moustache twitching and his eyebrows jerking upwards, made it sound as if they had been having criminal conversation together in the hedgerow, and Cordelia prayed fervently that she was wearing enough face powder to hide any betraying blushes on her cheeks. “I thank you, sir,” she said.
“And I want to apologise, once more, if my bumbling country ways did in any way overstep any bounds or limits.”
That was exactly what she did not want any of her servants to hear. Go away, she thought crossly. She kept on smiling as she said, brightly, “You have been the very model of propriety and honour, sir.” Now go home.
“Then you would not object to me … taking you … again?” he said, and his eyes did not leave hers.
She heard the silly Ruby giggle at his phrase and she knew, then, that he had said it deliberately. The cad. “I am tired,” she said. “I must rest. Good day.”
It didn’t answer his question but anyone of any
decency knew when to stop pursuing the matter, and Carter-Hall withdrew, with a tip of his hat and a broad smile to Geoffrey, who growled at him as he trotted out of the stable yard.
Ruby could not suppress her giggles. Cordelia made her way down the stone steps and gathered up her mare’s reins, just as she heard Ruby speak loudly to Mrs Unsworth.
“What manner of riding do you imagine has been going on twixt them?”
Geoffrey’s growl turned to a snarl, and Mrs Unsworth glared at the maid. Without a word, the flabby cook turned on her heel and stamped heavily back into the house, slamming the door. She made it plain she wanted no part in it.
The coachman was another matter. “Geoffrey,” Cordelia said, putting herself between the maid and the coachman. She held out the mare’s reins. “Might you see to my horse? She has been ridden hard. Thank you.”
He took the leather straps in his wide, calloused hand, but did not move to lead her away. Due to the heat, he was not wearing his usual long, dark overcoat. Under the summer sun, he was stripped right down to nothing more than black flannel trousers, a white collarless shirt with a white vest underneath, a faded black waistcoat, and a black jacket of an older style that had once been formalwear for a man more well-to-do than Geoffrey ever was. He had a dark grey kerchief knotted around his neck, and a tweed cap on his head. This was almost shocking undress for Geoffrey. And yet not a hint of sweat showed on his swarthy face. He stared past Cordelia, directly at the maid, and said in a slow grunt of menace, “You will mind your manners, Miss Ruby.”
“Geoffrey, thank you,” Cordelia said. “Enough. The mare? I shall see to my household discipline with my own maid as I see fit.”
He turned his dark gaze on her. “As you wish, my lady,” he said, in a dispassionate tone, lacking the threat he had injected into his words to Ruby. He clicked his tongue and took the mare forwards, walking in an unnecessarily large circle around the yard to change direction, so that his path went directly by Ruby. Cordelia did not hear what he muttered to her as he passed, but she could tell from the sudden look of defiance mingled with shock on the young woman’s face that it was something terrifying.
Cordelia paused. What was it about her staff? At home, in her rambling large house, they all rubbed along without tension or distraction, or at least, so it had always seemed to Cordelia. Now they were abroad, travelling in the countryside, and it was as if rebellion fermented in every breast. That said, in her house, there were many more members of staff and they all had their allotted tasks and places. Travel threw all that into disarray. Even the very manner of travelling put Cordelia in closer and more constant contact with Ruby, trapped as they both were within the plush travelling chariot. Mrs Unsworth had also shared the inside space, though she had spoken not two words together for all the hours they had spent on the road.
Mrs Unsworth, of course, had her own counsel to keep and Cordelia was content to leave her alone.
Ruby was fast revealing herself to be an outspoken coquette with little check upon her tongue or manners. Geoffrey – ah, well, he had been in her service as long as anyone, and had been her late husband’s man before, too, for many more years. So Geoffrey could be allowed a little leeway, perhaps.
But her maid was her own, she reminded herself. She was not Geoffrey’s concern at all.
Geoffrey had tethered the mare to a post and was stripping her of the leather tack, now white-flecked with drying foam. He called Stanley over to leave his painting, and to come and groom the horse with a curry comb. The youth dashed over, head dipping and twisting as he scampered.
Cordelia was not going to reprimand Ruby out in the yard. She composed her face into what she hoped was a stern expression but as she approached the waiting maid, Ruby was smiling.
“Did you enjoy your ride, my lady?” she asked.
Cordelia stared, searching for a hint of insubordination and intentional double-meaning. Ruby’s eyes were wide. Her hangover seemed to have been finally shaken off.
“I did,” she replied stiffly. “I need to speak with you inside. And there is a soiree this evening; is my duck-egg blue gown prepared?”
“It will be directly, my lady. Who is to be present?”
“Hugo is inviting a handful of local worthies.”
“Including that man? The big banker chap you were just riding with? My lady, in case you were not aware…” Ruby stammered to a stop, and to Cordelia’s wonder, she was blushing.
Astonished, Cordelia urged her to finish. “You may speak freely,” she said, hoping she would not regret that statement.
“My lady, I do not know you fully, and hope I do not overstep my place, and indeed I think I already have, but I speak only out of love and protection and … my own experience,” Ruby said, fixing her eyes on the floor, an entirely unexpected embarrassment settling on her. “You might have moved in carefully sheltered circles. Most ladies have. I had a previous mistress who … well, she fainted the first day she saw a stallion, my lady. A stallion in his, ah, entirety. As it were. What I am trying to say, my lady, is that the intentions of that gentleman are not, to my mind, entirely honourable. The way he looks, and acts, his body and his hands … tell a tale, my lady, that I can read. You must avoid him.”
Cordelia’s growing smile became a grin. Wonderful child. “Thank you, Ruby. I appreciate your candour and I shall not ask how you come by such particular knowledge. Suffice it to say that his intentions did become clear to me, but I was able to steer him into more reasonable waters.”
“So he did not–”
“He was rebuffed,” Cordelia said firmly. “Thank you. Now, let us go in and see to this dress. I will instruct you.”
Ruby turned and went into the house but Geoffrey spoke as Cordelia made to follow.
“My lady,” he called. “Do not fear. That man shall never bother you again, and I shall see to it myself.”
She whirled around. “Geoffrey – no!”
“But you must have satisfaction.”
“Under no circumstances are you to challenge Mr Carter-Hall to a duel,” she said sharply.
Geoffrey laughed without humour. “Oh, not at all.” He spread his thick, dirt-grained hands wide in the air. “Do I look like a duelling man to you, my lady?” he said.
He looked more likely to bite someone’s ear off in an inn. “Ah – no. Simply … no,” she snapped. “No, to everything.” She stalked off after Ruby, foreboding in her heart.
Chapter Nine
Ruby did her limited, untrained best in attending to Cordelia’s eveningwear but both women knew that the current fashion for exposed, narrow and sloping shoulders did not favour Cordelia’s athletic build. Still, Cordelia liked the colour of her chosen gown. It was restrained enough to be acceptable for a widowed woman, but a welcome relief from the months of mourning and half-mourning she had had to endure. Since that time, she had shied away from ever having black and grey in her wardrobe. The pale grey-blue of her gown was as close to a dull colour as she would get.
Full, flouncy lace sleeves hid her solid upper arms and she pulled a light, sheer shawl around her shoulders. Ruby had checked her gloves and satin shoes, and done wonders to tame her usually wayward hair into artful ringlets around her head, with a bun skewered tightly at the back. Whatever skills Ruby lacked in other areas, she was a surprisingly good dresser of hair.
Once she was ready, she waited in the outer room of the suite that she had been given for her visit while Ruby passed a message via circuitous means to the master of the house. It was warmer here than the unheated bedroom. She did not sit. Her layers of stiffened petticoats made her gown a perfect shape – at least for the moment – and she did not want to crumple Ruby’s careful work. She paced up and down the Chinese-pattern carpet, weaving her way around the various tables that were scattered about the place, and wondered how the investigation into the death of Thomas Bains was progressing. She hoped that she might press some information out of the other guests that evening.
There was
a sharp knock and the door was flung open before she could call out; but after all, this was Hugo’s house. He burst into the room, all energy and dashing white teeth. He wore a dark blue dress coat with gleaming golden buttons, so nipped in to show his slender waist that his broad chest was almost that of a pugilist. His narrow, fitted trousers were of a fine black cashmere. Every inch of him, from his smart dress shoes to his silk top hat, was carefully calculated to demonstrate his good taste. He grinned, let his eyes sweep up and down her body, and then he bowed extravagantly. He was around Cordelia’s age but his sandy hair was thick and luxurious, both on his head and his sideburns.
He was to propose marriage again, she assumed.
“My dearest Cordelia, you are a vision,” he declared. “Now, I have invited but a handful of the very best people locally. And I have pressed a brilliant young pianist, name of Arthur something-or-other, to come out from Cambridge and delight us with some stirring pieces. It shall be a most select evening. Are you ready?”
