Rachel sighed. ‘I dare say they intended to,’ she said. ‘You know how Mama forgets things.’
Cory went down on one knee to rummage in the picnic basket. He looked up, a piece of bread and cheese in his hand. ‘You do not mind?’
‘That you are here or that you are stealing my breakfast?’ Rachel laughed. ‘I do not mind in either case, Cory. Although I would counsel you to wear more clothes in future if you are intent on staying. It is not the done thing to walk around nude in England, at least not in public. I realise that you have been abroad for so long that you may have forgotten our conventions.’
‘I never was governed by them in the first place,’ Cory said. He stretched lazily. The blanket slipped lower. Rachel took a hasty step up the bank.
‘Go,’ she said, ‘before you catch a chill or that rug falls off and takes the last of my composure with it. We may talk when you have your clothes on again.’
Cory smiled. ‘I never thought to hear that phrase from you, Rae.’
‘Well, no doubt I am not the first to say it to you,’ Rachel said, repressing a rueful smile. She knew all about Cory’s reputation.
Cory started to retreat down the bank, one hand raised in conciliation. ‘I am going now. I apologise if I upset you, Rae.’
‘I was not particularly discomfited,’ Rachel said untruthfully, smoothing her skirts, ‘but it was a slight shock.’
Cory bent and retrieved another piece of bread and ham from Rachel’s upturned breakfast basket. He sank his teeth into the thick slice and nodded slowly. ‘Delicious. Just what I need after an early morning swim.’
He gave a negligent wave of his hand and walked away.
‘Mind the rose bushes at the top of the bank,’ Rachel called suddenly. ‘The thorns are sharp—’ She winced as she heard a crashing sound and a muffled expletive. ‘Oh, too late.’
She sank down on to the sandy bank and rested her back against the nearest pine tree, closing her eyes and tilting her head back against the trunk. The sunlight pricked her eyelids. She gave a huge sigh and, once she was convinced that Cory had genuinely gone, she allowed her body to relax.
She had not been expecting to see him on this excavation in Suffolk. Her mother had completely neglected to tell her that he would be coming to visit, but then that was no great surprise since Lady Odell had no memory for anything other than her antiquities. She might be able to list the rulers of Rome in chronological order, she might be the acknowledged expert on dating the Egyptian tombs, but when it came to simple social matters she was completely hopeless.
The last time that Rachel had heard news of Cory was six months previously. He had written from his home in Cornwall to say that he was returned from an expedition in Patagonia and was suffering from malaria. Rachel had sent him a tincture that she had made herself, for she had developed quite an array of medicines to cope with the more arcane of her parents’ ailments. Cory had sent a note of thanks and a big bouquet of roses, and Rachel had smiled to receive them for it had been a thoughtful gesture. She had then become preoccupied with the move to Suffolk, and had forgotten about Cory Newlyn until the moment she had seen him emerge from the river.
For the previous seventeen years Cory had been a feature in her life, but one that came and went like a fitful comet. He was an explorer and collector with a legendary reputation. According to folklore, Cory had wrestled with crocodiles, battled for his life against poisonous snakes, explored the wastes of impassable deserts and discovered fantastical treasures. Rachel knew that a great deal of this was nonsense. As an antiquarian, Cory spent much of his time excavating tombs that were full of nothing but bits of bones. She doubted very much that the ladies of the London ton, whose eyes sparkled with delight whenever Cory’s name was so much as mentioned, would think him quite so dashing if they had seen him up to his knees in mud in a howling gale in the Orkneys. One thing she was obliged to recognise, however, was that Cory was very good at what he did. He was skilful, knowledgeable and a talented antiquarian with an almost uncanny knack for finding interesting artefacts. Plenty of men travelled the world buying up antiquities these days, but Cory was special. He was no armchair antiquary. He wanted to be in on the hunt.
Rachel sighed. No doubt that was why Cory was here in Midwinter Royal. He knew her parents were digging the famous Anglo-Saxon burial ground and he wanted to be part of the excavation. It would have been useful if Lady Odell had remembered to tell her. But then, Rachel thought, she would still have been quite unprepared for the sight that had met her eyes that morning. Nothing could prepare one for the sight of Lord Newlyn in a state of undress. It had been a very disturbing experience. Just thinking about it now caused the little shivers to run all the way along her skin, leaving her breathless and distinctly unsettled.
Without the rug to protect her, the ground felt cold and a little damp. It was early and the dew was still on the grass. Rachel got to her feet, dusted her skirts and packed the remaining food away in the basket. She retrieved her book from where it lay in the grass. She knew that she would not be able to concentrate on it now. Her mind was still showing an obstinate tendency to dwell on Cory’s appearance. She would do better to go back to the house and see how her mother progressed with the last of the unpacking.
She did not walk back through the wood for fear of meeting Cory again just as he was getting back into his clothes rather than out of them. Instead, she walked back along the edge of the Midwinter Royal burial ground, an ancient site that had drawn her parents to Suffolk in the first place. The sun was higher in the sky now and it bathed the excavation in its bright light. It was going to be another scorching hot day.
As Rachel entered the house, she heard her mother’s voice raised in the hall as she gave the footman instructions on the morning’s excavations.
‘And make sure that you sift the soil from yesterday’s trench, Tom, before you start digging the long barrow…’
Rachel smiled a little. Poor Tom Gough had had no idea when he had accepted the post that none of his duties would be of a conventional nature and all of them would relate to the excavation work that was going on in the field next door. For twenty-five years Sir Arthur and Lady Odell’s entire life had revolved around the search for antiquities. This dig in Suffolk was just the latest in a long line of excavations. Sir Arthur fretted that the war against Napoleon kept them at home, and told tales of the time some six years previously when he had had to flee the advancing French army and leave behind all his discoveries in the Valley of the Kings.
By the time that Rachel had divested herself of her spencer and straw hat, and had taken the basket back to the kitchens, Lady Odell was in the library, removing some artefacts from a large packing case. Rachel wandered into the room. The bright morning light illuminated the cracks in the plaster ceiling and the threadbare patches on the carpet. Midwinter Royal was no worse than the other two dozen houses that Rachel had lived in and it was a lot less shabby than some. She had no expectation that she would stay there any longer than she had in the other places. Six months was a long time for Sir Arthur and Lady Odell to remain in one place.
Lavinia Odell was a stocky woman whose face habitually wore an expression of vague sweetness. Her eyes were a warm brown flecked with green and gold and were her finest feature, a feature that her daughter had inherited from her. Her hair was a faded mouse colour, lighter than Rachel’s chestnut brown, and her skin had long since given up the struggle against harsh sun and abrasive sand, and was sunk in lines and wrinkles. One unkind ton dowager had likened Lady Odell’s face to a leathery boot, crumpled and tough. Lady Odell, to whom a parasol was an alien notion, had laughed heartily when she heard this piece of spite.
‘I met Cory down by the river just now, Mama,’ Rachel said. ‘You did not tell me that he was to visit.’
Lady Odell looked confused. ‘Did I not? I had a letter from him only yesterday saying that he would be joining us on our excavation. Is that not simply splendid? And you say that he is here al
ready?’
‘Yes, Mama.’ Rachel smiled. ‘He was taking a morning swim. I believe that he will be joining you once he has got his clothes back on.’
‘Good, good…’ Lady Odell said vaguely. She held out what looked to be a statue of a small cat. The cat was brown and very shiny, its expression malevolent, its legs braced as though it were about to scratch. Rachel grimaced when she saw it.
‘I thought that this could go on the drawing-room mantelpiece. It will bring us luck.’
Rachel shuddered. ‘Mama, pray do not. The only thing that it will attract is the flies. I fear that it smells.’
Lady Odell looked affronted. She clutched the cat protectively to her large bosom. ‘It does not smell! This is an antiquity, Rachel, from the third millennium before Christ—’
‘Which is why it smells, Mama,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘The poor creature has been dead several thousand years and should be permitted to rest in peace now. It is no wonder that it looks so very bad-tempered.’
Lady Odell sighed and placed the cat reverently back in the bottom of a half-empty packing case next to a Greek vase. ‘Well, perhaps you are correct. Embalming methods were not always completely successful.’
‘No, Mama,’ Rachel said. She knew all about the success or otherwise of ancient embalming methods for she had absorbed a great deal of knowledge simply through travelling with her parents. She had not learnt through inclination. Once, as a small child, her maternal aunt had found her sitting on the carpet, chewing a human bone that she held clutched in her small, fat fist. The aunt’s scream had brought Lady Odell hurrying in, to coo with delight over her only child’s precocious interest in antiquity.
It was the only sign of interest that Rachel was ever to show in her parents’ work. At the age of six she had chosen to be addressed as Rachel rather than Cleopatra, her given name, and had refused to answer anyone who tried to call her otherwise. Shuffled from pillar to post as the Odells pursued their eccentric hobby around the world, Rachel had taken an utter dislike to her parents’ passion. She would have given a great deal for a dining room full of Wedgwood, with not a barbaric death mask in sight.
‘I do not believe that the ladies of the Midwinter villages are quite ready for your collection, Mama,’ she said now. ‘I doubt that anyone will call if they find themselves confronted by your set of Anglo-Saxon skulls.’
Lady Odell shrugged her plump shoulders under the cambric shirt that she always wore for working. ‘I shall not have time to do the pretty with the visitors anyway, with all the work that is required on the excavation. I shall leave that to you, Rachel.’
‘Of course, Mama,’ Rachel murmured. She had done the pretty for their visitors in houses all over England. It was her role in life. Organising her parents, exhorting the servants, dealing with all the minutiae of daily life…Rachel had fulfilled such a role since she was about twelve years old.
She followed her mother out on to the front steps of Midwinter Royal. By now it was another hot June day. The grass along the carriage drive was already turning yellow from lack of rain and the sky was a hard steely blue without a cloud in sight. The weathercock on the top of the stables was motionless. In the fields to the south, Rachel could just make out the figures of her father and a couple of the servants measuring the length of one of the haphazard scatter of burial mounds that lay between the house and the river beyond.
Lady Odell sighed happily. ‘What a perfect day for the digging. After all these years I still dislike excavating in the wet.’
‘Pray be careful that the sides of your trenches do not crumble away into dust,’ Rachel said, unable to help herself. ‘It is very dry at present. Remember how you were buried under that landslide at the barrow in Wiltshire and Cory and I had to dig you out? Don’t let that happen again. And Mrs Goodfellow and I shall have prepared a cold luncheon for you all at twelve. Please do not forget, Mama.’
Lady Odell patted her hand absent-mindedly. ‘Of course not, my love. Now I must get back to work. Your father has already been out above an hour and a half.’
‘I saw him down at the excavation,’ Rachel said. ‘Make sure that he is wearing a hat, Mama. The sun can be most fierce at this time of year.’ She squinted along the line of dusty elm trees that shaded the drive, and was not surprised to pick out a figure riding towards them. ‘I do believe Cory is here now.’
‘Oh, how splendid!’ Lady Odell positively ran down the steps, her necklace of Persian beads clicking excitedly.
Rachel followed more slowly. The advancing figure had now resolved itself into a gentleman on a grey horse. The horse was a prime bit of blood and Rachel could see that, whether his clothes were on or off, Cory Newlyn was what many ladies would also consider to be a prime specimen. He was considerably more formally dressed now, but he still looked extremely attractive.
Rachel watched, lips pursed in disapproval, as Cory galloped up to the steps of the house and dismounted in one fluid movement that sent the gravel flying from the horse’s hooves. She instinctively stepped out of the way and grabbed the grey’s bridle. Someone had to take charge and Cory was too busy greeting Lady Odell to notice that his highly bred steed was in danger of trampling them all to death.
Cory was smiling as he bent to embrace Lavinia Odell. His teeth were very white and his grey eyes were full of laughter and looked remarkably bright against his tanned skin. Cory always brought with him an air of warmth and laughing good humour. Rachel watched her mother respond to it as she had seen ladies respond to Cory’s charm time and time again. It mattered not whether they were young or old, he bowled them over just the same. She, of course, was quite indifferent to him. Even so, a little prickle of awareness ran along her skin as she remembered her reaction to seeing him down by the river.
‘How are you, Lavinia?’ Cory asked, holding Lady Odell at arm’s length and looking her over, a twinkle in his eye. ‘You look in fine form!’
‘Cory! Dear boy!’ Lavinia Odell was clinging on to him and squeaking like an excited schoolgirl. ‘We are so very pleased that you could join us!’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Lord Newlyn said, releasing her gently and planting a smacking kiss on her cheek. ‘The Midwinter burials are famous, you know. I’ve been wanting to get my trowel into those mounds for years, ever since I heard about the Midwinter Treasure!’
‘If anyone can find the Treasure, it will be us,’ Lavinia Odell said, eyes sparkling. ‘I feel it in my waters!’
‘Where is the stable lad, Mama?’ Rachel interrupted, trying hard to hold the thoroughbred, which was currently exhibiting its quality by dancing skittishly on the gravel sweep. ‘I suppose that he is down in the field with Father?’
‘Of course, my love,’ Lady Odell said, looking vaguely puzzled, as though it were natural for everyone to employ their servants as excavation assistants. ‘I could send for him, I suppose, but your father needs someone to help him measure the barrows—’
‘I’ll put Castor away myself,’ Cory said, the gravel crunching under his boots as he came towards Rachel. He took the bridle from her hand and soothed the grey with a gentle stroke of the nose.
‘Good morning again, Rachel,’ Cory said. He gave her a smile that was slightly more quizzical than the one he had bestowed on Lady Odell. The smile deepened the creases at the corners of his eyes and for a moment it seemed that the morning sunlight was trapped in their silver depths. ‘Are we to pretend that we have not yet met?’
He took her hand in his and Rachel was shocked and more than a little disconcerted to find her pulse racing at his touch. Two images flashed before her eyes: the real one of Cory standing before her now, fully dressed, and the other of him stark naked as he emerged from the river, the water rolling down his skin…She felt all hot and shaky again, as though she had sustained a sudden shock. Her knees actually trembled.
She swallowed hard, closed her eyes and by dint of sheer willpower banished the picture. This had to be an aberration. She was determined that her t
houghts would not be haunted by the image of Cory’s virile, unashamed nudity. She did not wish to think of her childhood friend in that manner.
But even so, she suddenly had the lowering feeling that it was going to be a far more complicated summer than she had ever imagined.
Chapter Two
It felt like a full minute later, but was possibly only a few seconds when Rachel became aware that Cory was still holding her hand and was waiting for her response with a faintly concerned expression on his face. She pulled her hand out of his grasp, pushed her feelings of self-consciousness back down where they belonged and looked him up and down. Cory might be fully clothed now, but he still looked completely disreputable. His boots were scuffed, his shirt neck open to reveal the strong, brown column of his neck, and on his tawny hair was a hat so disgusting that Rachel thought it fit for nothing but the bonfire. Concentrating on Cory’s personal shortcomings served to steady her somewhat. He was a friend, and one of the privileges of friendship was that she could say whatever she chose to him.
‘How do you do, Cory?’ she said primly. ‘I am very well, thank you, though I have to say that you scarcely look better with your clothes on than without. That jacket looks as though it has been slept in.’
‘It is delightful to see you too, Rae.’ A slight edge had come into Cory’s voice now. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek lightly. ‘I am glad that you have overcome your discomfiture and are back on astringent form.’ He held out the tartan rug to her. ‘I must thank you for the loan of your blanket. I can have it laundered for you before I return it, if you would prefer.’
‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘I shall ask Mrs Goodfellow to arrange it.’ She took the rug and folded it over her arm.
Cory gestured to Castor. ‘Perhaps you could show me the way to the stables?’
Nicola Cornick - [Bluestocking Brides 01] Page 2
