“Well done,” Evan said. “The baby is most…er…enormous. In a way that’s just right for a baby.”
Hannah granted this, then asked, “If you do love Kate, how long do you intend to wait before pursuing her?”
Evan shrugged. “Forever.”
“Too long. We Chandlers regard ourselves as invincible, but that is not the same thing as immortal.”
“I know that.” Twice he’d feared that Kate would die when she was brought to bed of Con’s children.
Kate, whom he teased into laughter when she was focused on the next-next-next of a busy wife’s, mother’s, and countess’s life. Kate, who helped Evan remember that there would always be a next, and that gray wasn’t the only color in the world.
“She said she wants my friendship,” he told Hannah. “And I’d rather be her friend than mean nothing to her at all.”
“Why don’t you let her decide if those are the only two choices?”
“Are you the voice of the devil, Hannah Chandler Crosby?”
She winked. “That, I’ll leave to you to decide.” Pushing back her chair, she stood. “I’ll take John home now before he soils my entire habit.”
Evan took to his feet as well. “Babies emit a great many fluids. I am constantly impressed. I don’t know how they manage it.”
“You’re not the only one who wonders that.” Hannah jounced her son to one hip. “If you could hand me my sling?”
Evan did so, and Hannah settled the baby again. “Will I see you at the racecourse tomorrow?”
“Naturally. I wouldn’t miss race day,” Evan said.
“And have you decided whom you’ll bet on?”
“I wouldn’t bet against a Chandler horse,” he replied. “But I’m not sure how much I’m able to stake.”
“You have one day to determine the answer,” said Hannah—and with that, she and the baby were off.
One day. Hmm.
The lady had given him much to think over. Mischievous Welsh beast though he might be, it was time he acted.
Over the years of his hidden love, he had grown accustomed to thinking in impossibilities, of all he might lose should he risk what was precious. But there was another way to think about the matter as well.
He wondered what unexpected victory he might win, if only he strove for it.
* * *
Sir William was waiting for Kate in the doorway of his study as she exited the dining room.
“Come, join me in here, Biggie.”
Biggie. The nickname ought to have been horrid for one who always hovered on the edge of plumpness—or slightly over it—but it always cheered her. As a toddler learning to speak, Jonah had made a mash of his twin’s first name, Abigail. Throughout childhood, their parents and younger brother and sister—Nathaniel and Hannah—had adopted the nickname as an endearment.
Abigail Catherine Chandler by birth; Kate Durham, Irish Countess of Whelan by marriage.
Kate had missed being called Biggie.
“Papa, please—call me Kate. I am a grown woman now.” Yet she felt anything but, perched in the little chair next to the great table her father used as a desk. Here to plead her case.
The desk was cluttered and piled with the accumulated business of a great house and a great stable, a stud farm and a string of racehorses. Sir William kept no stable master, and since his daughter Hannah had wed and her replacement, Rosalind, had married Kate’s younger brother Nathaniel, he hadn’t had a secretary either.
Kate wasn’t the only one overburdened at present.
“Kate, then. What is weighing on your mind? Not that I’m not pleased to see you, but you haven’t returned for a race season in years.” His features were as stern as ever, but his hazel eyes were not unkind.
“I need money,” she blurted. “By the end of the year, or I’ll have to sell all the Whelan land that’s not entailed.”
Stripping her son of his inheritance, and that of those who would follow him. Turning the welfare of tenants over to whatever stranger would pay the highest price.
Or not a stranger at all. Finnian Driscoll, the magistrate of Thurles and holder of Con’s debts, would buy the land. A large and friendly man, he was well-liked by the villagers.
In the shock of new widowhood, Driscoll’s attention to Con’s creditors had eased her burdens, leaving her free for the immediate needs of her family. But there was such a thing as too easeful. In the end, the things he did for her own good, just to help, to make things easier had the effect of taking all choice away.
The idea of the lands falling away from Declan’s control into Driscoll’s hands made her stomach twist, repulsed.
Sir William sighed. “I thought it might be something like that. Come and walk with me.”
Kate glanced, startled, at his wheelchair. Her father’s smile was weary. “In a manner of speaking.”
Glass-paned doors led from the crescent-shaped study onto a smooth gravel path. Kate stepped out after her father, pulling the doors shut behind them, then tipped her face upward to the morning sun.
It showed its face here more often than in Ireland, where it often hid coyly behind dim drizzle. The trees were dressed in every bright shade of gold and bronze, and the breeze was cool and gentle as she fell into step at her father’s side. Her feet made pleasant little crunches in the smooth white gravel of the path, and Sir William rolled his wheelchair along with almost idle movements of his sturdy hands.
“To what end do you need the money?” he asked.
“Repairing the house. Buying winter fodder for animals and seed for spring. Maintaining the land’s drainage for tenants.” For what did she not need money? “Con left many debts, and crop yields have plummeted since the year he died.” A year of dreadful cold, in which summer hardly warmed the earth before winter fell again. Kate had been glad to leave behind 1816, though each year since had brought its own challenges.
Sir William’s hands clenched on the sleek wooden rims of his chair. “I should have met Whelan before I agreed to let you wed him. It was a difficult time.”
This was an understatement. He had contracted palsy and was near death in Spain. An aristocratic marriage for Kate had likely seemed the best way to see to her welfare.
“I had met him, Papa, and I wed him anyway.”
At this distance in time, she could speak the words with a flip of carelessness. Conall Ritchie Durham had many gifts, among them charm, handsomeness, and the ability to make a wealthy innocent feel like the most precious and special creature on earth. She had fallen for him swiftly, enraptured.
He’d married her for her money, of course. Oh, he’d been fond of her too. But would he have pursued her without her dowry? Never.
Realizing that never had taken years, difficult years. Years of lavish spending that gobbled the dowry and the income from the estate. Con was not one to bother himself. Don’t worry about it. You focus too much on minor details. Let me cheer you up. But “cheering her up” invariably meant more gifts they couldn’t afford, such as horses and gowns and lavish orders of smuggled luxuries from France.
So confident was Con that creditors never dunned him, letting the debts mount. Don’t distress yourself, Katie. I’ll take care of it.
But he didn’t. Instead, he had been killed, and there was a new way of life to which she had to come to terms.
Poverty. Scraping, shabby-genteel poverty and the fear of losing her son’s livelihood.
“How bad is it?” Sir William asked.
She scuffed her boot heels through the gravel. “Bad. I need thousands of pounds.” She named a figure that still shocked her, even after careful calculations.
And I do not know when I shall ever be able to pay you back. Years from now, maybe. If the land recovered well after the biting winter of 1816. If harvests were good for seasons on end, and the repairs to Whelan Ho
use went well. If, if, if.
She sighed.
Sir William halted as the path split, one fork leading to the stables and the other running into a wood. “I hoped you’d lay your burdens down in Newmarket, once you decided to visit.”
“You should know better than that, Papa. A parent and a noble can never forget the ties that bind them to home.”
She didn’t want to, truly. Her children and her responsibilities as countess were heavy burdens to carry alone. But it was better to carry them alone than to hope for the contributions of a helpmeet who, instead, added rocks to her pack.
Besides, she loved them. She loved Nora and Declan better than herself. She loved Ireland as the place of their birth. One would perform great feats for love that would seem impossible otherwise.
Sir William looked toward the stable, the lines of his face deep-carved by slanted morning light. “As it so happens, Kate, I cannot lend you the amount you need at present. I’ve invested heavily in broodmares from Arabia. They cost the earth, but in a few years, their offspring will be well worth what I’ve spent. Their stamina must be seen to be believed.” Wistfully, he traced the wooden rims of his chair.
Though Kate’s feet were firmly planted on gravel, the ground seemed unsteady. “I understand,” she said.
She did. Buying horses and racing was what Sir William Chandler did. It was what made him—what made them all—Chandlers. It was how Sir William had built the family fortune and earned the title of baronet from a grateful Prince Regent who needed strong and true cavalry horses during wartime.
Her father looked at her with eyes that understood too much in return. “What will you do, Biggie?”
She drew herself up. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing for years.” She tried for lightness. “Somehow I’ve always found the answer.”
“How will you find it now?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m a Chandler, and tomorrow, I’m going to the races. I’ll pick up my troubles after that.”
“That’s my girl.” He reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze.
There was nothing more to be said, was there? So she walked with him to the stables and stayed in the company of the horses, warm and sure, until she could almost forget the ever-present uncertainties of her life.
Six
The day of a horse race began before sunup, as Kate knew from groggy experience. Even before her maid had laced and buttoned her into her gown, Jonah and Sir William had been thundering around, alerting the whole household as they prepared to leave for the track.
Lagging a few minutes behind them, Kate gulped a cup of strong tea laced with milk and sugar. Beneath the soaring ceiling of Chandler Hall’s central rotunda, she bumped into Evan. “Ready to walk to the track?”
“Ready as I’ll be without another five hours of sleep.” He looked like himself again, Evan as she remembered him. Homespun and carefree, clad in well-shaped buckskin breeches and boots worn until the leather was supple as cloth. Wool coat and starched collar and cravat, all worn with touchable ease.
She reached toward him, fingertips brushing his sleeve. It was real. After all this time, he was part of her life again.
She drew back her hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed her silly little gesture.
Evan patted a coat pocket. “Half the servants of Chandler Hall are sending me off with their wagers.”
“Not all of them?”
“The other half will be at the track to place their own bets.”
Kate frowned. “I wonder why they did not ask me.”
“They wanted to ask me because I’m so handsome.” With a cheeky grin, he swung his hat atop his head. “Also, they didn’t want to bother you. You’ve gone into rogue housekeeper mode, you know—making up menus and telling the servants how to make certain dishes and checking on the horses fifteen times a day.”
“Only ten,” she murmured. “Though it ought to be fifteen. My father sorely needs a housekeeper and stable master.” Rogue housekeeper. The epithet made her smile. “A rogue housekeeper is the only type of rogue I’ll ever be, I suppose.”
“I don’t know about that. You look ready for anything today.”
“Do you think so?” She gave a little twirl. She had garbed herself in a riding habit and tidy plumed hat, a military look that made her want to square her shoulders and march forth.
Horses, crowds, anticipation. There was something in her blood that woke to the chaos of race day. Something she had not even known was sleeping.
“I have become a little interfering,” she admitted. “But you know I like to keep busy.”
“I know. I do too.”
This was true. She remembered that about him. How many evenings had unrolled like silk as she talked with Evan before a parlor fire? While she settled into contented stillness, he whittled wood into sleek shapes and tossed the shavings into the flame. She looked at his hands now, callused and tanned, marked and scarred.
He drew on a pair of gloves, and she was sorry to see his skin covered. “Shall we?”
She pulled on her own gloves, then rested fingertips on his proffered arm. “I don’t know which horse I’m going to bet on.” An odd flutter had taken up residence within her chest. But why? She had nothing at risk today.
“Bet on yours,” he said. “I certainly plan to.”
A rain during the night had left the ground spongy, but the chill dawn was clear and crisp. As Kate walked with Evan to the twin racecourses—so flat, yet they dominated the town—streaks of daylight-blue began to split the sky.
Strings of horses were walked toward the track, while carriages of all sizes and all levels of tonnishness were pulled by yet more. Silk-clad jockeys staggered by with their arms full of tack, heading toward the weighing room.
“Shall we try to find your family?” Evan asked. “If we can. I see Newmarket is full of early risers.”
Already, throngs on foot and in carriages gathered about sellers of race cards. Bookmakers who would later make their way to the betting post threaded through groups of spectators, their expressions avid and ears listening. Boys hawked newspapers. Broadsheets from the notable London horse dealer Tattersalls fluttered to gain notice.
“Only wait until it’s time for the races to begin,” Kate said. “The whole road will be blocked by carriages and wagons, and we’ll hardly be able to shoulder through the grounds. For now, my father and Jonah will be in the weighing room, probably.” Jockeys had to hop onto a giant balance before and after the race to have their weight recorded. Older horses were required to carry more weight than the youngest colts and fillies.
Sir William was racing two Thoroughbreds today: the infamous Pale Marauder, a swift but temperamental colt prone to false starts, and a two-year-old filly named Celeste. Kate had curried and crooned to the filly the day before. Moon-gray and light on her feet, Celeste would have her maiden race today.
For years after his legs were paralyzed, Sir William had been confined to his own lands. But after a trip to London, then Epsom, the previous year, he’d discovered that his wheelchair could be stuffed into the traveling carriage, and that losing the use of one’s legs was no reason to miss a race meet.
“Will they find a place from which to watch?” Evan asked.
“One place? I doubt it. They’ll try to watch from everywhere. If you keep to one spot, you won’t see more than a sliver of the track.”
This meet’s races would take place on the Rowley Mile. An arrow shot of manicured turf, the straight track was lushly green from autumn rains and deceptively simple in form. Kate had walked the white-railed line time and again as a teen. Here a bump, there a dip, and just when the horses were wrung and exhausted, a great hollow that had caused many a beast to stumble. Then a rise to the final post, an uphill climb on which all but the greatest of heart flagged and fell back.
Evan
scanned the crowd. “Yet I do think I see your sister. Isn’t that her, tugging a bay through a puddle?”
Kate followed his gaze, spotting Hannah and a jockey in red-and-white striped Crosby silks leading a saddled bay. The colt had no liking for wet earth, evidently, for he stamped his hooves in the great puddle left from the night’s rains, bobbing his head with annoyance. Hannah laughed and said something to the jockey, and on they walked. To the parade ring, maybe, where bettors and competitors alike eyed the horses preparing to race.
“That must be her champion, Golden Barb,” Kate said. “We always used to hiss the Crosby horses. Now that Hannah has married into the family, we had better behave ourselves.”
“If a strange hissing sound comes from beside me when a Crosby horse appears, I promise I won’t look about for the source of the noise.”
“So generous,” she said.
“I know it.” Evan tucked her hand more securely in the crook of his arm, edging her past a heavyset man who appeared to be deep in his cups. “Such is the mark of true friendship. Your family is delightful, by the by.”
“They can be, can they not? That should not be surprising, as I’m one of them.”
“Did I indicate surprise? I am certain I did not.”
“No, you didn’t. You were a perfect gentleman.”
“Good for me. I managed it for once.”
“Well done.” Kate skimmed the growing crowd in vain for the black-and-gold silks of the Chandler stables. Once there had been a time she knew her father’s racehorses as well as she knew her own siblings.
“I am the one who’s surprised,” Kate added. “It’s not the same family within which I was raised. Not even the same house.”
She remembered her father as always traveling, always absent. Now he’d made a community and placed himself at its heart. It was sweet to see, but odd in its unfamiliarity.
The changes were all to the good—except maybe those Jonah had gone through. Who could be certain? He could not be coaxed to speak of his wayward wife, even to Kate. Instead, he had passed the years between Newmarket and the Chandler stud farm, where promising young horses received their first training for a life on the turf.
Scandalous Ever After Page 5
