A lady requires the assistance of a gentleman. If any gentleman of honour, discretion and chivalry will venture to answer this notice and despatch a reply to Lady Incognita at the Bell and Steelyard Inn, Woodbridge, Suffolk, then he shall have no reason to repent his generosity.
A small smile curled Lord Richard’s mouth as he considered the identity of Lady Incognita. Could she be none other than the utterly infuriating, utterly entrancing Deborah Stratton? And if so, what assistance did she require from her discreet gentleman? Richard’s mind was positively boggling.
There was only one way to find out, of course. Richard went across to the inlaid cherry-wood desk in the window and extracted a pen and an inkhorn from the top left-hand drawer. Sitting down, he pulled the paper towards him and started to write.
‘Mrs Lester tells me that the cellars have flooded again,’ Mrs Aintree said, over breakfast that morning. ‘One of the hams your brother-in-law sent over is quite ruined and the case of wine you laid down is under water.’
‘The duck decoy must be blocked again,’ Deb said. She was eating a buttered egg with one hand and turning the pages of the Suffolk Chronicle with the other whilst she scanned the advertisements. ‘I will go and take a look after breakfast.’
‘Could you not send to Marney for the gamekeeper to come?’ Mrs Aintree suggested, the very slightest edge to her tone. ‘It is scarce appropriate for you to be grubbing about in the undergrowth; indeed, it could be positively dangerous.’
Deb laughed. ‘Dangerous? The duck decoy? I doubt there is more than a foot of water in it and the ducks are scarcely threatening creatures.’
‘That was not what I meant,’ Mrs Aintree said severely. ‘When are you going to stop behaving like a hoyden, Deborah? Although your father is quite wrong to try and coerce you into marriage, I do believe that the fundamental idea might be of value. With a proper home and family of your own—’
Something like a shaft of pain wedged itself in Deborah’s breast and she pushed the remains of the egg aside. ‘I have a home here, Clarrie,’ she said. She folded the newspaper and stood up. ‘Pray excuse me. I shall take a quick look at the pond to see if the sluices are jammed and then I shall send to Ross for assistance.’
As a concession to propriety, Deb went to fetch her bonnet and spencer before venturing out. Neither was strictly necessary in the functional sense, since no one was going to see her and the weather was still mild. She eschewed wearing gloves, but made sure that she tucked her hands out of sight as she passed the breakfast room window. She did not want Mrs Aintree ringing a peal over her for inappropriate dress.
It felt pleasant to be out in the fresh air. Deb had not slept particularly well for the last few nights, the ones that had followed the musicale, and she did not wish to dwell on the reasons why. When Mrs Aintree had mentioned marriage and a home of her own, Deb’s thoughts had—ludicrously—swung to Lord Richard Kestrel for a brief moment before she had depressed her own hopes and dreams stillborn. That way lay madness. She had no wish to remarry and, even if she had, her choice would scarcely fall on a man whose reckless charm reminded her all too forcibly of her first, perfidious husband. It was yet another reason why she required a temperate, biddable man to be her pretend fiancé. She was done with rakes.
The duck decoy was tucked away at the bottom of Mallow’s overgrown garden near the bridge across the track to Midwinter Bere. Deb knew that Olivia shuddered each time she saw the runaway shrubbery and neglected flowerbeds, but Deb had no money to spare for luxuries such as gardening and too much pride to ask Ross to fund anything other than the most basic of maintenance. The previous owner of Mallow had been a keen sportsman who had even imported a specially trained dog from Holland to hunt ducks with him. He had kept the decoy in good condition, but these days the traps were broken and the bushes that had been planted to shield the pond from the wind had all but gone wild. The ducks splashed happily in the decoy, knowing that they were safer there than on the river. When Deb arrived on the bank they set up a loud squawking and scattered into the undergrowth.
Deb pushed her way through the tangle of shrubs and reached the end of pond, where a sluice gate was supposed to regulate the flow of water out under the bridge and into the Winter Race. Two years before, the sluices had blocked during heavy rains and it was then that the problem with the cellars had first become apparent. In this instance it seemed more a case of neglect than anything else. Deb could see that, during the past summer, grasses had seeded themselves around the sluice gate and the overhanging twigs and branches had grown through the gaps, completely jamming the gate. She pulled half-heartedly at some of the deep-rooted grasses. A little of the soil tumbled from the bank, but the weeds refused to shift. Gardening was not Deb’s occupation of choice, so she dusted her hands down on her skirts and straightened up, almost banging her head on an overhanging branch. She would have to ask Ross to send the Marney gardeners over to clear the decoy before the whole area became choked with weeds and the first proper rains of the winter caused more damage. Sometimes she hated to be dependent on Ross’s charity, but it could not be helped. She could not do the work herself.
It was as Deb was struggling back towards the path, her skirts snagging on brambles and the low branches snatching at her hair, that she trod in something soft and squelchy that the ducks had evidently left behind.
‘Ugh!’ Her foot slipped from beneath her and then she was tumbling over in the soft grass of the bank, her skirts ripping on one of the broken duck traps as she fell through the undergrowth and into the shallow pond below.
It was only about a foot deep, as Deb herself had told Mrs Aintree earlier. Unfortunately, that foot was comprised of slimy green water choked with duck weed and dead plants. Worse, when Deb tried to wrench her skirts free of the broken trap, she found the material stuck fast. She wallowed in the water, tugging on the fabric until something ripped.
‘Hell and damnation!’
‘You do indeed look like something conjured from the deepest halls of Hades,’ an amused male voice confirmed from the bank.
Deb was so taken aback that she lost her footing in the muddy depths of the pond and sat down with a splash.
Lord Richard Kestrel—unforgivably—laughed. ‘Is this the latest fashion?’ he continued. ‘A gown with duck-weed trimmings?’
Deb gave an infuriated snort. Of all the undignified situations in which to be found! It would have to be Lord Richard Kestrel, of all people, who was the last man on earth she wanted to see her at a disadvantage.
‘You are trespassing,’ she said haughtily.
‘I am.’ Richard eyed her with deep amusement. ‘Would you like me to assist you, Mrs Stratton?’
‘No, thank you,’ Deb said, struggling to find her feet on the slippery mud of the pool. ‘I would like you to go away.’
Lord Richard ignored the request and came forward and offered a hand to her anyway. Deb ignored it.
‘Do accept my help,’ he encouraged. ‘It will save you much trouble in the long run.’
Deb gritted her teeth. ‘I would not dream of inconveniencing you.’
‘Please have no scruples about that. As I am here already, you may as well take advantage of me.’ He grasped her flailing hand and pulled hard, dragging her from the grip of the mud. Deb’s ankles came free with a squelching sound and she cannoned into him. They both ended up amongst the bushes, Richard’s body breaking Deb’s fall. She lay still for a moment, completely winded.
‘There was no need to take me quite so literally.’
Deb opened her eyes to look down into Richard’s laughing face. With horror she realised that she was lying on top of him, her breasts squashed against his chest and one of his hands curved around her buttocks. Just as she realised this, she felt Richard’s hand slide with leisurely intimacy over her body and she gave a horrified gasp and rolled off him. Richard sat up.
‘Please do not worry,’ he said, scrupulously polite. ‘Whilst you have a figure that looks most allurin
g in a dampened gown, the sight—and the smell—of that mud is enough to kill any ardour stone dead.’
‘I am glad that there is something that puts a rein on your rakish habits,’ Deb snapped. She pushed a piece of weed out of her eyes and examined her torn skirts. There was a jagged rip down the left-hand side that was quite irreparable and showed far too much petticoat.
‘What were you doing in there?’ Richard enquired. He seemed genuinely interested. Deb glared. ‘I was trying to free the sluice gate,’ she said. ‘If it comes to that, what are you doing here? As I have pointed out already, you are trespassing.’
Richard lay back in the grass, his hands behind his head. ‘I was riding past when I heard a splash and a shout. I was afraid that someone might have had an accident.’
He turned his head and looked at her. ‘You are not very grateful, Mrs Stratton. I begin to wish that I had left you to your watery fate.’
Deb looked at him and, most unexpectedly, felt an urge to laugh. ‘I am sorry about your clothes,’ she said, her lips twitching as she took in the mud that was beginning to dry on his pristine hunting jacket. ‘I dare say you looked quite nice when you started out. And I am sorry that I interrupted your ride.’
Richard stood up and helped her to her feet.
‘Would you care to make up for it by riding out with me later?’ he asked abruptly. ‘When you have had the opportunity to change into dry clothing, of course.’
Deb hesitated, surprised by a strong urge to accept. She knew that it was madness to consider it, but when had common sense had anything to do with inclination? Yet today she had promised herself would be the beginning of a new, more sensible approach to life in general and Richard Kestrel in particular. She had to extricate herself from this growing attraction before it was too late. She fought a short, sharp battle with herself and shook her head.
‘Thank you, but I do not think so, my lord.’
Richard’s hand was still on her arm. ‘But you would like to,’ he said acutely.
Deb flushed, feeling her skin heat from the inside outward. She could lie, at which she was unconscionably bad, or she could tell the truth, or she could yield…
‘The last time that I went riding with you proved to be a far from comfortable experience,’ she said truthfully. ‘I do not think it would be sensible to repeat it.’
Richard smiled, and her heart jolted.
‘I see,’ he said softly. ‘You are afraid of me.’
‘No, I am not!’ Deb retorted. ‘At least, not in the way you imply.’
‘Then you are afraid of yourself,’ Richard countered perceptively, ‘and the way in which your impulses might lead.’
Deb swallowed hard. She knew, and evidently so did Richard Kestrel, that her unruly impulses might lead her into all manner of disastrous situations as far as he was concerned. She tilted her chin to look at him.
‘I am merely concerned to be prudent.’
‘Do not be,’ Richard advised. ‘It is far more interesting to indulge your inclinations.’
Deb smiled reluctantly. ‘My inclination, Lord Richard, is to return directly to the house and take a hot bath. Good day to you.’
And she grasped her muddy skirts in one hand and escaped with what dignity she could muster, before she changed her mind.
Richard Kestrel put aside the letter that had just reached him from his brother Justin in London and stared unseeing out of the window of Kestrel Court. On his return from his ride he had partaken of a second breakfast and was on his third cup of coffee. It was a glorious September morning with the early sunlight still pink and hazy as it lingered on the mist rising from the river, the Winter Race. It was a shame that he had not been able to persuade Deborah Stratton to accompany him on a ride. It was the most perfect morning for a brisk gallop across country and there was no one he would have enjoyed sharing it with more. Richard briefly considered taking a sail on the Deben, or even swimming in the sea. It looked calm enough today, albeit the water would hold the first icy chill of coming winter. Then his eye fell on the letter once more. Duty called. He could not abandon business for pleasure today.
He settled down to read. In the case of the apprehension of the Midwinter spy, matters did not seem to proceed at all. Justin wrote that there was concern at the Admiralty that the Midwinter spy was still active in the Woodbridge area, passing on information to the French over such matters as the garrison numbers stationed in the town, the defences along that stretch of coast, the tidal waters of the Deben and other rivers, the state of the Volunteers and the preparations against invasion. Enquiries in London had yielded no information on the possible identity of the spy and her network, and Justin was talking of returning to Midwinter soon.
Richard sighed, sitting back and resting his booted feet on the desk. For three months they had been stalking the Midwinter spy, watching and waiting, hoping for a mistake that would give the game away. He and Justin and their younger brother Lucas had whiled away the long hot days of high summer in paying court to the local ladies, chatting to the gentlemen, observing, sifting information, waiting patiently for some clue. None had been forthcoming. The Midwinter spy did not make mistakes.
And now they were at the start of autumn, with the political situation at a critical point and invasion fever spreading panic, and still the spy was working right under their noses.
Richard ran his hand through his hair. It was generally agreed that the spy was one of the ladies of the Midwinter villages, who hid behind a respectable façade whilst organising her treasonable activities. When Justin had first put forward this hypothesis, back in June, Richard had found it as difficult to believe as any gentleman would. Yet the meagre evidence they had suggested that the theory, unlikely as it seemed, had to be true. A female spy had been working on the south coast the previous year and had been traced from Dorset to London to Suffolk, where she had merged effortlessly into local society. The only clue that they had was that many of the Midwinter ladies belonged to a reading group run by Lady Sally Saltire and Richard and his elder brother had long been suspicious that the group was a convenient means of passing information. Yet if this were the case, it meant that the Midwinter spy could only be one of four or five people, all of whom seemed most unlikely suspects.
There was Lady Sally Saltire herself, of course. This was a difficult call, for Lady Sally had been an old flame of Justin Kestrel’s before her marriage and Richard knew that Justin, secretly but passionately, still carried a torch for her. Then there was Lily Benedict, who publicly gave the impression of being a devoted wife to her bedridden husband. Richard knew that this, at least, was a pretence. Lady Benedict had given him to understand discreetly but quite clearly that she would be receptive to his attentions. He had neglected to take her up on the offer. Lady Benedict’s sultry charms seemed stale next to the breath of fresh air that was Deborah Stratton.
Richard grimaced. If neither Lady Sally nor Lady Benedict was the culprit, that only left Helena Lang, the vicar’s vulgar daughter, or Olivia Marney, the cool and gracious chatelaine of Midwinter Marney Hall…
Or Deborah Stratton, of course.
There were other ladies who came and went from the reading group, but these five were the core. And one of them had to be the spy.
Richard sighed. Olivia Marney was enigmatic, for she wore her coolness as a barrier against the world. He could have sworn, however, that she was not a traitor. And as her husband, Ross, was a friend of his, it made matters even more difficult.
And then there was Deborah.
Richard knew that he was as averse to Deb Stratton being the Midwinter spy as Justin was unwilling to suspect Sally Saltire. There was a deep and irrational instinct that told him the Deb was not the woman they sought. Richard was accustomed to acting on logical sense rather than pure feeling and he found this state of affairs as amusing as it was bewildering for, despite Deborah’s wariness, he knew he was drawn to her by something that went deeper than reason, something that was deep in the
blood.
Richard picked up the copy of the Suffolk Chronicle that carried Deborah’s advertisement. He was almost certain that it had nothing to do with the Midwinter spy, but even had he not had an interest in Deborah herself, it was something that he could not let pass.
He laughed to think of her wallowing in the mud of the duck decoy. No matter that she had refused his invitation. He would find a way to see her again, and soon.
Chapter Five
‘One reply?’ Deb said incredulously, as she stood in the Bell and Steelyard Inn the following week. ‘Only one? Are you sure?’ She upended the mailbag and shook it hard. One letter dropped out on to the floor of the coaching inn and lay there amongst the wood shavings and scraps of paper. Deb frowned in disbelief.
‘Are all the men in Suffolk slow tops,’ she said crossly, ‘that they are all so backward in coming forward?’
The innkeeper looked blank. ‘Beg pardon, ma’am?’ he said.
‘It was a rhetorical question,’ Deb said, sighing. ‘Perhaps I should have advertised for a dishonourable man and then, no doubt, I would have been inundated with offers…’
As though in response to this thought, she heard a familiar, mocking voice from behind her.
‘Good morning, Mrs Stratton. Is there some kind of difficulty?’
Deb scooped the letter up and stuffed it in her reticule. Lord Richard Kestrel was standing in the door of the mail office, a smile on his wicked, dark face. Today he looked immaculate in buff pantaloons and a green coat that Deb was obliged to admit suited him very well. Last week, in his riding dress, he had looked a man of action. Today, that power was held under tighter control. Paradoxically, it made him look even more dangerous. And, idiotically, all Deb seemed to be able to think about was the blissful pleasure that she had felt when she had been held in his arms. As she stared at him she saw his eyes widen and his mouth curl into a smile as he read her thoughts. He looked as though he was about to kiss her again, there in the Bell and Steelyard Inn. Blushing madly, Deb dragged her gaze from his.
Nicola Cornick - [Bluestocking Brides 02] Page 6
