by Decca Price
The county soon forgot about those lurid events, however, as it had more interesting matters to consider. The rector was observed riding over to Oak Grove nearly every day, where he closeted himself with the woman from London. Fathers nodded knowingly and their sons craned their necks as they rode down the High Street of Abbot Pyon hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Their mothers clucked with delight over the fresh scandal, while their daughters, alone in their rooms at night, dreamed romantic fantasies of love and redemption.
All were almost grateful to Claire for relieving the dullness, though none would be anything so daring as to call on her.
As for Claire, she discovered first that the hard work of deciphering and studying Josiah’s papers suited her. She had a retentive and disciplined mind, and she enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspects of scholarship. The weeks quickly fell into a routine in which she found that the more she did, the more she was capable of doing.
She and Latimer labored in the summerhouse while work progressed on the library and continued there when the glazier and carpenters left, the draper completed his task and she herself shelved the last book with Latimer’s help. Sometimes he would stay to luncheon with her and Simmie, but more often Claire would order that food be sent out to them in the summerhouse. There they would eat under the watchful golden eyes of the fantastical birds and beasts that decorated the walls as they continued to parse Josiah’s sometimes cryptic commentaries and discuss their progress.
She soon found that the company of Edward Latimer also suited her. He brought rigor to everything he did and was a painstaking teacher. Gradually he won her over to his argument that not everything Josiah wrote was suitable for her eyes.
Claire turned the letters over to him after one particularly indiscreet passage made it clear they contained matter Claire neither fully understood nor could discuss without embarrassment for both of them.
“I’ve read this over and over,” she said with some exasperation, “and I can make out neither head nor tail. And it is in English, not French as he took to using when he wrote from Paris.”
He smiled grimly and took the sheet of writing paper from her.
“It doesn’t signify. Clearly, this will go in the box with the other papers we’ve decided a biographer won’t need.”
“Of course. Let’s go on. The next letters deal with negotiations with his publisher concerning his next novel, which came out as ‘Lorinda —Sketches of High Life in the Provinces.’ They illuminate what a good head for business Josiah had, I think.”
“Miss Burton?”
“Yes?”
“Miss Burton, you’ve been working so hard and the day is so fine. Why don’t we take a turn in the garden? There is a matter I wish to discuss with you.”
Claire never would have admitted aloud how she yearned to be out in the open air with him. She could never quite relax in his company, especially in the summer house with its intimate, exotic atmosphere. The closer the work on Josiah’s papers brought them, the more she found herself watching Latimer. When he was absent, she could sketch the outline of his profile, she had studied it so closely. When he reached across the desk to hand her a pen or a document, her attention fixed itself on his well-shaped hand and strong tapering fingers and she remembered the day of the fire, when that hand held hers.
She thought she did these things surreptitiously, but Latimer was keenly aware of her interest. He proceeded cautiously, however, hoping that, undisturbed, some genuine feeling toward him might gradually take root.
Spending more time in her company these past weeks, he thought he understood better the reason behind her insistence that she carry out Carter’s wishes. Claire was repentant, he surmised, but saw no way to escape the carnal bond forged when Joss had ensnared her. She may not fully understand it, but her woman’s nature knew her soul had been forever marked.
But he was confident the worm could be plucked from the bud. Even the Magdalene was redeemed. Their bond would be forged out of her shame and his forgiveness. The world would see a respectable couple and need know nothing more. Any secrets would be dealt with between man and wife behind closed doors.
As Claire adjusted the ribbons of her hat, Latimer waited patiently by the door. Their journey, he decided, would begin in earnest today.
They had no sooner stepped out into the afternoon sunlight than Claire said, “Do you mind walking toward the paddocks? My horse picked up a nail yesterday morning and I want to see how he’s doing. He’s such a capital animal, I’d hate to lose him so soon before the cubbing starts.”
“You enjoy the active life, I’ve observed.”
“I am fortunate,” she replied with more seriousness than he expected. “I am equally contented with a book in my hand or out in the fresh air. There’s nothing I love more than a good ramble or a run on a fine horse.
“Unless,” she added with a smile, “I’ve an interesting book waiting for me back at the house. So many young ladies of my acquaintance in London seem unable to enjoy either. When they’re out, they fuss about the weather and wish to be back indoors. Yet when they’re at home, they long to be out and about.”
“Life before marriage must be tedious for any young lady,” Latimer replied, “especially if she has no purpose in life other than to catch a husband. Too much time fretting about costume and parties—too much time centered on self, that is—can ruin a girl before she knows where she is. And in any case, the choice of a life partner often is best left to the young lady’s parents, who have more experience of the world.”
From under the downturned brim of his hat, he watched Claire closely.
“Papa believed in fresh air and exercise for all his family,” she said rather stiffly, “and this is one point in which he and I always were in complete agreement.”
“But surely,” Latimer said slowly after appearing to consider her statement, “surely your Papa did not approve of young ladies riding harum-scarum across the countryside. A daily turn about the garden or a moderate callisthenic regimen in the privacy of her boudoir—tailored to a lady’s more delicate constitution...”
“You are sadly mistaken in my Papa’s outlook, Mr. Latimer. Sir Henry Burton is a gentleman of the old school. The Burtons have held their land for many generations, and sons and daughters both forge ties to that land through the time-honored country pursuits.”
She paused, wondering briefly where she had heard similar words before, then continued. “Those pursuits, I’m afraid, include cub hunting and, yes, galloping after the wily Reynard himself. Why, in Papa’s view, it’s been a sad erosion of country values that he’s forced to take a house in town every winter. Indeed, he spends as little time there as decently possible when the females of his family decamp the ancestral home.”
They were approaching the stables at a rather brisk pace, Latimer noticed, and Claire was not the least winded despite her fashionable costume. He stopped short, forcing her to turn back to him, skirts rustling. A sudden breeze lifted the light ribbons on her hat, and she raised her right hand to catch at the stray lock of burnished hair that brushed her cheek while she clutched at her skirt with her left.
He had a sudden flash of the Botticelli Venus and lost all taste for further conversation. Their moods were out of step suddenly, and he could barely suppress the urge to seize her and shake her. Today was not the day for wooing, after all.
“I fear we will not agree on this subject, Miss Burton,” he said as lightly as possible, “at least not today, and I know I will not be able to compete for your attention once you cross that threshold”—he nodded toward the stable—“in your guise as Epona, the ancient protectress of horses. I will see you tomorrow?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, unless you have more pressing business.”
“I’ll send a note over if I am unable to come.”
Claire stood watching him as he walked away toward the house.
“Mr. Latimer!” she called after him.
He turned.
“Mr. Lati
mer,” she said. “I know I don’t say it often enough, but I am grateful. Grateful for your help, grateful for your interest in me—for the interest you are taking in this work for Josiah. I know he would be grateful as well.”
The brief, false smile he gave her before moving away again was nothing short of ghastly. Shocked, she ran toward the stables and dashed through the open door to shelter in the dim interior.
Claire sighed and rested her head against the polished oak column supporting the roof where the row of sumptuous box stalls began. She had put her foot in it again, though she was unsure exactly how.
She shouldn’t be so self-assertive—so pert—with a man like Edward Latimer. He was an educated, God-fearing man, the rector of the parish, for heaven’s sake. And there she was, blithely, nay thoughtlessly, disagreeing with positions on life and correct conduct on which he, rightly, should be the arbiter. Or at least be given some benefit of the doubt, an appearance of thought, before she contradicted him.
Claire’s memory flew back to when she was 4 and she was brought into the drawing room to meet an imposing man in black. The family lived in a relatively modest manor then, several miles from Thurn Hall, and all her days there were happy, except for this one.
It was clear from the moment she toddled into the room that every adult deferred to this stranger, and she ducked behind her nursemaid’s skirts in alarm. Papa harrumphed, and Mama gasped, as her nurse yanked Claire’s clutching hands from her skirts and pushed her forward toward the man, who looked down at her without smiling, as though she were a particularly unattractive type of beetle.
She stared back, fascinated, and she sensed the others in the room beginning to relax. The man was ugly, with a scraggly black beard streaked with gray and bushy side whiskers. There was a misshapen dark mole on the side of his nose that sprouted three black hairs. His teeth were uneven and yellow.
“Sir,” Papa said, “if you please, this is our daughter, Claire Elizabeth.”
“She looks like a fine child, for a girl,” the stranger barked. “I trust, ma’am,” he said, looking toward Mama, “that the child you are carrying now will be a boy. We don’t want to see Thurn, or the title, go to that scapegrace nephew of mine with the foreign mother! There’s no guarantee Henry here will outlive me. We need insurance!”
“Yes, sir,” Mama had whispered, looking down at the floor. Claire had never seen her mother so cowed, before or since.
“Come here, child. I want to look at you better,” the stranger said to her. She moved closer cautiously. Then, in an abrupt motion, he scooped her up and held her out in the crook of one strong arm while he leaned away and examined her with an eyepiece.
Claire took a deep breath and coughed, but she didn’t cry.
The man brought her his awful face closer, one watery eye peering at her through the glass, and that’s when it happened. She pushed down on his arm with all her wee might, wiggling and kicking until he half-dropped her onto the floor.
“Mama, Mama!” she called out running toward her red-faced mother. “That awful man smells!”
She was banished to the nursery without supper, and later that night, the harried nursemaid explained to her that the stranger was the incumbent baronet, possessor of the grand Thurn Hall and all its riches, and the sole benefactor of her family, which had next to nothing until the old man died. Even the roof over their heads belonged to him.
She never forgot that feeling of guilt and mortification. She wasn’t to know that after she was hustled from the room, the old man had laughed heartily and given her abashed mother a guinea “for the lusty little vixen.”
She only knew that she had told the truth, and once again, it had been the wrong thing to do. Perhaps it was time to accept who she was rather than hoping time would make any difference in her disposition or conduct, she thought.
She most definitely wasn’t like other women now. She had independent means, she was free of family ties and as life stretched out before her, a conventional home with a husband and half-a-dozen children was increasingly unlikely. Nor did she want that, she realized.
She considered again whether it might be wise to go abroad, at least for a while, after she finished cataloging Josiah’s papers. She had always wanted to travel.
Perhaps that was the lesson she had failed to heed her whole life: She didn’t fit in anywhere and there was no point in denying it.
A horse whickered softly to her right. Claire looked toward the sound and smiled. Everything in the stable shone, and the cool air smelled of saddle soap and expensive horseflesh. She felt at home here.
“Toddy, my friend!” She plucked a palm-sized apple from the barrel near the door and walked over to his box. The horse thrust his big head over the open half-door and snatched it from her greedily. His powerful teeth ground it to pulp in seconds and he nudged at her seeking more.
She opened the box, pushed him aside and stepped in. Running an appraising eye over his gleaming coat, she noted the bandages that swathed his left front hoof.
“The poultices is workin’ well, ma’am,” a male voice said behind her. “The swellin’s down and he should be right as rain in a coup’la weeks.”
“Tressel! I’m glad to hear that. I feel responsible.”
“Could’a happened to anyone, ma’am.’
“Yes, but it happened while I was riding him. Still, it gives me a chance to get to know some of the other horses. I’ll be riding out with Mr. Carey this afternoon to look at that drainage project he’s started over by the spinney. Who is in most need of the exercise?”
“Well, ma’am, there’s Lanc’lot over there, though he’s a bit rough, beggin’ your pardon. Don’t mean to ’parage your abilities, ma’am. What I meant to say is he’s a bit unreliable, like. Mr. Joss kept him around for some of his Lun’un friends what he didn’t quite like, so to say.”
“Tressel, you astonish me! Who’s in that box over there?” Claire say, walking down to the furthest box after casting a skeptical look at the unsteady Lancelot.
“That’s Dickon, ma’am. He’s a grand’un, got a bold heart but gentle as a lamb under the right hands. We’ve not quite known what to do with him, since, y’know... it didn’t seem right...”
The man suddenly reddened.
“Dickon!” Claire said in genuine astonishment this time. “I assumed he was—gone. He wasn’t here when I arrived!”
Tressel twisted his cap as he gazed down at the paving. “We been keepin’ him down in the bottom, but we had to move him up here last week because of the diggin’. Mr. Carey was supposed to break it to you, like.”
Claire drew in a long, deep breath.
“I will ride Dickon today,” she said firmly. “And I’ll deal with Mr. Carey. You have nothing to worry about, Tressel.”
Claire remained composed until she was out of the stable block and halfway across the lawn. Then she ran across the terrace as fast as she could and flew up the back stairs to her room, angry tears streaming down her face.
Hairpins flew as she wrenched her hat from her head and tossed it aside. She flung herself down on the bed, gulping for air. Carey was about to see a new side of her and it wouldn’t be pleasant for either of them. To hide the horse Josiah had been riding when he died—what else was the man, a man she trusted, capable of?
“Carey!” she called peremptorily as Dickon danced beneath her two hours later. “Carey, come out here!”
The steward emerged from the low building that served as the estate office with one arm in his jacket and fumbling to get himself into the other sleeve.
“Miss Burton, forgive me, I must have lost track—” His jaw dropped when he saw the fiery red horse she was riding and her set lips. He settled his jacket on his shoulders, straightened his hat and said calmly, “I see you’ve discovered Dickon. I can explain.”
“Explain what, Mr. Carey?” Claire said sharply. “That you kept a secret from me, that you presumed you would know my wishes in this matter—in any matter—and then h
ave the gall to do the opposite?” She moved the horse a step closer to where he stood and looked down. “Or did you think I wouldn’t notice at all what you’d done? Perhaps you and your fellow conspirators were planning to cheat me?”
Carey had remained calm to that point but blanched at the word “cheat.”
“No, not that, Miss Burton, I assure you.”
“That’s easy to say now that I’ve caught you out.” Dickon took her mood and pivoted his hindquarters so that Claire was now glaring at Carey from the horse’s opposite side, the stallion’s tail swishing imperiously and his head bobbing as she shortened her hold on the reins.
“Miss Burton, please, hear me out,” Carey said as he ducked back.
“This had better be good.”
“Yes, well...” Carey removed his hat, took out a large kerchief, wiped his brow and carefully replaced his hat.
“Don’t stall, I warn you,” Claire snapped.
“It’s like this, Miss Burton,” Carey said at last. “Dickon here is a valuable horse, and I don’t mean just that Josiah Carter paid a thousand pounds for him. He’s young but he’s good stock. Mr. Carter intended to go in for breeding competitive jumpers, and Dickon was to be the foundation stud.”
Claire said nothing.
“Besides which,” Carey added in a low voice, “Mr. Carter was inordinately fond of Dickon, and there’s a number of us who believe that, whatever happened when Mr. Carter died, it wasn’t the horse’s fault.”
Claire resettled herself in the saddle. “What did you expect me to do, Carey? Have him destroyed?”
“We didn’t know what to expect, Miss Burton,” Carey replied. “Sell him, perhaps, though I didn’t rule out your deciding to have him put down. You never asked. There’s no telling—”
“There’s no telling what an emotional, overwrought woman would do? But maybe if enough time passed, and you hid the horse, you could bring her around?”
