A Gentleman’s Game (6 page)

She rolled her eyes. “Those
are
Chandler-ish things to do, but remember, I’m the kind sibling. No, mainly I miss riding. If I put on a huge cloak, I can still visit the track and watch the promising colts and fillies exercising. But it’s not the same.”

“The best colts won’t be there this week.” Aha, he was leading her around to the subject at last.

“Because of the colic in Father’s stable?”

“Gossip, gossip.” Nathaniel nestled his tiny cup back into its saucer. “Newmarket is the largest tiny town one could possibly imagine. Do you know which animals are down?”

She listed them off. “And I won’t insult you by asking what you’ve tried to help them, because I know you’ll have done everything.” After a pause, she set her teacup down, fists clenching. “Ah, curse it. I have to say something. Water. Walking. Call a physician if you must. Do it for Sheltie, please.”

“Hannah. Stop. I’m not here for advice.”

“I didn’t figure you were. But it’s all I can do to help right now.” She looked ruefully at her round belly.

“There is something you could help with.” Nathaniel leaned forward to place his cup and saucer on the tea tray with what he hoped was a casual air. “I want to know whatever you can tell me about Rosalind.”

“She is ‘just as high as your heart.’”

Somehow his finger got stuck in the teacup handle, and it made an unholy clatter on its saucer as he freed himself. “She—what?” That selfsame heart gave a little leap.

“Rosalind? Heroine of
As You Like It
? It’s somewhere around here.” Hannah pawed at several of the cushions. “The library was stripped almost bare, so there’s nothing to read here but Shakespeare and Milton, and I’d rather a comedy than damnation.
As You Like It
is the play in which the hero falls in love with Rosalind at first sight, and they wander around in a forest in disguise and he sends her love poems by nailing them onto a tree.”

“A tree?” Nathaniel’s brows yanked together.
Love at first sight?
Nonsense. “Never mind all that; I wasn’t talking about Shakespeare. I meant to refer to Miss Agate. And if you tease me about calling her by her first name, I shall—”

“Threaten a woman who is with child? Maybe
you
need to read about damnation. Milton is the morocco-bound volume on the floor behind the sofa.” She coughed. “I don’t know how it happens to be there.”

Nathaniel folded his arms and sat back in his chair.

“All right, all right,” Hannah gave in. “What do you wish to know?”

“Whatever will make her agree to do what I ask.”

Hannah’s jaw dropped. “Are you
blackmailing
her?”

“What? No! The opposite of blackmail, whatever one might call that. I want to…to…sparkle-mail her.” He ignored his sister’s snort. “Father almost granted that I could take the horses to Epsom if Miss Agate came along. Now I need
her
to agree so
he
will agree.”

“Ah, it makes perfect sense.”

“Good. So you see, I want to make the journey sound so delightful that there’s no way she could bear to refuse.” He considered. “Did the Rosalind in the play like her poems?”

“You would write a love poem to our father’s secretary? This day has taken an interesting turn.”

“Not a love poem. More like a ‘Please agree to accompany me to Epsom’ poem.”

Hannah finally stopped fiddling with her cushions. “Let’s hear one, then.”

Uh.
“All right. Something like…

‘Please agree

To accompany me

To Epsom for the Derby.’”

“That’s rotten,” said Hannah. “She would stay behind just so she’d be certain not to be subjected to any more poems.”

Sisterly honesty was horrid, but in this case he had to agree with her. “I know, I know. I’ve always been more handy with things than with words.”

“Well, then give her a thing instead.”

“I…” Nathaniel cleared his throat.

“Oh Lord. I didn’t mean it like
that
.” Hannah turned pink.

“Of course you didn’t. And I most certainly didn’t either. I was just clearing my throat.”

Right. Except that now he wondered whether Rosalind Agate would like to be touched, to be stroked.

If they were talking of
things
,
handy
was all Nathaniel had been lately. Once the race season began, there was no time to pursue pleasure, no time for anything but work.

Well, work and thought. Thought of a wry smile, of a ready sense of humor. Of clear green eyes and hair the color of new cedar. Of silky deep blue and pale print gowns that… Honestly, they covered so much that Nathaniel had no idea of the shape beneath them. But as long as Miss Agate had the usual parts, she would be lovely.

Fortunately, Hannah was oblivious to the fact that Nathaniel’s mind had gone exploring. “There’s not much I can tell you about her,” Hannah said. “By the time I met her, Father had already decided to hire her. I asked about her references, and he said he had learned everything he needed to.”

Oh. So Hannah hadn’t been privy to the decision to hire Rosalind. He hadn’t realized that. “You didn’t see the letters of reference, then?”

“No, I didn’t. Why, what are you getting at?”

“I just wondered who had provided them. Rosalind Agate was raised in a coaching inn and now talks like the Queen of England.”

“With a German accent? I don’t remember noting that.”

Would it be unkind to hit a pregnant woman with an embroidered cushion? Probably. “I hope your baby kicks you hard in the ribs.”

“Wish granted.” She smiled. “‘Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.’”

“Yes, so I noticed.”

“Idiot. That’s more of Rosalind from
As You Like It
. Ah, you were never bookish.”

“As I said, I’m better with things.”

His education had been patched together by tutors and grooms. He knew the Latin names for every bone in a horse’s body and could figure any sum that might be involved in the running of a household. But calculus? Literature? If they didn’t have a practical use, he had never crammed them into his head.

“Why don’t you ask Miss Agate what she likes, or whatever else you want to know?” Hannah suggested. Reasonably.

And yet. “She has this cursed way of slipping away from the subject.”

“Maybe you need to ask her in a poem.” Hannah’s freckled nose scrunched in a wicked smile.

Nathaniel stretched out his legs. “I’ll write one for you. ‘Dear Hannah. When you make suggestions like that, I wish you were on the savannah.’”

She pretended to dab at her eyes. “That was so beautiful! I may weep…for your lack of skill.” Struggling to sit upright, she added, “All right, be off with you, wretched brother. Unless you want to come to the stables with me?”

“No, no. You go on and talk to your husband about…whatever it is.”

“The stud farm. Jonah and Bart have some plan to lease buildings to each other, or horses, or maybe both. It’s changed so many times that I’ve threatened to step in and make all the arrangements for them.” Her brows knit. “Secretly, I think they like writing to each other. Bart has no brothers, you know.”

“I know he hasn’t. But Jonah has.” Nathaniel felt a bit stung. He couldn’t remember the last time his taciturn brother had sent him a letter.

“I never said he didn’t.” She held out a hand. “Come, help me up. I have become terribly unwieldy, like a pumpkin stuffed into a crepe.”

He stood. “Why those two things in particular?”

“Because I’m hungry.”

She held out a hand, and Nathaniel heaved her to her feet.

“I hate visiting the stables and not being able to ride,” she said. “Bart knows it, and he would spend more time with me indoors—but there is always so much to do. I don’t want to sacrifice anyone’s well-being just because I become maudlin at the sight of a saddle.”

I hate visiting the stables and not being able to ride
.

Nathaniel had never considered such a thing before, but would it not apply to Sir William too? Once upon a time, he had taught all his children to be as comfortable on horseback as on their own two feet. Now he himself could neither stand nor ride.

Sir William had never complained about no longer being able to sit a horse—but that did not mean it didn’t bother him. He hadn’t told Nathaniel he hated having his chair pushed, either.

If Rosalind was right, such things ought to be understood without having to be explained.

Nathaniel hesitated. “Hannah. Do you think Father likes to have his chair pushed?”

She rolled a fist in the small of her back. “I don’t know. Maybe. If he asked for help. I can’t say I remember it ever coming up.”

“But you were his secretary for years.”

“Yes, but I’m a woman. And his daughter.” She linked her arm with Nathaniel’s and dragged him toward the doorway to the drawing room. “A father doesn’t ask a daughter for help. And a man certainly doesn’t ask a woman. Why, what brings on this question?”

Rosalind Agate had brought so many uncertainties to his mind that Nathaniel could hardly untangle enough thoughts to reply. “Oh…just wondering.”

This was not an answer, but Hannah knew when to let a small idiocy pass without comment. “Shall I come over some day soon? I’m not allowed to ride, but I can walk.”

He blinked himself back to the dark entryway of Hannah’s home. “That might be a good idea, yes. If Miss Agate agrees to go to Epsom, Father will need your help again. But”—he had to drop a brotherly hint—“have a servant walk over with you. Bart and Father will take turns shooting me if I encourage you to venture over alone in your condition.”

“That’s how they show their love,” Hannah said.

Nathaniel knew when to let a small idiocy pass too. He only embraced her—tentatively, so as not to bump that human foal she was growing—and bade her farewell.

“When you come again, bring some novels with you,” she called after him.

He nodded, leaving her with a parting wave. Then he walked back to Chandler Hall with even more questions than before, and the suspicion that he wanted them answered as much to learn about Rosalind Agate as to lead a traveling party to Epsom.

A few days galloped by. Long spring days that still seemed too short as Rosalind ran from study to stable and back again; days of water and walking and mineral oil and nux vomica and more of all of them, again and again. Of radishes to tempt Jake’s appetite to return, and plaits in Sheltie’s mane as the little pony leaned hard against Rosalind, each soothing the other.

Rosalind welcomed the exertion. If it weren’t for the fatigue that knocked her into bed, deeply and dreamlessly asleep at the end of each day, she would have wasted her nights in wakefulness and confusion. And the reason was Aunt Annie—and so much more.

The day after Sir William had decreed that everyone entering the stable must remain in pairs or groups, Rosalind had finally managed to slip into town to collect the post. “Our master is expecting some confidential letters,” she lied to the footman whose usual errand it was, and he gratefully accepted her offer of an hour of freedom while Miss Agate carried out his work.

Within the usual shuffle of business was one sealed note for Rosalind.

Stay where you are. I am giving you the opportunity to search.

Anweledig

The Welsh signature made the letter seem more like a secret and less like an edict. Anne Jones was neither Rosalind’s aunt, nor did she truly bear a Welsh name meaning “invisible.” When Rosalind had begun to work for her a decade before, she had been young and raw and frightened of everything, her burns hardly healed, her muscles weak from her long recovery. Then Anweledig was the counterpart to Rosalind’s Cyfrinach, or “secret.” The two of them stood against the world that had taken so much from them both. Together they would conquer.

Now, at twenty-three, Rosalind went under her own name. She knew better than to think she would conquer, but she was determined not to be beaten.

Aunt Annie had told her about the man known as Tranc who had bought up the debt the sainted Widow Jones incurred to save young Rosalind’s life. The name Tranc meant death—and worse than that,
Welsh
death, which was somehow more intimidating than the English sort. Tranc could hire anyone anywhere. With a shilling’s worth of poison and five minutes unobserved, he could kill thousands of pounds of horseflesh. And what could be done to an animal ten times Rosalind’s size could easily be done to Rosalind herself.

Though this letter, brief though it was, implied that Aunt Annie—not Tranc—had arranged to sicken Sir William’s horses. That she had arranged for the animals to be ill so that Rosalind could search the baronet’s papers in the resulting confusion.

The only thing that would take Sir William from his house was his stable. If Aunt Annie knew this, then Sir William was more than a stranger to her. And this was, perhaps, why Anweledig was so certain the answer lay at Chandler Hall. The answer to whatever had happened in Spain in 1805.

Year after year, each of Rosalind’s positions had included secrets and searches. And each seemed to have pulled Aunt Annie closer to the answer she sought. Rosalind had no idea what it might be, or even of the question. She had asked, but queries sent by letter could be easily ignored.

She always wrote to Aunt Annie in care of the foundling home the woman had helped to establish in East London. Return letters came from different parts of the country. Among all her charitable works, perhaps Anne Jones pursued a hunt of her own.

If she did, Rosalind did not know the purpose of that either. She knew only that once she found the right papers, Aunt Annie would turn them over to Tranc, and they would both be safe.

In darker days, Rosalind had wondered if her life was worth the layers of debt she had incurred to save it. But now, for the first time in a decade, she saw the promise of choice ahead of her. Of a life free from secrets and spying. A life that was
real
.

She just needed to carry out one last betrayal, and then she’d be an honest woman.

* * *

“You look like a half-laundered cloth that someone forgot to wring out,” came a familiar voice. “Are you all right, Rosalind?”

She hadn’t heard the study door open—but then, Sir William’s latest order had hit her with an unexpected force that left her ears ringing in disbelief.

With a quick tug of breath, she tried to pull herself together before looking up from her usual litter of papers. Nathaniel Chandler crouched next to her chair, blue eyes at the level of her own. “I’m fine.” She turned away with the excuse of neatening a stack of paper. “I think I just ate some moldy hay.”

“Very amusing. Ten points for wittiness. But I think”—he stood, then rested his weight on the corner of his father’s long table-turned-desk—“that you spoke to my father, as I did just outside the study. And that what he told me, which put a smile on my face, has put a frown on yours.”

A broad, tanned hand came down on the stack of papers. “Rosalind. Truly. Will it be that bad to come to Epsom with me? I had hoped you’d be happy to receive such a sign of my father’s trust.” His tone was dry; they both knew that trust in Rosalind was a sign that his father’s confidence in Nathaniel was lacking.

If only she had what they had: the fraught pairing of parent and child, so near at hand that they could be wary of each other. Test one another in everyday ways.

But if she had that, she wouldn’t be wary. She would be grateful if her father were near.

She rummaged for some explanation that might serve as an adequate excuse. “I don’t feel that I can leave my work. Or travel. At this time. To Epsom.”

“Your short sentences. Do not. Convince me. Of anything.” He hopped himself up the rest of the way, sitting atop the table and letting his booted feet swing free. “What about a poem instead?”

Rosalind looked up into his face. “Happy to oblige. ‘Roses are red. Nathaniel, I wish you would get Epsom out of your head.’”

“I’m impressed. Your poetry is even worse than mine.”

Despite herself, she smiled. “Why, what are your poems like?”

For some reason, he blushed. “Never you mind.”

A thought struck her. “If you just spoke to your father outside the study, why were you originally coming this way?”

“To tell you. And gloat.”

“Try again.”

“For the pleasure of your company?”

She swallowed. “Try again.”

“Because I wanted to hunt through my father’s papers for anything that would tell me more about you.”

A
why
almost escaped her lips; then she brazened it out. “Try again
again
.”

Nathaniel sighed and slid from the table. “I can see that I am never going to get it right. Why don’t you tell me the answer instead? I’ll be over here flipping through the
Stud Book
, ready to consult the pedigree of any horse you mention.”

She turned in her chair to follow his progress across the room. “When does Sir William want us to leave? He did no more than poke his head in and tell me I was to join the traveling party.”

“That’s odd even for the name of a racehorse. Hold for a moment while I look that up.” Balancing the book on his knee, he turned pages.

Rosalind hid a smile. When Nathaniel looked up, she managed to narrow her eyes.

He slammed the book shut. “All right, all right. You are so serious.”

“Yes, well. Hypotenuse. Iron gall ink. Naiad. I am at work, you know.”

All buoyant energy, he paced from bookshelf to bookshelf and back. “We’re to leave the day after tomorrow. Whit Monday. Sir William’s plan of keeping to pairs and groups seems to be working, for no other horses have developed colic. But that means—”

“It was no accident.” Her fingers felt cold.

“Exactly.” He drummed his fingers on a shelf, then kept pacing. “I was so certain it wasn’t an intentional act. However, I guess it doesn’t much matter since the tampering hasn’t happened again.”

“It still matters.” How faint her voice sounded.

“Sir William agrees with me—can you imagine?—that we ought to get away from the stables as soon as possible. Whit Monday is earlier than I would usually wish to depart, but Epigram and Pale Marauder aren’t at their full strength and will benefit from a slow pace.”

“Slow paces don’t win races.”

“I was wrong: You
are
a better poet than I am. And you are also quite correct. I’ve no idea how they’ll do on the journey, but I do know they’ve no chance to win the Derby unless they are in Epsom. Once we arrive, I will send an express updating Sir Jubal and my father on their horses’ conditions.”

“You said you’re wrong,” she repeated, “and I’m right.” He said it with such confidence, as though another rightness would come along any moment.

“This time, yes.” He stopped his pacing. “So. What sort of work has you in such a mental flurry? Maybe I can help, so you can run off to Epsom with a clear conscience.”

Conscience
was exactly the right word to hit upon, though she couldn’t let him know that. “Maybe you can help at that.” She fumbled to frame a reason. “I need to find a…a sale record. For a horse Sir William bought in 1805. Where would papers from 1805 be kept?”

“For 1805?” He tilted his head, gaze searching the ceiling as though clues were hidden in the plaster. “He was hardly in England that year. Any horses he bought were probably on behalf of the military, so the papers would be held by the government. Why would he need that now?”

The best way to deal with a question one did not want to answer, Rosalind had found, was to ignore it. “Where would Sir William’s other correspondence be stored?” If her understanding of the family chronology was correct, Chandler Hall had not yet been built in 1805. Yet surely they would not have destroyed papers when moving households.

“Other correspondence?” Now Nathaniel’s searching gaze was turned to Rosalind. “I’ve no idea if there is any. His secretarial difficulties have been of long standing—with the exception of present company and my sister Hannah. And he was never the sort to send long, newsy letters home.”

“Could anything be stored in the attics here?” She might almost be pushing too hard. But she trusted the son not to tell the father,
Your secretary was acting odd earlier. What sort of information could she need from 1805
?

Nathaniel paced back to the table, then pulled the stopper from the brandy decanter. “I doubt it. There’s nothing in the attics that Sir William might need again. He was reluctant even to have attic space constructed. He doesn’t like the idea of a part of the house he cannot reach.” He held the crystal stopper to his nose and breathed deeply, shutting his eyes.

“Half an inch, no more,” Rosalind murmured.

“No more,” he echoed, replacing the stopper. “If it helps, 1805 is the year he was granted his baronetcy. Though it’s not the exciting sort that came with new lands and estates and tenants. It’s merely a title.”

Merely
, he said, as though a hereditary title were of little importance. “How did he gain it? Some sort of military service?”

He nodded. “Horses. Supplying cavalry horses for the Light Dragoons. He used his connections across Wales and Scotland and Ireland to find horses that were sturdy and healthy and quick.”

Wales
. Rosalind’s thoughts went fuzzy all of a sudden. When she jolted back to the present, Nathaniel was still explaining, “—worth quite a bit to know one’s horses were going to travel calmly across the Channel and recover their land legs quickly. Sir William—not that he was quite Sir William yet—traveled with many of them. Then he went to Spain.”

“Spain.” Rosalind blinked.

“You are surprised?”

“No, no. Only curious. For me, Spain is a place in books, not a place I might ever go.” Surely it was a place with days and nights like any other. But in her imagination, it was drenched in sun, a sun so warm and lasting that one need never light a lamp or drop it or go up in flame.

“Why was your father in Spain?” she wondered. “He cannot have been a soldier himself.”

“Lord, I don’t know. He was always traveling somewhere or other, even before our mother died. He was in Cádiz for months, blockaded when sea battles were going on. That’s where he contracted the palsy that paralyzed his legs, but I don’t know much else about it.” His hand strayed to the decanter again, fingers trailing down its crystalline side. “It wasn’t the best year for this family. I was a scruffy, resentful youth, left behind with a tutor I never obeyed and no parents.”

“And your brother and sisters?”

“And them. But somehow we never had much to say to one another. Not then.”

Another possible path to the information blocked. She sat back in her chair, brows knit tight with strain. “How can I get what I need?”

He looked over his shoulder at her, his expression all roguery. “Well, Rosalind Agate, that depends on what you need.”

Her lips parted, but no ready retort fell from them. Though he doubtless meant the statement lightly, it was much more than that to Rosalind.

What did one need? Food, drink, shelter, safety. She had the first three; she wanted the latter.

No, she wanted more than that. She wanted the right to beam back when a man like Nathaniel Chandler grinned at her. To take his compliments, to allow something deeper than flippant flirtation.

To allow herself a touch of excitement at traveling to Epsom, a road that would lead her through London and might permit a visit to her family.

And for now, she wanted him to keep smiling at her, just like that, and for the smile to stay as he learned more of her. To stay and never to fall, until the expression became as familiar to her as the shape of her own scars.

But she couldn’t admit that to him. She could hardly bear to admit it to herself.

“I need to carry out my work,” she replied at last. “That is all.”

Nathaniel picked up a sheet of blank foolscap from the stack before Rosalind. “Very commendable, of course.”

Right. If only she felt
commendable
as she watched the swift movements of his hands, folding the rectangle of paper at odd angles. Those hands had fixed a water pump; they had soothed skittish and ill animals. He was quick with his hands, a sort of quickness that intrigued Rosalind. Could those hands soothe her own worries? Would he touch her if she asked?