Castleford shook his head. Even in this letter—in which he placed an unwelcomed obligation on a distant relative with no fond memories of him—Becksbridge could not resist scolding.
“I suppose I will have to visit these spots of land soon, or I might forget about them entirely. Get maps and mark them, Edwards. I will deal with it before summer ends.”
“That might not be possible, sir. There are not enough Tuesdays left for such journeys along with attending to your usual affairs.”
“Calm yourself, Edwards. I do not have to be sober to visit my estates.”
D
aphne Joyes flipped through the mail that Katherine had brought to her. She masked her disappointment when it became apparent that the letter she awaited had not arrived.
Foreboding sickened her. If that letter had not come by now, it probably never would. She would have to turn her mind to what that meant about the future. Plans had already begun forming. None of them were pleasant to contemplate. Worse, goals that she had thought herself finally close to achieving would now be put off indefinitely. Perhaps forever.
That possibility pained her heart. She held her composure and mourned privately, secretly, the way she had done for years now.
Katherine took a chair facing the large window in the back sitting room where they shared some coffee. Dark hair neatly dressed and apron crisp despite a morning tending to plants, Katherine waited patiently to hear any news in today’s letters that Daphne chose to share.
She appeared a little foreign, Daphne thought, not for the first time. Katherine’s high cheekbones and dark, almond-shaped eyes were not typically English in appearance, but it was the light brown of her skin, caused by the summer’s sun, that really created the impression. Even the biggest-brimmed bonnet could not entirely protect a woman’s complexion if she spent hours every day in a garden.
“Audrianna writes to say that she and Lord Sebastian will be going to the coast today, to escape the town’s summer heat,” Daphne offered.
“That is probably wise, in her condition. Will she remain there for her lying in?” Katherine said.
“I expect so, although she does not say.”
Daphne opened and read the next letter. Katherine sipped her coffee and did not ask after this letter’s sender either, even though Katherine had a special bond with the dear friend who had written it.
Katherine held strictly to the rules of the house. The most important rule was that the women living there were never to pry into each other’s lives or personal business, past or present. In the years that Daphne had been sharing her home with women alone in the world like herself, that rule had served its purpose of ensuring harmony. However, some of the women who had lived here also found relief and safety in the right to keep their own counsel. Katherine was one of them.
The members of the household had fallen into two groups, Daphne thought, her mind distracted from the letter by the notion. They either belonged to the haunted or the hunted. A few seemed to suffer both afflictions. Like Katherine.
It was hard not to be curious. Hard not to believe that if one learned the history and the truth, one could help. Daphne knew better, however. After all, she was a bit haunted and hunted herself, in ways that no one could ever change.
“Verity mostly writes about the doings at her home in Oldbury,” she said, passing the letter to Katherine. “Lord Hawkeswell journeyed north to assess whether the trouble up there will affect her iron mill.”
Katherine frowned over the letter while she read it. “I am glad that she did not go with the earl. The papers are full of dire predictions and warnings about violence.”
“They often exaggerate. As you can see, her husband did not think there is any danger to their property or people.”
“It could be different come August. There is that big demonstration planned.”
“Plans are not certainties.” However, it
could
be very different come August. One more thing to contemplate while reassessing the future.
Daphne turned to the paper itself. In addition to news about all those doings up north, the
Times
had other political stories, as well as correspondent letters from the Continent. One caught her eye. The new Duke of Becksbridge had been honored at a dinner a fortnight ago, attended by the best of Parisian society. It was, from the telling, a party to say good-bye prior to his imminent departure for London to take up the duties of his inheritance.
Would he live in England now? Or would he, hopefully, do as some other peers had since the war ended, and return to the Continent to make his home permanently in France?
“Who is that?” Katherine said.
Daphne looked over to see Katherine sitting upright, peering out the window behind Daphne’s sofa.
Daphne turned around. “I see no one.”
Katherine stood and moved closer. She squinted at the tapestry of flowers and plants outside. “A man just walked through the garden, not fifty feet from this window. He is near the rose arbor now.”
Daphne’s sight followed Katherine’s pointing finger. She glimpsed the movement of a dark form near the arbor.
Just then their housekeeper, Mrs. Hill, entered the sitting room with a frown on her birdlike face. “There is a horse in front. I did not hear it approach on the lane, but there it is, with its rider gone.”
“The rider is in the garden.” Daphne could not see him any longer. She removed her apron. “I will go out and invite him to leave.”
“Will you be wanting the pistol?” Katherine asked.
“I am sure that this person was only curious about a property named The Rarest Blooms that he found himself passing. He probably ventured up the lane to see just how rare the flowers might be.”
Katherine remained tense, staring at the garden. Hunted, Daphne thought again.
“I suggest you watch from the greenhouse, Katherine. If our trespasser behaves in a threatening manner when I address him, you come out and brandish the pistol. Just try not to shoot him unless it is absolutely necessary.”
D
aphne left the house as if going for a midday turn on the property. She strolled past the kitchen garden, then followed paths through beds displaying summer flowers.
The greenhouse flanked the plantings on her right, and a brick wall with espaliered fruit trees hemmed in the garden on her left. Two portals on either side of the house gave entry to the gardens. The intruder must have come through one of them.
She meandered left, toward the arbor near the wall. The climbing rose that provided shelter from the sun there had not yet blossomed, but its leaves created a dense, shadowed sanctuary. As she approached, she saw the man sitting on the bench within.
He saw her too. He cocked his head a little, as if her presence fascinated him. He did not appear the least disconcerted at being found trespassing like this. He remained sitting there—sprawled, really—his shoulders resting against the arbor’s back slats and one leg fully extended, so the sun shone on the foot of his boot.
A very nice boot, she noted as she drew near. Expensive. Expertly crafted of superior leather and polished within an inch of its life.
Her intruder was a gentleman.
She came to a halt about twenty feet from the arbor. She waited for him to speak. An apology, perhaps. Or an expression of interest in the gardens. Instead he silently regarded her as if he studied a painting in which, unaccountably, a figure had moved through the oiled colors.
The moment grew awkward. She looked back at the greenhouse, scanning its small panes of glass for Katherine’s dark head. Not that there would be any trouble, of course. Yet she experienced a surprising amount of relief when she spotted Katherine.
Deciding that grace would achieve more than accusations when it came to boots like that, she smiled in acknowledgment of his presence. “Welcome to The Rarest Blooms, sir. Did you come to admire the gardens? Do you have a particular interest in horticulture?”
“I know nothing about horticulture, although this garden is worthy of admiration.” He stood, as etiquette required. He did not leave the arbor but remained within its dappled shadows.
He was tall. Taller than she was, and her own unfashionable stature often left her nose-to-nose with men or even looking down from an elevated prospect. He had dark hair and dark eyes and appeared quite handsome from what she could see. Young, but not very young. Thirty years of age, thereabouts, she guessed.
“Perhaps you seek to purchase a selection of special blooms for a favored lady?”
“It never entered my mind.”
He did not appear inclined to share what
had
entered his mind and led him to intrude like this. He behaved, in fact, as if she had no right to know. She was beginning to dislike this man. She found his manner conceited and his relaxed attitude condescending.
“Perhaps you should consider it. Ladies consider flowers romantic. They love receiving them as gifts.”
“They only pretend that they do. They are actually disappointed. They prefer jewels to flowers, no matter how rare the blooms might be. I daresay the thinnest silver chain would be favored over the most exotic plant.”
“You speak with secure authority, as if you know the mind of every woman on earth.”
“I have sampled enough to speak with confidence.”
She was very sure that she did not like him now. “I am very fond of flowers, as you might surmise from the quantity here. It appears that your experience with women’s minds has been incomplete.”
That amused him. “If given a choice between the rarest bloom in the world or a diamond of good clarity, you would choose the latter. Only a fool would not, and you do not impress me as being a fool.”
“If the choice was exquisite transience or exquisite permanence, if the diamond were of the first water, I would take the jewel. But if the diamond were second rate, I would not. Now, since you have no interest in procuring flowers, and only a passing interest in gardens, perhaps it is time for you to resume your journey to wherever you were headed when you detoured down our lane.”
“I did not detour. This was my destination. I arrived earlier than I expected, and have been passing the time here to avoid calling at an uncivilized hour.” He pulled out his pocket watch. “Still too early, but perhaps you will tell Mrs. Joyes that I am here, if you think she would not mind receiving me now.”
“Mrs. Joyes? Are you a friend of hers?”
“We have friends in common, but she and I have never met to my knowledge.”
“If you have never met, you have never been introduced. I doubt she would receive you under those circumstances.”
“She is strict that way, is she?”
“Fairly so, yes.”
Especially today, with you
.
“Damn. That is a boring nuisance.”
Being called boring hardly endeared him to her. “Perhaps you should return with a letter of introduction from one of those mutual friends.”
“I would like to meet with her today, since I am here.”
Irritation colored his words. So did a note of command, as if his preference was paramount. She decided that Mrs. Joyes would definitely not oblige his conceit.
“I know her very well, and she will not see you without an introduction. How inconvenient for you that she is a woman consumed by all that boring strictness.”
“Inconvenient for us both. Mine is not a social call. I have come about the Duke of Becksbridge’s estate.”
Relief replaced irritation. She instantly looked more favorably on this visitor. No wonder there had been no letter. She was close enough to London for a personal meeting to be held. And of course this man would be curious about the property, if he had a hand in executing the duke’s will.
“Ah . . . under those circumstances, perhaps Mrs. Joyes can be convinced to receive you.”
“It would be in her interest to do so. If we must stand on ceremony, I will go out the portal, to the front door, and present myself. Otherwise, perhaps you might go in and inform her of my presence in the garden.”
“Neither will be necessary.” She tried what she hoped was a conciliatory smile. “As it happens, I am Mrs. Joyes.”
He gave her a good examination, from crown to toe. “Are you indeed.”
“Forgive my small deception. For all I knew you might have been a dangerous trespasser. In fact, another member of our household has had a pistol trained on you, just in case.”
“Ah, yes, the pistol. I have heard about the pistol from our mutual friends.” He examined the house, probably looking for a gun barrel at a window. “It was a good thing that I did not succumb to my initial impulse to drag you into this arbor and kiss you, then.”
She laughed politely at his inappropriate little joke. His vague smile suggested she found more humor in the comment than intended.
“Are you the executor? A lawyer? When I did not hear anything after the funeral, I feared—”