Hadrian (7 page)

Hadrian listened with half an ear, until Fenwick rose. “I’m for a stroll, and you, Landover, have an appointment in the stables. The lads want to make their farewells to you.”

“Fair enough.” Harold got to his feet. “I’m in need of some movement as well.”

Fenwick turned his smile on his hostess. “Avie, dearest, you’ll grace my arm?”

“If I must.”

“I was such a good boy at table, I think I deserve better than that.”

“You were a hungry boy,” Avis countered, as she took Fenwick’s arm with easy familiarity.

“Miss Prentiss.” Hadrian held the lady’s chair, bowing to the inevitable. “Will you oblige me with your company?”

“I’d be delighted, particularly if we maintain enough distance from Mr. Fenwick that we needn’t overhear his efforts at conversation.”

“I heard that, Lilith,” Fenwick called as he held the door for Avis. “Your scorn maketh my manly confidence to wither.”

Lily treated Fen to a scolding silence, and Hadrian to a long-suffering sigh.

“He means no harm,” Hadrian observed as they gained the back terrace.

“Men never do, then some unsuspecting young lady can’t distinguish between teasing and worse, and disaster strikes.”

“You refer to any lady in particular?” A good dozen yards ahead, Fenwick bent close to Avis, all but kissing her cheek.

Miss Prentiss nodded at the other couple. “You see? He might be stealing a kiss, but Lady Avis won’t realize he’s up to no good until it’s too late.”

“A kiss stolen under these circumstances is little more than joking between familiars. Do you have an interest in gardening, Miss Prentiss?”

For she certainly had an interest in digging about in the dirt.

“The gardens are Lady Avis’s domain, and she does a wonderful job with them.” Miss Prentiss offered this as if she were a mother complimenting a child’s hobby.

“You have other pastimes, I take it?”

“I am but a companion, Mr. Bothwell. A friend as well, I hope, but my time is not my own.” Her tone reminded Hadrian of his late wife, and the comparison flattered no one. Rue had tried her best.

“Shall we enjoy the walk through the birches?” Or perhaps stroll over a bed of hot coals?

“I’d really rather keep Lady Avis in sight, in case she has need of me.”

“The daffodils, then.” Hadrian couldn’t criticize devotion to duty, even if Avis was unlikely to recall Miss Prentiss trailed along behind her.

“How long do you think Lord Landover will be traveling, Mr. Bothwell?”

“There’s no telling. Harold has been chained to his oar at Landover since early manhood, and he deserves time to ramble and roam.” Nothing less than the truth, damn it.

The daffodils were in their glory, sending a sweet, sunny scent aloft on the afternoon breeze. Despite the company, the scent soothed Hadrian’s mood.

“What of you, Mr. Bothwell? Lady Avis says you went from university to your first church post and haven’t taken a holiday since. You could hire a steward and go with your brother.”

“If the boat were to sink,” Hadrian pointed out, “thus endeth the house of Bothwell.” Then too, Hadrian had not been invited to join his brother, and the notion of sharing a yacht with Harold and Finch held no appeal anyway.

“My goodness. I suppose you’ll be looking for a wife sooner rather than later.”

She was still nosing about, however delicately. Maybe, to the daughter of a minister, life would ever be one great churchyard.

“If I were looking for a wife, the last thing I’d do is announce my task.” Hadrian winked to suggest camaraderie rather than rebuke, but this bantering small talk was tedious and tiring.

Just what did Fenwick discuss so intently with Avis?

“I assume you’ve already familiarized yourself with the local ladies?”

Lily Prentiss was damnably persistent. “I grew up here, Miss Prentiss. I consider many of the ladies cordial acquaintances, but none are under consideration in any other capacity.”

“They can be very intolerant.” Intolerance was apparently a deadly sin in Miss Prentiss’s opinion. “Lady Avis was sorely tried in her youth, though you may not know the details. The upshot was a broken engagement, and many of the ladies have never forgiven her for that.”

“I was at university when Lady Avis came of age,” Hadrian said, because something in Lily Prentiss’s words again rankled—but then, everything rankled of late. “That was a long time ago. How does Lady Avis get her daffodils to grow so large?”

“Fenwick would tell you it’s a matter of fertilizer, and enjoy conveying the information in as indelicate a manner as possible.”

“You don’t approve of him?”

“I don’t approve of any man who thinks Avis Portmaine is available for a flirtation. Ashton Fenwick does not know his place.”

Hadrian was coming to like that about him. “Isn’t it for Lady Avis to say what his place is?”

“My regard for Lady Avis is without limit, Mr. Bothwell, but her judgment has been faulty in the past. I will not share details, though you may trust that I have only her best interests at heart when I regard Mr. Fenwick’s attentions with skepticism.”

Oh, for mercy’s sake
. Avis was not some blushing seventeen-year-old fluttering around London in anticipation of her first season.

“In the next few weeks, Mr. Fenwick will be kept so busy, you won’t have to worry about him attending to anything but woolly sheep and bleating lambs.”

Thankfully, they’d come full circuit on the tiled slate walkway. Fenwick bowed over Lady Avis’s hand, and Hadrian made a correspondingly appropriate fuss over Lily Prentiss.

“I’m off to the stables to say my good-byes to Harold,” Avis said. “He’ll try to slip away without any scenes, but the lads have their orders.”

“I’ll leave you then,” Miss Prentiss said. “Mr. Bothwell, my thanks for your escort.” She left in a swirl of skirts, her curtsy to Hadrian as deferential as her rudeness to Fenwick was blatant.

“I don’t think she cares for you, Fenwick.” Which was puzzling.

“She doesn’t care for anybody or anything that comes between her and Avis,” Fenwick said. “Much less my dirty, disreputable self.”

“You’re reasonably well turned out. Any steward will work up a sweat if he’s earning his salt.” Today Fen was without his sizeable knife, though even in Sunday finery, he bore a piratical air.

“You don’t know, do you, Bothwell?”

“What don’t I know?” Hadrian fell in step beside him as they trailed Avis to the stables.

“My mother was the daughter of an Irish earl,” Fenwick said. “My father was a younger son of an impoverished Highland title, and a rascal. He eventually married my mother, though by then I was a busy little fellow with two younger sisters. As it happens, my younger brother might well inherit that Highland title, and so I keep my distance here for the nonce.”

“You had a mother and a father.” Hadrian slapped his riding gloves against his palm, wondering if he’d ever escape small-minded rural communities. “The same can be said for each of us.”

“My parents were hardly respectable, Bothwell. Not according to any customs recognized in civilized society.”

Hence Fen’s swagger and flirtatiousness, in aid of living down to the family tradition of disgrace.

“I’ve often wondered if Cain and Abel were legitimate,” Hadrian mused. “Who cried the banns and in what church? How did they know what vows to say? Heaven help us, none of Adam and Eve’s offspring could have been baptized, for the custom of dashing cold water at squalling infants hadn’t yet originated. I must conclude that by the lights of Genesis, we are all illegitimate in our antecedents.”

“Some vicar you are. Did you dazzle the bishops with that thinking?” Despite his flippant tone, Fenwick’s expression was considering—respectfully so.

“Dazzling bishops should not rank high on any Christian’s list of priorities. Is Miss Prentiss a lady fallen on hard times, that she must be in service here at Blessings?”

Hadrian asked, because something about the name Prentiss rang a vague, churchly, bell.

Fenwick slowed his march as they drew near the stable. “The fair Lily is one of Vim’s brilliant ideas. She’s the daughter of some clergyman who put off his collar, though nobody seems to have any details beyond that. Avie had no females about, and Vim was trying to salve his conscience for leaving his sister alone for months on end.”

“Lady Avis does seem to appreciate the company.”

Fenwick came to a halt as Avis disappeared into the stables. “You’ve heard the expression, the girls all get prettier when you’re drunk and the pub is closing?”

“Well, no, not exactly.” Not for twelve years or so.

“Lady Avis has no other source of female companionship.
Of course
she would appreciate Lily Prentiss.”

He stalked off, yelling at the lads to fetch the Bothwell coach, while Hadrian wondered how, exactly, an earl’s daughter had become so smitten with a laird’s rascally son that she’d tossed propriety to the winds, three times over, before solemnizing their union.

Ashton Fenwick certainly came from passionate, if not exactly respectable, stock.

“You’ll use those pigeons?” Avis asked Harold as Hadrian watched them emerge from the stables.

“I promise I will.” Harold patted the hand she’d wrapped over his forearm. “I will write frequently and send back whatever fantastical treasures I find that might appeal to you.”

“You don’t need to send gifts, Harold. Just be safe and happy, and let us know how you go on. I’ll miss you.”

“None of this sentiment, Avie Portmaine,” Harold replied, wrapping her in his embrace. “You’ll have need of my handkerchief, and then I’ll have to borrow Hay’s when we get into the coach.” He held her, his chin resting on her temple, while Hadrian considered riding back to Yorkshire for the sheer, predictable hell of it. “You’ll remember what we talked about?”

She nodded and stayed right where she was, the sight of her clinging to Harold twisting Hadrian’s heart most disagreeably.

“I hate good-byes,” she said. “You’ve been such a good friend, and I will miss you.” She dissolved into open weeping, while Harold shot a chagrined look over her shoulder at Hadrian.

“We’ll miss him together,” Hadrian reminded her, tucking his handkerchief into her hand. “At least Harold’s departure means you and I might renew our acquaintance, and I flatter myself that’s a good thing.”

A good thing years overdue, in fact.

“It is,” Avis agreed, stepping back. “A very good thing, and I know Harold won’t take any stilly chances, and he won’t leave port unless the sea is as calm as glass, and he’ll be sure to write, and to be careful, and to send us a pigeon every so often.”

“Two pigeons,” Harold agreed, kissing her cheek. “Now I really must go, lest I embarrass us all by canceling my travel plans because I miss my neighbors before I even set sail.”

He kissed her cheek again and then let Hadrian bundle him into the coach.

Harold slumped against the squabs before the horses were moving. “Ye merciful gods. I’ve been so focused on the practicalities of leaving, and the thought of leaving you, I didn’t see that coming.”

The coach clattered out of the stable yard, while Avis stood curiously alone, waving Hadrian’s handkerchief.

“That?”

Harold flourished his handkerchief out the window, then folded up his linen and tucked it away. “I’m a decade Avis’s senior, and she and her sister are the closest thing I will have to daughters or younger sisters. I shall miss Avis sorely and worry for her endlessly.”

“You love her.” Hadrian said the words slowly, tasting them for signs of insult and finding none. Harold loved Avis, while Hadrian…probably loved her too, in a fraternal fashion.

“I do love Lady Avis, enough that I keep an eye on Hart Collins and pass along all I learn regarding his whereabouts to Benjamin and Vim.”

Somebody should certainly remain apprised of Collins’s movements. “I’m surprised Collins still draws breath. He’s an offense against the natural order and stupid to boot.”

A vicar could not have been so honest.

“Coming from you that is harsh, though I have to agree. Collins has been forced to eke out an existence on the Continent for most of the past decade, but he periodically slips back to England. He holds the barony now and is owed the occasional coin as a result.”

Wilhelm Carpentier, Avis’s older half-brother—Vim to his familiars—was likely responsible for ensuring Collins kept his distance from Cumberland. “Have you been tempted to challenge Collins?”

While Harold considered his answer, the coach topped the rise that separated Blessings from Landover.

“Vim asked me not to call Collins out. Said it wasn’t my place and my contribution was looking after the girls as they convalesced. I was to leave Collins’s comeuppance to Vim and Benjamin.”

Hadrian braced his boot on the facing bench as the coach headed down the declivity toward home. “It’s been twelve years, Hal. Avie lives at Blessings like a hermit, and Collins has not been brought to account by her brothers.”

“She’s content, Hay.”

“She doesn’t have any choice,” Hadrian said, thinking of Fenwick’s reasoning regarding Lily Prentiss. “This life is all she can imagine, but she deserves more.”