AN HEIR OF POSSIBILITIES

THE BAD HEIR DAY TALES

BOOK SIX

GRACE BURROWES

Copyright © 2026 by Grace Burrowes

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DEDICATION

To those who make wrong turns

1

“Iam illegitimate.” Richard Dolforth spoke slowly, lest he have to repeat himself. “Born out of wedlock. I cannot, therefore, hold any sort of peerage title, unless Prinny, in a fit of daft behavior, issues letters patent bestowing same upon my hapless person. His Royal Highness has spared me that inconvenience. Ergo, I am not this Viscount Swidhelm whom you seek.”

The logic was simple, and yet, Richard’s host, one Leopold St. Didier, looked impatient rather than impressed. St. Didier was dark-haired and dark-eyed, also unsettlingly serious about a ridiculous topic.

“You have labored under a misapprehension your entire life,” St. Didier said. “Several misapprehensions, in fact.” He paused on the crushed-shell walkway to untangle a pair of glossy green canes rife with thorns. The season hadn’t advanced far enough that roses were blooming out of doors, though the air was mild and the light summery.

This irksome conversation was taking place in the walled garden behind St. Didier’s London abode. The house gave away nothing about its owner, save that he was reasonably well set up and possessed of both understated good taste and conscientious domestic staff. The neighborhood fell into the unpretentiously safe category, with enough large trees to offer shade, not so many as to preclude flowering borders and sunny back terraces.

“If I have labored under misapprehensions,” Richard said, “that is no business of yours, St. Didier. I accepted your invitation to call because mutual acquaintances spoke well of you, but you have intruded into matters that are none of your concern.” One must be polite but firm when terminating a negotiation, for that’s what this little chat amounted to.

Somebody needed a viscount; Richard did not need a title. “I will take my leave of you,” he said, “and wish you a peaceful morning.”

More civility than the presuming fellow deserved.

“You won’t even give me a fair hearing, my lord?”

The “my lording” was doubtless a calculated shot. Much to Richard’s disgust, the blow landed squarely on the tender pride of a man who’d had to scrap for everything from morning porridge to schoolyard safety to respect among his fellow merchants.

“Dolforth,” Richard snapped. “My name is Dolforth.”

“Because you changed it by deed poll when you turned one-and-twenty. Previously, you were known to all as Richard Wolfinger, your late mother having been a Wolfinger by birth, or so she told you.”

“A gentleman does not snoop. Good day.” Richard strode off in the direction of a gate that he hoped led back out to the leafy street running before St. Didier’s unprepossessing abode.

St. Didier had the facts right—Richard had legally taken his father’s family name upon reaching his majority, and he’d done so with malice aforethought and mischief in mind. Lord Jerome Dolforth had been a ducal spare, and while the ducal relations had acknowledged Richard as a connection, their acknowledgment had fallen far short of what an orphaned youth needed or deserved.

“Dolforth,” St. Didier called, “you have a sister. A legal half-sister. If you will cease comporting yourself like Mr. Garrick in high dudgeon, I will give you her particulars.”

Richard rounded on his host, who stood among the rosebushes like some poet posing for a bookshop portrait.

“Put the lady’s particulars, if she indeed exists, into a letter, St. Didier. I have no earthly desire to associate with any title the crown may have bestowed on some distant ancestor. Prying into my personal business should have warned you of that much. Tell the lady that listening at keyholes and skulking behind hedges yielded no heir, for I will herd sheep in the Outer Hebrides before I have any parts of the peerage.”

“I do not listen at keyholes.”

Said with a touch of asperity that suggested Richard’s aim had also found a target.

“You listen at balls, ridottos, and at homes,” Richard said, stalking back along the walkway. “You call on the dowagers and inquire gently about scandals back in the day. You read church registers so old the ink is barely legible. You’ve learned that such documents are for some reason easier to decipher when you lay them against a dark background, and you aren’t above interviewing a few midwives, though they are generally a closemouthed sorority.”

“You have researched your own origins,” St. Didier said. “Why?”

“I do not know my natal day.”

St. Didier’s air of faint puzzlement became outright perplexity. “You don’t know the day you arrived in this world?”

“My mother lied, St. Didier. You have already implied as much. As best I can discern, Mama was initially afraid her ducal paramour would sweep me from her arms. She thus put it about that I was younger than I truly was. Lord Jerome Dolforth used that ruse against her when she was forced to seek support from him. The testimony of my nursemaid and the fact that I closely resemble the late Lord Jerome and his extant ducal brother resulted in an eventual pittance for my upkeep. Of course I investigated my origins. You would, too, if you’d been served a pottage of falsehoods at your mother’s knee.”

“The falsehoods were meant to protect you. Might we sit? I can put what I’ve learned into a letter if you like, but I suspect you’d rather not have written evidence of my findings.”

Findings. As if St. Didier were some sort of lepidopterist cataloging a particular species of butterfly.

“You would still have that evidence,” Richard said. “You’ve written it all up, with dates, full names of your sources, and copies of relevant documents. Burning your letter would gratify me immensely, but I’ve outgrown the joy of tantrums, for the most part.”

“How fortunate for me.” St. Didier gestured to the terrace, where a pitcher of lemonade and a tray covered with white linen sat on a small marble table. The chairs were neither hard, fussy little wrought-iron ornaments nor rustic stools. St. Didier’s choice of terrace furniture was upholstered, comfortable, even a bit worn.

He clearly spent time out here, watching cheerful beds of red and yellow tulips bloom, for which Richard resented him unduly.

The bow-wave of fatigue Richard had been pushing for weeks threatened to swamp what little remained of his manners. Keeping his hand in the Season’s social whirl mostly to annoy his ducal relations, making the acquaintance of a half-brother about whom the family had also lied…

And always, while appearing to be nothing more than a gentleman of leisure, managing a hectic, exhausting business importing port and Madeira for the delectation of the very class to whom Richard would never truly belong.

Anger had made him determined to succeed with that business, and resentment still fueled much of his efforts.

But anger and resentment were poor substitutes for food, rest, and a quiet garden.

“You may have half an hour,” Richard said, flipping open his pocket watch and setting it on the table. “And you will send me the letter documenting your findings within the next week.”

He should not have added that last part, which St. Didier would know for the concession it was. A concession to curiosity, though, not to the interests of whatever titled family St. Didier represented.

St. Didier served Richard a glass of cool, sweet lemonade and passed him an empty plate. “Help yourself. Cook will take it amiss if a single crumb is left on the tray at the conclusion of our discussion.”

“My thanks.” Richard moved the watch so his host could also see the face, not to be rude, but to hold both parties to the mandated schedule. He selected three sandwiches of cheddar and ham—white flour, crusts in evidence, no rubbishing watercress. “You have twenty-nine minutes.”

St. Didier sipped his lemonade and surveyed his tulips, making a great show of being in no hurry whatsoever. He’d apparently done some negotiating too.

“My family’s title fell into escheat,” he said. “I knew the last title holder, a jovial if subtly sad old fellow. Alas, I was born on the distaff side of his family. As I watch, the estate where I grew up falls closer and closer to ruin. It’s not as easy as you might think to simply shrug and walk away from a legacy like that.”

What was anyone—gentleman, tradesman, or passing stranger—to make of such an admission?

“I am sorry. A splendid family legacy is precious.” Richard hoped to leave such a legacy to his heirs, but he would settle for solvency and a respectable reputation, assuming he ever had heirs.

St. Didier took most of the next minute choosing from among the remaining sandwiches. “You have a legacy, Dolforth, and family, and before you saunter off in a grand display of indifference, I am aware of what will happen to them—what has already begun to happen to them—in the absence of an heir. You do not want their misery on your conscience.”

In that, St. Didier was correct. Richard well knew what unkind fate felt like, and whoever these people were, they had personally done him no harm, unlike the Dolforths. But then, the late viscount’s family was unlikely to be subsisting on cold potatoes, flat beer, and stolen meat pies.

“You have twenty-eight minutes. The mustard on these sandwiches is quite good. French?”

“Of course. Your mother was not a Wolfinger, and neither was she from Northumbria. Her family name was Tuffington, and she hailed from the West Riding.”

Richard managed to not choke on his sandwich. Lies, and lies, and more lies… Toward the end, when the laudanum had been a constant companion, Mama had grown confused. She’d occasionally forgotten exactly which untruths she’d mixed among facts and honest memories. She had not mentioned Yorkshire even once.

And yet, St. Didier did not strike Richard as mendacious by nature. Just the opposite. Richard took a cautious sip of lemonade and resigned himself to hearing a tale he would not enjoy, but one he’d very likely believe.

“Your mother was born Marie Welfrieda Ann Tuffington,” St. Didier said, though a prosaic opening statement would do little to soften the litany of poor choices, scandals, and sorrow to follow. “The Tuffingtons were a solid gentry family from the Wellsborough area of Yorkshire.”

“Never heard of it.” Dolforth peered into his glass of lemonade. “Your cook put lavender in the drink.”

“She favors the occasional culinary adventure and claims lavender aids digestion. You’ll find a hint of lavender in the shortbread as well.”

Dolforth was listening, for all he was also likely counting the tulips and comparing the density of St. Didier’s planting to those of his ducal relations. He’d know to the penny what Holland bulbs cost per hundred, and he’d likely appraised the art on the walls of St. Didier’s guest parlor with similar accuracy.

One could have a schoolboy tantrum or a tantrum of mercantile genius. Dolforth had reportedly exchanged an abundance of the former for periodic displays of the latter.

St. Didier soldiered on with a history he took no joy in recounting. “Wellsborough lies at the edge of the Dales, a quiet, beautiful area despite its fierce winters. Probably hasn’t changed much for centuries. Your mother was the local belle, but her family suffered from the usual difficulties.”

“Thousands of sheep, not enough cash. What’s a squire to do?”

“Old Tuffington knew that peacetime, should it ever come, would devastate the wool markets, particularly in the north where the temperatures are not as well suited to the finer wool breeds. He made it a point to marry off his oldest daughter as lucratively as he could as soon as he could, though by all reports the pairing was also a love match.”

“Mama never once mentioned a husband.”

To St. Didier’s practiced eye, Dolforth was suffering a touch of mal de Mayfair, that peaked, twitchy, restless set of symptoms befalling younger bachelors as the London Season progressed. They went short of sleep, many also went short of funds, and by summer’s arrival, some had made desperate matches as a result.

“At the age of seventeen, your mother wed Mr. Abernathy Blackstock, a man in his thirties, who’d inherited good land and better investments. He was ready to settle down, set up his nursery, and favor the prettiest girl in the parish with his addresses. She was said to be more than ready to leave old Tuffington’s household, and everybody was certain the match would prosper.”

“I won’t like this next part, will I?” Two and a half sandwiches sat uneaten on Dolforth’s plate.

“Blackstock was a noted charmer. All smiles in the churchyard, always ready to compliment a lady’s bonnet or congratulate another fellow on the strapping little laddie gurgling in the nurse’s arms. He ran his farms conscientiously, invested prudently, and appeared to dote on his wife. No children followed in the first year of marriage, neither was the couple blessed in the second year. Blackstock had wanted a family, but his regard for his wife remained constant.”

“Meaning,” Dolforth said evenly, “he and those around him blamed that wife for the absence of children. Though Blackstock was nearly twice Mama’s age when they wed, and she was in robust good health.”

“True enough. In any case, Blackstock made one of his regular pilgrimages to York, and Marie went home to the Tuffington household to bide with her younger sister, who was not yet married. Your aunt’s name is Orla Fielding. Mrs. Orla Fielding, and she has spent her entire life in the Wellsborough area.”

“I have a ducal auntie, too, as it happens. Sorcha, Lady Barclay, though I believe she is soon to part with the honorific, and gladly so. The Duchess of Chanderton is also my aunt-by-marriage, and I’m told you know her.”

“I am acquainted with Lady Barclay as well and consider her a friend.” St. Didier made that admission advisedly. Dolforth had been lied to enough in his life. Concealing any connection St. Didier had to the Dolforth family would not do. “Lady Barclay is unaware of your situation, and I will not share any details with her or her in-laws.”

Dolforth—he was, in truth, Viscount Swidhelm—turned his chair as if to gain a better view of the garden. “I conclude Sorcha did not hire you to investigate my antecedents.”

What had it cost him to pose that careful non-question? “She knows nothing of your antecedents other than that you are one of Lord Jerome’s several by-blows. As far as I am aware, His Grace of Chanderton and, for that matter, Her Grace of Chanderton and the rest of the Dolforth tribe remain similarly in ignorance. Your aunt Orla, who is widowed and not well, asked me to locate you.”

The truth. Not the complete truth. Orla’s request had come at Miss Mabel Fielding’s relentless urging.

“My aunt is not well. Of course she’s not well by the time anybody informs me of her existence, but what of Papa Blackstock—the legal father who somehow inherited a viscountcy?”

The charmer to whom Dolforth was, in truth, unrelated. “We will get to him. For reasons I have not been able to discern, your mother left Yorkshire for London while Blackstock was dealing with his solicitors in York. She told nobody of her plans, left no explanation, and took with her only the jewelry she’d inherited from her family or collected as part of her trousseau. She packed what clothes she could carry and literally fled in the night.”

“How do you know she went to London?”

“She did eventually send her sister a few letters, explaining that she was traveling under an alias and that no word of her whereabouts should be relayed to Blackstock. She also informed Orla of your existence at some point.”

Another sip of lemonade while Dolforth continued to study the garden. “And Aunt Orla otherwise kept mum about the whole situation, in defiance of law, custom, and common sense?”

“She did, likely to avoid significant additional scandal for a man who’d already endured enough gossip thanks to Marie’s departure. You can query your aunt for further details when you meet her.”

“Assuming I do. You said she’s in poor health.”

“In poor health, though comfortably situated. You asked about Blackstock, who has gone to his reward, else he’d be the viscount in your stead. He waited seven years for your mother to return—during which time you were born—then he had Marie declared dead. Blackstock immediately took another young bride, though his luck with wives was poor. The second Mrs. Blackstock eventually produced a daughter and expired shortly thereafter.”

“This is the legal half-sister you mentioned?”

“Wealtha Blackstock, younger than you by a decade or so. Legally, Blackstock is your mutual sire.”

“And yet, Blackstock’s second union was bigamous, and it is this Wealtha who is illegitimate and not I. Do you truly expect me to inflict such a scandalous revelation on a young woman who has done me no harm and wished me no ill?”

If Dolforth was exasperated, at least part of the sentiment was on behalf of a sister he’d never met and with whom he shared no blood.

“The legal details are often arcane,” St. Didier rejoined. “They are seldom irrelevant. Orla became a mother figure to Wealtha very early in life, and has explained the truth of Marie Blackstock’s story to your sister. Wealtha, in fact, joined households with Orla upon Blackstock’s passing—Wealtha had no other adult family. Her legitimacy will become an issue only if somebody is particularly determined to pry. As far as the neighbors know, as far as the Yorkshire solicitors know, Marie expired prior to the second marriage, and no bigamy occurred.”

“Orla knows better, you know better, Wealtha knows better, and now I do too. As secrets go, the odds of the cat exiting the proverbial bag are already too high.”

“Wealtha is motivated to exercise discretion, as is Orla. I have said nothing to anybody but you, and what you do about the situation is your own business.” Though St. Didier was not above offering advice, nudges, suggestions, or a figurative kick in the arse if necessary for the common good.

“Your recitation brings me no joy, St. Didier. You would have me believe that Mama went into service rather than return to a doting husband. That makes no sense.”

“Abernathy Blackstock was doting, but also perhaps dull. When she left Yorkshire, Marie would have reached the grand age of nineteen. Perhaps she had misjudged her affection for Blackstock. Perhaps she’d strayed with a footman. In the alternative, it’s possible that Blackstock, for all his doting, found it hard to give up the freedoms of bachelorhood. People make odd choices.”

Clearly, Dolforth was having to rearrange his perspective on his late mother—and very likely on himself. He’d been holding his glass of lemonade without drinking for the past two minutes.

“Your mother came to Town,” St. Didier went on, mindful of the time, “registered with the better agencies under the assumed name of Marie Wolfinger, and tried to learn the art of the parlormaid with indifferent success. She was pretty, hardworking, and well-spoken—despite a hint of the northern shires in her voice—but she had little stamina for the heavy work and was prone to catching the eyes of the young gentlemen in whatever household employed her.”

“Those eyes being ever so easily caught. I am one of four extant bastards Lord Jerome left behind, and the Dolforth family has other fruit on wayward branches besides we happy four.”

Oh, the Quality. “Marie caught Lord Jerome’s eye, and she caught a fair amount of his coin, enough that when he showed signs of tiring of her, she could take up a housekeeper’s post in Hampshire while posing as a widow. You came along very shortly thereafter.”

“How inconvenient of me.”

“The greater inconvenience was that Blackstock was still quite alive. You are technically his son, his legitimate, sole surviving son. Your mother noted your legal patrimony in the registry of the Hampshire parish where you were born.” She had also been clear about the date of parturition, which Dolforth—Lord Swidhelm—would doubtless discover for himself.

“Where is Blackstock buried?”

“If I tell you, will you piss on his grave?”

“Not likely, but I will assure myself that evidence of his passing is credible.” Dolforth glanced at the watch ticking away beside the tray. “Blackstock, in all of this, is among the injured parties rather than those making mischief. If he’s extant, he can spare me the burden of the title.”

“If it’s any comfort, Blackstock was dead for several years before a third cousin went to his reward. The family claim their solicitors expended a great deal of time and effort searching for you before they came to me for aid. Orla knew of your existence and knew you were named Richard, but little else.”

Dolforth ceased pretending to count the tulips. “Quite a tale.”

“A well-documented tale. I have affidavits, copies of parish registries, your mother’s last will and testament, copies of the registration of your birth. Marie observed the legalities where you were concerned, probably because she feared Lord Jerome by then more than she feared Blackstock, who had unknowingly committed felony bigamy.”

The watch showed five minutes remaining in St. Didier’s allotted half hour.

“What your mother lacked in discernment, Dolforth, she made up for in determination. She made a dodgy choice, dealt herself lower cards than she anticipated, and she yet made the best of them.”

Dolforth turned on St. Didier a gaze so cold that a lesser host might have sought the safety of the house.

“You do not know what low cards my mother dealt herself and which she was handed by the law and Society. Why was she so anxious to leave her father’s house at seventeen? Why flee a devoted husband by dark of night and travel two hundred miles to a city she’d never seen, there to take up a life in service? Why would a woman reared with rural propriety accept Lord Jerome’s dishonorable advances? None of this makes any sense, and my mother was a sensible woman. I will await your letter.”

He rose, collected his watch, bowed, and decamped by way of the house, while St. Didier tried to let the peace of the garden settle his nerves.

The heir-hunting business had seemed like a productive use of obscure talents developed trying to salvage family fortunes headed for escheat. The last few ventures, though, had involved men who wanted nothing to do with titles, rather than fellows who rejoiced to hold a place in the peerage.

Dolforth would have a difficult time of it should he travel north to his newly acquired holdings. He was angry, resentful, suspicious, shrewd, hurt—he’d hate admitting that—and nobody’s fool.

He was also, at bottom, a gentleman, if his sentiments toward Wealtha and his defense of his late mother were any indication. That honorable legacy—the one he’d fashioned for himself—would be the most troubling inheritance he took with him when he made his bow at the family seat.

St. Didier silently toasted the viscount’s good fortune and began planning a trip to the gorgeous purlieus of the West Riding in spring.

2

“Whyever did you contact that odious Mr. St. Didier anyway, Mabel? What do we know of him, really?” Wealtha Blackstock sorted through the petits fours, touching most of them, in a manner guaranteed to pluck the last nerve of an archangel.

Mabel Fielding was not an archangel. “I wrote to Leopold St. Didier after discussing the matter with you and Step-mama at length, Cousin. Step-mama agreed with me.” Orla had not agreed so much as she’d capitulated to the reality of dwindling means and disappearing options.

Wealtha had yet to land a husband with means—those options were few enough to begin with—and that left locating the long-lost heir, though Step-mama had taken endless convincing.

“But, Mabel dearest,” Wealtha said, “this St. Didier fellow will expect remuneration now that he’s found some impostor to play the viscount’s role, and we cannot… That is, we ought not… You know what I mean. To pay a man to find a peer will make us look desperate.”

We are desperate. Three women dwelled amid thousands of prosperous acres, populated by vast herds of thriving sheep, graced with a lovely home of nearly two hundred years’ provenance, all while being unable to buy Wealtha the new bonnets upon which her entire happiness seemed to turn.

“Shepherd’s Glen requires maintenance, Wealtha, and carries debts. We’ve discussed this. As long as the solicitors have been managing the property on behalf of your father’s estate, the Glen has been losing money. Unless we located your brother or proved his demise to the satisfaction of the courts, we’d eventually have had to live off whatever competences were bequeathed to us, and that would be somewhat challenging.”

When discussing hard realities with Wealtha, euphemisms became as plentiful as they were mandatory.

Wealtha’s pretty, English-rose features took on a mulish cast. “We would have quite a bit more to manage on if you had married Mr. Detwiler. Your competence could have gone to Auntie and me. I would have inherited the Glen myself, you know, but for this fictitious brother.”

Heaven grant me patience—more patience. “If I’d married Mr. Detwiler, I would have been expected to set up housekeeping in York, and Step-mama would have had nobody to look after her.” Then too, if Mabel absented herself from the Glen, the solicitors’ pillaging of the estate coffers, which had proceeded at a discreet, steady pace, would blossom into outright rapine.

Mabel might have married Horace Detwiler nonetheless, despite a twenty-year age difference, but her erstwhile suitor was known to gamble, philander, and overimbibe. He would not have championed the Glen or its residents, and thus Mabel had gently deterred his suit.

“I still don’t care for this notion of some stranger pretending to be the viscount.”

Mabel sipped her tea—tepid, weak, not even a drop of honey—and caught the gaze of the pantry mouser taking his ease atop of the pianoforte. Thunder was a pantry mouser in name only, though the title allowed him house privileges, rather like a viscount who bore no relation to the original title holder coming into ownership of Shepherd’s Glen.

In contrast to the London bon vivant whom Mabel imagined Mr. Dolforth to be, Thunder was old, splendid, sweet, and spent most of his days sleeping wherever he pleased.

“Mr. Dolforth has every legal right to claim the title,” Mabel said. “He cannot, in fact, escape the viscountcy this side of eternity, so you’d best school yourself to gracious acceptance of his presence.” For the sake of the Glen, Mabel hoped Mr. Dolforth was at least capable of removing the solicitors’ fingers from the Glen’s coffers.

“Dolforth? He took the ducal family name?”

“He did, according to Mr. St. Didier.”

“I don’t like this at all, Mabel. He should be a Blackstock, because I am a Blackstock. People will talk and talk and talk, and I will never inherit the Glen as I was supposed to. I wish you’d not set this scheme in motion. I don’t know what Auntie was thinking, but then, she is unwell. When she recovers, we’ll remove to the dower house with her, refurbish the place from cellars to attics, and this Mr. Dunford can deal with the tenants, stewards, solicitors, and all those other bothersome fellows.”

Dolforth, though he’d be referred to as Swidhelm in future. The dower house was in no fit state to house an invalid, a point Mabel would emphasize to the viscount when he eventually made his inspection tour. Even in fading health, Orla did insist on her comforts.

“We might be permitted to stay right where we are, Wealtha. His lordship is quite the London man and has traveled on the Continent. His ducal family bides in the Home Counties, and he may prefer to leave us in peace and visit Shepherd’s Glen infrequently.”

Wishful thinking, of course. The Glen was still magnificent. No finer, prettier property was to be found in all the realm, and any man with eyes and a soul would be pleased to call it home.

Though dislodging Wealtha would be a challenge. His lordship could figure that part out for himself.

“He’ll abandon Town in a trice,” Wealtha said, choosing—at last—a petit four with pink icing. “We have scads and multitudes of grouse. Gentlemen adore grouse hunting. The viscount will bring a lot of drunken friends along with him from London, and we’ll have no peace until winter.”

The cat uncurled himself, indulged in a luxurious stretch, and leaped from the piano to the piano bench and to the floor. A year ago, he would have removed to the rug in a single bound.

“Lord Swidhelm might also ask us to return to the Fielding house,” Mabel said. “Orla owns it now, but for the mortgage, and she and I really have no right to continue living at the Glen.”

“Why must you be so dolorous, Mabel? I vow you will give me a megrim. First, you claim we’ll all be permitted to stay here at our family home—my papa owned this place, my own dear, departed Papa Blackstock—then you imply you and Auntie might be cast upon the parish. We cannot return to the Fielding house because you rented it out, and the tenants have a lease, and that means they live there, and we do not.”

Orla’s marital home had been rented out at Orla’s direction, lest a lack of income result in foreclosure.

The cat strutted to the door. He would sit before it in hairy black splendor, the soul of patience, until one of his human vassals bowed him through it. Mabel rose and obliged only to find Kepler, the butler, standing in the corridor with a silver tray with a card on it.

“Miss Mabel, there you are!” Kepler gestured her into the corridor and commenced whispering. “I did not know what to do, miss. I am sorry. He said—his lordship, rather—Lord Swidhelm, I mean, said to put him in the family parlor and not go to any bother. But he’s here, and Cook did not go to market this morning, and you and Miss Wealtha have the good tea service, and this is all… I’m sorry, Miss Mabel. His lordship, Viscount Swidhelm, awaits you in the family parlor.”

“Mabel?” Wealtha called. “If that’s Keppie, please tell him the tea has gone cold, and we need a fresh tray.”

Kepler closed his eyes as if praying for fortitude. He’d been a handsome specimen in his salad days, to hear the parlormaids’ recollections, though his dark suit hung loosely on him now, and his white hair was thinning over a pink pate.

“The viscount can enjoy some of Cook’s signature ginger lemonade,” Mabel said, “and a few slices of last night’s gingerbread. The everyday service will do, provided you pluck a few tulips to brighten up the tray, and send along a dish of butter with the gingerbread. When that’s tended to, Wealtha could use a fresh pot.”

“Tulips, gingerbread. Yes, miss. And butter, of course. The very thing.” He shoved the tray at Mabel and tottered down the corridor. His gait had been steady until he’d taken a fall in the churchyard the previous winter.

“Mabel? Did you tell Keppie? The tea is positively frigid.”

Mabel stuck her head through the parlor doorway. “I did, and I’m off to have a word with Cook about the menu for Sunday. A fresh tray will be along in a moment.”

“Delightful. Nothing like a spring morning to make a cup of tea more enjoyable.”

Mabel closed the door, allowed herself three deep breaths, and tried on a smile. Her reflection in the pier glass confirmed that her effort was wholly unconvincing.

Well, what did Mr. Dolforth-turned-Viscount-Swidhelm expect when he popped out of the hedge all uninvited and unannounced? He was lucky Cook had made a batch of gingerbread the previous day and luckier still that Mabel was on hand to receive him.

Even a viscount-come-lately deserved a bit of warning where Wealtha was concerned.

Mabel had had a few dealings with London dandies, and she’d seen the occasional Mayfair by-blow turning down a candlelit ballroom. She was thus expecting something between a mincing fribble and a leering Corinthian.

She charged into the family parlor and abruptly revised her opinions. The new Viscount Swidhelm, she was sure, had never minced nor leered in his life.

Much less fribbled.

She put his height at just over six feet. Tall, not freakishly so. His hair was dark, his attire nearly Puritan in severity, but for a lace-edged cravat secured with a tiny sapphire pin.

Gentlemen did not commonly wear jewels during the day, but that brilliant azure gem brought out the blue in a pair of serious eyes. He beheld Mabel from across the parlor. Firm chin, defined nose, broad shoulders, gravely handsome demeanor.

“Miss Blackstock?”

“I am Miss Amabel Fielding. Miss Blackstock is in the nature of being a cousin to me.” Though not truly any sort of cousin at all. Wealtha was Abernathy Blackstock’s daughter by his second wife. Orla was the sister of Abernathy’s first wife, not that such distinctions had ever mattered.

Dark brows drew down. “Nobody warned me about a cousin biding at the Glen. Amabel? Not Mabel?”

“Amabel in formal company. The A is pronounced as in ‘awesome.’ Nobody warned us you’d be paying a call so soon, my lord.” Mabel was making a gentleman’s acquaintance without a proper introduction. Those had largely gone by the wayside years ago, along with new bonnets, spirited riding horses, and pretty earbobs.

She regretted the loss of proper riding horses. The polite introductions too, truth be told.

“I apologize for the lack of warning, Miss Fielding.” Mabel’s guest smiled slightly. “I didn’t want to put you to any trouble by sending word of my plans.” His smile revealed a capacity for charm.

Mabel took a dim view of charmers, especially charmers who hailed from Town. “You hoped to ambush us. If you saw creeping damp or a sagging roof at Shepherd’s Glen, you would have ridden right back down the Great North Road with nary a word to your sister or your aunt. Had the butler had spirits on his breath or had the carpets required beating, you would have begun a list.”

His smile faded, leaving an appraising light in his eyes. “I am the ambushed party, Miss Fielding. St. Didier failed to inform me that Shepherd’s Glen is defended by its own personal Valkyrie, so we are even. Swidhelm, at your service, by the way. Will you poison my tea?”

“I’ve asked the kitchen to send up some ginger lemonade, and Yorkshire hospitality forbids poisoning guests in the ordinary course.”

“Am I a guest?”

Mabel was having trouble discerning exactly what his lordship was, though his rhetorical question made a valid point. The title was his, legalities being what they were. The house was his, along with the sheep, the beautiful views, and even dear old Thunder.

“I hope you’re the furthest thing from a guest,” Mabel replied somewhat fiercely. “I hope you are here to take the Glen in hand. The seat of your viscountcy is some half-ruined abbey fifteen miles to the north and, since the last title holder died, has been all but neglected. I would hate for the Glen to suffer such a fate. I further hope…”

A strident note had crept into her voice. Mabel looked for something—anything—pretty, sweet, or dear to fix her gaze upon, but there was only his lordship, seeming to fill the room while he merely stood about in fine tailoring.

“Yes, Miss Fielding?”

“I hope you intend to look after your sister. Wealtha has not had an easy time of it.” Wealtha had, in fact, enjoyed prodigious good luck. She’d never known want. She’d been the apple of her auntie’s eye and the darling of Papa’s heart—Papa Joseph, as opposed to Papa Blackstock, though Abernathy Blackstock had doted on her too. Wealtha had a respectable dowry, and she was lovely to behold.

“I will do all that is right and proper for my sister,” his lordship said, “and for my aunt. You may be assured of that.”

The seriousness was back, with a thread of pugnacity. Much better, much easier for Mabel to deal with. “Both ladies will be relieved to hear that you are dutiful.”

A tap on the door heralded the arrival of the tray, and thank goodness for the interruption. Kepler withdrew on a bow and left the door open.

“If it’s not too great an imposition,” Lord Swidhelm said, “might we enjoy our libation in seated comfort?”

Ye gods and bleating ewes. “Please do sit.” Mabel appropriated a wing chair before the viscount could impose any assistance on her. “How was your journey north from Town?” A polite enough question and where Mabel wished she’d begun the conversation.

“Grueling. We made good time and had good teams. Thank the merciful powers for a well-sprung coach. How is my aunt Orla? Leopold St. Didier says she’s in poor health, and one doesn’t want to find an aunt only to have to surrender her to her celestial home.”

Not the sheep, not the tenancies, not his pretty sister, not even the income versus expenses, which Mabel knew down to the last farthing.

He’d asked about Orla, the blood relation whom he had never met. “Your aunt might be fading, my lord. She has good days and bad days though she doesn’t seem to be in any pain. I am sorry to suggest that she has been holding on in hopes we’d find you. She will be most pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He accepted a glass of lemonade. “I appreciate your honesty. I can bide in the village if you’d prefer, but given that Aunt Orla’s time might be short, I would rather stay here.”

Mabel would rather he’d stayed in London. Despite his laudable family priorities, his mostly sober attire, and his fine manners, she’d much rather he’d stayed in London and sacked the solicitors with a stern letter. Putting him up at The Happy Rooster would not do.

“You own this house, my lord, and everything in it. Where you stay and for how long are entirely yours to decide. Try the gingerbread and help yourself to as much butter as you’d like.”

Richard knew the look of a woman keeping trouble at bay—he’d been raised by one—and thus he obliged Cousin Amabel with small talk. She’d taken a fierce tone with him initially, for which he respected her.

Her polite chat put him in mind of a pugilist retreating to her corner between rounds, rather than a hostess regaining her balance after a social shock. Her looks were aggressively plain—brown hair in a severe bun, figure on the sturdy side as best Richard could tell, given her shapeless gray habiliment. Steady blue eyes and a chin and jaw that suggested little patience with fools bearing excuses.

Her hem bore a streak of dirt, probably from a morning subduing weeds in the garden. She was the sort of female who could wield a wheat scythe all day while singing and then dance her partners under the table at the harvest assembly.

Formidable, but why? If she was Orla’s daughter, she was gentry at least and exceedingly young for the maiden-auntie role she was trying to inhabit.

A puzzle. Too often, unsolved puzzles became problems the moment one’s back was turned.

“Tell me of my sister,” Richard said, sipping ginger lemonade tart enough to take the rust from old andirons. A bite of buttered gingerbread by way of antidote served to keep him from coughing and wheezing, but only just.

“Wealtha Blackstock is considered a local beauty, if not the local beauty. Oddly enough, she resembles you about the eyes, though hers are a lighter blue, and she is very fair. She is accomplished in all the domestic arts, adequately dowered, and graceful on and off the dance floor. Wealtha is understandably attached to Orla, whom she considers her aunt-by-courtesy. Wealtha is sorely upset over Orla’s condition. That said, your arrival will dispel some tension in the household regarding…”

Miss Fielding’s gaze traveled around the room, perhaps in search of tactful phrases lurking behind the bouquet of scarlet tulips on the sideboard. Those blooms provided the only splash of color amid the pastel décor. The appointments were otherwise as spotless as they were uninspired, right down to the porcelain shepherdess on the mantel and the pink floral pattern on the carpet.

“Tension in the household, Miss Fielding?”

“Wealtha’s situation has been uncertain. To be the sister of a viscount will raise her station considerably, provided you are the right sort of viscount.”

I am a thirsty viscount who doesn’t dare finish his drink. To her credit, Miss Fielding was asking if he was also the sort who’d needlessly bring up ancient acts of possible bigamy.

“I have no interest in mentioning anybody’s irregular antecedents, Miss Fielding, my own lineage passing all bounds in that regard. I intend to become a useful viscount and a proper brother, to the extent Miss Blackstock is receptive to either option.”

Richard wasn’t keen on becoming a brother—he knew little enough about siblinghood generally—but to have family… Mama would have wanted him to give the situation his best efforts. The house was an ancillary obligation, and that, too, could easily become a problem if neglected.

“Mr. St. Didier,” Richard went on, “suggested Shepherd’s Glen could be better managed, which is to be expected when the estate solicitors have been conspiring against common sense for years. They invariably claim to be conserving assets, and all the while, great quantities of coin pass from the estate into the solicitors’ pockets.”

The fierce light was back in Miss Fielding’s eyes. “One suspected as much, but they would not show me an accounting, and Orla was reluctant to press the matter.”

“They will show me an accounting, to the penny, with receipts and invoices.”

Miss Fielding took a long drink of her lemonade, and Richard managed not to shudder as he munched his gingerbread.

“You haven’t much patience with solicitors?” she asked.

“I read enough law to know when a lawyer is prevaricating, when he’s lying, and when he’s being honest. The lawyers I’d trust to look after any prosperous estate are vanishingly few and mostly Portuguese. Solicitors haven’t the knack of minding acreage, and they cannot admit that to themselves. When it comes to landed estates, what mischief they don’t wreak in the name of avarice often occurs as a result of incompetence. How long has Aunt Orla been ill?”

“I honestly don’t know. Months at least, possibly much longer. She is stoic, though the physicians say a wasting disease must simply run its course and involves little physical pain. I noticed last summer that she was tiring more easily, though I attributed the symptoms to advancing age. The same with diminished appetite, general weakness, and occasional short temper.”

Richard disliked that litany intensely. “You’ve consulted Scottish physicians?”

Another sip of the Shepherd Glen universal tonic and rust remover. “Where would I find one of those?”

“York, probably. English doctors, both our physicians and surgeons, are regarded as little better than quacks on the Continent. Our physicians don’t truly examine the patient, and our surgeons don’t study medicine. The best medical professionals we have are trained in Scotland, where they are taught to do both.”

To Richard’s amazement and relief, Miss Fielding finished her drink.

“I am not on the Continent, my lord. Have never been and will probably go to my eternal reward in the same state. I have done what I can for Orla—and what she allows me to do. As the newly fledged head of the Blackstock family, and Orla’s nephew, you are welcome to order her about all you wish.”

Said with a bland smile.

“Will the staff be laying bets on my success?”

The smile warmed. “By sundown. Farthing points only, with a tally at month’s end. The senior parlormaid, Clementina, is heading the pack thus far. Kepler, the butler, pretends not to notice, but the housekeeper holds an occasional bet for him.”

“Like an office full of clerks, and we must not begrudge them their amusements. The gingerbread is quite good.”

“Thank you. I will convey your compliments to Cook.”

Richard let a silence spring up, hoping that Miss Fielding might ask him a question or two. What is it like, being fired into the peerage like a Congreve rocket missing its tail stick? Where is your home? Did you truly just make the acquaintance of a half-brother you’d never met previously? Do you miss Portugal?

She instead took another visual inventory of the room, as if the flowers might have sneaked a few inches away from the center of the sideboard, or the porcelain shepherdess might have perched in the grass beside her pair of adoring lambs.

“Miss Fielding, we are to be family of a sort. Is there anything I ought to tend to first, any pressing need nobody will explain to me until the worst has occurred?”

When Richard had been new to the business of shipping port wine, he’d neglected to ask that sort of question—what don’t I know that I need to know?—and nearly failed before he’d begun.

Miss Fielding’s gimlet gaze paused on her empty glass of lemonade, though calling that drink lemonade was akin to calling a lethal, four-barreled pistol a peashooter.

“You already don’t trust the solicitors,” she said. “You are worried for your aunt, and you intend to do your duty by your sister. I’d say you’ve reconnoitered the terrain fairly accurately, my lord. The steward is a good sort—he’s been on the job for ages—and Kepler is more loyal to the house than an old dog to his hearth rug.

“The whole household,” she went on, “the entire estate, for that matter, has been on tenterhooks for years. Now that you’re here, you should anticipate a positive reception. You are better than nothing, and that’s about all that’s required of you.”

What a lowering assessment, and yet, it revealed that Miss Fielding had learned to keep her expectations modest. Very modest.

“I realize I am imposing,” he said, taking another piece of gingerbread and dabbing extra butter atop it. “I should have sent word ahead, but I didn’t want one of those ancient domestic rituals with everybody lining up on the drive or all the village boys dragging the coach in from the gateposts.”

“Hauling the coach up the drive is the ritual for a new bride and groom, my lord.”

“My coachman will be relieved to hear it. He does fret about his cattle. What I’m saying is…”

Miss Fielding brushed a puzzled glance over him. “Yes?”

“If I might have a bath, a tray of sandwiches, and a nap, I would be most obliged. I’d like to meet my aunt this afternoon.”

“Orla won’t slip away just yet, my lord. Even the quacks on hand say she has appreciable time left.”

“But then she will slip away, and she was well acquainted with my mother. I know not one other soul who can tell me of Mama’s younger years.”

“Hence the mad dash from London?”

Richard nodded. No point prevaricating with this woman, much less attempting to lie.

“I see.” Miss Fielding rose. “When would you like to meet your sister?”

Richard stood, not only because manners required it, but also because after sitting in a coach for hours, he needed to move. “Aunt Orla first, Wealtha before supper.”

“Very well. I will escort you to Orla’s sitting room at, shall we say, three of the clock? She will be overjoyed to meet you, but you must promise not to tire her. Do I tell her that you’ve arrived?”

“If you think it best. The same with Wealtha.”

“I will inform them both, then. The staff will learn you’re on hand if they’re to ready an apartment for you, and they are not proficient at keeping secrets.”

She crossed the room and took down a volume bound in green leather. “Orla is a talented artist. You will be pleased to know that our former vicar, Mr. Whidman, accepted the living at St. Bevan Underhill more than forty years ago. He knew your mother, and his memory is sharper than diamonds. Mr. Fothergill, our local folklorist, is equally blessed with vivid recollections.

“Granny Wexler is nearing eighty,” Miss Fielding went on, passing the sketchbook to Richard, “and she will have some stories for you as well. Wealtha at her best puts all the elders in mind of a young Marie Tuffington, though Wealtha, of course, bears no resemblance to your mother. I’ll send the housekeeper along, and she will show you to your rooms presently.”

Richard bowed. “My thanks. Until three of the clock.”

With a final visual sweep of the room, Miss Fielding departed. Her heels beat a firm tattoo on the runner, while Richard resisted the urge to maintain eyes front, parade inspection posture in her absence.

In a brisk, direct way, Miss A-as-in-Awesome Amabel Fielding could be kind. Richard had no doubt she could also be stubborn, opinionated, relentless, and rigid. Heaven help the man who tracked mud onto her carpets or wore his spurs into her parlor.

He locked the door, took the chair nearest the window, and opened the sketchbook.

3

“What is his lordship like, Mabel?” Wealtha worried a nail, which she always managed to do without imperiling her manicure. “Is he severe or genial? Will he embarrass us at St. Bevan’s or cut a dash? Please tell me he is not bald.”

Richard, Viscount Swidhelm, was alluring. Mabel made that admission with some resentment. Had his lordship been merely handsome, she could have forgiven him. People born with good looks were not to blame for their appealing appearance. The viscount lacked the blond, blue-eyed features of the old Saxon nobility, but his gaze was intelligent, his features masculine, and his mannerisms… He had a way of keeping still, of maintaining a presence, that Mabel hadn’t encountered previously.

“He’s self-possessed, Wealtha. His lordship doesn’t fidget or make idle movements. He strikes me as being gifted at observing and waiting, at listening and recalling. He is polite, also astute.” Direct and yet hard to read, which made him a conundrum. Eager to know his family better, unforthcoming about his own situation.

Mabel had given him several openings to embark on whatever diatribe he pleased, and he’d failed to take advantage of the courtesy.

Wealtha swept down the terrace steps into the garden. When she was agitated, she forgot the languid pace that befitted a lady of leisure.

“You make the viscount sound like a street thief lurking behind crested coaches while he spies on a fine neighborhood.”

The garden, fortunately, was in good looks, in part because Mabel kept it so. One could take out a lot of frustrations on unwelcome weeds.

“Have you been reading Gothic novels, Wealtha? His lordship is new to a difficult and unusual situation. We must afford him time to adjust.” Mabel certainly needed time to adjust to the reality of him. He’d been a theoretical sort of viscount for some time, a means of reining in the solicitors and sorting out estate matters.

The reality of the peer, demolishing gingerbread and not sparing the butter, diverged significantly from the theory.

“Are we to be tossed into the street?” Wealtha asked.

“He said he intends to be a proper brother to you, and he will be discreet about ancient history.” A relief, that—on Wealtha’s behalf at least—and Swidhelm hadn’t hesitated to address the matter directly. “If you tell his lordship of any worries, he will discuss them with you honestly.”

Wealtha paused at the foot of the steps. “Why can’t you tell him of my worries? My dowry is pitifully modest given the extent of Papa Blackstock’s estate.”

“Your dowry is adequate, Wealtha, and none of my business. I suspect polite society would describe the new viscount as a practical gentleman. You and he should get on nicely.”

Mabel hoped they did. Squabbling siblings could blight an entire household.

“I hope he’s not well-read.” Wealtha marched off down the crushed-shell walk. “I abhor literary men. They always drop quotes into the conversation and then peer at one to see if the source of the trite phrase or fusty old Latin is familiar, like a Bible quiz. Literary men are tiresome.”

Unless, of course, they were handsome and wealthy literary men, in which case Wealtha displayed convincing adoration for them.

“His lordship did not refer in any manner to great works of literature or philosophy. Mr. St. Didier’s letter said Swidhelm was properly educated thanks to his ducal relations, and then he struck out for Portugal, where he has done quite well trading in port and Madeira. He is received in London, though he socializes much less than he used to.”

Probably a diplomatic way of referring to a man who’d become responsible for his own expenses. Mabel wished St. Didier were on hand to be interrogated directly. At least he’d warned them—by express—that Swidhelm might be inclined to head north.

“If Swidhelm is not literary,” Wealtha said, her pace slowing, “then he must be a dandy. London gentlemen are prone to dandy-ism, according to the teachers at Miss Gundridge’s Select Academy. A dandy is excessively well dressed and quite manly. He enjoys the sporting life and is an excellent dancer, but he’s perhaps not the best prospect for a husband.”

How many dandies had Miss Gundridge’s teachers stood up with? “You must ask his lordship if he enjoys athletic endeavors. He looked quite fit to me.” Tired around the eyes. A bit underfed and tending to understated fashion rather than lace and silk.

Not a dandy. A Town dandy would have looked straight past Mabel, denigrated the execrable lemonade—Cook forgot to add even a dash of honey—and examined the family parlor sketch by sketch, curio by curio, and pressed flower by pressed flower, finding the whole room abysmally quaint.

Unless dandies had changed in the past few years.

Wealtha stopped abruptly on the path. “I must change my dress. I must attire myself with great care for supper this evening. I am to meet my lordly brother for the first time! Does having a titled brother make me an Honorable?”

Mabel mentally dusted off her familiarity with Debrett’s Peerage. “Were you a viscount’s daughter, yes, but the courtesy probably does not apply in your present circumstances.”

“Just as well, I suppose. I might be resented for being an Honorable, what with my good looks too.”

Insightful of her, but then, Wealtha had come out of doors without a bonnet or a parasol on a bright spring day, which figured slightly below flying pigs for general improbability—unless, of course, she sought to show off her guinea-gold hair and elegant deportment to her newly arrived, titled brother.

Mabel took her cousin gently by the arm and resumed walking. “You have no need of fussy honorifics, Wealtha. You are absolutely correct about that. You must strive to put the viscount at his ease. You are the legitimate, acknowledged daughter of Abernathy Blackstock, according to the entire shire. You do have the blood of some previous holder of the Swidhelm title flowing in your veins. Your putative brother is known to be a by-blow, no sort of Blackstock except by virtue of legal technicalities, and he might be feeling like an impostor.”

He certainly wasn’t acting like an impostor. He was acting like a decent man, but for arriving without warning.

“He is not an impostor,” Wealtha said as they rounded the fountain at the foot of the garden. “He’s my brother, and he’s the viscount, and he must bear up manfully, Mabel. You will see that he does, won’t you?”

Ye bouncing bovines. “He’s here, Wealtha, and when he’s addressed by the title, he makes no demurral. He’s filling the role very convincingly. You mustn’t worry that he’ll embarrass you.”

“I never said I was worried.” Wealtha shot a coy smile in Mabel’s direction. “I am not the family worrier, dearest. You have that honor, while I have learned to trust in divine providence and my own great common sense.”

“An excellent strategy. If it matters, I think the blue sprigged muslin is especially fetching on you and would be just right for an informal family meal.”

“Blue does bring out my eyes, doesn’t it? You must not wear blue if I do, Mabel. That would be unfair, and besides, blue doesn’t become you as it does me.”

“I’ll wear a darker shade, and the contrast will set us apart.”

“See that you do. Will the viscount think us backward for observing country hours?”

Mabel thought, not for the first time, that being a governess must be much like being Wealtha’s step-cousin. One needed patience, humor, and the occasional serving of cordial to keep at the job without lapsing into profanity.

“We dwell in the country, spring is well advanced, and that means dawn arrives early. Country hours are sensible, and I take Lord Swidhelm for a sensible man.”

Thus far. In Mabel’s experience, even the most practical fellow could exhibit unbecoming foibles at the most inconvenient times.

“I am off to make sure my blue sprigged muslin is freshly pressed.” Wealtha bounded up the steps like a seven-year-old who’d just heard her godmother’s carriage wheels on the drive. “I’ll want a bath, too, of course, and Clementina must dress my hair. Nothing too fancy. We are in the country, after all.”

Wealtha flounced into the house, and Mabel remained on the terrace in blessed solitude.

The day truly was lovely. Not yet hot, the leaves still a soft, gauzy green that let more sunlight reach the winter-chilled earth. Tulips had replaced the earliest daffodils, and soon the garden would be full of color and scent.

Mr. Kepler tottered out onto the terrace, a wooden tray in his hands. “Afternoon mail, miss. A bit more than usual. Shall I bring your traveling desk out here?”

“The light is wonderful in spring, isn’t it, Kepler?”

“As is the warmth, miss. I’ll fetch your lap desk and have Cook send out some sandwiches, shall I?”

“Bless you, Kepler. Nothing fancy, but I could do with the sustenance.”

He passed over the tray and shuffled off at a bit more sprightly pace. Mabel took a seat on a bench along the balustrade and slit open the first missive.

Mr. St. Didier would be passing through the area and begged the favor of some modest hospitality. Mabel had wanted to question him personally, and now she’d have the chance.

“Watch out for what I wish for…”

Wealtha would be in alt to have a genuine London gentleman at the Glen in addition to a titled brother who brought a hint of scandal to the family name. Wealtha in alt was preferable to Wealtha in high dudgeon.

Far, far preferable.

“Ma’am, may I make known to you, Richard, Viscount Swidhelm, late of…”—Miss Fielding’s brows knit—“southern parts. My lord, Mrs. Orla Fielding, your aunt, of Shepherd’s Glen, Wellsborough.”

The Duchess of Chanderton herself would have approved of that introduction. Richard bowed a tad lower than Mayfair standards required.

“Mrs. Fielding. Swidhelm, at your service.”

His aunt had risen from a desk by the window of her sitting room, to her petite, dignified height without any difficulty. Her tidy flaxen bun, freshly pressed afternoon gown, and friendly expression eased an anxiety Richard had been ignoring.

No obvious signs of illness, save for a slight puffiness about her face and hands. Her gray silk dress was bang up to the Mayfair mark for fashion, complete with blue piping at the seams and a modest flounce for the underskirt.

No resemblance to Mama, but every inch a lady.

“My lord.” She dipped a curtsey. “I have longed for this day, dreamed of it, and prayed for it. Welcome to Shepherd’s Glen.”

How many times had Richard’s presence at a polite gathering been patently unwelcome, or worse, merely tolerated because ejecting him would have caused talk?

Here, he was welcomed by family. “Mrs. Fielding, the pleasure is entirely mine. Had I known of our connection, I would have come north much sooner.”

“Do have a seat,” Mrs. Fielding said, gesturing to a tufted grouping assembled around an empty hearth. “Mabel, might you see about some tea? I always wake up from my nap a bit peckish.”

Mabel, resident Valkyrie, towering over her mama, nodded and withdrew. She either trusted Richard to behave himself—which he would—or she would never openly question a maternal order.

“You must take that gilded chair,” Mrs. Fielding said, “so that I might feast my eyes upon the sight of my own dear Marie’s darling boy.”

Before Richard could assist his aunt, she’d ensconced herself in a corner of a love seat. He took the indicated chair somewhat gingerly, given its delicate proportions. The sitting room itself was a pleasing balance of elegance and practicality. The wallpaper was a lively blue green patterned to represent foliage interspersed with purple and gold birds. The upholstery echoed the hues of the wallpaper, while gilded frames on two landscapes, a sampler, and a mirror echoed the golden birds.

An oasis of style in an otherwise slightly downtrodden country manor.

“Marie never mentioned you to her darling boy,” Richard said, “and I am unhappy about that.”

“Marie doubtless had her reasons and her regrets,” Mrs. Fielding replied. “Let us not speak ill of the dear departed. Tell me of London and of yourself. I hear you’ve been to Portugal.”

She was entitled to some small talk while she regarded him so searchingly. “I more or less banished myself to Portugal. I’d finished university in the usual style, which is to say half inebriated and without gainful employment. A predictable procession of poor judgments and worse behaviors followed, until I realized that I’d best take myself in hand.”

Lest he be taken in hand by the sponging houses or blacklegs.

Mrs. Fielding waved a pale hand. “Growing pains. Young men are prone to them. I am close to my old schoolmates, several of whom bide in Town. The antics of their sons, nephews, and godsons have made for amusing correspondence.”

“Was my mother prone to growing pains and antics?” Though how could growing pains inspire a young woman to flee a good marriage for a life in service?

Another dismissive wave. “If she was, that is all very much ancient history. Tell me how you landed in sunny Portugal.”

That tale also qualified as old news. “I needed a fresh start, away from London and its associations. Many officers returning from the Continent spoke fondly of Portugal, and to a man, they were equally appreciative of port wine.”

“So you became a wine merchant. How practical and shrewd. Gentlemen must have their port, and you needed to get on in life. I approve, if that matters.”

“That matters to me, ma’am. I also trade in Madeira and the occasional obscure vintage if it appeals to my palate. I was very fortunate to have good teachers as I learned the trade.”

Good teachers and a bit of cash, courtesy of Sorcha, Lady Barclay.

“You will find that Wealtha also had good teachers. She attended Miss Gundridge’s Select Academy, near Leeds, as I did. Many a London lady sends her daughters there. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“I have, in truth, avoided the daughters of London ladies for the most part, and thus their preferred academies are unknown to me. What else should I know about Miss Blackstock?”

Mrs. Fielding waxed loquacious about Richard’s sister, who was adept at needlepoint, a talented soprano, a fine dancer, capable with watercolors, and an excellent conversationalist.

A paragon, in other words. Daunting prospect. “Was my mother similarly accomplished in all the ladylike arts?”

“Marie was… I hardly know how to describe her. She raised you, and thus you know of her abilities firsthand. She could sing well enough and did read poetry nicely. Wealtha isn’t much of one for poetry, in that she takes after her father. Abernathy Blackstock was the sort to be up and doing, not sitting idly about with a book.”

Richard rather enjoyed sitting idly about with a book. Up and doing all the time could leave a fellow tired, irritable, and without much interesting conversation.

Miss Fielding reappeared, a footman pushing a tea cart in her wake. Plain blue porcelain service, no lacy edges to the linen. The plain service contrasted subtly with the graceful touches and stylish décor of the sitting room.

In addition to striking wallpaper, Orla Fielding’s private domain boasted green carpet patterned with vivid purple and teal roses among floral embellishments. The curtains were blue lace and the oak sideboard inlaid with a pretty pattern of chestnut and nacre. The runner was embroidered to echo the pattern in the carpet, as was the embroidered border of the sampler on the wall opposite the fireplace.

Who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies.

“Mabel, do join us,” Mrs. Fielding said. “We’ve been discussing his lordship’s investments. Exotic and practical, an interesting combination. Might you pour for us?”

Miss Fielding excused the footman with a nod and took the place beside her mama. “My lord, how do you take your tea?”

“A dash of honey. If the pot is piping hot, a dollop of milk as well.”

She served him first, which subtly implied that he was a guest rather than a family member.

An old warning ran through Richard’s head: You have been on your own to such a degree and for so long that you imagine slights where none are intended. You had better learn to trust somebody, because you will certainly need to be trustworthy yourself if you are to succeed in commerce.

That had been Sorcha’s final scold before he’d departed for Portugal, and she’d been right.

She was usually right.

“Mabel, you should give his lordship a tour of the property,” Mrs. Fielding said as Miss Fielding passed her mother a cup of tea nearly white with added milk. “The lot of it is his now, or will be when the solicitors turn loose of it, and he’ll have some ideas for its management.”

“Does your lordship ride?” Miss Fielding asked, pouring a third cup.

“Adequately. I can procure a hack from the local livery if our stable is short of guest horses.”

“Perhaps that would be for the best,” Miss Fielding said. “We’ve kept only mares for our riding stock.”

And titled gentlemen did not in the ordinary course ride mares, for no reason Richard had ever been able to discern. A good, sturdy, sensible mare suited him just fine.

“If you have a mare up to my weight, I’ll happily try her paces.”

“You could take the dog cart,” Mrs. Fielding suggested. “The Glen has some lovely views, my lord.”

Richard hadn’t come racketing up the Great North Road to admire Yorkshire’s numberless views.

“A quiet hack will serve nicely as a starting point,” he said. “Does Miss Blackstock ride?”

The Fielding ladies exchanged a look. What to say?

“Of course she does,” Miss Fielding said, “and quite competently, but if I’m to be a proper tour guide, my lord, I will maunder on about tenants, marling, cottage repairs, and garden crops. Wealtha has heard the whole litany many times over. You and I can start with that quiet hack tomorrow after breakfast, if the weather obliges.”

“Tomorrow after breakfast, then. I shall look forward to it.” Rather than attempt more direct inquiries relating to his mother, Richard tried a different tack. “Have we anything in the nature of a portrait gallery?”

“The Glen does have a lovely gallery,” Mrs. Fielding said. “When we finish our tea, Mabel will direct you to it. Abernathy Blackstock was the first of his family to take an interest in art other than the usual sketches and coming-of-age portraits, and you will find some of his acquisitions interesting.”

What Richard wanted was a full-length oil portrait of his mother. The sketchbook had been full of Mama’s likeness, but contrary to Miss Fielding’s opinion, Richard found Orla Fielding to be a mediocre artist. She’d been accurate but uninspired and had difficulty conveying anything other than a collection of features or a bonnet and three-quarter profile.

I want my mother. Not the tired, distracted parent who’d scrubbed floors late into the night and patiently taught him his letters, but the young, pretty woman who’d caught the eye of a doting swain.

The sentiment howled through him as he finished his tea and endured a cheerful lecture about the local weather. Clouds were deceivers in Yorkshire, promising rain and providing none or barreling in from the North Sea to wreck a sunny morning without warning.

“Madeira has the same quality, in a different manner,” Richard replied. “A ridge of mountains along the center of the island can mean rain and gloom on the north shore, while all is summer sun to the south.”

“Will you be returning there?” Mrs. Fielding asked.

Behind that expression of cordial interest, did she want him to decamp? “My plans are undecided.”

“Of course they are.” She set down her empty tea cup. “You have been taken very unaware, and we must give you time to adjust to your good fortune. We are certainly agog at ours. Mabel will agree.”

“Emphatically,” Mabel murmured. “Perhaps your lordship would like to see the gallery now?”

Richard had promised not to tire his aunt, and while she did not look fatigued to him, she’d also been described as stoic. Heaven knew Richard had ignored his own fatigue often enough to know how it was done. Smile, chat, nod, smile… And that little performance was exhausting in its own way.

“I would love to see the gallery. Mrs. Fielding, to make your acquaintance has been a profound pleasure, and I hope we might continue our conversation at dinner.”

She remained seated when Richard rose.

“Depend upon it, my lord. You will soon know all the latest Wellsborough gossip, and Mabel will ensure you know the tenants by name and the age and lineage of each ram as well.”

Mabel finished tidying up the tea tray and rolled the cart through the doorway. Richard followed, though the leave-taking felt awkward.

As if, in half an hour flat, he’d overstayed his welcome with the aunt who’d professed that his arrival was the answer to years of prayers.

4

“Are you scowling for a reason or merely thinking hard?” Mabel asked, leaving the tea tray opposite the parlor door and setting off down the corridor.

Swidhelm ambled along beside her, keeping pace easily, blast him.

“Both. Would I have been presuming to ask if I might address Mrs. Fielding as Aunt Orla?”

In a hundred days of trying, Mabel would not have guessed that his attention had been fixed on forms of address.

“Ask her, but my guess is she did not want to presume by using your given name. We can be more formal here in the shires than the highest sticklers are in Town. You could also order her to use your name.”

“To no avail, quite possibly. I asked her directly about my mother several times and received a polite deflection in each case. Mrs. Fielding strikes me as a lady who is not easily swayed from her chosen course.”

Mabel took the turn into the east wing. Swidhelm had Step-mama sorted on less than an hour’s acquaintance. “You have examined the sketchbook?”

“I leafed through it. Mrs. Fielding is competent with a likeness. I gather the fellow with the genial smile was Blackstock?”

“Probably. He was known for his cordial disposition. We don’t use this wing much, especially in winter, for obvious reasons. It was added in the days of Abernathy’s grandpapa, when the family began to prosper in earnest. An uncle inherited before Abernathy came into the property, and the uncle also made some improvements.”

“Why does Mrs. Fielding call you Mabel? You introduced yourself to me as Amabel, which is a lovely name one doesn’t hear very often.”

He would notice that. “Amabel is old-fashioned, and most people will mishear it and come up with Annabelle, despite how the A should be pronounced. When I left the schoolroom, it was decided that the more modern Mabel would suit me better, and thus I have been Mabel ever since.”

“A as in awesome.”

He was frowning again, and yet, he’d been all good humor and gracious conversation with Orla. “What now, my lord?”

“Now I am perplexed, Miss Fielding. I just met my aunt, one of the few people on this earth who has ever expressed delight to make my acquaintance. I spent much of the conversation spinning a Banbury tale about a young man finding his feet in a suitable profession, and she…”

Mabel paused outside the gallery door. “Yes, my lord?”

“My aunt prevaricated as well, as if her own sister lived six hundred years ago among the Picts and wasn’t, in fact, raised in the same household as Orla herself. I have no experience of how real families operate, so I am left to wonder if dodging the past, changing the subject, and hiding the truth is simply how families go on.”

He did not sound exasperated so much as he was bewildered. “‘Real families,’ my lord?”

“Families where a lad isn’t five years old when he meets his lordly papa for the first and only time and where that papa doesn’t hand him a bag of licorice drops. The whole village knew I’d scrub pots by the hour for a few lemon drops but lost my porridge at the taste of licorice.”

“Licorice makes you ill?”

“Violently. Somebody once offered me a French version of anisette without explaining what was in my glass. One clueless sip, and I had to leave the room at an undignified sprint. I wonder if my mother suffered from the same aversion, but were I to ask Aunt Orla, I’d likely get some tale about ancient history and details lacking significance.”

Bewildered and possibly hurt. “Anise and licorice are different plants, aren’t they?”

“So I’m told, but the scent is similar, as is the taste, and I can’t abide either. I avoid fennel for the same reason.”

What a thing to know about somebody. What a thing to puzzle over regarding your own mother or to wish you’d asked her when you’d had the chance.

Mabel pushed the door open. “If you want to know about real families, and by that, you mean one mama, one papa, and their offspring, I am hardly an expert. Orla Fielding is, in truth, my step-mama. Joseph and Orla Fielding had no natural issue together, and thus they doted on Wealtha and me.”

“Joseph was your father?”

“He was, and he is much missed.” So much missed that Mabel wished she hadn’t brought him up or her real relationship to Orla. What did it say for Mabel that she’d stopped asking questions about her own mother before she’d reached the age of seven?

She stepped into the bright, chilly expanse of the unused gallery. The furniture was draped in Holland covers, and the room badly needed airing. The rugs were rolled up against the exterior wall, and the heavy drapes had been drawn back to avoid the fading effect of light on the velvet dyes.

“The paintings are overdue for dusting,” Mabel said, refusing to feel self-conscious over the state of what should have been a grand public room. “Our maids are getting on, though, and I avoid burdening them with nonessential tasks.”

Swidhelm followed her and left the door open. “Do you recall your mother at all?”

Mabel crossed the room and attempted to open a window, but the latch likely hadn’t been oiled in five years. She eventually got the wretched, blasted latch raised, but the window itself refused to swing outward…

A fist appeared over her shoulder and gave the frame a stout thump. The window moved a few inches. Another thump had it halfway open.

“Can we not afford to retire the venerable maids and footmen and hire new?” The viscount moved away and eyed the art on the walls.

“I don’t know, my lord.” Mabel stayed by the window, breathing fresh air. “The solicitors can tell you the exact state of your finances. We have been subsisting on an allowance, which the solicitors begrudge us.”

“Solicitors excel at begrudging. Let me guess: You and Mrs. Fielding are not Blackstocks. You are, in fact, related to the disgraced first Mrs. Blackstock—first and legal, if I might indulge in petty facts—and thus you have no direct claim on the Blackstock holdings. What is their argument for pinching pennies in Wealtha’s case?”

“She has a dowry, and the Glen has a regular remittance of funds. The solicitors knew the Glen would not come to Wealtha if you could be located. They instructed us that if the regular remittance was inadequate to keep us here, we should remove to humbler surrounds. Then, of course, we’d have had no remittance at all.”

“What did you do?”

“I explained to the solicitors that a daughter of the house deserved to live in that house until marriage and that the only proper chaperone to be had was Orla herself. Wealtha is like a daughter to her, and Blackstock would not have wanted Wealtha uprooted. The solicitors blew retreat.”

Not until Mabel had reminded them that even a viscount-by-legal-technicalities might take a dim view of evicting his womenfolk from the family seat.

Swidhelm considered a landscape of the Glen prior to some of the modern improvements. “The solicitors doubtless wanted to rent the place out to some unsuspecting cit, and those leases typically run five years at least. They knew the Chancery courts would likely tie up Blackstock’s estate at least that long if I was difficult to locate or dead.”

“You were difficult to locate.” The viscount was difficult to have on hand, too, but he’d been perfectly patient with Orla, and he was prepared to deal severely with the solicitors.

Two fine qualities in any man.

“Let me introduce you to your sister’s family,” Mabel said. “An odd sentence, I know. Abernathy’s grandpapa is above the mantel. Erasmus Blackstock was careful about how he managed his sheep, breeding crosses with crosses and eventually proving that the same animal could produce good wool and good mutton.”

The viscount listened to this recitation, asked a few polite questions, but clearly did not expect an exhaustive discourse.

“What preoccupies you now?” Mabel asked when they’d made the entire circuit of the gallery.

“You kept a few mares in the stable because only ladies bide here,” he said. “But you never told me if any of the riding stock is up to my weight.”

“Might I be honest?”

“Always.”

He could not possibly mean that. “When I must ride, I use one of the smaller draft mares. Lacey has been given a grasp of the basics of being ridden aside thanks to the efforts of the smaller stable hands. Her gaits are more efficient than comfortable, and she objects to anything approaching a brisk canter.”

“You have no proper riding horses?”

“Afraid not, my lord.”

“Then why would Mrs. Fielding suggest we hack out?”

Swidhelm was not only observant, he thought about the information his senses gathered. Examined, analyzed, and tested it against available facts.

A fine quality perhaps, but blasted inconvenient too. “I don’t know what Step-mama intended, my lord. Perhaps her illness has graduated to bouts of mental vagueness. Orla knows we’ve sold off all but the most venerable riding stock of necessity. The oldest specimens are kept in a pensioners’ paddock out of sight of any nosy solicitors. She might have forgotten that, or she might have been tasking me with explaining the state of the stable to you.”

His lordship wrenched open another window, the hinges shrieking loudly enough to startle ravens from the nearest oak tree.

“Indirection does not suit my nature,” he said. “Neither does dithering. I assume you keep country hours here?”

“We do.”

“Then please plan to join me for a morning hack tomorrow after breakfast. We will make do with a dog cart if no other option exists. Thank you for the tour of the gallery and for all you’ve done to keep my aunt and sister in comfort. I am sure they are aware of their debt to you, as I am aware of my own.”

To be thanked was such a rare experience in Mabel’s life that she was at a loss for a reply.

“I will stroll into the village now and cause a sensation,” his lordship said. “I will be all that is polite and speak only the King’s best English, but the speculation and eyewitness accounts will doubtless become a roar audible from Newcastle to Liverpool. Wish me luck.”

Charging the village head on was the opposite of dithering and likely the wisest strategy. “I wish the village luck. Behave yourself.”

He sighed and bowed. “If I must, I shall. Thank you again. Until supper, Amabel.”

He departed at a brisk pace, and his stated business—to cause a sensation in the village—struck Mabel as both the obvious next move and a harbinger of mischief. If the solicitors were halfway interested in living to a ripe old age, they would take heed, get their reports in order, and prepare to be interrogated within an inch of their miserly, greedy, fusty old lives.

A thought to make Mabel smile if ever there was one.

“Swidhelm?” The grizzled stable lad looked Richard up and down. “T’ divil, ye say.”

What followed thereafter was an unintelligible spate of broad vowels, growled r’s, and a sprinkling of nobbuts and summats with a final niver haird t’ like. To complicate matters, the whole diatribe was rendered with a lilting inflection that made distinguishing questions from statements nigh impossible.

“Two sound riding horses,” Richard said again, wondering if he’d just been treated to a dose of true Yorkshire dialect. “Up to my weight. To be kept at Shepherd’s Glen for the next fortnight at least.”

At the mention of Shepherd’s Glen, the lad’s bushy white brows rose and fell. “T’ Glen, ye say? Mares for Miss Mabel an’ Miss Wealtha?”

“Mare or gelding makes no difference, provided both horses are sound, sane, and substantial. At least one should be trained to carry a rider aside.”

“Ye’ll want Frigg and Baldur.” The old man nodded confidently, while Richard puzzled out what Frigg and Baldur…

“Named for Norse deities. A mare and a gelding?”

“Aye. Foin muckle beasts.”

What followed was a peculiar exchange of gestures, words, pantomime, and—on Richard’s part—figures drawn in the dirt to resolve the issue of price and duration of the lease. A quarter hour later, Richard had arranged for both horses to remain at Shepherd’s Glen on trial for at least the next two weeks.

Or those were the terms as best he could make out the exchange as the lad disappeared into the barn’s dim interior.

Rather like arriving in Portugal with Latin vocabulary in one hand and a Portuguese dictionary in the other. Mentally exhausting, often frustrating, and occasionally hilarious, but precisely the humbling experience a young man afflicted with excessive self-importance had needed.

Richard crossed a two-acre green being kept in trim by a few nanny goats, one of whom paused in her grazing to watch his progress. Her regard shared something of the old stable boy’s shrewdness, though her eyes were yellow rather than blue.

“I am imagining things.” Also suffering from fatigue, lack of a proper luncheon or breakfast, and the disorientation of having an aunt and meeting that aunt while anticipating an introduction to a sister later in the day.

All a bit much.

The posting inn, The Happy Rooster, was a half-timbered, whitewashed, three-story affair holding pride of place along one side of the green. Directly opposite sat a venerable granite church with a square bell tower. Shops and a smithy shared the inn’s side of the green, while the church claimed several houses as neighbors.

The whole lot was constructed of the same gray stone as the church, which gave the taller, brighter inn a beckoning air. Somebody had also troubled to adorn the steps of the inn with half barrels of red salvia, though, in fairness, a few of the houses also sported window boxes and planters of various posies. A small yellow bloom was popular among the goodwives.

Charming, and different from the towns and villages of the south. Very little wood construction, save for the inn, no new construction that Richard could see, and every hillside to the west was dotted with fluffy white sheep.

He was halfway up the inn’s steps when a sizable specimen of manhood in a white apron came through the door and gestured to him broadly.

“Welcome, milord, to The Happy Rooster. Simon Gowan greets you personally, and it shall be my pleasure to serve you!”

Let the sensation begin. The proprietor had boomed his greeting so loudly the ewes on the hillsides had likely heard him.

“Gowan.” Richard nodded. “Swidhelm, much to my surprise. I am famished and thirsty.”

Gowan beamed. “Ye’ve come to the right place, sir. The private parlor is available, if that’s your pleasure.”

He spoke the King’s English. Accented, but understandable. “The snug will do.”

“Ye’ll have company in the snug. Our Fergus is havin’ ’is forty winks.”

“I won’t disturb him.”

Fergus took his winks seriously, rattling the low, dark rafters with his snoring. His beard reached a good foot below his chin—snow white, of course—and a green felt peaked cap sat next to a tankard on the table beside his bench.

A low fire burned in the hearth. Unnecessary, given the mild day, but cozy too. Peat rather than coal. The snug consisted of a high-backed wooden bench built along the wall that ran at a right angle to the hearth. A deal table slightly higher than a dining table sat before the bench, with several footstools beneath it. Fergus had wedged himself into the corner of the snug, where he looked to become one with the general rustic appointments.

Richard took the opposite end of the bench and ordered sandwiches and summer ale, though Gowan had clearly wanted to lay on a feast.

“’Ether isle, ’twill be.” The beard had spoken.

“Heather ale?”

“Aye. Ye be stranger.”

Stranger than who or what? Dropping articles such as the, a, or an seemed to be typical of the local parlance.

“Swidhelm,” Richard said, though the title was stranger to him than any obscure Portuguese turn of phrase had ever been. “Biding at Shepherd’s Glen. My mother was raised in Wellsborough.” She hadn’t shared even the name of her native county with him, much less her home village. Why not?

“Vee-cont, ye be.”

“I have that honor.”

Richard also had the honor of consuming his sandwiches under the watchful eye of Fergus, who observed him silently bite by bite. Gowan flitted by every two minutes and offered to bring anything else his lordship might need.

Richard needed answers. Why had his mother left this sweet little village by the Dales? What did the locals recall of her? What sort of man had Blackstock been truly, and for that matter, what of old Tuffington, Richard’s grandpapa? What of Grandmama Tuffington? Cousins? Aunts? Uncles?

He was prepared to wage a one-man inquisition on those topics, though reconnoitering the terrain of necessity came first.

Reconnoitering and being reconnoitered. Several serving maids found it necessary to scrub spotless tables in the vicinity of the snug. Sandwich by sandwich, the common became not quite crowded, but certainly well patronized.

Richard finished his food and sipped at his peculiar-tasting ale. Heather ale, of all things. Not quite as bitter as ginger lemonade, but only slightly less astringent.

“I don’t suppose you knew my mother?” Richard asked his companion in the snug. “Marie Tuffington. She married Abernathy Blackstock.”

Fergus peered under the table. The sound of wood scraping against flagstones followed as he repositioned his footstool.

“Ne’er ’aird of ’er. No Tuffingtons in these parts. Blackstock owned t’ Glen. He be dead years ago. Wife too. Died in childbed, or as good as.”

“I own the Glen now.” To say that aloud, in the village inn, felt both ridiculous and necessary.

“If ye say so. Gowan, must a man beg to ’ave his pint?” Fergus banged his empty tankard on the plank table. “Parched, I be.”

“So how does milord find the Glen?” Gowan asked when he brought the requisite pint. “In a general manner of speaking, that is?”

“A very attractive property,” Richard said, which was true enough. “The house could use some maintenance, but the grounds are lovely, and the company to be had there is very agreeable.” A bit frustrating, too, truth be told.

“Good land,” somebody remarked from near the dartboard. “Plenty of water. Some bottom acreage to go with it.”

“Pretty views,” another added. “Best in the shire.”

“Fine sheep,” said a third, “and plenty of ’em.”

An exchange of platitudes was adequate as far as initial overtures were concerned. Richard finished his ale, rather than leave himself open to charges of rudeness, and tried to pay for the meal, but Gowan would not hear of it.

“Welcome to The Happy Rooster, so to speak. All are welcome here.” A murmur of consent went through the room, though so strongly did Gowan emphasize his own hospitality that Richard had the impression some were not at all welcome.

You imagine slights where none are intended.

“Thank you for a fine meal,” Richard said, tapping his hat onto his head. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He departed with a sense of having escaped the land of the fairies. Northern folk were known to be reserved and reticent, but he’d expected some prying from old ladies or even a few ventured reminiscences about old Mr. Tuffington.

Instead, he’d been complimented on his sheep and his ruddy bucolic views.

The afternoon sun was glaringly bright, the goats no longer on the green when Richard emerged from the inn. A very young maid, blond hair in two ratty braids, was scrubbing the flagstone steps. She paused when Richard went by and watched him with a solemnity beyond her years.

And well beyond the occasion. “Good day,” Richard said. “What is your name?”

“Baines, sir.” She remained on the flagstones, looking up at him with a pale little face.

“Baines, are you familiar with Fergus?”

“Aye, sir. Everybody knows owd Fairgus.”

“What is his last name?”

“He be a Fothergill. They come from Newcastle.”

“Recently?”

She scratched her nose. “Two hundred year back or so. My gran knows all that.”

“Thank you.”

Richard collected the horses from the livery, and rather than ride one and lead the other, he chose to remain on foot, leading both. The village was less than a mile from Shepherd’s Glen, and he needed every inch of that mile to recover from the peculiar experiences of the last hour.

Word of his arrival had crossed the green within minutes, of course. He’d expected that, but only Gowan had assayed even a few polite questions. Nobody had questioned Richard’s right to the title. Nobody had volunteered an opinion about anything.

No tacit warnings to the new lord of the manor, no jokes among the elders, no flirtations from the maids…

And old man Fothergill with the faultless recall hadn’t even remembered Mama’s name.

All very odd, and disquieting as hell.

5

Mabel completed the introductions, wondering if ever in all of history an adult brother and sister had needed such formalities.

“May I call you Richard?” Wealtha posed the question as her sibling bowed over her hand. “Forward of me to ask, I know, but you are a legal-ish sort of brother to me, and we must support that appearance in public, must we not?”

“I would be honored if you’d address me informally,” Swidhelm replied. “And I shall call you Wealtha.”

Wealtha turned the considerable beaming, blue-eyed power of her approval on his lordship. “I would adore for you to call me Wealtha. The novelty of having a brother is exceeded only by the joy of adding you to our small family.” Said with a modest downward glance at the carpet.

Prettily done.

For this occasion, Wealtha had chosen to wear her hair in a simple bun—“The best style for emphasizing a lady’s graceful neck, dearest, if she has a graceful neck, that is”—softened by loose blond curls and artfully wispy tendrils.

The sprigged muslin dress—azure muslin, gold fleur-de-lis sprigs—was complemented by tiny earbobs of blue john and a slender gold bracelet. Her slippers were the same hue as her earbobs, and her shawl was plain cream lamb’s wool in an intricate knitted cable pattern.

Mabel had suggested the dress, but Wealtha had fashioned the rest of the ensemble into a presentation that balanced demure femininity with understated elegance. Not too rural, not too sophisticated for a young woman who’d just attained her majority.

Mabel, as usual, felt a touch dowdy beside her nominal step-cousin, though Swidhelm in evening attire matched Wealtha nicely.

“Having a sister, aunt, and cousin is beyond novel,” Swidhelm said. “I am thunderstruck with my good fortune.”

His lordship tossed flowers as deftly as Wealtha could. Perhaps they were related, in truth.

“Would my lord like an aperitif before the meal?” Mabel asked. “Wealtha, a glass of wine for you, perhaps?”

“Amontillado, please, Mabel. A few drops to whet the appetite.”

They had one bottle of amontillado left, and that one had been displayed on the sideboard for years. “My lord, will that suit you as well?”

“None for me. I am called upon from time to time to sample vintages out of commercial necessity, and amontillado has lost its appeal for me.”

“What an interesting thing to know about you.” Wealtha slipped her arm through her brother’s. “I find most red wines too brusque, myself. Shall we enjoy the view from the back terrace?”

Swidhelm aimed a smile at Mabel. “Miss Fielding, are you in the mood to take in the evening air before our meal?”

The smile was polite, even friendly, but the look in his eyes was… Could Swidhelm be asking for Mabel’s support? Demanding it? Requesting a few minutes to have his sister’s company to himself?

“Evenings are so pleasant this time of year,” Mabel said. “I’ll have the footman organize our drinks and join you shortly.”

“Come along, Richard.” Wealtha towed him toward the French doors. “Mabel is right that Yorkshire evenings are marvelous in spring. The birds are amazing too. Our lapwings and curlews love the heather moors, you know.”

“One hears much about the grouse here in the north,” Swidhelm said, bowing Wealtha through the door.

She launched into her homily on the black grouse, a diatribe that lasted for five entire minutes when she was in good form. Plenty of time for Mabel to pour two glasses of decent sherry, put the sherry bottle back out of sight, and dust off the bottle of amontillado.

“Beg pardon, Miss Mabel.” Kepler occupied the doorway to the corridor. “Mrs. Fielding sends her regrets for supper. She says you young people need a chance to become acquainted without her hovering.”

Orla Fielding was quite possibly leaving Wealtha an uncluttered stage upon which to deliver her opening monologue.

“Is Step-mama well, Kepler?”

“She seemed as well as may be, miss. The viscount’s arrival has raised her spirits considerably, in the opinion of the maids.”

The three Fates. Etta Louise, Eloise Ann, and Clementina. They knew everything that happened in every household in the shire, and Clementina—the eldest—was said to have the Sight, which was how she sometimes knew of events even before they happened.

Or she was simply a more skillful gossip than the other two.

“I will convey Step-mama’s regrets to his lordship and Miss Wealtha. We’ll dine in a quarter hour or so.”

“Very good, miss.”

Kepler remained in the doorway.

“His lordship and Miss Wealtha are managing quite well, Kepler. He is all that is polite, she is charming, and that is how it should be.”

“Glad to hear it, miss.”

Mabel eschewed a tray and took the two sherries out onto the terrace. Wealtha was just concluding her ode to the black grouse.

“I don’t care for the sounds they make,” she said, “but those curving tail feathers are interesting.”

“I’ve heard those feathers referred to as rectrices,” Swidhelm replied. “Perhaps because they help control flight as a rector helps control a congregation. Etymology was not my strongest subject.”

“You attended university?” Wealtha asked, accepting her drink.

“Oxford, lest my ducal connections be shamed by my ignorance. Latin was very useful when I needed to learn Portuguese and Spanish.”

Wealtha peered at him over her glass. “You didn’t learn French?”

“French figured prior to university, mostly by virtue of French parlormaids and footmen, so I can manage in French if need be. What of you? I’m told you attended Miss Gundridge’s Select Academy, in something of a family tradition. Had you any favorite subjects?”

To that question, Wealtha usually supplied one of two answers. Her first choice was deportment, because gentlemen did not interest themselves in the deportment of proper young ladies, and conversation was thus more easily steered back to the favorite topic of every male regardless of age—according to Wealtha—namely, himself.

If Wealtha charmed her escorts thoroughly enough, she soon knew what they were worth, what their prospects were, and whether they were on good terms with their elders.

Her second answer was reserved for company where she was less sure of her footing: I was mostly concerned with writing letters home, you know. I made some wonderful friends and have fond memories of those younger years, as we all do, but academics were less interesting to me than how Mr. Fothergill was getting on with his rheumatism.

Wealtha positively avoided Fergus and any mention of his rheumatism.

She surprised Mabel, and possibly herself, with an original reply. “I liked getting away from the Glen, liked meeting people who’d known more than one little Yorkshire village, but I was homesick, too, and frequently bored. So many of the girls were bound to make a proper London come out, and I knew that wasn’t in store for me.”

A deft change of topic, and a sidewise dig at Mabel, though one that now provoked only a slight wince.

“Believe me,” Swidhelm replied, “you were fortunate. Mayfair in spring is one sprawling madhouse, with everybody trying to out-entertain everybody else and vouchers for Almack’s taking on the significance of holy relics.”

“Mabel would know all about that,” Wealtha replied. “Now that I have a titled brother, perhaps I’ll have a chance to observe that sprawling madhouse firsthand?”

The viscount turned a pleasantly inquisitive expression on Mabel. “Miss Fielding, you’ve been to Town?”

The flicker of frustration on Wealtha’s features was brief but telling. She’d set her brother up to invite her to London, and he’d dodged the ambush, perhaps unwittingly.

Though more likely, he’d just exhibited the nimbleness of a Mayfair veteran.

“My Fielding relations hosted me for a few weeks one spring,” Mabel said. “I was certainly not presented at court, and I attended only lesser functions.”

“You danced at Almack’s,” Wealtha said, her tone balancing pride with a smidgen of envy. “You waltzed, Mabel Fielding, in grand Mayfair ballrooms.”

And came to dearly wish I had not. Which Wealtha knew even without having been apprised of the particulars.

“All a very long time ago,” Mabel said. “Before we go into dinner, I must convey Step-mama’s regrets. She has decreed that we young people must have an opportunity to become further acquainted without her on hand.”

“She is well?” Swidhelm asked.

“Apparently so.”

“Auntie does this,” Wealtha said, sipping her sherry. “She plays least in sight when it suits her, and we indulge her because one doesn’t want to pry. We must adhere to her wishes and become better acquainted.”

Over the best meal the kitchen had put forth in some time, Wealtha continued her polite interrogation, and for the most part, Swidhelm accommodated her. His mother had worked as a chambermaid with little success, then taken a post as a housekeeper. She’d posed as a new widow carrying her late spouse’s posthumous child, and thus Swidhelm had started life without the overt stigma of illegitimacy and with an informed appreciation for life belowstairs.

“And yet, you were sent to Oxford,” Wealtha mused, spreading fig jam over a slice of mild cheddar. “One doesn’t come in from milking the cows and flit off to university.”

“I was fortunate that the local vicar was something of a scholar, and from him, I gained enough of a foundation to survive at university. He was a gifted teacher, and I was lucky to be his student.”

Wealtha put the slice of cheddar on his lordship’s plate. “You are also smart. One notices this about you. Smart, but not obnoxious with it. The steward will be relieved. He says the solicitors are stupid and obnoxious. I ought not to say that.” She smiled impishly. “I blame the superb wines served with supper.”

The viscount helped himself to a handful of hazelnuts. “An excellent meal. My compliments to the kitchen, but after such a fine repast, I feel an urge for a short constitutional. The late sunsets afford us that luxury, and I propose to take advantage of it.”

“Off you go,” Wealtha said, fixing another slice of cheddar and jam. “Enjoy a stroll about the park. I would have to change into a walking dress, and then you’d lose the light. Take Mabel with you. She’s a great one for striding the metes and bounds. She can show you where the good mushrooms are too.”

On that ringing endorsement, Wealtha allowed her brother to assist her to rise. She crowned her sororal debut by kissing his lordship’s cheek and swanning into the corridor, cheese in hand. She professed to be on her way to the library to find some restful poetry with which to end her day.

“Will you eat that?” Mabel asked, gaze on the cheddar topped with fig jam on his lordship’s plate.

Swidhelm resumed his seat and held out his plate to her. “All yours. I truly do intend to enjoy the evening air. Might I coax you into joining me?”

Mabel took a bite of smooth, tangy cheese and sweet, grainy preserves. “The sun will not set for at least two hours. I usually ramble around after supper at this time of year. The garden makes for pleasant evening work, and I do know where all the safe mushrooms tend to spring up.”

Swidhelm crunched another hazelnut into oblivion. “Let’s pay a call on the stable. I’d like to make introductions there.”

Mabel finished the last bite of cheese and jam. “The staff might well be at supper, but they will like knowing that you came by.” She rose, surprised to find Swidhelm standing at the same time as if he would have held her chair.

“The courtesy is appreciated, but in my case unnecessary,” she said. “If the ladies of the Glen had to wait for passing gentlemen to hold our chairs, we’d be chairbound for all eternity.”

Swidhelm gestured to the door. “I will take leave to observe such courtesies nonetheless. You are ladies, and I am a gentleman by title and aspiration, if not by birth.”

Mabel preceded him through the door. “You were patient with Wealtha. Her conversational skills were a bit interrogatory this evening. To be expected, I suppose.”

“And by indulging her curiosity,” Swidhelm said, “I justify turnabout at a later date. We need suitable horseflesh.”

Mabel led the way out onto the back terrace. The change of subject had been abrupt, but Mabel honestly did not want to spend the lovely hours of the gloaming on a discussion of Wealtha’s table talk.

The meal had gone as well as it could have. Leave it at that. “We at the Glen need suitable horseflesh?”

“We, meaning thee and me, Miss Fielding. If we’re to hack out tomorrow morning, we must be properly mounted. I tended to that errand while I was in the village. I’d like you to meet our new mare, whom the hostler deemed a mannerly creature. I had trouble understanding him, but he seemed an honest sort. We have two weeks to decide whether to buy her or send her back.”

“You dealt with MacNulty, then.” Mabel descended the steps into the garden. “He came down from Aberdeen as a lad, and he’s hard for even local folk to understand, especially the youth. The elders make out his speech more easily.”

“We managed, albeit with some awkwardness. If you don’t care for the mare, we can send her back. I’ll nip into York and find a horse market in the near future. I spent some time helping out in the stable, once I acquired some height. Hard work was intended to settle my humors, but it, in fact, made a better student of me.”

“Because?”

“Because I was less likely to lose half my toes in a stable accident if I knew how to write, cipher, and wrangle some Latin. Horses are wonderful, and I enjoyed the work, but I was all my mother had in terms of security in old age, and I needed to be able to support her.”

And he’d come to that realization while still a boy. “I expected to look after my papa in his dotage. Plans change.”

He offered his arm. “That, they do.”

Mabel had been marching about the Glen for years. She knew every footpath, shortcut, and game trail, as well as where to cross the streams without getting her boots wet.

From the viscount, she accepted the proffered courtesy nonetheless, unnecessary though it was.

6

In Richard’s experience, horses and dogs were accurate judges of character. If a generally friendly dog took exception to a human, that human was to be regarded with caution. Not a hard and fast rule, but the sort of wisdom a boy picked up when he worked in a stable.

“You are a horsewoman,” he said as Miss Fielding scratched the mare Frigg gently behind the ears. The beast twisted her neck and half closed her eyes, the better to enjoy the attention. Miss Fielding had apparently found the one spot the mare best liked to have scratched.

“I am fond of horses,” she said. “I like cats as well, and dogs are excellent company.” She switched ears, and the horse contorted herself in the other direction. “What of you? Do you prefer a house free of pets, or were you given a puppy on your sixth birthday?”

That would have been his purported sixth birthday. “A housekeeper’s son would have had no use for a puppy.”

Miss Fielding ceased petting the horse, who turned a limpid gaze on her in polite entreaty. That equine expression, half plea, half reproach, put Richard in mind of his sister. What was all that blather about Almack’s and Mayfair in aid of?

“I am sorry,” Miss Fielding said. “I do not mean to dredge up sad memories. You fill the role of newly titled peer so convincingly that I forget you came to it by a circuitous route. I hereby pronounce Frigg a dear creature and a pleasure to have in the stable. I look forward to trying her paces tomorrow.” She crossed the barn aisle. “This must be Baldur. Is he Frigg’s son?”

Miss Fielding recalled her Norse mythology. “Not that I know of. Her conformation is more refined than his, and I would not be surprised if she wasn’t faster over the ground. He looks like a capable jumper to me.”

“Good shoulder angles, clean legs, and such a handsome fellow.” She held up a hand for Baldur to sniff. He delicately obliged and added a low, repeated whuffle until Miss Fielding scratched the spot under and behind his chin.

If a horse could swoon… The whuffling became almost a purr, and Richard was charmed as well. Away from the house, Miss Fielding was more relaxed and approachable. She’d been curiously quiet over supper, no matter how Richard had tried to coax her into the conversation.

“Was Wealtha’s behavior this evening typical of her?” Richard asked.

Miss Fielding ceased imperiling the dignity of Richard’s prospective mount. “In what regard, your lordship?”

That careful question threatened to evaporate all the unbending that the company of the horses or the distance from the house had inspired.

“When I came down from university,” Richard said, “I was the object of close scrutiny by the hostesses and matchmakers. Wealtha’s conversation reminded me of that same ruthless curiosity. My ducal patrimony was common knowledge and no particular impediment to social advancement, provided I had independent means, perfect manners, and witty conversation.”

“You had to look the part too,” Miss Fielding said, leaving a bereft gelding for the stable yard and the slanting rays of the setting sun. “Bond Street fashion, the right saddle horse, the right equipage for Town. The right clubs, too, I’m guessing.”

“You guess accurately. Not too Whig, not too Tory, not too high in the instep. I managed all of this, and my reward was to be endlessly scrutinized, evaluated, and compared. Was I a better catch than the Robinsons’ younger son? He was legitimate. I was taller and acknowledged by my uncle, His Grace of Chanderton. Should I be invited to join the Earl of Delaplane’s second son for supper at his club? I wasn’t worth the heir’s company, nor the company of the earl himself, of course, but neither could I be entirely ignored.”

“I was lucky,” Miss Fielding said, ambling across the yard to a track that led down a shady trail. “I did not merit a second look from much of anybody. No fortune, humble connections, no great beauty, and when I grew animated, a hint of that unfortunate Yorkshire accent arose.”

What or who had inspired her animation? “The great beauties tend in my experience to be greatly self-absorbed, whether their pulchritude is feminine or masculine.” Perhaps that was what had bothered him about Wealtha. She was pretty, and she knew it, and she intended that everybody else acknowledge her good looks as well.

“And if those beautiful people are charming, every virtue is ascribed to them,” Miss Fielding said. “Their humor is the most sophisticated wit, their gossip the most interesting. I was completely bewildered by the whole business, and Orla did not want me to go, but my great-aunt Fielding was determined. Down the Great North Road I did go.”

“Good word. ‘Bewildered.’ Tossed into an incomprehensible wilderness.” They strolled along a bridle path bordered on both sides by venerable lime trees and the occasional maple. What had once been a hedgerow had apparently been allowed to exceed all bounds and become a winding extension of the park and the home wood.

A peaceful patch and at this hour bathed in the golden magic of the setting sun.

“You refer to your step-mother by her first name,” Richard said. “I cannot recall ever using my mother’s name to another.” Perhaps when he’d been so wroth with St. Didier?

“Joseph Fielding became a widower when I was four years old. I have a few memories of my first mother, but Papa was most anxious that I accept Orla as a replacement, and for the most part, she has been.”

“You tell yourself that, but there’s still an ache.” A well-hidden ache, in Miss Fielding’s case, one that explained some of her independent spirit. She knew what it was to navigate life on her own.

She continued at the sort of relaxed, swinging gait that would have seen her over the Dales to the Lakes without breaking a sweat and would have provoked pointing and whispers in Hyde Park.

Stupid whispers.

“I should chide you for your presuming questions,” she said. “My distant childhood is merely that, but you know of that ache from your own experience.”

“I have many memories of my mother, good memories.”

“But you have very few memories of your father, my lord.”

Oh, him. “Touché. When I met Lord Jerome, he was mostly a disappointment. I suppose that was inevitable. Mama did not discuss him with anybody, and in my little-boy imagination, he rode a fancy white horse, loved to play toy soldiers, and longed to take me to live with him in his golden castle. We would have dined on steaming porridge awash in honey and butter at every meal—he was to have a fountain of honey in his perpetually sunny garden—though I would have missed Mama, of course.”

“No wasps in that garden, I presume. Did he ride a white horse?”

“Alas, no. He bungled that as well. His mount was a chestnut. Four perfectly matched white socks, and the horse was prone to flatulence.”

They shared a smile, a little sad, mostly understanding.

“I have a confession,” Miss Fielding said. “I made a decision that was not mine to make.”

“One suspects you commit this misdemeanor regularly, and the Glen is better for it.”

“Guilty as charged, my lord, but in those cases, nobody else is available to resolve the matter. Orla cannot be bothered with menus when her appetite is unreliable. Wealtha has little patience for domestic minutiae, and the staff is wonderfully loyal but somewhat lacking in initiative.”

“Upon whose authority have you poached?” A song thrush started up in the canopy high above, his notes caroling across the woods.

“I appropriated your authority.” She stopped and cocked her head. “I love our birds. The thrush comes close to imitating the nightingale.”

“Do you love Wealtha’s lecture on the black grouse? I, for one, did not.”

Another smile that blended understanding and humor. “And she has worked so hard on it, too. Wealtha believes, on the strength of much tutelage at the knee of the matchless instructors at Miss Gundridge’s Academy, that all gentlemen are fascinated with grouse. Yorkshire has wonderful grouse moors. Ergo, a young lady will universally charm and impress any fellow if she is knowledgeable about same.”

“Her logic is wanting. Not all gentlemen are fascinated with blood sports. Some of us abhor them—privately, if we have any sense—and to enjoy shooting is a far cry from enjoying ornithological pedantry.”

“Wealtha is young, my lord, and your arrival has put her off stride.”

“She puts me off stride, truth to tell. That’s doubtless to be expected.” Except Richard had hoped to at least like his sister. “In what regard did you trespass on my authority?”

“Mr. Leopold St. Didier requested the Glen’s hospitality for a short stay in the area, and I issued the requisite invitation.”

Botheration and bedamned. The last thing Richard wanted was a witness to the awkward business of acquiring family in addition to a title and an estate. Especially not an observant witness who knew more than he should about polite society.

“Have I given offense?” Miss Fielding asked as the trees thinned and the square tower of the village church came into view.

“You could hardly refuse him,” Richard said, pausing on the path rather than setting foot in the village twice in one day. “I’m sure he’ll be a model guest.”

“We aren’t accustomed to company. His visit will inspire the staff to do more than the minimum, and that’s a good thing. I expected you to be that inspiration, but you rushed your fences.”

“A habit with me, I’m afraid. We must tell Wealtha that Mr. St. Didier is an avid grouse hunter.”

“I do believe that sentiment is the most fraternal thought I’ve heard from you, my lord.” She started back the way they’d come. “Now you know the shortcut, or the route that spares you from the whole house knowing you nipped into the Rooster for a pint, at least when the leaves are on the trees.”

“Wealtha ought to go to Mayfair,” Richard said slowly. “She cannot, I know, though now would be the right time of year. With her aunt ill and me new to the Glen, Wealtha would be loath to travel south.”

“Wealtha must not go to London,” Miss Fielding replied. “Not to satisfy her curiosity or to cure her of envy, not to find her a match. She would fare poorly, I assure you, and her failure in Mayfair would bother her far more than my few weeks tromping around the ballrooms does.”

“Many young women don’t make their come out by eighteen, Miss Fielding. Very few, in fact, marry before they attain their majority. I have those facts from no less authority than the Duchess of Chanderton.” A lovely lady many years her husband’s junior.

The birds had gone quiet, suggesting a cat stalking the bridle path.

“You would be well advised not to mention Her Grace to Wealtha. If you must know, Wealtha hopes you will increase her dowry.”

A logical aspiration for a young lady immured in the shires. That she’d fixed on this ambition before Richard had even bowed over her hand was also vaguely disappointing.

“A sensible request,” he said. “What would you advise?”

Miss Fielding shaded her eyes—she wasn’t wearing a bonnet—and gazed through the trees at the stone wall bordering the nearest pasture.

“Are you asking me to name a sum?”

“If you are so inclined. I have had little experience with dowering anybody. I have adequate means, and I’m sure the Glen includes many unentailed tenancies. What generally has been set aside for Wealtha?”

Miss Fielding, with disclaimers about not having seen the actual documents, prosed on about a small competence from the late Mrs. Blackstock—the second, late Mrs. Blackstock—some good-quality jewels, a settlement from Papa Blackstock, plus a small sum from Papa Joseph.

“The funds are in the cent-per-cents, though Wealtha insists that’s the most foolish place to put money.” Miss Fielding was moving a little more slowly now. “In this one case, I have to agree with the solicitors. My own modest funds have been tucked into the cent-per-cents for years.”

Richard did likewise with a portion of his investments. Slow, steady, reliable revenue to be had there.

“Increasing Wealtha’s dowry,” Miss Fielding went on, “will allow her a wider pool of potential husbands. I do endorse giving young ladies as many good options as possible, matrimonially and otherwise, but fooling about on ’Change would be little better than gambling for such as us.”

“I will have a word with the solicitors, and with Mrs. Fielding, but you have yet to give me your opinion, and I know you have one. I like that about you. You know your mind and know where you stand.”

She ceased inspecting the stone wall. “Did you just call me opinionated?”

“No. I called you likable, and you tried to dodge the compliment.”

Good heavens above. Miss Amabel Fielding had a shy smile that eclipsed the allure of any artifice her step-cousin could produce.

“My lord, I am not likable.”

“Are too. So am I, on my good days. You are supposed to allow as much.” She was also competent, intelligent, loyal to family, and stubborn. All commendable qualities.

“I might, sir, grudgingly allow that you are not without certain positive attributes.”

Her eyes danced, and Richard didn’t bother hiding his smile. They walked on in companionable silence until they reached the stable yard.

“You mustn’t be too hard on Wealtha,” Miss Fielding said. “She is naïve and more easily hurt than you’d think. If it’s any consolation, recall that she is not, in truth, related to you.”

Did Miss Fielding console herself with the same lack of a blood tie where Wealtha was concerned?

“I intend to be the best possible brother to her, but I am unsure what that entails. The situation wants time and patience, and I can muster the patience if I must.”

“Please do. We cannot always be at our best, and a little tolerance now will pay dividends for years, I’m sure. I will attend some weeding now, if you don’t mind.”

Richard was tempted to impose his company on her but resisted. She’d allow it, to be polite, but after the day he’d subjected her to, she probably needed the solitude of the garden, and he understood that.

“Thank you for welcoming me to the Glen, Miss Fielding, and for all your many kindnesses today. Shall we say an hour after sunrise tomorrow?”

“We shall. Good evening, my lord.”

She did not curtsey. He did not bow. They had family in common and were practical people. As Richard paid another call on his new steeds, he admitted that with Wealtha he was committed to playing the fraternal role because honor demanded as much.

Needs must.

He was also no blood relation to Miss Fielding whatsoever. On the whole, this was good news. He did not examine too closely why that should be, but that shy, unexpected smile of hers had something to do with his reasoning.

“Did you ask him?” Wealtha rose from the sofa, a worn gray horsehair article better suited to the attics than Mabel’s sitting room. “Tell me you did and tell me Richard said yes. Better still, tell me he said yes and admitted he’d been wondering how to bring up the delicate topic of my settlements.”

The day had been long and, in some regards, trying. Mabel had weeded until the light had faded from the sky, though her patience was still at low ebb.

“Wealtha, we agreed that our apartments are private. You have no business intruding here, and your question is far from urgent or becoming. Swidhelm has assured you he means to take his role as your brother seriously, and he strikes me as a man of his word.”

An observant, intelligent man of his word, one surprisingly comfortable with his own past.

“A serious brother might still be a terrible miser, Mabel, and the matter of my settlements is urgent to me. If Papa Blackstock had been more generous, I would be married by now.”

Papa Blackstock had made reasonable provisions for his only daughter. “You don’t know that. Bachelors generally consider factors other than a lady’s settlements when choosing for whom to offer.” Some bachelors—the kind of bachelors interested in being worthy husbands.

Wealtha was wearing a sky-blue dressing gown, and her long hair trailed down her back in golden plaits. Her slippers were gold, and the nightgown peeking from beneath the dressing gown frothed with cream lace about the throat and wrists. Even in dishabille, she was careful of her appearance.

She began to pace, her hems showing yet more lace with each step. “That was unkind, Mabel Fielding. Shame on you. I have been courted by three different men, all of them estimable. The problem is my settlements, and you know it.”

The problem was not her settlements.

“You met Swidhelm a few hours ago, Wealtha. What would he think of us if a quarter hour after rising from his first supper at the Glen, I informed him that he must increase your settlements?”

Wealtha stopped before the empty hearth and crossed her arms. “He’d think you were forthright and a loyal cousin. You generally are forthright, and you can be a loyal cousin when you wish to be.”

“You are understandably worried. Swidhelm’s arrival is an enormous change after years of being unable to find him and not knowing if he was even alive. I understand that, Wealtha, but he is adjusting to significant changes as well. He thought himself a ducal by-blow, and instead, he’s a legitimate peer. That is a ridiculous leap in life and based entirely on legal niceties.

“We only have one chance to make a first impression on him,” Mabel went on, “and for you to hound him about settlements would undo all the warmth and friendliness you embarked on at supper.”

“I was in quite good form, wasn’t I?” Wealtha adopted a pensive expression she doubtless practiced before her vanity mirror. “He is agreeable too. I will give him that. Not hard to look on either, though he’s a bit on the tall side, and he’s neither blond nor all that witty. I would not want a strikingly handsome brother, and he’s certainly not that.”

Swidhelm could be witty and a trifle bold. What mattered strikingly handsome? “If you must know, I did mention that a young lady’s options improve when her settlements are generous. Swidhelm agreed to raise the matter with the solicitors.”

“Did you mean…? You could not have meant your options, because you are not young. You meant my options.” She unfolded her arms and broke out all over in smiles. “Oh, Mabel, that was cleverly done. I should have known you’d go cautiously, given your misadventures in Mayfair, but I do thank you for the effort. Perhaps you are right, and a subtle approach is best. Though not too subtle, if you please. You will remind him of his promise, won’t you? You are riding out with him tomorrow.”

“Swidhelm did not make any promises, Wealtha. He plans to spend some time in York in the near future, and I’m sure a meeting with the solicitors will figure prominently on his agenda. He will discuss your settlements, among many other topics.”

“As long as he discusses them generously and soon. The next assembly approaches, and I would like the business concluded before then. My good fortune will be the envy of every lady in the shire.”

“You are already much envied, Wealtha. Now, if you don’t mind, I am tired, and I have for some reason agreed to get up at dawn tomorrow. You will be pleased to know that his lordship has acquired a pair of riding horses, one of them suited to carrying a lady aside. The mare’s name is Frigg, and she’s a very pretty bay.”

Wealtha’s smile became a grin. “He already bought me a horse? That is a very promising development.”

Ye presuming ponies. “He is buying the mare for the estate, probably as an afterthought to procuring a mount for himself. Both horses are here on a two-week trial. I will test Frigg’s paces tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll be available for both of us.” A bit petty, to insist like that, but Wealtha was smiling again, which suggested she’d tolerate a small dose of reality without flying into the boughs.

“Nonsense, Mabel. Dear Richard bought the mare for me, and he’s too polite to come right out and say that. You may certainly ride her tomorrow, and I wish you the joy of the outing. Please do let Richard know that I have a very nice seat, according to the riding master at Miss Gundridge’s. A rural upbringing must be good for something, must it not?”

“A rural upbringing is in many ways ideal.” Boring at times, but full of meaningful work and vastly preferable to what Mabel had glimpsed of Town life.

“You are such a spinster,” Wealtha said. “I mean that in the kindest way, of course. A good, dear spinster. You will remind Richard about my settlements between showing him the home farm and a thorough discourse on reddling the ewes. I know you will.”

She snatched Mabel in a quick cheek-to-cheek hug and swanned out the door.

“Unlike you, Wealtha,” Mabel said to the empty room, “I do not prepare thorough discourses on bucolic topics and rehearse them in my dressing closet.”

A sad image, particularly when Wealtha had had so few opportunities to air her speeches.

Mabel changed out of her Sunday-best dress, worn in honor of Swidhelm’s arrival, and took down her hair. She was no sort of beauty, but the face reflected in the mirror wasn’t hideous either. Wealtha would not like having a hideous cousin any more than she’d appreciate a cousin possessed of greater beauty than her own.

Swidhelm was shrewd enough to handle Wealtha, at least the Wealtha he’d met in his role as brother. A relief, that.

As Mabel plaited her hair, she regretted mentioning Wealtha’s settlements to him. He’d taken the disclosure in stride—Swidhelm apparently excelled at taking life in stride—and would doubtless add generously to the sum already allotted.

Which would solve nothing. By local standards, even by York standards, Wealtha was well dowered. She was pretty, healthy, from a good enough family, albeit one with a few regrettable skeletons in its closets.

She was envied by some, but Mabel well knew that, by most good folk, Wealtha was pitied. She was sincerely pitied, and if she knew or even suspected that to be the case, she’d go completely ’round the bend.

7

“You are seeing the Glen at its best.” Miss Fielding turned her mare into the wide expanse of the grassy park. “But then, I love it in any season. Winters are so bleak as to qualify as beautiful to my mind. You would not believe the brilliance of our winter sunsets. Autumn is golden and sweet, the summers exquisite, and in spring… You can appreciate spring for yourself.”

Richard appreciated that Amabel Fielding was a natural on horseback and the de facto land steward and house steward at Shepherd’s Glen. She knew old Erasmus Blackstock’s theories about breeding sheep and explained them to Richard with offhand expertise. She greeted the farmhands and dikers by name and reminded the latter to have a look at the wall along the path to the village.

Their ease with her confirmed Richard’s suspicions, though he was slower to realize that she was giving the outdoor employees a chance to look him over in a setting they’d find comfortable.

“The Glen is delightful,” Richard said. “Or what I’ve seen of it thus far has been, but I assume you are showing me the best parts first, lest I scamper off in a fit of the vapors.”

“Have you ever had a fit of the vapors?”

“Certainly not. Have you, Miss Fielding?”

He’d meant the question in fun, but she looked unaccountably serious at his query. “I have, and I do not recommend the experience. As for the Glen, you will find we are falling behind the times. The design of plows is constantly improving, but we have only older equipment on hand. We could easily sell that and buy the more modern versions.

“We should have better goats,” she went on, giving the mare a loose rein. “They can survive on less even than sheep and yield both milk and meat. The poorer families depend on them, but if we do not keep good breeding stock at the Glen, the local specimens become increasingly puny, the poorer children right along with them. The midwife has been after me for three years to buy some sizable nannies and a new billy.”

“Why the midwife?” Baldur tried for a bite of grass. Richard dissuaded him.

“Because if a human mother loses her milk or has insufficient milk, she can sometimes keep her baby thriving by substituting or adding goat’s milk. The solution is far from ideal and no guarantee of success, but the midwife keeps an eye on our goat herd nonetheless.”

“A connection I would never have made in a thousand years. Tell me, Miss Fielding, do we have time for a look at the Tuffington property?”

The hour was yet early. The mists were drifting from the streams, the birds were greeting the day in excellent voice, and the grass yet sparkled with dew. Miss Fielding had shown Richard the home farm, the primary bridle path through and along the home wood, and a few of the nearer tenant properties. The walled kitchen garden covered no less than five acres, and a second walled garden was designed to produce flowers, spices, and espaliered fruit.

All was in good trim. Summer would doubtless see the deadfall collected from the wood and a few ditches cleared, but on the whole, the Glen had been well cared for.

“You’d like to see The Oaks?” she asked. “It’s not far, though it was sold to a cit who mostly comes up from Town for the shooting. I doubt many refer to it as ‘the Tuffington property’ these days.”

“And my Tuffington relations?”

“None extant that I know of. Tuffington had but the two daughters, and either Marie or Orla was to marry a squire competent to take over the land. Papa Joseph was competent, but unfortunately expired too soon. Orla and Blackstock agreed to sell the place when your grandfather went to his reward, and most of the proceeds went to paying off debts. Orla says she put the rest of her portion toward Wealtha’s competence.”

What might Mama have done with half the proceeds of her father’s estate? If the money had been left in trust for her, Blackstock could not have touched it.

Miss Fielding steered her mare onto another bridle path that cut through the woods ringing three sides of the park. The manor house sat on its slight rise, as majestic when viewed from the back as from the front.

“Why would your step-mama use the funds to secure Wealtha’s future when Wealtha’s papa was on hand and more than competent to see to that task?” Richard half expected the question to be rebuffed, though he was nominally head of the Blackstock family now, and Miss Fielding was a member of the Glen’s household.

“I have a competence from my mother,” Miss Fielding said. “My Fielding relations took an interest in my situation, and it was felt that Wealtha was owed some show of family support too. That wall marks the boundary between the Taits’ tenancy and the Glen’s home farm.”

She nodded to the east, where a solid stone wall marched with the line of the trees.

As changes of subject went, that one was notably unsubtle. “The Taits have some lush pasture.”

“They will start to take the hay off it any day now. They are good farmers.” Miss Fielding fell silent as the horses picked their way along the leafy path.

“You received nothing from your step-mother as a result of the Tuffington sale,” Richard said. “I gather your Season in Mayfair was supposed to be the excuse for that inequity. Was the experience worth the price?” Another impertinent question, worse than the first for its presumption.

“If you must characterize Orla’s decision that way, then yes, the experience was worth the small amount of coin in question. I learned much while in London, while Wealtha, who longs to go, has no idea what an empty, lonely, wasteful ordeal she’s being spared.”

Miss Fielding’s reply was offered with studied calm. She nonetheless cued her mare into a canter and was four lengths ahead before Richard had the presence of mind to follow her. He’d no intention of being lost for twenty years in the Glen’s lovely forest, which was exactly what might befall him if he didn’t mind his tongue.

“I apologize,” he said when the horses were once again walking side by side, neither beast remotely winded. “I was left to puzzle much of life out for myself from an early age, and the habit yet stalks me. I did not mean to probe old wounds.”

“No apology needed, and no old wounds probed. We take the left turning.”

They were a quarter mile from a crossroads, though no sign indicated what lay in any direction.

“How much farther is The Oaks?”

“Less than a mile.”

He’d well and truly misstepped, and Miss Fielding was a liar. Her experiences in Town had been painful. The wound still bothered her.

“I came to hate London,” Richard said, apropos of nothing, save the frosty silence limning the sunny air. “You refer to it as an ‘ordeal,’ and the word fits. All that gaiety, most of it feigned, all that waste, while children begged in the streets and old soldiers died of starvation rather than beg. The place made me crazy.”

“You could have been one of those children?”

“Precisely, but for my mother’s ingenuity and hard work, but for my ducal family’s eventual willingness to acknowledge a likeness—and the irrefutable evidence of my father’s habits with the ladies. If I’d been born with the wrong nose and chin, if my mother had succumbed to pleurisy ten years earlier…”

Miss Fielding relaxed her reins. “Were you a lonely child?”

“I was a bewildered child and, yes, probably lonely. As the housekeeper’s son, I was an oddity. I wasn’t a servant myself, precisely, but neither was my mother a lady. A rural abode was surely the best place for a changeling such as myself. I had a decent education, and my prospects improved once my father took an interest in me.”

“How did your mother explain that?”

“I don’t know. An unexpected bequest is the logical lie. My mother kept much to herself, and that could drive me to distraction, too, if I let it.” Still did, truth be told, even as Richard understood her motives and the advantages of solo combat. “I am babbling. You will think me intemperate.”

Miss Fielding took the left turn. “I think you honest, and I know what it is to have questions that your mother cannot or will not answer. Do you have a likeness of her?”

The query was so insightful, so unexpected Richard nearly gaped. “I do. Not the best—I did it myself just before she fell ill. The duchess found a small portrait of my mother in some old trunk of Lord Jerome’s effects. It’s not very good, but I have that as well.”

“Good. Shall we let the horses stretch their legs again?” Miss Fielding was off at another brisk canter before Richard could ask if she had a likeness of her mother—her first mother, to use her words.

She brought the mare down to the walk at the top of a slight rise. “That’s The Oaks, where your mama and Orla grew up. I’ve always thought it a lovely manor.”

Half-timbered and whitewashed, like the Rooster, but much prettier for sitting in pastoral splendor rather than among a lot of gray granite shops. Maples on the hill behind the house were in the last, luminous stages of leafing out, while a quartet of majestic oaks, two on either side of the manor, created the perfect setting.

“Does the property prosper?” Why had Mama been so eager to leave this handsome home that she’d married a man who’d lost her loyalty in less than two years?

“The place is said to be solvent now. You are not to squander sentimental coin on its acquisition, my lord, not until you have put the Glen to rights.”

Miss Fielding was being stern with him, a vast improvement over her earlier chilly correctness.

“You need have no fear I will shirk any duty incumbent upon me regarding the Glen. I own property in Hampshire and have an unpretentious house in London. I reside from time to time in each place, and I still have a house in Porto as well. Those are residences, and I appreciate any roof that keeps me out of the wet.”

“But?”

“But I like the Glen.”

She waited.

Richard took the in-for-a-penny route. “The Glen is an impressive manor house and a gorgeous property, but it also has the feel of a home.”

Not his home, not yet, maybe not ever, but a home. The windows flanking the front door did not match—one was mullioned, one was not. An occasional panel of wainscoting had been replaced, and was lighter than its neighbors for being years, possibly centuries, younger than the boards to either side. The windows in the gallery had squeaked abominably because the staff was too geriatric to wrestle with the hinges.

That shepherdess on the parlor mantel had been positioned to hide a dent in the wood, where some footman had probably bashed the mantel with a poker when he’d slipped on the carpet before the hearth.

Shepherd’s Glen held stories, and provided shelter to living, breathing human beings.

Though, if Richard did choose to bide there, he could not imagine doing so without Miss Amabel Fielding in residence as well.

“Would you like a closer look at The Oaks?” she asked. “Your interest would be understandable, and I know some of the staff. Clementina started in service at The Oaks.”

Miss Fielding likely knew every employee on every neighboring property, including the pensioners. “Not today, but thank you. Today, it’s enough to lay eyes on the place and know my mother grew up in the shade of those venerable trees.”

Miss Fielding turned her mare around, and Richard did likewise with his gelding. They had navigated the crossroads and returned to the shaded track before she spoke again.

“Wealtha has allowed that you should use informal address with her.”

Wealtha apparently did a lot of allowing. “I know of no siblings who use formal address with one another when private.”

“If you are to refer to her as Wealtha and to Step-mama as Aunt Orla, then you had best refer to me as Mabel. I am some sort of family connection to you, and I am in company with Orla and Wealtha on most public occasions.”

Richard sat a little straighter in the saddle. “People would remark formal address for you, but informal address for Orla and Wealtha?”

“People remark everything, but yes. One does not want to be singled out.”

“Or judged for needless punctilio. I agree. You must call me Richard, though, to complete the syllogism.”

She sent him a fulminating look. “Very well. Richard.”

She made the utterance of his name into a puzzle. A test, a challenge, a concession, a gift.

This time, Richard got his horse moving first, and he heard a slight chuckle behind him as Miss Fielding—Mabel—cued her horse accordingly.

No, not Mabel. Amabel, because that was her name, and a lovely name it was too.

“In little over a week,” Wealtha said, “Richard has called on half a dozen neighbors, most of the tenants, and the vicar. He’s ridden out with McCafferty three mornings in a row and taken tea with Auntie in the afternoons. He loiters at the smithy with the local men and has even taken a turn with the market day cricket nonsense, but when will he meet with the solicitors?”

A version of this lament had been aired regularly for the past week, usually during the morning gathering in Step-mama’s sitting room. Today was apparently to be no different, though how and why did Wealtha keep such a close eye on her brother?

“His lordship is conscientious,” Mabel said, “and that can only be good for the Glen.” Swidhelm’s eagerness to dive into every aspect of the estate’s affairs was both a relief and disconcerting.

A relief because running the place overwhelmed Mabel’s capabilities and disconcerting because she enjoyed the challenge anyway—most days.

Wealtha’s chin came up. “The Glen,” she spat, “should have been mine. The Glen can rot, for all I care. The Glen is a drafty old house and a clutch of farms, with a perishing lot of smelly, bleating sheep. I am a grown woman who should be getting on with my life, but I cannot because my brother is too busy playing yeoman farmer.”

Orla, serenely perched on the love seat, knitted along at a placid pace. “Your haste does you no credit, Wealtha. His lordship’s preoccupation with estate matters will fade once he’s asserted himself appropriately. He will look in on the solicitors, put your settlements to rights, and return to the more refined entertainments available in Town. Cease troubling yourself.”

For Orla, that was the next thing to a harangue.

“He will not return to Town,” Wealtha said. “He will stay for the shooting, and then there’s harvest, and then it’s too miserable to travel all the way to Town, and he will adore our quaint Yuletide nonsense, but he will never see my settlements increased.”

Mabel gathered up the tea things and set the tray outside the sitting room door. “His lordship has businesses in Portugal and on Madeira. Who would spend winter here in Yorkshire when those lovely options were available? He has half-siblings in the south, including a half-brother he met only recently. Step-mama is right that his lordship has many reasons to conclude his activities at the Glen and return to London.”

Mabel wasn’t sure how she felt about that prospect. Swidhelm was just plain good company. He came to his own conclusions after thorough analysis of a situation, brought a fresh eye to matters at the Glen, and could poke fun at himself.

He was patient with the churchyard interrogations, respectful of the elders, and making a real effort to learn the local dialect. He’d asked Mabel to translate delf, slack, and gimmers—quarry, low ground, and ewes after their first shearing but before the second—and he rode with a relaxed confidence the equal of any born-and-bred squire.

“Richard might well return to Town,” Wealtha said, “but he’ll do so without sparing me a farthing. What sort of brother ignores his sister in need?”

Orla sent Mabel a look, half humorous, half exasperated. “I’ll have a word with him, Wealtha. Your settlements are sufficient, but his lordship, I’m sure, will want to put his imprimatur on them as well. Have you finished with your new bonnet?”

Orla had procured this extravagance through the mails after Wealtha had admired the style in some fashion magazine. Periodic largesse by post was critical to keeping Wealtha’s spirits up, or so Orla insisted.

“I’m debating the ribbons. Mrs. Veater said she’d have some new ones from York by today, and I wanted to wait to see the new colors.”

If anything could deflect Wealtha from her preoccupation with settlements, it was the extravagance of a new bonnet, the first such acquisition since the winter holidays.

“Take the mare into the village,” Mabel suggested. “It’s a fine morning for a hack, and you might see some embroidery thread that will go well with your habit. We can put a new border on the hems this winter.”

“You can,” Wealtha said, rising. “I refuse to ruin my eyes with that sort of close work. I believe I will take Frigg. She does better with regular exercise, and I have been a negligent owner in that regard.”

Wealtha flounced from the room, and a quiet descended, like the peace when a storm had moved off over the hills.

“She’s not wrong to be concerned,” Orla said, finishing a row. “Swidhelm has been underfoot long enough to have a sense of how the Glen is faring. He ought to be calling on the solicitors, putting the fear of lordly ire in them, and rattling back to Town.”

“And if he intends to live here?”

“He’d best not. Wealtha resents being overshadowed by her titled brother. For as long as he’s a novelty whom she can show off, she’ll tolerate him well enough, but to have him in residence would not serve.”

“He owns the place.” Or he would when Chancery, the lawyers, probably Parliament, and a few of the lower angels finished dithering over Papa Blackstock’s estate.

“And Wealtha is correct again that he should not have inherited the Glen. She is Abernathy Blackstock’s daughter, his sole legitimate issue, and thus she should have inherited. I know the usual manner of such bequests to a daughter requires trusts and trustees, which Abernathy could easily have organized. He was careless in his arrangements, and Wealtha is paying the price.”

Wealtha, Wealtha, Wealtha. Mabel had long since ceded her own place in the household hierarchy, but didn’t Richard deserve some consideration?

“Wealtha is not legitimate,” Mabel said, “is she? The law takes note of such details.” And thus, in the usual course, Wealtha could not displace a legitimate heir. Even a specific bequest or trust would have required a lot of explicit language in Papa Blackstock’s will.

Step-mama put her knitting back into her workbasket. “The situation is, at best, complicated, and for that, I blame your dear late papa. If he’d kept my confidences, we would have no Lord Swidhelm galloping about the countryside, Wealtha would be an heiress, and you could contentedly weed your garden for all the rest of your days.”

Surely a weed-free garden counted as the sum of any self-respecting spinster’s ambitions. “Papa Joseph knew of Swidhelm’s existence?”

“In a general sense, and he knew that Marie was quite alive when Abernathy began courting his second wife. We quarreled bitterly about who was owed which truths. When Joseph learned that Abernathy had had Marie declared dead, he finally ceased his fretting. The courts had spoken, and Joseph Fielding would not gainsay them on the strength of a few old letters.”

A note of contempt for Papa Joseph colored that observation, which struck Mabel as hypocritical. Step-mama had wanted Joseph to keep his mouth shut. He’d kept his mouth shut—as far as Orla knew—and for this, she disrespected him?

Mabel had loved her father, partly because he’d been more concerned with principle than personal convenience. If he’d thought it dishonorable to keep secrets from Abernathy Blackstock, he’d have simply spoken his piece to Marie’s husband, and to blazes with Orla’s quibbling.

“Such a sad, tangled history,” Mabel said, selecting a lemon biscuit from a dish she’d neglected to carry out with the tray. “I am glad Swidhelm has taken an interest in the Glen.”

Orla rose and drew the drapes against the morning sun. “He’s not interested in the Glen, Mabel Fielding. Well, not primarily in the Glen.”

“If his current industry is indicative of lack of interest, then I cannot imagine how he behaves when fascinated.”

Swidhelm apparently needed little sleep. He was out with the steward at first light and poring over ledgers until the still watches of night. His correspondence grew by the day, both incoming and outgoing, and several trunks had arrived from his London address.

York merchants were making regular deliveries—wines, spices, cloth, all manner of tools, and two new plows among them. Yesterday, a crate of books had arrived, much to Wealtha’s ire and Mabel’s delight.

“Mabel, his lordship is fascinated—with you.” Orla moved around the room, adjusting drapes, rearranging the irises on the sideboard, and smoothing a finger down the mantel.

“I beg your pardon?”

“He is a man in the grip of an infatuation. He hides it well, but I see how he looks at you over supper and how he truly listens to what you say when he asks you a question.”

Orla was being ridiculous. A rare occurrence, but when she took an odd notion, she could cherish it as fiercely as Wealtha cherished her collection of bonnets.

“Why ask a question if one doesn’t intend to listen to the answer?”

“In Swidhelm’s case, he asks because he enjoys knowing how your mind works. He likes to hear the sound of your voice, even though you have never quite lost your rustic accent. He is putting the Glen to rights for you.”

As odd notions went, Orla was outpacing even Wealtha’s grander delusions. “Step-mama, I fear you are in error. Swidhelm is conscientious by nature. His upbringing was complicated by awkwardness and secrets, then by outright scandal. He’s determined that his own affairs remain orderly and above reproach.”

“How prettily you protest and how sincerely. I am relieved you do not return his interest, Mabel, for he has put you in an awkward situation.”

Mabel would dislike Step-mama’s next conclusion. “Awkward in what regard, ma’am?”

“He must not offer for you, of course. He’s a new peer and a man of means. If he moves in Town circles, and his connection to the Glen becomes known, then sooner or later, somebody will recall that Fielding girl from Yorkshire who made such a dreadful cake of herself not so many years ago. A man in thrall to proper conduct would be horrified at the news of your social failings in the very society must now accept him as a peer.”

Mabel’s past was always mentioned gently and indirectly, and yet, the memories stung all the harder for Orla’s pretended delicacy.

“Richard has made absolutely no indication to me that he holds me in any special affection. You are building castles in Spain, ma’am.”

“I hope I’m wrong, because if he’s harboring a tendresse for you, you must dissuade him, Mabel. For your own sake—his overtures could end only in mortification for you—and for Wealtha’s sake as well. The sooner Richard leaves us in peace, the happier she will be.”

What about for Richard’s sake? Every day he spent at the Glen, he seemed more relaxed and at home.

“I will consider your counsel, though I maintain that Swidhelm’s presence at the Glen bespeaks the actions of a conscientious new peer and not some passing infatuation for the Glen’s resident spinster. If you’ll excuse me, it’s menu day, and Cook frets if I’m tardy to the discussion. She’s determined to achieve Mayfair standards while his lordship bides here.”

“Mind your step, Mabel. You call him Richard. He calls you Mabel. You have caught his fancy, and the past cannot be undone. At the very least, you must discourage him from prying into family history—his own as well as yours—and help us to focus his sights on a return to Town. His poking about here can do little good now that he’s shown the colors, and he’s a source of constant upset to Wealtha.”

Mabel’s past was not to be mentioned, but neither could it be allowed to rest, of course.

“I like him,” Mabel said. “I respect him, and I do call him Richard, as do you and Wealtha. He pointed out to me the awkwardness that would result if I alone in the household insisted on formal address.” A slight twist on the sequence of events.

Mabel rose rather than indulge in further remonstrations, which would serve no purpose. “I hope you plan to join us at the assembly, ma’am. Whatever else is true, you seem to be faring a little better for having met his lordship at long last.”

“I must not overdo,” Orla replied, “but I would love to see Wealtha on the dance floor. I’ll consider attending, provided I can make an early evening of it.”

“We will both make an early evening of it.”

Mabel withdrew, holding her temper on a short leash. Orla usually came down to supper, but other than that, she’d had little enough interaction with her long-lost nephew. She was always agreeable to him, provided he avoided the topic of family history.

Richard was not smitten with Mabel, though he did appear to be growing attached to the Glen. Mabel was a little smitten with him, which she attributed to two factors. First, she was a spinster with too little experience of men and the world. This had precipitated her downfall in Mayfair, and though she was older and wiser, she was still… susceptible.

She knew this about herself and could manage accordingly.

The second factor that fueled Richard’s attractiveness was the man himself. He was a gem and a gentleman, and any woman of sense would be drawn to him. He liked hard work, though he was never too serious, and he was no high stickler.

That he was a fine, healthy specimen of masculinity was no bad thing either.

More importantly, she liked him. She a-little-bit-more-than-liked him and intended to enjoy the novelty of the attraction without allowing any disastrous attachments. He would in all probability head back south long before winter, and then Orla and Wealtha could bask in the newfound cachet of their connection to him and to his resources.

As plans went, that would do. And Orla was wrong about something else: When Richard used familiar address, he did not call her Mabel. He called her Amabel, and to blazes with being modern and sensible.

8

“Iam procrastinating,” Richard said as he and Amabel strolled the path around the upper mill pond. The mill itself was a quarter mile downstream, with a second pond below the wheel. All well maintained, though in spring, the mill and its surrounds were deserted.

“I should be in the library,” Richard went on, “replying to a letter from my brother.” Bernard was enthralled with his new wife, enthralled with the joys of fatherhood, and just generally—touchingly—enthralled. How did one reply to that?

“You have much to see to,” Amabel said. “Don’t begrudge yourself a little fresh air at the end of the day. I thought we were all keeping up fairly well with the estate business, but you put us to the blush. We should have been seeding more clover, selling our extra eggs in York, and hiring a wheelwright before planting, plowing, and harvest.”

She was the same Amabel he’d been introduced to a tired lifetime ago, but in the evening light, her hair had highlights of copper and gold, and her stride lacked the purposeful march she adopted at earlier hours.

“None of those adjustments were urgent,” Richard said as they approached a plank bench that looked out over the pond. “Might we sit?” Anything to put off the evening’s library chores and anything to spend another quarter hour with a woman whom Richard was coming to esteem as much as he liked.

“Of course we can sit a moment. I love to watch the dragonflies. Fairies should fly as nimbly.”

“Perhaps they do.” Richard offered his hand as a polite gesture. He wanted to keep hold of her hand when she’d settled on the bench, though.

Too much Yorkshire sunshine and fresh air. Too short a leap from liking and esteem to desire. He took the place beside her and blamed the fresh air for the lack of a foot of space between them.

“I am also putting off my trip into York,” Richard said. “Please scold me for being a coward.”

“You are not a coward.”

“Lazy, then.”

“Not on your most indolent day could you be called lazy, sir. Why have you delayed the meeting in York?”

Dreaded it, more like. “The ledgers are off.”

“The ledgers the solicitors sent out from York?”

“The very ledgers I sent Kepler into York to retrieve, without notice or explanation to the solicitors. The household allowance you’ve been managing on has been overstated, for example. The sum remitted to you is less than the sum recorded in the accounts.”

By half. Not tuppence here or there, not a few pounds each quarter. Half.

“I knew it. Scoundrels, the lot of them.”

“I can respect a competent scoundrel, but to make free with a sum that is so easily investigated suggests these scoundrels are the dull-witted variety.”

The evening was lovely to the point of melancholy, as only a mild spring evening could be. The quiet around the pond was the profound peace of the countryside as winter’s deprivations were cast off for the abundance and optimism of the new growing season.

A calf bawled in the distance for its mama, the birds twittered, and a quiet splash suggested a frog taking to the water.

I could love this place. Wilder than Hampshire and more distant from London, moodier than northern Portugal or sunny Madeira. The views were not merely pretty, they were striking.

Amabel smoothed a hand over her practical brown skirts. “The solicitors hoped you’d never learn of your inheritance, if you even existed. Orla had never met you, Marie had mentioned you in only one or two letters, and Marie was no longer extant. I gather the lawyers did not look very hard for you.”

“I changed my name, and neither my original nor my new name had anything to do with my maternal origins. You are doubtless correct that the solicitors presumed I was dead or had emigrated to unknown parts. They have been both lazy and greedy. Still, one does not confront malefactors without a battle plan and all the evidence.”

“How did Kepler get the books?”

“That part was easy. I told him to present my letter to the head clerk, express a need for haste, and explain that the solicitors were expecting the request and should have all the books in order. The ledgers were handed over without a qualm.”

“And you’ve been studying them ever since.”

“Intermittently.” Mostly, Richard had been spending his evenings in the library, trying to grasp that every volume on the shelves was his and wondering which of them Amabel had read and which she had read and enjoyed.

“More procrastination?”

“Yes. I also put off calling on Mr. Whidman, and now he’s off to Carlisle to spoil his first great-grandson.”

“What of Granny Wexler?”

“A daughter’s lying-in drew her to Alnwick.” She’d return soon, though. So would Whidman.

Amabel patted his knee. “You have been diligent about what matters to you. Be patient, and while you wait for the elders to come home, nip into York. The solicitors have likely packed up, bag and baggage, because they fear for their liberty.”

“Embezzling could see them hanged. I don’t want that on my conscience. The estate has managed adequately, thanks to your good offices. Through St. Didier’s efforts, I have been located and am enjoying my inheritance.”

And that was a surprise. Despite the frustration of unanswered questions about the past, Richard was enjoying the challenge of taking an estate in hand.

He enjoyed as well discussing any and every aspect of that process with Amabel.

“St. Didier was actually my idea,” she said. “Last year, the Lorne barony—fifteen miles to the northwest—was inherited by a younger son, and St. Didier had something to do with encouraging the heir to take up the reins. Our vicar at St. Bevan’s passed along some details, because he knew the man I presume to be your half-brother. I discussed the matter with Orla, who eventually agreed with me. Wealtha was hoping we’d have you declared dead instead.”

“In the family tradition, no doubt, leaving her to inherit.” Possibly. She was arguably illegitimate, though, which presented legal complications the solicitors would have delighted in exploiting.

Such a beautiful evening and such a mundane, tiresome topic. The urge to reach for Amabel’s hand was nigh overpowering. She had kept the Glen together. Every tenant referred to Miss Mabel’s suggestions with respect. Every gardener mentioned her designs with approval. The dairymaids solemnly reported that if not for Miss Mabel insisting on some heifers freshening in autumn, the winter would be devoid of butter and cream.

No worse fate could befall a Yorkshire household, and so forth.

“Wealtha might have inherited,” Amabel said. “I am relieved she did not. She has no head for numbers, and she could have been charmed by a fortune hunter if she’d brought a prize like the Glen to the altar.”

“Were you charmed by a fortune hunter?” The question had been bothering Richard for days, though he’d not planned to ask it, ever. Something about that long-ago London Season had left a lasting mark on Amabel’s heart, probably something wearing breeches and a winsome smile.

“Orla says you are too much occupied by the past,” Amabel replied quietly. “She has known much loss and disappointment in life. No children of her own, a husband who did not provide as well as she’d hoped, widowhood with me on her hands, Wealtha all but thrust upon her, and now she’s ill. When you bring up the topic of her disgraced sister, she recoils. One’s past should be private.”

Richard did not want Amabel recoiling from him. “Aunt Orla has made it quite plain that I am not to pry. I grasp the futility of even trying to get answers from her, but I do not understand why she denies me what she alone could give. My own past is being kept private from me. I want to understand what drove my mother to view scandal as preferable to a solid marriage.”

“You want answers, and that’s understandable, while Orla wants peace. I comprehend her desire and share it. My time in London was brief, but it taught me that I am much better off dwelling in rustic obscurity. I have learned to be not merely content, but happy with my lot.”

“I envy you that.” Though her happiness was a carefully constructed edifice when it should have had something of nature’s exuberance about it, not that Richard was any expert on varieties of joy.

She nudged him with an elbow. “You have chosen a similar path, my lord. You might well have done as so many fashionable young fellows do and racketed about London from allowance to allowance, living beyond your means, sustaining yourself on buffets and Venetian breakfasts while eluding the creditors and bamboozling the matchmakers. Your paternal connections are ducal, and you’d have been tolerated. You instead made something of yourself.”

She had been to London, and she’d paid attention to the details of the spectacle.

“I could have been that bachelor invited to make up numbers, the fourth at whist. The young man who was never obviously inebriated and seldom sober. His Grace of Chanderton would not have let me starve, and I was determined to take out my resentments on the world. Fate intervened when a friend pointed out that in my profligacy, I offered a credible imitation of my own spoiled, heedless father, minus the courtesy title and personal fortune.”

“Ouch.”

“I licked my wounds all the way to Portugal, and my friend helped get my business ventures off on sound footing. She’s Scottish and has an instinct for sound commerce.” She had also recently acquired better luck with husbands, if Bernard’s letters were to be believed.

“You took business advice from a woman?”

“Smartest decision I ever made, and that friend is now married to my half-brother.” Richard considered circling back to Amabel’s unfortunate experiences in Mayfair but dissuaded himself. The topic upset her. “What should I do with the solicitors?”

“You are asking me?”

“I’m not about to ask Wealtha. She will add the offense of my equivocation to the great list of injustices she’s suffered all while she has amassed an embarrassment of bonnets, slippers, cloaks, parasols, reticules, and other folderol. She thanked me for buying her the mare, and I had to explain that the horse was not hers, but she was certainly welcome to ride the beast.”

“You were naughty.”

“I was honest. Being her brother does not mean I impersonate an overly indulgent nursemaid.”

“Good for you, but go carefully, please. When Wealtha is unhappy, the whole shire can suffer as a result.”

When Wealtha was unhappy, Amabel likely bore the brunt of her step-cousin’s displeasure. “Perhaps we should send her to London after all.”

Amabel rose. “Do not even jest about that, please. If anybody should uncover the fact of her questionable legitimacy, she would be torn to shreds. Some highly placed people in Town delight in inflicting such misery on the unsuspecting, and Wealtha would never recover.”

Richard stood as well, a bit stiffly. Long days, short nights, troubled sleep. “You are right, of course, but what does it say about me as a brother that I avoid my sister’s company?”

“It says you are typical of many brothers.” She gazed out over the pond, her expression wistful. “I know when I’m weeding that Wealtha won’t disturb me for anything less than a French invasion. You will note the back garden is quite tidy. Has Orla asked you to increase Wealtha’s settlements?”

“Indirectly, but I don’t know the details of those settlements, so my response was equally indirect. I thought I’d have my meeting with the solicitors, glean from them all I can, then thank them for their hard work through the years of the estate’s intestacy and send them on their way.”

“Unpunished and unlamented?”

“For now.” Richard offered her his arm, which was only polite.

Amabel curled her hand around his elbow. “I see. And when they believe they have concluded their spree of embezzling unscathed, they will find other clients discharging them with similar courtesy, no new business walking in the door, and every client they do keep scrutinizing their work with painful care. I like this plan, my lord.”

“I am in trade, though I must now pretend I’m not. Nobody wins if a matter deteriorates into litigation. Better to let the opinion of the marketplace pass judgment and render sentence.” This little chat by the pond had eased his reluctance to sack the solicitors, and his relief was disproportionate to the task. “Thank you for listening. My thoughts are clearer for being aired.”

Amabel started them moving toward the path. “You listen to me too.”

Richard risked patting the hand she’d wrapped over his sleeve. “I always will.”

“It means a lot, that you listen to me.”

She had taught him much in a short time, about the Glen, about estate management, and about where his future might lie.

“Everybody listens to you, Amabel, from the potboy to the butler to the head gardener and the goatherd. The neighbors sing your praises, and even MacNulty at the livery allows that you are a fine, bonnie lassie with a ‘guid heid upon yer shawders.’”

Richard’s recitation inspired her shy smile, the one he’d seen in his dreams and even tried to sketch. The one that added a sparkle to her eyes and a softness to her gaze.

“Amabel?”

“You flatter me. I know it means nothing. You mustn’t make a habit of it.”

He vowed to present her with at least three compliments a day. “I mean every word, from the bottom of my heart.”

And then, with a hand to the warmth of her nape and looking her in the eye for a moment so she would not mistake his intent, he bent his head and kissed her.

Oh, to be kissed. To be gently, sweetly, and by stealthy degrees passionately kissed. Mabel had left Mayfair certain such kisses existed only in a schoolgirl’s imaginings.

Richard was unhurried, even leisurely as he brushed a thumb over her cheek and wrapped an arm around her waist. The request to bundle closer was wordless and irresistible. Mabel tucked into his warmth and winnowed her fingers through his hair.

Later, she’d lecture herself about poor judgment, risky behavior, and men being helpless to manage their humors. Later, she’d wish and regret and wish some more.

In that golden, magical moment, she kissed Richard back, feeling him smile when she took a grip of his hair. That smile was enough to send desire singing through her and to silence caution’s futile warnings.

When Mabel would have begun her advances in earnest, Richard eased away.

“A moment,” he said. “Anybody could come whistling up the path. I apologize for that.”

“Don’t you dare apologize for kissing me, Swidhelm. I kissed you too.”

He tucked a loose curl behind Mabel’s ear. She smoothed her hands through his hair in retaliation, though he looked frustratingly tidy.

“Do not, I pray you, regard me thus,” he said. “I cannot tell if you are plotting my ravishment or preparing to explain to me that I made a hash of what was meant to be a pleasurable overture.”

“You did not make a hash of it.”

“Pleased to hear it.” When he scowled like that, he was too alluring for words.

Mabel tried to scowl, too, and failed entirely. Her attempts at retaliation were doomed to failure, it seemed.

“What was that kiss an overture to?” She regretted the question as he gazed off past her shoulder, his expression turning to puzzlement.

“That’s for us to say.” He made no further move to touch her. “For you to say. If I have given⁠—”

She poked him in the belly, which was like poking seasoned oak. “None of that. I am not offended. Ambushed—you excel at the art of the ambush. Not offended.” Bewildered, flummoxed, and delighted, but not offended.

Ye bleating nanny goats. Orla had been right. Partly right, anyway.

“I am pleased,” Richard said, “that I can surprise you in any regard, but your expression is more thunderous than sanguine.”

Habit would have had Mabel charging back to the manor while the light lasted—the weeds never rested, and she needed time to reassemble her dignity—but she could not make her feet move.

“Orla says we will not suit.” Said they must not suit, and in that, she was also, blast and perdition, right.

“For a woman who incessantly tells me to mind my own business, Aunt Orla has been very presuming. You and I just kissed for the first time. Questions of suitability lie far outside Orla Fielding’s purview.”

Such sternness. That ferocity had lurked below Richard’s surface, kept carefully out of sight. Mabel was glad to know it could rise when appropriate.

Rise. A fraught word choice. “I agree that Orla speculated unnecessarily. She has little else to do, though, and Wealtha constantly tries her patience.”

Mabel did not want to discuss Orla and Wealtha and their capacity for vexing behaviors. She wanted to resume kissing Richard, and she wanted to go back to the pond and sit in the quiet until darkness fell.

What are you doing, Mabel Fielding?

“Let us return to the house before our prolonged absence is remarked,” Richard said. “We have had a pleasant ramble after supper, as has become our occasional habit. I’ll send to York for some sizable young nanny goats of a dairy persuasion, and you will promise to dance the waltz with me at the assembly.”

“I haven’t waltzed in years, and I doubt one will even be on the program. A half-dozen nannies will do.”

Richard had returned them to the firm footing of their usual conversations. Animal husbandry, village affairs, anything but kisses and warm embraces and crossed lines. Mabel was grateful for the respite and resentful of the retreat.

He went on to inquire regarding local swains who might stand up with Wealtha at the assembly and whether Orla had any admirers.

Mabel picked up her pace as the path opened out into the stable yard. “Orla? She’s… She’s a widow. She’s ill. She’s been preoccupied with looking after Wealtha. I can’t imagine Orla would leave the Glen, particularly not when Wealtha has yet to find a match.” The question disconcerted for reasons Mabel could not clearly identify.

“Wealtha is arguably an Honorable now,” Richard replied. “I’ve asked the appropriate authorities to see that she is extended the courtesy. Will her change in status improve or defeat her chances of a local match?”

“Improve, whether or not the honorific is granted. By association with you and your title, she can look higher and look further afield. Take her with you into York, let her buy out the shops. Word will travel.” Further afield in particular would benefit Wealtha’s prospects, the local eligibles all having thus far failed to come up to scratch.

“I will take her with me into York if and only if you accompany us and do some shopping of your own.”

Mabel marched along the walkway leading to the back garden. “I have very limited means, sir, and my wardrobe suits me adequately.” No means at all, really, when it came to ready cash.

“You have been the unpaid steward of the land, the house, the village, and your step-mother and step-cousin. Allow me, in a token gesture of appreciation, to include your expenses in those I cover for the household, as I will Orla’s and Wealtha’s.”

The sternness was politely in evidence. “I can’t let you buy me… items of value.”

“Because I kissed you?”

“We kissed each other.”

“Barrister.” His smile took the sting out of the accusation. “Are you refusing my token of appreciation because we kissed each other?”

“No.”

He cocked his head.

Well, yes. A little. “You cannot pay my expenses because nobody buys me anything. I manage on the household pin money, the better to safeguard my competence. I make my clothing, and that suffices. I have no need of finery.” She had every reason to distrust where finery and flirtation led, and yet, Mabel had kissed him back and wanted to kiss him again.

More than kiss him.

“Then allow me,” Richard said, “to subsidize the purchase of some fabric that you will enjoy making into new frocks.” He glanced up the path at the house. “Please. I will beg, pester, and importune you to grant me this boon.”

Wretched man. Nobody begged Mabel for anything either. Wealtha frequently wheedled. Not the same thing at all. “Very well. A few yards of this and that.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t sound so smug, my lord. I might make you up a new frock coat.”

“I’d like that, provided you measured me very carefully before taking your shears to the fabric. I favor sober colors and lightweight fabrics. Easier to move about. And no padding, please.”

He needed no padding. “You must not tease me like that.”

“You take no offense at a stolen kiss, but you forbid a little harmless verbal repartee.”

“You were flirting. I am being ridiculous.” They had reached the garden path, and try as she might, in the lengthening shadows Mabel could spot not a single weed in need of yanking.

“You were ambushed,” Richard said gently. “You do not care for ambushes. It won’t happen again. I did not announce my intentions for fear they’d be rejected on a laugh.”

And that admission was another ambush, designed to ensnare trust and acceptance.

Mabel flailed about for sensible words even if she could not find any sensible thoughts. “I have no wish to be ambushed or courted, Richard. Please believe that. Your kisses are delightful, as kisses are meant to be. An adult woman of independent means who knows her own mind should be allowed her discreet indulgences, and I certainly qualify.”

If a hoarded pittance could be called independent means. If a lady in a complete muddle could be described as knowing her own mind.

His expression was perplexed and patient. “What are you not saying, Amabel?”

She looked down at her sensible brown skirts, her sensible hands, and her sensible boots. She considered the tidy garden, not a weed in sight. She considered the months and years and decades to come, living in a household where she had no blood ties or, if she was lucky, living in dignified, solitudinous poverty.

“We cannot court,” she said very quietly. “We can dally.”

The patience and puzzlement resolved into a tenderness Mabel could hardly bear to behold.

“I have never dallied before, Amabel. I’m no innocent, but neither have I been a dallier.”

“We’ll hope for beginner’s luck, then.” Stupid thing to say, but to push him away, to deny herself even more kisses while he yet bided at the Glen, would have been an altogether different and worse sort of folly.

“If those are your terms, Amabel, I accept them—for now. Shall we plan our excursion to York for the day after tomorrow?”

To blazes with blasted York. “That will suit.” Mabel started up the terrace steps, a delicious sense of boldness warring with the certainty that she’d just committed an act of foolishness greater even than her worst Mayfair mistakes.

Which said a great deal, all of it troubling.

Mabel had yielded to impulse, to yearning, and to pleasures of the flesh. She’d yielded to Richard, and if she was to have regrets, she’d rather regret a few weeks of shared dalliance than regret that she’d beat retreat after one tantalizing kiss.

Or so she told herself when sleep proved elusive and even counting sheep would not bring slumber nigh.

9

St. Didier looked exactly the same as he had when Richard had met him in Mayfair weeks ago. Tidy, at ease, unreadable, despite traveling for hundreds of miles in a bouncing coach over dusty tracks qualifying as roads solely by virtue of euphemism.

“Cook’s lemonade is not to be trusted,” Richard said, “but I can offer you sangria, tea, a good summer ale, or something stronger.”

“Sangria appeals,” St. Didier replied, “and I hope you will also offer me your thoughts on the state of the Glen generally. The place looks to be thriving.”

In the strong midday sun beaming down on the side terrace, St. Didier showed a hint of fatigue about his eyes. Only a hint.

“The Glen has been well managed over the past few years by Miss Amabel Fielding, though everybody acknowledges that the steward is a conscientious sort too. He is, and he takes every word from Miss Fielding’s mouth as agrarian gospel. The solicitors, however, will have much to answer for when I call on them tomorrow.”

St. Didier bent to sniff a white rose. “Might I accompany you?”

“For what purpose?”

“I have broad tastes in entertainment. I can also play the part of your vaguely menacing associate if called upon to do so.”

“You’d be my bully boy?” Having been bullied, Richard disliked the concept of professional intimidation. His handling of crooked solicitors had always been a matter of solo combat previously, just as his skirmishes with Mayfair hostesses had been. “I am quite prepared to deal with them on my own.”

Did St. Didier think he lacked that ability?

“I will be your stern witness, then. Always prudent to have one or two of those on hand. Your roses will soon be in their glory.”

And St. Didier had changed the subject before Richard refused him permission to tag along. “Miss Fielding is the de facto head gardener. I, and the other residents of the Glen, owe her much.”

St. Didier slanted a look at Richard. “You are residing here now?”

Richard hardly knew how to answer and was saved an immediate reply by the arrival of the first footman.

“Sangria for our guest, Hew,” Richard said. “And some sandwiches and pastries, if Cook can manage it. Should the ladies return from the village, please inform them Mr. St. Didier and I are enjoying the fresh air on the side terrace.”

“Very good, my lord.” The footman bowed and retreated.

“Hew?” St. Didier brushed a finger over a pink rosebud. “Not John or William or Henry?”

“Why take for a house name the moniker of a dead king when one has a more than adequate name of one’s own?”

“And you know his name, though you’ve been here less than a fortnight. How are you getting on with the ladies?”

For a newly arrived guest, St. Didier was doing a fine impersonation of an inquisitive godmother.

“Let’s have a seat. I prefer the table in the shade.” Richard crossed the flagstones and waited for St. Didier to amble in his wake. Definitely a hint of fatigue in the man’s stride too.

“You ask after the ladies,” Richard said, waiting for his guest to take a seat, then doing likewise. “Aunt Orla looks well enough, but I have nothing to compare her present appearance to. She keeps mostly to her rooms, which are notably well appointed and pleasant. She does go to divine services, and she joins the household for supper. She has been gracious and welcoming, up to a point.”

“You arguably disinherited Wealtha. Orla is very fond of Wealtha. A certain coolness might be expected.”

“True enough, but Orla isn’t cool, exactly. She’s cordial, provided I do not attempt to pry into the past or bring up my mother’s name.” Richard’s aunt was tolerating him. A disquieting thought.

“You came here expressly intent on investigating the past. If Orla is disobliging, why stay?”

Because the Glen felt like a home and felt increasingly like Richard’s home. Because Amabel Fielding bided at the Glen, and Richard hoped she regarded the estate as her home. Because Orla could not erase the memories of every elder in the shire.

“I am the legal owner of the property,” Richard said. “As such, I have work to do here, solicitors to sack, crops to plant, hay to bring in. I even have guests to entertain. A note of warning: Make it plain to Wealtha that you eschew blood sports, or she’ll regale you with a lecture on the black grouse that goes on forever.”

“Spoken like a brother.”

The sandwiches and punch arrived before Richard could confess that he did not feel much fraternal affection for Wealtha. She was pretty, indulged if not spoiled, and a burden to Amabel in ways Richard did not entirely fathom.

“I’m to increase Wealtha’s settlements,” he said, “if I know what’s good for me.” He poured two glasses of cold, fruity wine punch. “I cannot evict her—she is the daughter of the late owner—and that reduces my available options to seeing her married off.”

St. Didier lifted his glass. “Is that a warning?”

“She’d count your teeth first and then acquaint herself with your prospects in detail, provided you passed the initial test. Wealtha can appear featherbrained, but she is very determined on her own ends.”

Though what, exactly, those ends were, Richard had yet to divine. Bonnets had something to do with her aims, and ribbons, and an excellent riding horse. So did ascending to a higher station in life and avoiding any hard work that did not aid that climb.

The sangria was good. Just sweet enough, cool without being shockingly cold, the citrus and the wine blending nicely. Not a hint of ginger.

“If you don’t care for your relations here,” St. Didier said, “and Miss Fielding has the estate in hand, why tarry?”

Richard held out the tray of sandwiches. “Because I am entertaining the notion that Miss Fielding should take me in hand.” St. Didier would have arrived at this topic through indirection and innuendo. He certainly hadn’t endured a forced march northward just to watch Richard harangue the lawyers.

To blazes with dithering. Richard preferred to deal with the honest, if uncomfortable, truth, even if it was none of St. Didier’s ruddy business.

St. Didier took his time selecting three half sandwiches of ham and the local yellow cheese.

“What does Miss Fielding think of your precipitous approach to wooing?”

“The notion is not precipitous on my end, though she is understandably cautious.”

St. Didier sipped his drink, considered the appearance of the glass, and studied the rose border.

Very well. Best get it over with. “Couples in Mayfair,” Richard said, “become engaged after dancing together on three occasions and going out for a couple of rides in an open carriage. Miss Fielding and I have shared many meals, walked and ridden in each other’s company by the hour, and discussed topics proper society considers unfit for polite conversation.”

St. Didier set down his glass. “Is a beating in order?”

He’d be fast, but he’d not know the dirty pugilistic tricks Richard had learned of necessity.

“Topics such as which bull calf should be left intact, which should be gelded. How many nannies the best billy can service without losing his enthusiasm for the job.”

“A formidable farmer, Miss Fielding.”

“A formidable lady.” Who had been sent to Mayfair without a finishing school preparation, who had been treated ill somehow on that same journey, though, in fairness, most honest people would liken a Season in Mayfair to a social gauntlet rather than a dream come true.

“One assumes your intentions are honorable.” The very casualness of the statement promised pistols at dawn in the absence of an affirmative reply.

“Miss Fielding intends to amuse herself with me. My aspirations, which are, of course, honorable, might not signify.” Richard had tossed away half the night revisiting their post-kiss conversation and was hard put to make sense of it.

Amabel had kissed him enthusiastically. She was not offended by his overtures. She was receptive to a dalliance, but what, in the parlance of Miss Amabel Fielding, of Obscure Rustication, Yorkshire, was a dalliance? Was it a procession of giggling inanities and coy glances? A series of passionate trysts terminated at the time of the lady’s choosing?

Something in between? Did Amabel herself know why she had refused to allow a courtship to even begin?

“You do not strike me as a lady’s plaything,” St. Didier said. “If I might assay an opinion on such a topic.”

“Nor have I ever aspired to that status. I have entertained the notion that the lady might not consider herself worthy of marriage.”

St. Didier chose a profiterole from the epergne in the center of the table. “Tainted by scandal? That sort of thing?”

“She had a brief Season, courtesy of her Fielding relations, and has bided here in the West Riding in professed contentment ever since. She subsists on the estate’s leavings as pin money and has a competence from that side of the family that she’s reserving for her impending old age.”

“She also subsists on determination, if my memory serves. Orla Fielding was initially cool to the notion of setting me on your trail, and Wealtha declared it a complete waste of time and even ghoulish to look for you.”

“And yet, you did look for me and find me.”

“Miss Fielding pointed out to Orla that should you pop out of the hedges two years from now, the scandal would be very great. How would it look if your true aunt, who well knew of your existence, had failed to pursue the location of the rightful heir? Orla and, by association, Wealtha would have appeared greedy, heedless of the law, and underhanded.”

“A serious charge.”

“A felony, when that behavior wears the label fraud upon Chancery. Miss Fielding raised that point in blunt terms, and a-hunting I did go. She also intimated that Marie might have told others you were extant or Joseph Fielding might have peeked at his wife’s correspondence.”

Richard tucked that possibility away for further study. If Fielding had known Marie’s secrets—husbands and wives had been known to share confidences, after all—others might have learned of them too.

They finished the meal in silence while Richard kept an ear cocked for the sound of feminine voices.

“I sent an express to the Duchess of Chanderton this morning,” Richard said when the dishes had been cleared and he and St. Didier were once again strolling among the rosebushes.

“You and she are cordial?”

“A bit more than that. She’s a friend, though a friend at a greater distance than, say, Sorcha, Lady… Sorcha is no longer Lady Barclay. She’s simply Mrs. Bernard Huxley.”

“And your sister-by-marriage. Why do Mayfair bloodlines lend themselves to so much complication?”

“In my case and Bernard’s, the complications arose because Lord Jerome could not keep his breeches buttoned.” Richard directed his guest along the path that led to the back garden, where Amabel’s flowers were making an excellent display.

“Besides,” Richard went on, “you enjoy untangling those bloodlines and the secrets that keep them knotted up.”

“I used to—or thought I did. What do you expect Her Grace to add to your perspective on matters here at Shepherd’s Glen?”

For an intelligent man, St. Didier was either too road weary to organize the available evidence, or he was being deliberately obtuse.

“Puzzles make me uncomfortable, and yet, a puzzle stands between me and my fondest hopes: Why does a woman who can run an estate like Shepherd’s Glen despite the parsimony of greedy solicitors, who can deal effectively with a pair of testy female relations—to whom she is not related, in truth—and who holds the esteem of the whole parish choose spinsterhood over the option to be courted by a peer, at the same time she expresses an intention to allow that peer certain vaguely defined liberties?”

St. Didier knelt to snap a few sprigs from a billowing lavender border. “You’re sure you understood her plain meanings?” He threaded the stems through the buttonhole of his lapel.

Richard recalled the grip of Amabel’s fingers in his hair, her unabashed enthusiasm for a close embrace, her kisses…

“She fancies me in some regard. Beyond that, she has left me with a conundrum, a mystery, and a vexation.” Also poor sleep and troubled dreams.

“The frustration is doubtless good for you. Periodic doses of humility should be required for all you titled louts. Perhaps the matter wants further discussion.”

The bracing fragrance of lavender wafted about the midday air as Richard and his guest crunched along the white shell walkway.

“Discussion is unwelcome, generally,” Richard said. “Orla doesn’t want me bringing up the past. Wealtha is mostly interested in hearing herself talk, and Amabel has expressed no interest in negotiation. She has stated her terms to the extent she is comfortable doing so.” Though did a post-ambush declaration reflect a lady’s considered opinion?

They circled the fountain and moved once again in the direction of the terrace.

“Stated her terms, Swidhelm? Miss Fielding is not the owner of a cooperage, negotiating a price for oak barrels with you. A few heavily chaperoned weeks in Mayfair cannot imbue a lady with vast experience in congress with bachelors.”

True, but Amabel had some experience, and since when had bachelors been restricted to Mayfair ballrooms? Yorkshire doubtless had a full complement of swains and potential suitors.

“Amabel knows her own mind, a trait I admire. Let me give you the tour of the house. Your apartment is in the family wing, so highly are you esteemed. We’ll order you a bath, and you can grab a nap before making your bows to the ladies.”

“A nap,” St. Didier said with real longing. “You must ensure I’m awake by the first supper bell.” He gazed up the steps to the terrace as if they rose to the height of the Matterhorn.

He did not need a nap, then. More like a midday collapse. “St. Didier, did you journey north with undue haste?”

“Lately, undue haste has characterized far too much of my existence. A tour of the public rooms, a bath, and a nap, followed by supper in congenial company, will put me to rights.”

Richard suspected his guest dissembled. Something was amiss in St. Didier’s larger world, or some other heir hunt was frustrating him.

Periodic doses of frustration were doubtless good for anybody who habitually intruded on other people’s business.

“I want to discuss with you what I’ve learned about my mother’s situation here,” Richard said as they gained the cool shadows of the house, “which is precious little, though it will keep until you are rested.”

“Marie Tuffington Blackstock caused a scandal. If people are reluctant to talk, that’s probably out of respect for her memory.”

“I wish, then, that people had a little less respect for her memory and a little more respect for her son. Mama left an ideal situation here for near-certain ruin in service, and I am the result. I intend to find some answers, if I have to take tea with every granny and share a pint with every inebriated uncle in the shire to do it.”

They turned from the atrium down a carpeted corridor. “The library,” Richard said, “which is one of my favorite rooms, is this way. You are to make free with the contents for the duration of your stay.”

By the time he escorted St. Didier to the designated apartment, a cheerful, airy pair of rooms done up all in green and cream, St. Didier appeared to be nearly asleep on his feet.

“Sweet dreams,” Richard said. “See that you don’t fall asleep in the bath and take a chill.”

“Ridiculous notion. Until supper, my lord.”

Richard left him in peace and returned to the library, there to conduct one final review of the evidence for the solicitors’ prosecution.

“How can I enjoy a trip into York when that St. Didier creature will accompany us, Auntie?” Wealtha paced the length of Orla’s sitting room, skirts swishing ominously. “He knows.”

When had Wealtha grown so petulant? “He is a gentleman,” Orla replied, knitting needles clicking away, “and he’s not bad-looking. Before you fly into the boughs, consider the facts, Wealtha: You were born to your papa’s second wife, whom he married after his first wife had been declared dead. For all anybody knows, that makes you legitimate, my dear.”

Orla wasn’t about to put the question to the Fielding family solicitors, whom she’d sacked years ago.

“But Auntie, Marie Blackstock was still alive. You knew it, Joseph Fielding knew it. Papa might well have known or suspected as much and merrily committed bigamy anyway. I have irregular antecedents, while my brother, who is a bastard in truth, inherits everything.”

“Language, Wealtha dear.” Though Wealtha had a point. Even if the courts overlooked the fact that Marie had been alive when Wealtha had come into the world, Society would relish the scandal.

For that matter, the dear friends Orla had made at Miss Gundridge’s, much less the friends Wealtha had made at the same august establishment, would look askance at bigamy.

“Bother my language, Auntie. Bastard, bastard, bastard. I will stay home tomorrow, and that means Mabel will stay home too. She is entirely too cheerful of late, given that Richard has upended our lives.”

When the Deity had made Wealtha tenacious, why hadn’t He also made her shrewd? Abernathy Blackstock’s daughter was as tireless as a tipsy preacher on the subject of his favorite sin. Wealtha would argue, threaten, exhort, and fume away all obstacles until she reached her objective.

She would also resent the analogy bitterly.

“Mabel maintains her equanimity in the face of recent upheavals because she knows Richard will be returning south before long. His curiosity regarding the past has unearthed nothing of any moment. The estate is humming along nicely without him, and once planting and haying are done, we have nothing but weeks of summer’s heat to endure. The prospect of a village fete will not be enough to hold his interest, believe me.”

Particularly not if Mabel discouraged his lordship’s advances and Wealtha continued to sulk like a spoiled brat. Orla’s contribution was to play the invalid when she might have been hosting receptions, dinner guests, or even a ball.

“But if Richard does stay long enough to attend the fete, he’ll linger into August for the shooting.”

Not the shooting. Please, dear heaven, do not allow Wealtha to start on the shooting. “You should go to York tomorrow.”

“I’ll have to sit in the coach facing that awful St. Didier, and his sniffy silences, and his knowing air.”

Wealtha aspired to sniffy silences and knowing airs. St. Didier was merely quiet and lamentably thorough.

“You will sit opposite his lordship, a visual reminder that his meeting with the solicitors had best include a thorough discussion of your settlements. You might even request that Richard not forget to bring them up, because the solicitors have been so frustratingly unforthcoming in response to our direct queries. Your ceaseless worry explains why you’d raise such a topic before others.”

Wealtha came to a halt before a wing chair, sat, and tapped a nail on the arm of the chair. “I am worried. I am exceedingly worried. A lot of nasty old men who treat me like a schoolgirl and begrudge us even spare ribbons for our millinery might have squandered every farthing of my future security. It happens.”

Not to young ladies whose funds were in the cent-per-cents, where Mabel had insisted they go. Orla had allowed Mabel to carry that battle, though even Mabel had had her hands full prevailing over Wealtha’s protests.

“You could gently remind Richard of that fact, too, my dear. Papa Blackstock’s will might well have been drafted in haste, and Richard’s handling of your situation now must be thorough and thoughtful. You know how to be subtle, Wealtha, and Richard is not stupid.”

Would that he were, and if Wealtha did have any capacity for subtlety—an open question, at best—she exhibited it rarely.

“I will endure a trip into York,” Wealtha said, nail tapping away. “I will buy out the shops and put it all on the Glen’s accounts. I will sit across from Richard both coming and going, and I will remind him, quietly, even timidly, that my settlements must be reviewed. They are all I have and, if I should not marry, all I will ever, ever have.”

That was Orla’s cue to offer reassurances that her own worldly treasures would be left to Wealtha, which they probably would be some distant day. Mabel, by contrast, had had her chance to improve her circumstances, and she’d instead stepped into the first trap laid for her amid the Mayfair whirl. Such a pity.

“Come sit by me,” Orla said. “I want to make sure this blue is as flattering to your eyes as I’d hoped. Before we know it, the weather will turn cold on us again, and you’ll need another shawl or two.” Far easier to impersonate an invalid in cold weather, though once Richard decamped, a slow recovery would be in order.

The ailing-auntie ruse had been sufficient to hasten Richard to Yorkshire. Having inspected his holdings and dispatched the solicitors, he could be similarly hastened on his way back to London.

Wealtha joined Orla on the love seat. “You have such talent with your needle, Auntie. That is a very pretty color, like the summer sky.”

Knitting was a skill that Wealtha could have learned in childhood, but no. Even Kepler recalled that tantrum with a shudder. Thereafter, it had been agreed that knitting needles were better kept out of Wealtha’s reach.

Orla held up the completed part of her project. “The shawl is one-half a shade darker than your eyes, exactly as I’d planned. We’ll dye some slippers to match, and you will be stunning, as usual.”

Wealtha smiled with a gracious warmth that was all too convincing to the unsuspecting. “Papa Blackstock used to say that I was the picture of my dear mama. I wish you’d started on this shawl sooner. The shade is quite flattering.”

“Have you decided what you’ll wear on tomorrow’s excursion? Mr. St. Didier might be reserved, Wealtha, but he’s a man of means, and he knows absolutely everybody. You should look your best when in company with him.”

Wealtha sat back, gaze narrowing. “He’s too dark. I prefer fair men, just as men of refined taste prefer women with fair coloring.”

Where was Mabel when Wealtha needed distracting? “I’m not saying you must win Mr. St. Didier’s heart, but you are the lady of the house in a sense. A little friendliness toward a guest might be in order, and Richard would think well of you for it.”

“Richard, who ruined everything.”

“If you deal carefully with Richard, he might set a great deal to rights. Impress St. Didier, and Richard will take note. Somebody is always watching, Wealtha. How many times have I told you that? Somebody is always watching, and you must conduct yourself accordingly. You must use it to your advantage, in fact.”

“Somebody can watch me buy out the shops tomorrow. Mabel will be horrified, but I will have the most fetching bonnets in all of Yorkshire, with gloves, reticules, slippers, boots, and spencers to match.”

“And here I thought you were contemplating a new riding habit to go with your pretty mare.”

Wealtha rose. “Frigg is a darling, isn’t she? She suits me perfectly, and she has the sweetest gaits. You are right, Auntie: Now that I’m riding my own dear bay mare, I must assess whether a blue habit is the most flattering hue. Green might be a better choice, though red would certainly draw the eye as well. In any case, the blue is no longer au courant, and needs must.”

Wealtha swanned off, leaving blessed quiet in her wake. Orla demolished three cakes from the tray in succession—raspberry, pear, and bilberry. Cook was certainly making more of an effort now that Richard was in residence.

With any luck, those efforts would continue after his departure. If Orla was certain of anything, it was that the sooner Richard left them in peace, the better for all concerned.

Including Richard.

10

Richard’s enormous traveling coach swayed along gently, while Mabel tried to look anywhere but at his mouth. At the curve of his lips and the line of his jaw, at his hands, at the luxurious abundance of silky dark hair so neatly combed for this excursion into York.

She stared out the window, at Leopold St. Didier’s shiny boots, at the slot behind St. Didier’s shoulder used to communicate with the coachy.

Richard had been all that was correct since Mabel had… Since she had what? Made a complete fool of herself? Finally allowed a little private pleasure into her life? Both?

“Richard dearest,” Wealtha said, “I must raise a delicate topic with you before we reach York.”

St. Didier studied the lush green hills beyond the coach window. Sitting across from him, Mabel did likewise. When Wealtha used that tone of voice, she was preparing to wheedle, which she did with far greater tenacity than subtlety.

“Put your mind at ease,” Richard said. “I will have a thorough report from the solicitors regarding your settlements, and if the arrangements are inadequate, I will take appropriate measures.”

“You will? Do you promise, Richard? My settlements are all I have in the whole world, and I have been ever so worried for my future. Papa Blackstock must not have been in his right mind when he made out his will. Aunt Orla agrees.”

Orla had at no time doubted Abernathy Blackstock’s sanity. Mabel would ensure Richard was in possession of that fact. When Wealtha had demanded that her father’s will be contested, Orla had for once taken a firm stand. According to Step-mama, contesting wills was for families who had the means to pursue litigation and no care for scandal.

“I give you my word as a gentleman,” Richard said, “that your situation will be secure, regardless of whether you marry. You shall have what your heart desires.”

Mabel suppressed a shudder at the very thought of Wealtha’s whims indulged without limit.

“I shall put my trust entirely in your assurances,” Wealtha said. “Thank you. You are my favorite brother, you know.”

“An honor, I’m sure. Have you ladies agreed upon a battle plan for besieging the shops?”

Wealtha chattered away—she did have a plan that began with frocks, moved on to slippers, gloves, and reticules and finished with hats. A new riding habit had somehow also made her list, which would necessitate a stop at the tailor’s.

Mabel let the words wash over her, aware of Richard’s polite rejoinders and St. Didier’s silence. What did it say about her that she even enjoyed the sound of Richard’s voice making small talk? She liked the faint aroma of cedar that wafted about his person and the patience he unfailingly showed Wealtha.

If Mabel told him that she’d had a change of heart and that no liberties were to be shared between them, he’d exhibit the same polite patience with her. They would never speak of a kiss that Mabel wouldn’t forget should she live to great old age.

So why not step back from a precipice that could lead again to scandal as well as—Mabel demanded honesty of herself—heartache?

The why of it, why risk scandal and eventual loss, had preoccupied Mabel inordinately. Richard’s kiss had taken her partly by surprise at the same time it had satisfied longings too dear for words. To be noticed, cherished, held, heard…

She was contemplating an affair with Richard because she wanted to, because she chose to, not because she should, or ought, or because somebody must tend to the task lest the estate fall to ruin. He’d made advances, and Mabel had enjoyed them. Not as she enjoyed a ledger that balanced or a flower bed relieved of weeds, but as an adult female in robust good health enjoyed being an adult female.

“We should tour the Minster while we’re here,” Wealtha said. “It’s not so grand as it once was, but it is still imposing. They are always making plans to restore it, but the plans move forward only slowly.”

“I have seen the Minster,” St. Didier said. “I agree with you that restoration will be a lengthy process, also costly, though the results could be breathtaking.”

“Perhaps we’ll make the Minster part of another outing,” Richard said as the coach slowed. “We have considerable business to conduct today, and I’m sure you ladies will want to take your time shopping.”

In truth, Mabel tended to shop the same way she pulled weeds or darned socks. With dispatch, glad when the job was done. The task today was not so much acquiring new frocks as it was nannying Wealtha and admiring her choices, or most of them.

York was a compact town, and streets particularly within the old Roman enclosure were too narrow to admit Richard’s traveling coach. Wealtha seized Richard’s arm upon alighting, leaving Mabel to St. Didier’s escort.

“As a friend,” St. Didier said quietly, “I must inform you that you gaze upon Swidhelm the way I might regard a barberry ice on a hot summer day. The kind of ices served at Gunter’s, in pretty little dishes, with long silver spoons, garnished with flowers and artfully arranged mint leaves and such.”

Two yards ahead, Wealtha was still holding forth nineteen to the dozen about silk ribbons versus silk flowers and the tedium of embroidering hat bands that nobody ever admired.

“You are a bold sort of friend, sir.”

“Motivated only by kindness, I assure you. If I notice your regard for the viscount, others will as well.”

Mabel saw no reason to deny the charge. “His lordship will soon be returning to Town. My regard won’t signify when that happens. I have no intention of trying to hold him here when his obligations and interests lie elsewhere.” What other concern could motivate such blunt speech from a man of St. Didier’s usual tact?

“Swidhelm wasn’t particularly happy in Town, from what I’ve gathered. By dint of inordinate hard work, prodigious intellect, and occasional good luck, he has built a thriving business that could now be turned over to managers, but he has been reluctant to take that step. He keeps himself punishingly busy, though he has graduated from the phase of life where twitting his ducal relations provides him any joy.”

“Did he twit them?”

“The Chanderton duchy suffers a want of cash. Swidhelm’s commerce is lucrative, and he made sure his ducal relations knew it. I don’t suppose his wealth matters to you?”

Good for Richard. “Not especially. Given his lordship’s upbringing, financial security would be important to him.” Abundant means would make a very great deal of difference to Wealtha and thus to Orla.

“But you refuse to set your cap for him?”

Plagues and tempests. The man was relentless. “You likely excel at this sort of conversation—presuming and prying, but with a veneer of benevolence that disarms your prey. Because I do believe you are motivated by protectiveness toward his lordship, I will spare you the effort of delicate tactics.”

Up ahead, Wealtha laughed prettily and patted Richard’s arm.

“I know something of why Marie Blackstock left the Glen,” Mabel said softly, “and took her chances in London. She saw her life, her whole life, spent listening to her husband wax eloquent about sheep breeds, or listening to him grumble about how poorly his new pair of boots fit, or some inanity upon which his attention had become fixed. Her lot would have been to endlessly sympathize, comfort, and listen attentively. She tried her best for two years, realized that children were unlikely to make the union bearable, and went a little mad.”

“Is this a theory or a surmise based on facts?”

“A little of both. Rural estates are mostly concerned with doing battle with the elements and fate. Foot rot, flooding, fleas… Can a squire endure the annual vicissitudes and still show a profit most years? My guess is, Marie saw that struggle for her entire girlhood, and she hoped marriage would offer a more inviting view.”

“But the view never changed.”

“It changed considerably when she went to Town. She was ruined, yes, but she also gained an independence she’d never had previously.” Odd how ruination could work. More women would choose disgrace if independence and a steady income reliably accompanied a lady’s fall from propriety.

“She had her own wages,” Mabel went on. “She had a son to love. She had a household to run. She had a semblance of respectability despite having left her husband. She was not mad to want those things for herself, and at the Glen, she would never have known them.”

All of which was to say that Mabel wanted to have time with Richard for herself, wanted pleasure and passion and to have some small interlude where she wasn’t solely the unpaid companion to Orla and Wealtha, always expected to make polite noises as they fretted over the strength of the tea.

“Are you going a little mad, Miss Fielding?”

“Perhaps I’m recovering my sanity.” Kisses were notorious for waking sleeping princesses, weren’t they?

“What of Miss Blackstock? Do we attribute a sound mind to her?” St. Didier’s question struck Mabel as casual, a way to steer the conversation in a lighter direction.

If only he knew, though he must never know. “Honestly, I think Wealtha grows desperate. She had hoped to inherit the Glen, despite Orla’s warnings to the contrary, and she has reached her majority without an offer of marriage. She will tell you she has been courted, but she twists facts into French knots to support that perspective.”

“Are you afraid of her?”

Would any topic cause St. Didier to hesitate? “No, not afraid. I avoid provoking her, and you should too.”

They arrived at the first shop, a fashionable modiste who overcharged but did actually employ some French seamstresses.

“If Miss Blackstock’s temper is that formidable, you should warn her brother,” St. Didier said.

“Sooner or later, he will see Wealtha in a taking, and that will be all the warning he needs.”

And then, if for no other reason than to avoid Wealtha’s tantrums, Richard would return to London and shake the dust of Yorkshire from his titled feet.

“Abernathy Blackstock’s will is simplicity itself.” Despite his words, Fremont Wopley hemmed, hawed, fussed, and turned pages as if searching for an arcane passage of Scripture. “Standard language, typical provisions. Ah, here we are.”

He smoothed a hand down a Father Christmas beard, though Richard attributed to the solicitor less benevolence than he would have to Beelzebub.

Wopley cleared his throat. “‘To my firstborn legitimate son, I leave all right, title, and interest in my real properties, including but not limited to Shepherd’s Glen, with its policies, appurtenances, and fixtures, as well as livestock, fungibles, and furnishings, of any kind whatsoever. Should I have more than one legitimate son, specific bequests of one tenant property each, chosen by the eldest brother, shall be inherited by each younger son upon his twenty-first birthday, to be held in trust for him prior to that date.’”

Wopley peered at Richard across the gleaming mahogany table. “At the time he made this will, Abernathy Blackstock was in his forties. The probability of a lot of sons substantially reducing the acreage of the Glen was not great. We advised monetary settlements instead of turning the younger sons into yeomen, but Abernathy ignored our counsel.”

Richard mustered a slight smile. “Fortunately for me.”

“As you say, my lord. As you say.” Wopley shot a fulminating glance at St. Didier, who sat silently at Richard’s right.

“What of daughters?” Richard asked.

“The same rather standard approach,” Wopley said, shuffling more pages. “‘To each of my legitimate female issue, I bequeath the sum of one thousand pounds and a portion of the Blackstock jewels, share and share alike, to be divided by aforesaid firstborn son. Each daughter is to have a life estate in the Blackstock dower cottage, which shall be habitably maintained by the heir to Shepherd’s Glen for the benefit of my female heirs.’”

Wopley moved on to another page. “‘In the event I leave no male issue, the Glen is to be sold and its proceeds apportioned among my legitimate daughters, the sums to be held in trust for them in interest-bearing accounts until such time as the ladies are widowed or attain their thirtieth year…’ And he provides a competence for the ladies while they await their thirtieth birthdays.”

Wopley put aside the document. “All very generic, my lord. Curiously so when Blackstock had only the one daughter, upon whom he doted, but then, the estate’s cash reserves have ever been modest.”

Have they really? “I’ll want the original of that will sent to the Glen,” Richard said, “along with any copies you’re holding.”

Wopley’s bushy white brows came down, and he folded his hands over a prosperous paunch.

“Is that wise, my lord? Shepherd’s Glen is somewhat isolated, and an original will is a precious document. We handle such important papers routinely, while the domestics in rural service might use a will left out on a desk blotter to light the hearth some chilly night.”

The Father Christmas smile expressed both humor and dismay at such incompetence. Clearly, Wopley did not take seriously the possibility that Richard had actually reviewed the estate ledgers.

“Why do you suppose Blackstock hadn’t much cash?” Richard asked. “The Glen is a large, well-run estate and breeds sheep with excellent wool, considering the climate and terrain. Blackstock was not a gambler, he did not invest unwisely, and he had neither an army of poor relations to support nor expensive hobbies.”

None that Richard’s inquiries among the shopkeepers and tenants had been able to discover.

The first hint of caution showed in Wopley’s rheumy eyes. “Farming is a chancy business, my lord. Having been interested in, shall we say, commercial endeavors, you might be unaware that weather, disease, foreign competition, and market vagaries all conspire to make the farmer’s lot uncertain. If the harvest fails, the rents are often late or short, when they are paid at all.”

How would Mabel deal with this old windbag? How had she dealt with him? Because Richard was certain that thankless task had fallen to her.

“And yet, the Glen is for the most part in adequate repair, though the appointments in the house itself have become outdated, if not worn.” Orla’s apartment being the sole fashionable exception.

Wopley made a production of tidying up the several law books left open on the table, perhaps to signal that the clerks were ever at their studies.

“My lord must look to the ladies in residence at the Glen to address domestic details. They were sent a generous allowance each quarter—beyond generous, in my opinion—and it pains me to admit I have no idea where that money went.”

Wopley paused to shake his head, sigh, and tie a red ribbon around Blackstock’s last will and testament.

“We asked for quarterly reports, my lord, though Miss Fielding refused to provide them. She claimed we would have charged the estate to review them, though what conscientious solicitor would request accounts for any other purpose? I regret to posit that the funds might have gone to fripperies and extravagances rather than maintenance of the house itself.”

Fripperies. Heaven preserve the realm from the near occasion of frivolity and fripperies. “How much were the ladies remitted?”

As predicted, Wopley named a sum twice what Mabel had been managing on.

“I believe if my lord were to have a glance at the ledgers we’ve kept—your man retrieved them days ago—you’d see that exact amount regularly reflected in the books.”

“I did have a glance,” Richard said, “and I agree that the sum on your books would have been generous had the ladies ever received it. Instead, they were to make do on half that total. I’ve calculated the difference over the last five years, and the missing funds are substantial on this one item alone.”

Wopley cocked his head. He frowned. He pursed his lips. “My lord has apparently been taken in by the distaff. Of course Mrs. Fielding and her kin are trying to see their pin money doubled now that you’ve been located. One almost can’t blame them, particularly when their schemes are so obvious. The ledgers do not lie, my lord.”

St. Didier appropriated the will from the detritus on the table.

“Wopley,” Richard said, “do you accuse my relatives of dissembling?”

“Of course not, my lord. I’m sure you are laboring under a misapprehension, nothing more.”

St. Didier’s expression went even more blank.

“I do not care for misapprehensions,” Richard said, “nor do I care for solicitors who cast aspersion on women who have been left for years to fend for themselves, while their trusted lawyers did next to nothing to locate the missing head of their family.”

“Now, my lord, that is a mischaracterization of events, at best. We sent inquiries. We examined the estate records and inquired of local authorities. We were diligent, and our efforts were simply unavailing.”

“So diligent,” St. Didier said, “that in years of trying, you never asked Orla Fielding from whence her sister’s letters were posted.”

How had St. Didier lit upon that damning fact?

“A letter can be posted from anywhere,” Wopley retorted. “That proves nothing.”

“Those letters are not evidence offered in a court of law,” Richard said, rising. “They are puzzle pieces, and you did not bother to examine them. The Glen yet prospers despite your incompetence and sloth. You can tell all and sundry you represented the estate conscientiously, though, in fact, your efforts were abysmal, if not criminal. I have hired a different firm to handle affairs for the Glen. Good day.”

Wopley struggled to his feet. “But, my lord, this is too precipitous! This is not how we in the north tend to our business. The denizens of the City might conduct themselves in fits and flights, but I must ask you to reconsider. Even assembling and organizing the estate documents for transfer to a successor firm will be a significant undertaking. Years and years of receipts, ledgers, correspondence, filings, and pleadings, all requiring a final review and tallying⁠—”

Richard rose. “I had a word with your clerks before you joined us. The trunks of documents should be on their way to the Glen within the hour. Very helpful fellow, your head clerk. Very responsive.”

Very unwilling to swing for the embezzlement that Wopley would doubtless blame on his subordinates.

“You’ve had a narrow escape,” St. Didier said. “Take it and cease blathering.” The very civility of his tone held menace.

Richard led the way from the office, St. Didier at his back. Wopley trailed behind, wringing his pale hands.

“I must protest, my lord, I truly must. We have done our duty to the utmost, with zeal and skill, year after thankless year, and this is our recompense? My lord is too easily swayed by a pack of nattering females who simply cannot manage their coin.”

Richard stopped at the door. “I haven’t much family worth the name. I take the welfare of that pack of females seriously, and you—as bold a thief as I have ever met, which is bolder than all the imps serving in hell—have just insulted them. I would have been content to let your business shrivel to a trickle so you’d know what it was to face relentless insufficiency. So you’d have to fret over each load of coal and every unhappy client. So that you would suffer the fate you tried to impose on my womenfolk.”

The clerks at their high desks were unabashedly gawking.

“You’d best retire,” Richard said. “Retire to Rome. It’s affordable, and many of Britain’s failed scoundrels seek refuge there. You’ll fit right in.”

Somebody snickered. Somebody else guffawed. St. Didier’s eyes were dancing.

Richard took his leave, angrier than he could ever recall being, which was saying a great deal.

11

“Iwanted to plant him a facer,” Richard said when the serving maid departed. “As a younger man, I would have.”

He had not yet touched his midday meal, nor had Mabel started on hers. The private parlor was filled with the scent of toasted beef and brie sandwiches, steaming mashed potatoes redolent of butter, and new peas in basil sauce.

All to be washed down with a fine summer ale, and for once, Mabel hadn’t had to devise the menu, approve the recipes, and consider the inventory in the larder when making her decisions.

Wealtha had somehow inveigled St. Didier into stopping at one more glovemaker’s, and Mabel was exceedingly grateful for the respite from her cousin’s company.

“I often suppressed the urge to kick Wopley’s backside,” Mabel said. “He pontificated and prevaricated at such length, I was convinced he charged us by the word. You sent him packing?”

Richard, who’d chosen to sit across from her rather than at the head of the table, picked up half a sandwich. “I did. I lectured him a bit first. I should not have bothered.”

“He manages many estates. You lectured him on behalf of more widows and orphans than you know, my lord. They won’t take their business from him—they probably cannot, if they are heirs rather than estate owners—but he might be more circumspect in his thieving. Eat that sandwich, or you will be too light-headed to buy me the best nanny goats.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mabel had suggested this inn for its highly respectable reputation and its kitchen. She hadn’t patronized the place in years and was pleased to find it still thriving. The parlor was spotless, the food appetizing, and the table adorned with a bouquet of red roses in a green glass vase. Best of all, no chattering Wealtha.

All very pleasant. Mabel was less sanguine about Richard’s distracted mood.

Was he having second thoughts about their kiss? Planning to leave for the south now that Wopley had been sacked?

He tore off a bite of his sandwich. “Raiding the shops with Wealtha has to be a rigorous undertaking. Is she plundering the entire town?”

“Not quite.” Mabel took her first bite of warm, golden toast; soft, pungent cheese; and beef done to a turn. “We’re sticking to the good shops, not the best of the best. Those tend to be wildly overpriced and slow to deliver.”

“I want you patronizing the best of the best.”

“So that Wealtha can have her heart’s desire?”

He munched slowly. “I wish I hadn’t said that. A reasonable adult would hear those words as a trite turn of phrase. Wealtha likely took them for a blood oath.”

“She lied to you about Abernathy’s will. Orla refused to consider having it contested—not that we could afford any such undertaking—and Wealtha is still seething about that defection. She will certainly be wroth should you disappoint her regarding her settlements.” St. Didier’s earlier words came back to her. Mabel owed Richard a warning before they left the topic of Wealtha’s moods. “My cousin-by-courtesy has a temper.”

“I do too. I wasted two good years and a fair amount of coin railing against fate and trying to shame my ducal relations into treating me like family instead of like the embarrassment I was. My plan was neither logical nor effective, and I had not one ally in the effort, but I do understand an occasional bout of ire.”

Mabel sipped her ale and wished Wealtha to Paris. “Her outbursts can be spectacular. An overly tired toddler who weighs in at eleven stone.” In high dudgeon, Wealtha was a force of nature, though not for two years at a stretch.

How angry Richard must have been. How hurt, frustrated, and lonely.

“Orla tolerates Wealtha’s childish behavior?” he asked.

“Orla is skilled at managing Wealtha’s moods, so the eruptions, which are blessedly rare, tend not to happen in Orla’s presence.”

Richard started on the second half of his sandwich. “Wealtha’s snits will tend not to happen around me either. Within reason, Wealtha can have what she wants by asking for it directly. Pouting and shouting will not be necessary.”

“Were you pouting and shouting to get what you wanted when you went rioting about Town?”

“Amabel, I was honestly half mad. Alone in the world, though everybody knew damned well I had an extant uncle, an aunt, cousins… half-siblings. I changed my name to that of the ducal branch—Richard Dolforth, at your service—though now I find I’m legally a Blackstock after all. Do you know that, by the letter of the law, Wealtha has no settlements?”

Mabel nearly choked on her ale. “You must not tell her that.”

“At the time of my choosing, I will tell her I doubled her portion from the initial thousand pounds to two thousand and hope she’s content with that. Her thousand pounds has accrued interest, so she’s far from poor. She also has a life estate in the dower house, which I suppose has gone to rack and ruin?”

“Holland covers and dusting once a quarter, not ruin. How is it Wealtha has been disinherited altogether?”

She would not take that news well at all. Orla would be incensed on Wealtha’s behalf, and Mabel would have no peace until she married Horace Detwiler ten times over.

Perish the thought.

“Wealtha,” Richard said, “is illegitimate. Blackstock’s will makes no obvious provision for any illegitimate offspring of any description. I will read the whole thing word for word, because wills can be complicated even when they seem straightforward.”

“Complicated how?”

“Blackstock was in his forties when he had the will drawn up, and yet, he provided for legitimate sons—note the plural—legitimate daughters, and daughters in the absence of any sons, but as far as he might have known or feared at the time of his death, he had no legitimate sons or daughters. He had Marie declared dead, but did that knowing she might even at the time he made his will still be extant. Did he make no provision for an heir of last resort, or will I find that detail in some codicil Wopley failed to bring up?”

“What is an heir of last resort? An if-all-else-fails heir?”

“Exactly. If everybody who ought to inherit is dead, missing, or otherwise disqualified, then who ends up with the goods? Blackstock was wealthy, and he took good care of his property. He would not have wanted to see it languish in Chancery or handed over to the crown.”

“I did not know him well, but I assume he had cousins or a widowed auntie somewhere. Then too, if Orla knew about you, Orla’s husband might have known about you, and there’s every possibility Joseph Fielding acquainted Abernathy Blackstock with the facts as Joseph knew them. My father was, above all, an honest man.”

“An interesting speculation and possibly part of the reason why Orla is so unhappy with the idea of my looking into the past. It’s enough for Marie to have scandalized the family by her departure. For Blackstock to have knowingly committed bigamy, and then disinherited the sole issue of his bigamous union, would make Marie’s behavior pale. This is good food.”

“Good company too.”

Richard saluted her with his ale, and they ate for a few moments in silence.

How exactly did a lady ask if a fellow regretted kissing her? If he’d been, on second thought, less than flattered by her offer of a dalliance? What would a dalliance entail in the mind of a former London rakehell?

But more immediately, how did Richard feel about the contents of Blackstock’s will?

“How did you tolerate Wopley?” Richard asked when his plate was clean. “I truly longed to do him an injury.”

“I avoided him as much as I could for the first few years, then I played stupid for as long as possible. When that tactic ceased to yield the desired result, I threatened to have an independent investigator search for you, a strategy Orla eventually came to support. Wopley was less contentious after that, though he doubtless thought you dead and gone. Mr. St. Didier and his peculiar skills were a godsend, else the Glen would have been bled dry in another few years.”

“Thank you for all you’ve done to prevent that fate,” Richard said, nudging the vase in the middle of the table closer to Mabel’s plate. “St. Didier makes an odd sort of godsend, but thank you for your tenacity and ingenuity. I still don’t know as much as I’d like about my own mother, but I know more than I did.”

“You know your aunt. That has to count for something.”

He considered the roses, which had to have been freshly picked, they were so lush and vibrant.

“Orla is a reluctant aunt,” he said, “and Wealtha is a sister in name only, but St. Didier’s searching led me to you, and for that, I will always be grateful.”

You mustn’t say such things. Mabel adored him for saying such things, adored the warmth his words kindled in her heart. Every woman—every person—should be gifted with such sentiments at some point, and Mabel had instead withstood their opposites.

My attentions to you have been a joke in plain sight, a whim in questionable taste. I’ve bedded you happily enough—you aren’t hideous—but marriage? Don’t be absurd.

“Where can Wealtha and St. Didier have got off to?” Mabel asked.

Richard smoothed his fingers over the back of her hand. “Compliments and genuine gratitude make you shy. I’m uncomfortable with them, too, but I’m not as easily put to the blush as I used to be. I hope Wealtha and St. Didier are thoroughly lost in the bowels of the Minster and won’t be seen again until spring, but then they’d have to marry, and the union would be unhappy on both sides.”

He gave Mabel’s fingers a squeeze and sat back. “Has the appointed hour arrived for nanny goat shopping?”

“It has, and Wealtha has a list of five more shops we’re to visit. The sum owed will be considerable.”

Richard rose, came around the table, and held Mabel’s chair. “Two thousand pounds plus interest won’t placate her, will it?”

Two thousand pounds was a fortune. Mabel could have lived to commodious old age easily on such a sum.

“If Wealtha marries, her husband’s family should add to that total. If she remains unwed, she will have a hundred pounds per annum. With free room and board at the dower house, and her money invested in the cent-per-cents, she will be an enviably comfortable maiden lady.”

Mabel rose, though Richard did not step back.

“She won’t be comfortable,” he said. “She’s like me before I made something of myself. Always in a pout, never satisfied. I don’t much like what I know of my sister.”

“But you will see her taken care of anyway.” Sweet words were precious, while Richard’s basic decency was irresistible.

“Of course I will look after her. Wealtha is not to blame for her circumstances. With any luck, she will soon be smitten by some handsome swain, and her discontent will no longer be ours to manage.”

Richard assumed the swain would be similarly enamored. “She will beg you to take her to London when you go.”

“In the first place, she might have a long wait, and in the second, you have warned me against visiting her upon Town. I heed your warnings, Amabel.”

Amabel. She was growing to like her own name again, but Orla would not at all approve of his plan to linger in Yorkshire. “Let’s be off, my lord. If you’d hand me my bonnet, please?”

He did not hand her the bonnet. He placed it carefully on her head, tied the ribbons in a bow, kissed her cheek lingeringly, and draped her cloak about her shoulders. Small courtesies, a passing flirtation, and all of it more precious than he could know.

Wealtha might not ever have her heart’s desire, but in each gesture of consideration and affection, Richard gave Mabel pieces of a dream she’d put aside once and for all years ago. She was determined to have what parts of that dream she could, for whatever time was allotted, and to blazes with Orla, Wealtha, nanny goats, and wills.

To blazes with old regrets too.

“Thy mother were a beauty,” Granny Wexler said, shelling peas into a bowl with the expertise of long practice. Split the pod, push out the peas, discard the husk for the delectation of the livestock. “She were not a delicate, refined beauty. A strong country lass, with such a smile.”

Richard had the honor of sharing Granny’s porch on a fine spring morning. Chickens went about decimating the bug population in the front yard, and a fawn-colored nanny goat with her twin offspring snacked on the weeds at the base of the low stone wall.

Amabel would say the yard needed some flowers. Richard needed answers.

“Why do you suppose a young woman regarded as a beauty and reasonably well dowered settled for a man nearly twice her age?”

Granny paused in her shelling. “Thou makest Abernathy Blackstock seem a dodderer. He was vigorous until the end and a fine figure of a man. He would have been a few years older than thou, sir, when he took thy dam to wife. I am told thou hast purchased some goats whilst tarrying yesterday in York.”

“A dozen nannies and two billy goats. One for meat, one for dairy. You are welcome to borrow either.”

She resumed her shelling. “Dairy for me. Enough dairy and eggs, and I needn’t cook much meat. Bathsheba!”

The nanny goat looked up.

Granny upended the bowl of pea husks over the porch railing. The nanny came to investigate, her offspring gamboling after her. The morning was lovely, the sunshine benevolent without bringing oppressive heat, and Granny’s whitewashed stone cottage was everywhere surrounded by verdure.

“If I were seventeen,” Richard said, “and a belle of the parish, I’d look closer to my own age for a husband.” The difference in ages between Marie and Abernathy was the only wedge Richard had so far found that might explain his mother’s flight to London. “A man who has been a bachelor into his thirties might be set in his ways beyond what a young bride seeks to contend with.”

“Thou hast seen nigh thirty year, or soon will. Are thou as rigid as all that, young man?”

“I can be very stubborn.” Tenacious was the more accurate term. “That quality has served me well in business and in Society, and thus I might mistake it for an asset in marriage.” Or in courtship.

“Stubbornness is in the nature of every soul born and bred in Yorkshire. We must be stubborn, else we would never outlast the winters.”

The nanny started on the pea husks, occasionally regarding Richard with the peculiar goat eyes that were at once sagacious and diabolical. All the while, her mouth moved in a sideways chewing action until the pea husks were but a memory.

“Was my mother stubborn?”

“Young people are uniformly stubborn. Thy dam were restless, and if thou seeketh more of an explanation than that for her odd behavior, I can give thee none. Thou must ask Mrs. Fielding. If her own sister cannot explain thy mother’s choices to thee, nobody can.”

They could. They simply refused to. Granny herself knew more than she was telling. Though she appeared to be right out of a benign Quaker storybook—small, white-haired, blue-eyed, and busy—she was also having trouble meeting Richard’s gaze, and she’d rather talk about goats than what had to be the parish’s worst scandal in living memory.

“Thou must not dwell upon the past, young man. Time enough for that when thou hast lived thy three score and ten.”

As Granny had, and yet, she was still unwilling to consider the past for even a quarter hour.

“I loved my mother,” Richard said. “She could have tossed me into a foundling home. Could have deposited me in the care of my paternal relations from infancy. Could have abandoned me on the steps of any London church. She instead trod a very difficult path to raise me herself. That is not the behavior of a foolish, restless young woman.”

“A mother has a duty, as all would agree. When might thy billy goat come calling on my Bathsheba?”

“A week after he arrives from York.” Richard rose lest he upend the bowl of peas into the garden. “What aren’t you telling me about my mother?”

“Much. She had a fine singing voice, stitched a very pretty sampler, and was kindhearted to her younger sister. Thou knowest much else about thine own mother. About the past, I can tell thee little. In all charity, I advise thee to master thy curiosity, lest thine own happiness suffer needlessly.”

“I will bid you good day, then. Should your recollections of my mother return in any detail, particularly as regards an explanation for her marriage and her flight to Mayfair, please do let me know.”

For a moment, Granny’s old eyes held what might have been regret or pity, then she resumed shelling her peas. “Look to the future, young sir, and send along thy billy goat as soon as may be.”

Richard touched a finger to his hat brim and thumped down the porch steps. The nanny goat, her twins, and Granny all watched his departure with similarly inscrutable expressions.

He was still fuming when he cantered Baldur up the Glen’s drive, though his spirits lightened considerably when he saw Amabel sitting in the atrium with a wicker basket at her feet and a wide straw hat on the bench beside her.

“Amabel, please tell me we’re to have a picnic,” he said, passing his hat and spurs to Kepler. “My morning has been a complete loss, and I am abruptly famished.”

She closed the book in her lap and tucked it into the hamper. How could he have ever thought her plain or severe or anything but the epitome of feminine perfection? She greeted him with a soft smile and rose.

“I am taking you prisoner for the next little while. You are not to closet yourself with ledgers, correspondence, or reports. The day is beautiful, and I need to put yesterday’s ordeal in the shops behind me.”

“Then I am your man,” Richard said, feeling foolish and lucky. “Kepler, my hat, please. And your lips are sealed.”

“I have seen neither you nor Miss Mabel.” He dusted the brim of Richard’s hat with his fingers and passed it back. “Neither have I been apprised of your plans, though the orchard is lovely this time of year.”

Amabel offered Richard her hand. “So it is. Good suggestion, Kepler. I am especially not enjoying the orchard with his lordship if Orla or Wealtha should inquire.”

Richard drew her to her feet and resisted the urge to kiss her cheek. “The same for Mr. St. Didier, Kepler. Miss Amabel and I are simply not at home.”

“One understands, my lord, miss. Enjoy that outing you are not taking to the orchard.” He departed on silent feet, though Richard would have sworn the old fellow’s eyes were twinkling.

12

Mabel dearly hoped that Richard would not require much seducing, for she had no notion how to go about such an undertaking now that an ideal moment approached.

“How did your discussion with Granny Wexler go?” she asked as she and Richard left the side garden for the park.

“In polite little thee-thou-thy-thine circles,” Richard said. “She advised me to look to the future, to interrogate my aunt, and to send along a billy goat as soon as maybe.”

“You wanted to shake her.”

“Not her, but her bowl of pious little peas was tempting. What harm could it possibly do anybody to tell me about my mother’s earliest adult years?”

“Orla apparently doesn’t want that topic discussed.” Neither, at the moment, did Mabel. Marie Blackstock’s unhappy marriage had to be the least seductive subject imaginable. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“I am, as it happens.”

“The path to the right leads to the orchard through the yearling pasture,” Mabel said as they approached the trees of the home wood. “The one to the left will take us to the fishing cottage.” Which would Richard find more romantic?

“I have yet to lay eyes on the fishing cottage,” he said, “though I am no sort of angler.”

“You haven’t the patience for it?”

“I haven’t the ruthlessness. To hook a fellow in the mouth and haul him gasping to his death… Then he’s lying on your supper plate, the same how-dare-you expression on his little fishy face. I had nightmares about that as a boy. Vicar thought he’d give his scholars a holiday one fine summer day, and down to the stream we went. The other boys thought it capital good fun.”

“While you’ve avoided fish ever since?” What a tenderhearted child he’d been.

“I have. Cook served fish regularly prior to that, and I well knew what I was eating, but once I’d seen the whole process, from death to dinnertime, my perspective changed. Now you will tell me that this hamper is full of smoked trout sandwiches.”

“Ham sandwiches, actually. Also cherry tarts and a bottle of cherry cider.”

“I do eat fish, just not the kind that stare at me as I pick up my knife. Granny’s goat regarded me the same way. Part disdain, part dismay.”

The woods at midday were blessedly quiet and shady, the path well worn. A squirrel chattered overhead in the canopy, and Mabel wished she and Richard were going home after a mundane outing to the village. Home to a cottage set beneath the trees, not to the grand edifice of Shepherd’s Glen.

“You’re quiet,” Richard said. “I apologize for a lack of witty conversation. The woods are lovely.”

“Peaceful,” Mabel said. “I like quiet. If you started spouting on-dits and have-you-heards, I would be disappointed.”

He caught her hand in his and kept walking. “We have discussed sheep breeds, drainage, which walls need mending, and which tenants are good farmers. You have patiently explained to me how the household ledgers work, reported knowledgeably on the neighbors, and ridden each and every bridle path within the Glen’s metes and bounds with me. You never talk about your time in London.”

Truly, the list of unseductive topics was endless. “I came, I saw, I did not conquer, to badly paraphrase Julius Caesar. I was a poor fit with polite society, and this became readily apparent to all save my dear great-aunt Fielding. She had married well, and felt it her duty to introduce what goddaughters, nieces, and great-nieces she could to the wonders of the capital.”

“She tried to marry you off?”

Richard had seen Mayfair firsthand, studied it, and knew its hedges and thickets as well as Mabel knew Shepherd’s Glen.

Go carefully. “My great-aunt hoped I’d find a suitable match, but we both knew that was unlikely. Mostly, she was trying to show me life beyond Yorkshire, and for that, I will always be grateful.”

“I’m sorry you were disappointed,” Richard said. “We are to profess enchantment when first we set foot at Almack’s, or see the sunrise over Hyde Park’s maples, but I spent most of my university years missing Hampshire, and the years thereafter…”

They’d reached the portion of the path that ran along the stream. “Yes?”

“I was as badly behaved as a young man can be without finding himself on remittance.”

“Wagering, drunkenness, and licentiousness?”

“One mistress at a time, but yes. Exceeding my quarterly allowance, keeping bad company just to show I could. Your experience reminds me that I might have been cavalier toward some young ladies while I was being so reprehensible.”

Mabel disliked the sound of that. “Cavalier how?”

“Flirted a little too hard, stole a kiss or two, made plans I did not keep, claiming the press of business had intruded when, in fact, I’d been sleeping off a bad head.”

“Did you enter wagers into the betting books that reflected poorly on a young lady of good repute?”

He regarded her curiously. “Of course not.”

“Did you force your attentions on the unwilling or undecided?”

“I cannot imagine… No, I did not. I hope I could not. Ever.”

“Did you pay your debts?”

“Always. I had no wish to enjoy the hospitality of the sponging house and no confidence His Grace of Chanderton would spring me from its clutches.”

The fishing cottage came into view, a two-story fieldstone edifice that boasted a wide back terrace extending over a bend in the stream. Yellow irises were blooming in profusion along the foundation, and a rose vining up a trellis at the base of the terrace steps was heavy with buds.

“You want to prune that climbing rose,” Richard said, setting the hamper down. “I hope you will let it bloom its rosy heart out first.”

“The blooms are red, and they look magnificent against the gray stone. I have always hoped that I might have this place as my dower retreat, though I will, in all likelihood, be consigned to waiting on Wealtha at the dower house proper.”

Another curious glance. “You have done nothing to deserve such a fate. Where shall we eat?”

“Will the back terrace do?”

“Wonderfully, though I would like to see the inside too.”

“Of course.” The inside had three bedrooms, all of them recently dusted. Perhaps the day might go as planned after all. “The key is kept here, though just about any key will fit the locks, they are so old. Some sort of dwelling has occupied this spot for hundreds of years. Mr. Fothergill claims the stone hut on this site was the shepherd’s shelter that gave the Glen its name.”

“Old Fergus Fothergill?”

“His younger brother, Dingle Fothergill, who is nonetheless quite venerable. Dingle is something of a scholar of the shire and Yorkshire lore generally. He has a prodigious memory. Fergus thinks himself a raconteur, but he’s mostly just a sot.”

Bother the Fothergills and their tales. How exactly did one start a seduction? When? Before the meal? After? During? Mabel’s own experience being seduced was of no use whatsoever. No closed carriage was available, and that occasion had turned out to be less than romantic for at least one of the parties.

“Come,” Mabel said, preceding Richard up the steps. “I’ll show you the cottage, modest though it is.” She retrieved the key from under the boot scrape while Richard set the hamper in a shady corner of the terrace.

“The place needs more flowers,” he said. “Potted vinca or salvia or lavender.”

“I can have the gardeners see to it, if you like.”

“Suit yourself, Amabel. You will know better than anybody what will grow well and look cheerful.”

His habit of handing out compliments was unsettling. She twisted the key in the lock—which needed oiling—and left the door open behind her. The scent wasn’t musty, but the air was notably cooler than the out of doors.

Richard followed without closing the door. “Was this room the original structure, do you suppose?”

The ceiling was about ten feet high, the exposed beams sable with age and smoke. The hearth took up half the outer wall, the fieldstone contrasting with whitewashed plaster. The room had two windows looking out over the terrace and a flagstone floor. The furniture reposed under white Holland covers.

“A shame such a sturdy dwelling goes unused,” Richard said. “You are sworn to secrecy, but this place is probably more suited to my tastes than the great, sprawling grandeur of the manor house.”

“Mine, too, though the manor house is impressive.” To kiss him here and now, to kiss him in a bedroom? “The layout is simple, with a dining room and study-cum-parlor on this floor, bedrooms upstairs.”

“Kitchens and pantries below?”

“With modest servant quarters and cellars. The cottage is compact, but complete.”

They passed by the front entrance—more flagstone and exposed beams, though the front windows were mullioned for privacy. After a peek at the dining room and the study—no books—Mabel seized her courage with both hands and took the steps leading upward rather than show Richard the lowest floor of the house.

“Construction seems sound,” he said, hand on the oak banister. “You’ve made sure the place has been maintained.”

The upstairs corridor was narrower than its counterpart on the ground floor. “I take on the dusting myself. Nobody bothers me when I claim to be here with my rags and broom. The housekeeper well knows what I’m about and abets my schemes. For the dower house, she sends maids along to help, but here…”

“You have the place to yourself.”

The corridor was dim, illuminated only by windows at either end, a sort of parlor-at-large space in one corner.

Was a kiss in the shadows a better place to start than a kiss under the sun? Mabel was not, in truth, feeling particularly romantic, but she would have few opportunities when Wealtha was resting for a whole day and Orla content to keep to her rooms.

“Smallish,” Richard said of the first bedroom. The mattress had been rolled up and covered in sacking, the bed hangings taken down. A carpet was similarly stored in a roll beneath the bed slats. “But quite cozy.”

“Every bedroom has a hearth, just as each room downstairs does. That’s part of what I love about this place. Once you get it warm, it will stay toasty for days, provided the wind isn’t too bad.”

“Nice view of the stream,” Richard said, peering out a somewhat dusty window.

The second bedroom was much like the first, but simply seeing Richard in proximity to a bed, even one without hangings or bedding, flustered Mabel. A bed was so premeditated, so unimaginative.

Should she ask whether he wanted to be kissed? He’d made no move to touch her since they’d arrived. Was he still pondering Granny Wexler’s reticence?

“The largest bedroom has the best view,” Mabel said, a sense of determination fueling her progress down the corridor. “And it has a balcony over the terrace.”

Richard followed on silent feet.

The third bedroom covered about half the second floor and included a small dressing closet. One corner of the room served as a private parlor, with wing chairs under Holland covers and footstools turned upside down. The other half of the room held the vanity, cedar chest, and four-poster, which was adorned with green velvet hangings. The cotton sacking of the mattress was bare, the pillows stacked against the headboard. An old quilt had been folded across the cedar chest.

The rug was rolled up and stashed beneath the bed, lest sunlight fade the colors.

Forlorn rather than romantic. What had she been thinking?

“This is delightful,” Richard said, opening the French doors that led to the balcony. “I love the sound of living water, and we have so much of it in Merry Olde. I can understand why shepherds would enjoy biding here. Is the balcony safe?”

“Absolutely. I’ve spent many an hour reading in that old wicker chair.”

The balcony was in shadow, too, owing to the midday hour. The air was warmer than in the house and the breeze mild. The canopy of the home wood still bore a hint of the chartreuse green unique to spring, and all was scented with turned earth and woods.

“A respite,” Richard said, holding out a hand to her. “Thank you.”

Mabel emerged onto the balcony and took his hand. “More private than the orchard.” Oh, that was subtle.

She kept hold of his hand and wrapped her free arm around his waist. After a beat of silence, Richard brought his arms around her and rested his cheek against her temple.

Well, then, best get on with it. Embraces led to kisses, and kisses led to caresses and more than caresses. A seduction required all of the above, but Mabel wished in a foolish corner of her heart that in addition to all the panting and passion to come, she could have an endless moment to savor the sweetness of Richard’s embrace.

Richard could not read Amabel’s mood. She was preoccupied, or annoyed, or… something characteristic of females whom one sought in vain to understand. She was all pleasant conversation one moment, inscrutable silence the next, and brisk tour guide the one after that.

And now this, a sweet embrace that had an air of fatigue about it.

“You did not enjoy yesterday?” Richard asked, stroking a hand over Amabel’s sturdy back.

“My nooning with you was lovely. Watching Wealtha order clerks and shopgirls around and dither over two blue fabrics that were equally flattering was a test of my good manners.”

“She is spoiled.” Wealtha was also an unwelcome topic at what should be another enjoyable midday meal tête-à-tête with Amabel. “Perhaps she ought to be sent to Mayfair after all. She’d learn something about her place in the greater world.”

Richard felt the change go through Amabel, a slight bracing, followed by a this-again sigh.

“You assume,” she said, “that Wealtha would come home a sadder, wiser young lady. She might return to the Glen having learned how to be truly mean rather than merely thoughtless. I don’t want to talk about Wealtha, don’t want to think about her.”

Richard grazed his thumb over the warmth of Amabel’s nape. That almost-angry note lurked in her words again.

“What would you rather discuss?”

She glowered up at him. “Enough talk.”

Amabel kissed him on the mouth as if he’d just come home from the wars and must soon return to them. Her overture was accompanied by a tightening of her embrace, such that her every contour was plastered against him, visiting upon Richard the realization that she wore jumps instead of stays.

“Amabel…” He gentled the kiss gradually, moving his hands slowly over her shoulders. “We have time. We need not rush.”

She made a sound of frustration, but ceded to his slower tempo, loosening her grip and easing against him.

What is all this ferocity in aid of? Though, as Richard learned the shape of her shoulder blades and the silky texture of her hair, he realized that what he sensed wasn’t simply ferocity, but rather, ferocity in combination with a lack of sophistication.

Amabel had been kissed—without skill. She’d doubtless taken advantage of the more relaxed vigilance of rural chaperones, sampled the wares of a few adoring swains, and decided against marrying any of them. She’d apparently bedded one or two and declined the opportunity to spend a lifetime with any of her suitors.

And no wonder, if they went about their wooing like clueless schoolboys who had no care for a lady’s pleasure.

Richard experimented with a glancing caress to a generous breast. The result was a soft moan and a welcoming shift in Amabel’s posture. He obliged, arousal humming through him like harmony to Amabel’s melody.

He maneuvered her around beside the bed, until she was lying on her back, her legs over the side of the mattress. His hand went to his falls—the situation was workable—but Amabel chose then to twist her fingers in his hair and demand more kisses.

He made a decision that sorely disappointed his animal spirits, a choice rooted in chivalry and shrewdness. If the lady hadn’t been properly kissed by previous partners, she’d likely not been properly satisfied by them either.

He set about rectifying the oversight. By the time Amabel’s skirts were around her waist, and Richard was exploring the secret folds of her femininity, she’d gone quiet, her arms above her head, her cheeks flushed.

“You will allow me this,” he said, finding a rhythm with his caresses and the exact place to apply them. “You deserve this much at least, and you will not deny yourself.” Not deny him the delight of seeing her take her pleasure.

Amabel opened her eyes long enough to spare him a glance of what looked like bewilderment mixed with impatience, and then Richard applied a touch more pressure, and she was off, moving against his hand, arching her back, and fisting her fingers against the mattress.

Amabel in the throes of passion was a striking sight. She yielded to the delight, rode it out vigorously, and held his hand to her as the cataclysm eased, all without making a sound. When Richard would have sent her up on another flight of rapture, she stopped him by stilling his fingers.

“Not again, please.”

That was for her to say. He contented himself with languid kisses and fevered imaginings, until Amabel pushed herself up on her elbows and regarded him solemnly.

“Why can I barely keep my eyes open?”

“Because a nap is in order.” He shrugged out of his jacket, toed off his boots, and fetched the quilt from atop the cedar chest. “A nap and a cuddle.” Also some silent rejoicing.

Objective achieved, and may it be the first of many.

“I should take my boots off.” Amabel’s expression had a dazed quality, and she wasn’t removing her footwear.

Had Richard not known better, he’d have concluded she’d had a bit too much cordial and was taking pains not to let it show.

Which thought pleased him tremendously. “Allow me.” He unlaced her boots, was so bold as to untie her garters—plain linen, bless her—and rolled down her stockings. Amabel remained silent, eyes closed, breathing slow and regular.

The flush was fading from her countenance, leaving her in serene repose, legs still sprawled over the side of the mattress.

“Before you drift off, let’s get comfortable.”

“I am comfortable. If you see my dignity wandering about, tell it… tell it…”

“I will say you are not at home for the nonce.” Richard climbed onto the bed and situated his darling spoon-fashion against him, her back to his chest. “I love that lavender aroma. I associate the scent with my mama and with a house in order.”

Amabel laced her fingers with his and kissed his knuckles. She was soon fast asleep, though Richard was wide awake.

He had misspoken. He did enjoy the scent of lavender, and he did associate it with his mother. Her linen closets had been redolent of the aroma, and after her death, Richard had taken to keeping a lavender sachet in his pocket.

He did not love the scent, though. He loved Amabel Fielding, and if she thought he meant to frolic with her for a few weeks, then gallop south with a fond farewell, she was very much in error.

Mabel napped, and then she dissembled.

When she ought to have climbed from the bed and pretended that she knew exactly what came after whatever one called the sort of encounter she’d just shared with Richard, she instead kept her eyes closed and stayed snuggled against his warmth.

When had she last felt this secure and whole?

This happy in her physical being?

Ye capering caprines, the pleasure. The overwhelming, cascading, unfathomable pleasure, and Richard’s actions suggested the whole whirlwind could be summoned repeatedly. Mabel’s body, humming like a plucked fiddle string, had rejoiced at the notion, but her courage had been unequal to the experience.

“You’re awake?” Richard kissed her ear, which tickled.

“Barely. I feel very much as if I’ve been unhorsed. I am somehow no longer in the saddle and instead am sitting on the ground. I have no idea how the change in venue has come about.”

“I have ideas.” He patted her bum. “I suspect they had best keep for another time, but I am curiously reluctant to leave this bed.”

Richard was being kind, showing her how one recovered from all that wonder and intimacy. With sweet, silly words. With a conversation that wasn’t conducted face-to-face, but rather, in an embrace that was close, while leaving both parties an odd privacy.

“Somebody opined that rushing was not called for,” Mabel said, stifling a yawn. “I forget who said that, or in what context. I like that.”

“This?” He passed his hand over the curve of her hip and cupped her derriere.

“That.”

He elaborated, kneading and squeezing a part of Mabel’s anatomy that she’d taken very much for granted.

“You are so fit,” he said. “You probably went half mad in London from sheer inactivity.”

London. The very word was a serpent in the garden of Mabel’s contentment. She captured Richard’s all-too-capable hand and wrapped his arm about her waist.

“The whole business was exhausting, truth be told. We stayed awake until all hours, standing about at somebody’s rout, or pretending to be enthralled with some violinist at a musicale, then rising early to attend fittings or tend to invitations and read the Society pages. I saw no point in any of it.”

“And the violinist was seldom very accomplished,” Richard said. “And yet, the entire country is run by people who view that nonsense as critical to their happiness and success.”

“They did not view me as critical to anything, for which I became grateful.” And that was quite enough about London Society. “We should eat.”

“I am in need of sustenance, but, Amabel, might I ask you a question?”

He’d tightened his arm about her, preventing her from rolling over to face him, not that she was inclined to.

“Of course.”

“Was your knowledge gained consensually?”

Mabel needed a moment to sort out what that delicate, carefully neutral question was asking.

“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” Heat spread from her neck to her cheeks as her past paraded before her. “I was a willing and even enthusiastic participant on every occasion.” She’d also been hopelessly ignorant, misled, and manipulated.

And more than a little hurt, especially now, when she had just been shown how selfishly the author of her ruin had conducted himself. The terms cad, knave, and scoundrel applied.

“Good,” Richard said, giving her a hug, then loosening his hold. “A lady should be enthusiastic when it comes to intimate pleasures. If ever you can’t muster that enthusiasm, you must promise to tell me.”

He was complicating what Mabel had thought was a simple business. Men liked to rut, and gentlemen married ladies who then patiently accommodated that urge when necessary. If marriage was not part of the bargain, then women who sought plain coin for their favors were recruited for the gentleman’s convenience.

She’d known nothing and understood less than nothing. She hadn’t even understood how vast her ignorance had been.

“I will tell you if I am in want of enthusiasm,” she said. “I suspect you are too polite to tell me that you are in want of ham sandwiches.” Perhaps trysting followed some order of precedence. Just as high-ranking guests were expected to leave a social gathering first, perhaps in Richard’s Rules of Romping, the lady was supposed to be first off the bed?

“I could fetch the hamper here.” Richard turned loose of her and shifted to his back. “We could dine sur le matelas instead of en plein air?”

“I refuse to get crumbs on the mattress, and you are being fanciful.”

“Yes, and smitten. Also putting off the inevitable. Did you enjoy yourself, Amabel?”

She bestirred herself to roll over and prop herself on an elbow to regard him. What courage he brought to his encounters, what gentlemanliness.

And skill.

“You daft man, if I had enjoyed myself any more intensely, I would have yodeled the sheep from the hillsides. Your right hand knows things that… Well, yes, I quite enjoyed myself.”

“Then I enjoyed myself even more.”

He ruffled her hair and bestowed a smile on her of such smug fondness, Mabel felt it in places a lady didn’t have names for.

“That was just the beginning,” he said. “The sheep had best run for their byres.”

He was off the bed in the next instant, leaving Mabel with an odd, bereft feeling to go with all the other unexpected, conflicting emotions. She had set in motion the day’s plans because she’d wanted… she knew not what. Revenge, vindication, memories, pleasure, proper frolicking on her terms… Something of Richard to keep for herself.

“Boots,” he said, kneeling by the side of the bed, “and stockings and garters.”

“Must I? Might I not dine alfresco and barefoot?”

He looked up, his hair slightly disheveled, his cravat still in its tidy knot. The contrast was symbolic somehow.

“An inspired notion. Let’s be about it.” He held out a hand. Mabel found herself drawn to her feet, then held in a warm embrace. “Thank you, Amabel.”

“What are you thanking me for?” Shouldn’t she be thanking him?

“For pleasure, for joy, for trust, for hope that we might share more of the same.”

She rested against him, felled by the sincerity of his words and the generosity. “I’m sure we will.”

She was equally sure they’d part before she was ready to, but the pain of that thought was another serpent, one she was not prepared to acknowledge after she’d been well and truly cherished by a lover for the very first time.

13

“You pray for the black sheep,” Cyrus Whidman said. “You worry about the lambs who are too virtuous.”

Vicar Whidman was the quintessential spry old gent, with thinning white hair worn back in a queue. He was hook-nosed, shortish, thin, and moved with a bobbing gait that nonetheless saw him traversing the bridle path at a good clip.

“Was my mother too virtuous?” Richard asked, ambling along beside the former vicar.

Whidman pushed aside a precocious branch of blooming honeysuckle. “One supposes not. Marie was a cheerful, kindhearted girl, as I recall, and that was in contrast to her papa and younger sister. Old Tuffington was dour in his soul, but then, his acres were tired, he had no sons, and he was widowed.”

“Grandpapa was pockets to let?”

“We all were. War with the French had all but bankrupted the realm, the American colonies then embarked on their spree of mischief, and the military’s bottomless appetite for wool was not yet delighting every sheep farmer in the realm.”

“The military developed a bottomless appetite for everything, leaving us with an apparently bottomless debt now.”

“Quite so, quite so. In any case, Tuffington had married late. His wife predeceased him, he was getting on, and his situation wasn’t improving. He took a notion to see his daughters married off, and when that man set a goal, nothing was allowed to stand in his way.”

Richard had to make himself focus on Whidman’s words, when he’d rather be dazedly contemplating the wonder of the day’s earlier picnic with Amabel. They had lingered at the fishing cottage for more than two hours, talking, cuddling, and gradually emptying the hamper.

He’d been torn between a desire to return to the upstairs bedroom with her and the knowledge that he’d made a good beginning and should be content with that success. Then too, Amabel hadn’t initiated further intimacies.

What fool had convinced her that nobody needed to rush?

After seeing her back to the manor house, Richard had tried closeting himself in the library with the hoard of legal documents wrested from the solicitors, only to eventually give up.

The steward’s reports were no match for the memory of Amabel drowsy and replete in his arms. A wander along the bridle paths had resulted in this chance encounter with the elderly Whidman, who’d proven friendly and forthcoming—so far.

“Mama was not yet of age when Tuffington decided she should marry. Did that bother you?”

“My good fellow, a Yorkshire lass marrying at fifteen isn’t unheard of, and seventeen is well within acceptable practices. I presided over your mother’s nuptials without a single qualm. Perhaps in light of subsequent developments, a qualm or two might have been in order.”

Late afternoon was beginning to hint of early evening, with sunbeams filtering through leafy boughs overhead. In another hour, the birds would start singing, and Richard would be pouring wine for the ladies at table.

“Do you have regrets about performing that ceremony?” Richard asked.

“Of course I do. I’d been vicar at that point for about five years, and I prided myself on the godliness of my flock. Tuffington was something of a curmudgeon-in-training, but he came to services and brought his girls with him week in and week out. He paid his tithes to the penny, which mattered a great deal to me at the time. I did not yet know that a vicar’s most important job is not brilliant sermons, or fancy rituals, or even distributing what paltry alms the church wrings from its parishioners.”

“What, then, was your most important duty?”

“Let’s sit. When you get to be my age, you learn the location of every obliging fallen log, boulder, stone wall, and bench—most especially the benches—in the shire. There’s a lovely bench by the pond down that trail.”

Richard followed the old fellow through the undergrowth, and they emerged upon a medium-sized pond in the middle of a meadow of tall grass. A pair of geese glided across the center of the pond, occasionally dipping their heads beneath the surface.

“The bench,” Whidman said, picking up his pace as he made his way along the bank. “Been here longer than I have. I used to come here after Mrs. Whidman went to her reward. Peaceful place.”

“You were telling me about your most important duty,” Richard said, waiting for Whidman to choose his spot before taking a seat. The vicar preferred the end of the bench. Richard took the middle.

The geese, apparently unhappy to have company, exited the water, waddled up the bank, and disappeared into the tall grass of the meadow.

“Ah, right. My most important duty as vicar was to listen to my flock. To watch over them, to pay attention. To give another person one’s attention is a serious and demanding business.”

Also difficult when one was distracted by delightful, recent memories. “I agree. Are you saying Marie Tuffington should have had more of your attention?”

“Marie? Oh gracious, I suppose so. I was referring to Abernathy Blackstock. One is so grateful to have a parishioner who will serve on the committees and toss a few coins into the poor box. A parishioner who makes the churchyard a congenial place. He was the model congregant, neighbor, friend, and farmer.

“And yet,” Whidman went on, “he was lonely. I realized too late that Abernathy had been too lonely to exercise sound judgment when he decided to take a wife.”

Not what Richard wanted to hear, and yet, Whidman’s words were of a piece with what others had said. “Why would a woman abandon such a paragon after a mere two years of marriage?”

“I suppose because Blackstock was not strictly her choice. He was willing to take Marie on despite very modest settlements, and Tuffington approved the match.”

“What did Marie think of Blackstock’s suit?” Assuming Whidman had even asked her.

“Marie spoke her vows, my lord. That tells you she was willing.”

No, it did not. “And Orla married shortly thereafter?”

“She did, and she, too, was willing. I have had occasion to remind her of that. Joseph Fielding was a good man, though not as lucky with his finances as some. He worked hard, he paid his tithes, he did what he could to provide for his family, and he was honorable in every regard. Orla did not share Marie’s blithe nature, alas.”

Neither had Orla abandoned her spouse. “I never knew my mother to have a blithe nature. By the time I was underfoot, she was decidedly un-blithe.”

Whidman picked up a stone and cast it into the middle of the pond. “The wages of sin, my lord. The wages of sin.”

Balderdash. The wages of service in Mayfair. “You have no idea why Blackstock’s wife would have left him?”

“My lord, please believe me, Abernathy Blackstock was a friend to all. It nigh broke his heart when Marie abandoned him. He was downcast for months and, if you ask me, never quite the same. I do believe he loved her.”

“He was somewhat older than she. Might the age difference have accounted for the failure of the union?”

“What’s a few years when two people are determined to share a life? Your mother took a notion to flee, and she was too proud to ask Abernathy to take her back. Pride goeth and so forth. Enough of that ancient history. We must not speak ill of the dead, and I should warn you that Orla Fielding, in particular, does not like to mention her late sister at all. She is very clear on that point.”

Painfully so. “She is ashamed of Marie?”

“Marie behaved shamefully, and that redounds to Marie’s discredit. I think it is more the case that Orla blames Marie for the fact that Orla was left with Joseph Fielding for a suitor. A perfectly decent man, better than many, but try reasoning with a young lady who is discontent with her lot in life.”

Wealtha was discontent. The vicar had a point.

Whidman rose creakily. “I urge you not to dwell too much on the past, my lord.”

“That past affected my lot in life.” Richard stood as well and resisted the urge to toss Whidman into the pond. “I loved my mother. She was neither selfish nor heedless, and yet, those who recall her attribute her decisions to those very tendencies. She was also nobody’s fool.”

Whidman took out a pocket watch and pretended to consult it, though Richard was fairly certain, based on the old boy’s squinting and peering, that he could not read the time.

“Too soon old, too late smart, eh, my lord? I must be getting on, and I hope we see you at divine services on Sunday. Give thanks for your good fortune, if nothing else. Don’t be like your auntie. A godly woman, true enough, but…”

Whidman learned nearer. “My missus told me at the time that Orla’s settlements were even more modest than Marie’s. Orla well recalls the slight. Women carry grudges better than men can hope to. Take my word on that.”

He patted Richard’s arm awkwardly, then scuttled off, disappearing into the hedgerow like some woodland creature more accustomed to foraging by night than in sunshine.

Richard made three circuits of the pond before he was calm enough to turn his steps for home.

St. Didier entered the family parlor, unsure who was more in need of scolding, though given the precipitous nature of recent events, somebody surely was. The room was unpretentious, the furniture slightly worn, the floral pattern on the carpet a bit faded. In such modest surrounds, Miss Fielding stood out like a rose among daisies.

She was positively fetching in a frock of soft brown velvet trimmed with gold piping about the bodice and dashes of cream lace at the wrists and throat. The cut was out of date by several years, though it showed off her figure to excellent advantage. Not the attire of a young innocent, but rather, of a lady sure of her appeal.

Her hair was simply dressed in a chignon of cream lace, and she wore no jewelry, save for a slim gold bracelet on her left wrist. St. Didier’s eye was drawn to her not because she was attired in the first stare of fashion or luminous with expensive gems, but because of her air of utter, confident composure.

She was not merely the lady of the manor, she was happy to be so, and St. Didier found happy women to be vastly attractive.

“Mr. St. Didier.” She rose from the sofa and extended a hand to him. “We are the first to assemble for supper. Wealtha has decided to take a tray as she continues to recover from yesterday’s outing. Aunt Orla should be down directly.”

“And Swidhelm?” The party to whom St. Didier had initially intended to direct some plain speaking. A secluded picnic along the stream did not last two entire hours because the attendees were debating the Corn Laws.

“His lordship disappeared across the park nearly an hour ago. I know not where he was bound, but trust that he’d send word if he intended to miss supper.”

Miss Fielding’s briskness was the same as St. Didier had come to expect, as was the confidence in her words, but she’d watched her swain cross the park, noted the time of his departure, and expected him to inform her of any change in his plans.

St. Didier viewed all picnics with suspicion—and apparently for good reason. Swidhelm was also not the sort to wander the property alone when there was work to be done—or he hadn’t been. His wits had been addled by that picnic, as surely as sheep grew wool.

“Did you enjoy our jaunt into York?” St. Didier asked.

Miss Fielding went to the sideboard and poured out a serving from a carafe. “Yes, and no. You?”

“Mostly yes. Swidhelm put the fear of transportation in that old windbag Wopley. I flatter myself that I abetted the course of justice while watching an expert negotiator dispatch a fool.”

“A fool who wielded a lot of authority over the Glen,” Miss Fielding said. “I wish I’d been there. May I pour you a drink?”

“You’re having cider?”

“Cherry cider. It’s quite good. Not too strong.”

“The same, then. What part of the outing did you not enjoy?”

She measured out another glass. “The same part you didn’t enjoy, though you are too much of a gentleman to say so.”

She referred to time spent in the company of her honorary cousin, Miss Wealtha Blackstock. “I am not sociable by nature,” St. Didier said. “When a young lady decides that I am her escort, I lack the conversational agility to decline the post.”

“Perhaps you lack the rudeness.” Miss Fielding passed him the glass of cider. “In any case, I am in your debt, and you gave Richard a respite from Wealtha’s nattering too. I’m sure he appreciated that.”

“Richard.” St. Didier’s tone was reproving, when he’d intended to ask a polite question.

“His lordship is my step-cousin-in-law or something. We agreed that if Aunt Orla and Wealtha are to address him informally, I should as well. Do you object?”

She was merely curious, not the least bit defensive.

“I would not object,” St. Didier said, “even if I had standing to do so. In my experience, a title can isolate a man, such that he’s cast upon the company of his so-called peers, no matter how little he might have in common with them. He conforms to their conventions lest he be entirely alone. You ladies can preserve Swidhelm from such a fate.”

“You compare a peer to the new girl at finishing school.”

Well… yes. “Perhaps to anybody cast into the exclusive company of strangers.”

“Was Richard among strangers in London?”

When had Miss Fielding appropriated the role of interrogator? “You should ask him. My acquaintance with his lordship is recent.”

She sipped her cider. “Recent and thorough. You investigated every aspect of his past before you confronted him with the reality of his title. I spent enough time in Town to know that a ducal by-blow would be an object of gossip.”

Good heavens, the woman was relentless, though it occurred to St. Didier that her questions were not driven by gauche curiosity. She sought to understand Swidhelm without subjecting the man himself to painful questions.

Fair enough. “Richard Dolforth, as he was known at the time, was a minor sensation and partly by his own design.” St. Didier gestured to the French doors. “Shall we enjoy some fresh air?”

“By all means.” Miss Fielding set aside her drink, retrieved a shawl from the back of the sofa, and wrapped it around her shoulders with a graceful flourish. “Midday was positively summery, but the evenings are still bracing.”

St. Didier escorted her to the balustrade, which presented a peaceful view of shadows lengthening across the park and garden. If Miss Fielding still had connections in Town, they would apprise her of all that he was about to tell her, or they’d at least do some nosing about on the topic of Richard, Viscount Swidhelm.

And Swidhelm had been hellbent on behaving with anything but secrecy.

“Richard told me he was something of a rogue,” Miss Fielding said, gaze on the sunken garden. “I suspect he was also something of an outcast.”

“You are correct. He occupied a perplexing status, being illegitimate but ducally connected. Swidhelm seemed to be exploring the question of how much like a spoiled younger son he could behave without being one and still be received.”

“By ‘spoiled younger son,’ you mean a well-dressed wastrel who games away the night, makes careless wagers in the betting books, and consorts with loose women when he isn’t drunk at the horse races or avoiding creditors?”

“You take my meaning.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Much to my shock, I found the heirs and peers could also comport themselves like disgraces-at-large. The younger sons had no monopoly on atrocious behavior.”

She spoke from bitter experience. St. Didier’s intended script hadn’t accounted for the fact that she and Swidhelm might view Mayfair with similar contempt.

What else—if anything—had they discussed at their marathon picnic? St. Didier had seen them wandering across the park with their basket. He’d spent nearly two hours discreetly watching for their return and no homeward sighting had rewarded his vigilance.

“Swidhelm knew he was tolerated by Society,” St. Didier said, “but he came to see that straining that tolerance merely confirmed Society’s prejudices. He then set about confounding the hostess’s expectations, and became enviably successful at good manners, graceful dancing, and politely witty conversation.”

“While he regrettably excelled in trade as well.” She paced off along the balustrade, her slipper heels beating a tattoo against the flagstones. “What, I ask you, is so much more worthy about raising sheep and collecting rents than importing wines that proper gentlemen cannot function without?”

She came about at the top of the steps and headed back to him. “I went to London feeling like the luckiest young lady in Yorkshire. I was to stand up with handsome partners in candlelit ballrooms, float around the dance floor like a zephyr in silk—me, a zephyr—and become ever so slightly animated on the magic of sophisticated libation and clever conversation.”

Sheer bitterness colored her words, bitterness at variance with the golden sunset, green hills in the distance, and lush blooms of the garden below.

“I’m sorry,” St. Didier said. “You were disappointed.”

“I was a lamb to slaughter. I am glad Richard twisted Society’s rubbishing tail and even tied it in a knot. They did not deserve him, much less deserve to treat him so ill. Orla can’t wait for his lordship to return to Town, and I understood her impatience, but I find…”

Orla was perhaps most in need of scolding, despite her supposed invalid status. “You find?”

“I find…” Miss Fielding’s shoulders relaxed. The fire in her eyes dimmed. “I find his lordship’s company congenial, and routing Wopley was only the beginning of what the Glen needs from its new owner.”

“Then you won’t be hastening him back into his traveling coach?” Did St. Didier want her to shoo the new viscount off the property?

Miss Fielding adjusted her shawl. “Orla has presided over this household for years, and she’s groomed Wealtha to take on the same role. They are resentful of Richard’s presence, which is shortsighted of them. They will nudge and suggest and sigh and otherwise indicate that the man now supporting them ought to leave them to enjoy his generosity without his presence.”

“And you would have agreed with them, wouldn’t you?”

“I did agree with them. They are easier to manage without Richard on hand, but now… Why have I allowed all of life to revolve around placating Orla and Wealtha, Mr. St. Didier? I don’t expect you to answer that, but the question has recently troubled me.”

“Perhaps you have been like that new peer, without much support, save for the company of parties with whom you have little in common. If so, please know that I am ready to serve as an ally, provided you do not ask me to betray my obligations to Swidhelm.”

She frowned at him as if he’d just come out with some risqué French. He’d expected to lecture her about toying with Swidhelm’s affections, not pledge fealty to her.

But she’d been mauled by Mayfair and hadn’t even had the comfort of successful commerce to salve her bruises.

“You conclude that I need allies?”

“You deserve them, despite how magnificently you manage on your own. You do realize that Swidhelm might well jaunt back south a fortnight from now. His business interests are demanding and complicated.”

“I know. Let’s go in, shall we? The air will grow chillier as the sun sinks, and this shawl is little protection from the elements.”

“But pretty.” Green, gold, cream, bronze… Flattering and unusual.

“Thank you. What does Mayfair make of you, Mr. St. Didier? They have all manner of experience with by-blows and poor relations who should be on remittance, but you are something of a rara avis.”

What an odd, uncomfortable, tempting question. “I like to keep Mayfair guessing. They need me, they resent me, they don’t quite know what I make of them. I am careful to see that matters remain in an ambiguous posture.”

She tucked her hand around his arm. “Should you ever need an ally, you must consider me among that number, provided, of course, that you do not ask me to betray any prior obligations of honor.”

St. Didier had no witty rejoinder. No polite rejoinder. No rejoinder at all. He escorted her back into the relative warmth of the family parlor and wondered again what had actually transpired at the endless picnic.

Not a casual tryst—that much was certain.

14

“Perhaps you’ll light me up to my room, dearest Mabel?” Orla leavened the request with a smile, for there were gentlemen present. The meal had been delicious, the dishes brought to the sideboard hot, the conversation political, and Mabel—had she learned nothing from her failures?—had opined vigorously on any topic about which her perspective had been sought.

Orla turned her head to glance at the clock on the mantel, gauging the angle of her chin so her sapphire earbobs would catch the light.

“Of course, ma’am,” Mabel said as Richard rose to hold Orla’s chair. “I’m sure it’s time for the gentlemen to enjoy their port, and we’ve kept you up later than usual.”

St. Didier held Mabel’s chair, though the girl had been managing her skirts unaided for years. She’d trotted out some old dress from her few weeks in Town, and though the colors flattered her, the cut was hopelessly behind present fashions. No jewels, save for that silly, little gold bracelet she’d inherited from her late mother.

“I daresay you thought you were back in Mayfair,” Orla observed as she made a slow progress up the steps with Mabel at her side. “All that talk of tariffs and rotten boroughs and habeas whatever. I vow my digestion would have suffered had it gone on much longer.”

“Habeas corpus is all that stands between John Bull going about his day as he intends and being snatched off the streets to languish in prison indefinitely in the absence of a single charge. Parliament suspends that right at peril of causing the very revolution the crown claims to dread.”

“Please, no more, Mabel. You were outspoken enough through five courses, including the raspberry compote. I was not best pleased by your deportment.”

Mabel seldom needed correction in recent years, and she usually took any fault-finding too seriously. Orla was then subjected to pensive frowns, brooding silences, and days of overly meek behavior.

“Outspoken?” Mabel gained the top of the steps. “Perhaps I was, though you might have contributed a bit more to the discussion and spared me some effort. You well know the lot of the yeoman farmers here in Yorkshire, for example, and the Corn Laws have bankrupted many of them into accepting distressingly low wages in the manufactories.”

What on earth was one to say to that impertinence?

Mabel opened the door to Orla’s apartment, strode in, and used her carrying candle to light the candelabrum on the mantel.

She apparently did not intend to apologize for her forward behavior. “Mabel dearest, did you perhaps have too much wine?”

“I did not. I simply enjoyed some stimulating conversation with a pair of well-informed and articulate gentlemen. Shall I turn down your bed?”

“Please.” This boldness on Mabel’s part was most unwelcome, but then, the whole shire knew Mabel was on the shelf, and utterly eclipsed by the prettier, more youthful Wealtha. That status could tempt a woman to recklessness.

Orla’s step-daughter marched into the bedroom and made quick work of turning down the covers. She built up the fire, ran the warmer over the sheets, lit a few more candles, and generally did the work of the chambermaid better than the chambermaid would have done it herself.

Mabel did have her uses, though she’d always been obstinate to a fault. Even Joseph had admitted that much about his daughter.

“How did you and Richard amuse yourselves at the orchard?”

Mabel set about banking the fire in the sitting room hearth. “We enjoyed a picnic. Ham sandwiches. We discussed estate matters, and Richard summarized his dealings with Wopley for me. Richard also said that he’ll be increasing Wealtha’s settlements considerably.”

A fine and probably accurate summary. “Did he say how much?”

Too much, and Wealtha would become unmanageable. Not enough, and she would also become unmanageable.

“You and Wealtha will have to discuss that with him.” Mabel exchanged the poker for the hearth broom and swept ashes back toward the coals. “Sweet dreams, ma’am.”

“I might instead have nightmares, Mabel dearest. Your behavior today has given me concern.”

Ah, finally. Mabel’s brows drew down. Her expression lost the animation she’d had at supper. She ceased fussing among the ashes.

“I apologize for causing you any worry. In what regard are you anxious?”

“Your conversation at supper was quite outspoken. I can blame that on the wine and hope you exercise more restraint in future. That said, if you must picnic with his lordship, please do so in sight of the entire household.”

Orla sank into a wing chair, yielding to genuine fatigue—with the day, with present company, with the whole ridiculous situation.

“Admittedly,” she went on, “you have made choices that ensure you are unlikely to marry, much less marry well—regrettable, foolish choices. We cannot help your unfortunate past. By the grace of the Almighty, you still have a reputation. I must remind you, however, that your behavior reflects upon me, Wealtha, and even on his lordship.”

“Richard is the head of this family,” Mabel said. “I have ridden with him over hill and dale, walked the bridle paths with him, and you never once remarked on any of that. After a day spent in York, he and I sought to enjoy the Glen’s fresh air. Nothing more.”

Angels abide, the girl was growing fractious. “I suspect the outing to York has left you overly tired, Mabel, else you’d never use that insolent tone with me, but perhaps plain speaking is for the best. Your past is scandalous.”

Orla drew a lap robe over her knees while Mabel stood before the fire, the flames making the plain little bracelet wink on her wrist.

“Richard has dwelled among polite society in London at length,” Orla said, choosing her words for maximum impact. “He either knows of your unsuccessful foray into society and contemplates ungentlemanly overtures toward a desperate spinster, or he does not know and will think badly of you if he finds out. Your interests are best served by sending him back from whence he came. The sooner, the better.”

Mabel put the fireplace broom back on the hearth stand. “Do you honestly think I can tell that man what to do?”

“Yes, actually. You’ve told him which fields to fallow and which to seed with clover. You’ve suggested we need a new plow, and we now have two. I am very certain that this herd of goats recently purchased in York was all your doing. If you can’t bring yourself to order Richard off the property, then at least eschew the near occasion of lengthy picnics and meals tête-à-tête at one of the best inns in York. It won’t do, Mabel. It simply won’t do.”

Mabel secured the screen before the hearth. “I appreciate that you are concerned for me, Orla, but you are leaping to conclusions that have no bearing on reality. Richard enjoys the Glen, and that is a good thing. The property is not entailed, and he could sell it outright tomorrow. I’ll bid you good night.”

A solid parting shot, though even if Richard sold the Glen, he’d likely retain possession of the dower house, stash his female relations therein, and return to London, where he belonged.

Better still, he might travel all the way to Portugal.

“Please consider my advice, Mabel. Of all of us, you dwell at the Glen on sufferance, and I would hate to see your future in any way imperiled by shortsightedness on your part now. Good night, my dear.”

“Good night, ma’am.”

Mabel departed without another word. To Orla’s discerning eye, her step-daughter was moving a bit more slowly and with less of her characteristic assurance. Mabel would not admit wrongdoing—she’d salvaged her reputation locally with a similar silence—but she had learned from her mistakes, and she could be relied upon to heed a warning meant in her best interests.

“Wealtha keeping to her rooms for a whole day makes me uneasy,” Richard said, pouring two servings of brandy at the library’s sideboard.

“And yet,” St. Didier replied, “the quiet, the calm, the peace of the hours without her presence means you would not disturb her for all the sheep in Yorkshire.”

“And Northumberland.” Richard passed St. Didier a glass. “To peaceful days.”

“And nights.” St. Didier sipped abstemiously. “You had this shipped out from York.”

“The Glen’s stores are perilously low. I also brought some decent libation with me from Town. I was assured this vintage was adequate, and it is, but only adequate. Orla was ominously quiet at supper.” Also, as was her habit, overly fashionable for a rural meal with family.

Sapphires, for pity’s sake?

Amabel, in far simpler attire, had been fiercely articulate. Richard had played devil’s advocate to her rabble-rousing politics simply for the pleasure of matching wits with her. Her arguments were organized, ruthlessly rational, and succinctly put.

“And now you are quiet,” St. Didier said. “Bad of you, to provoke Miss Fielding at supper.”

“I did not provoke. I inspired. If the Commons ever admits women, she’ll have the lot of them in hand with her first speech.”

St. Didier settled into a wing chair before the modest peat fire. “Does she have you in hand?”

If only… Richard ordered that prurient thought from his mind. “She finds me worth a look. I am not to get ideas above my station.” He tossed another square of peat onto the fire, poked some air into the flames, and took the second wing chair.

“You have ideas, Miss Fielding’s admonitions notwithstanding.”

Ideas and aspirations. Possibly even a few dreams. “Miss Fielding is understandably cautious when it comes to her dealings with men. I proceed carefully with her or not at all, by order of Miss Fielding.” Or those were her orders, as best Richard could make them out.

“Swidhelm, is this wise? She is a decent woman with little experience of the world. What are you about?”

While the question was polite, the tone suggested severe consequences for foolishness. St. Didier was nothing if not consistent in his loyalties.

“I am courting her. She will admit as much in her own good time or send me packing. I am new to the business of courting, so allow me some latitude.” Amabel had allowed him some latitude—a great deal of latitude—and he took heart from that.

The picnic had gone more or less as she had intended.

“Be careful,” St. Didier said, finishing his drink. “Be careful of her good name, be careful of your…”

“Of my?”

“Just be careful. Miss Fielding strikes me as appearing more confident and sophisticated than she is. You could well hurt her, and she, possibly without meaning to, could serve you a few low blows as well.”

“Auntie Leopold’s words of wisdom? You reach these conclusions based on what evidence?”

“I hear things. I see things. Leave it at that. I also saw, by the by, that for an invalid, Orla Fielding appears to have a perfectly healthy appetite.”

The subject was abruptly and blessedly changed. “I agree. She is not pale. She is not thin. She has no palsy, nor is she dropsical. I do wonder what ailment afflicts her.”

“She might have suffered a creeping bout of lack of funds, in which case, she will make a gradual, halting recovery as you return the household budget to good health.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Which Richard would share with Amabel when next they found themselves with enough privacy for such a discussion. “Orla was the lady of this manor, without ever having been married to the lord, but as such, she could have been entertaining grandly.”

“Or entertaining modestly, but regularly. Hosting friends for a rural respite. She is a notable senior member of that coterie unfortunately known as Miss Gundridge’s Gossips. She might have held a small house party on the occasion of Wealtha’s birthday. Hard to do any of that without coin.”

“And easier to blame a lack of social events on poor health than poor finances.” Though how Wealtha would have reveled in the conviviality of a gossipy house party. “The notion that Orla was ailing also sent me north in rather a hurry, and I suspect that might have been intentional on her part.”

“She wanted to flush you out of the London hedges before Wealtha grew any longer in the tooth, perhaps.”

Thoughts of Wealtha were not cheering. She was what polite society called a difficult young woman. To have had a day without her silliness at meals, without her arch looks and pouting silences had made more obvious what a trial she was to a man’s patience.

So pretty to look on, though. Deceptively pretty. “How has Amabel not spanked her step-half-honorary-courtesy cousin into next week?” Richard mused, fetching the decanter. “They could not be less alike.”

“You are the head of the family. If anybody needs a birching, verbal or otherwise, it’s your job to see it done.”

Richard returned to his seat, glad to have St. Didier’s company and certain that telling him as much would send Auntie Leopold galloping for Scotland.

“I would like to thrash the former vicar, Mr. Whidman. I ran into him on my late afternoon ramble and tried to wrest a few reminiscences from him.”

“Without success?”

Richard splashed more brandy into St. Didier’s glass, though truly, the vintage was beneath the notice of a discerning palate.

“Without much success. I was treated to the usual panegyric about Abernathy Blackstock. Pillar of the congregation. Friend to all. Undeserving of the infamy my mother visited upon him. Whidman did allow as how Mama’s settlements were more generous than Orla’s, and Orla might still resent the slight.”

“Or Tuffington’s fortunes sank yet further, or Orla’s husband wasn’t as greedy as Blackstock.”

“Those alternatives did occur to me. Amabel describes her father as surpassingly honorable.”

Richard fell silent, revisiting the conversations with both Whidman and Granny Wexler. A pair of pontificating old besoms, happy to consign Richard to ignorance about his own dear mama.

“What else is occurring to you, Swidhelm?”

“Nothing specific, but with both Granny Wexler and Vicar Whidman, I suggested that the difference in ages between Mama and Blackstock accounted for her unhappiness with the marriage.”

St. Didier yawned behind his hand. “It wasn’t that great an age difference, was it? Fifteen years?”

“Fourteen. Would you consider taking a bride fourteen years your junior?”

“Certainly not. She’d be in the schoolroom.”

“Exactly. Mama went to housekeeping with Blackstock before she turned eighteen.”

“She was beautiful. Perhaps she was as spoiled as Wealtha.” St. Didier downed the remaining brandy in his glass. “No more for me. All this fresh Yorkshire air is playing havoc with my stamina.”

“Mama was not spoiled. Spoiled women do not try to make a go of it in service.”

“Did she, in fact, make a go of it in service?” St. Didier’s eyes were closed, and he’d crossed his arms over his chest.

Richard shoved the hassock to a place before St. Didier’s chair. “She earned her wages as a housekeeper to an elderly squire in Hampshire, as you well know. She was in service for the entirety of the time I knew her.”

“Do these observations have a point?”

Richard had to ponder the question briefly. “Both Granny and Vicar were more or less lecturing me about the folly of pawing through the past, about my mother’s bad choices. When I posited that her youth or Blackstock’s mature years were to blame, both of them told me I was wrong. The age difference had nothing to do with the marriage failing.”

“You thus infer that something else is to blame. Something they both know but were unwilling to share.”

“Precisely. Mama had a reason for choosing to create a scandal, and I am determined to find it.”

St. Didier opened his eyes. “You might regret that determination. Orla, the former vicar, and this Granny person have all dissuaded you from prying.”

“If it’s my own past, does curiosity count as prying?”

“Sophistry is beyond me at this hour. Rising from this chair might be beyond me as well.”

“Too much raspberry compote.” Richard stood and tossed the blanket from the back of his chair into St. Didier’s lap. “At least take your boots off so they don’t get baked by the fire’s heat. I’ll see you in the morning.”

St. Didier arranged the blanket. “I might be leaving soon.”

“Must you?”

“Not yet. Soon. The press of what passes for my business. Will you give up your quest to unearth the details of your mother’s abandonment of her vows?”

Richard’s first impulse was to say he most certainly would not. “I will discuss it with Amabel. She is sensible in the extreme and knows the local terrain better than I ever could.”

“Amabel. Of course you will discuss it with her, probably at another all-day picnic.”

All-day picnicking with Amabel. What a thought. “Good night. St. Didier.” Richard left his guest muttering about raspberries and the ruddy fresh air.

The hour was not too late to have a short chat with Amabel, but Richard decided to leave that conversation for the following day.

Some fool had decreed that nobody need rush, despite all temptation to the contrary.

Richard was everywhere Mabel went. If she began her morning stopping by the village sweet shop, he was across the green, loitering with the other fellows gossiping in the blacksmith’s yard. If she popped into the housekeeper’s parlor when she returned to the Glen, intent on discussing menus with Cook, Richard’s baritone drifted up from the nearly empty wine cellar.

He’d been absent from lunch—convening with the steward regarding the new plows—but he’d lurked in Mabel’s thoughts as she’d endured Wealtha’s chattering and Orla’s murmured replies.

Since yesterday’s picnic, Richard had refused to leave Mabel’s imagination, causing her to smile at nothing and turn her face to the sun for no reason. And, of course, when she sought the solitude of the back garden—her last, best refuge—there he was on the bench nearest the fountain, a ledger open in his lap.

Had he known she’d include a spot of pruning and tidying up as a respite from the afternoon’s more tedious chores? Was he possibly waiting for her?

Mabel accidently yanked up a stalk of healthy iris, replanted it with a silent apology, and gave up attempting to be productive. She rose and approached the bench.

“Rescue me,” Richard said, closing the ledger. “I am trying to get a picture of the Glen as it was during Blackstock’s tenure, and the numbers aren’t making sense.”

Mabel took the place beside him on the sun-warmed bench—in view of the whole household, thank you very much, Step-mama. She pulled off her gloves and tossed them into the ash wood trug that held her secateurs and trowel.

“You hate it when numbers don’t make sense.” Mabel was none too fond of a sloppy ledger either. “I’m the same way about weeds in my garden. I did not plant them. Why do they presume to grow among my flowers when they could put down roots anywhere else in Yorkshire?”

“Anywhere else in the whole of Britain. Vexatious blighters. Blackstock, or his steward, was a conscientious bookkeeper, until he wasn’t. Regular large sums were spent on I know not what. Then the next thirty entries are complete. Everything annotated, dated, and explained, then another mystery expense. How dare Blackstock leave me guessing when he might have simply jotted down, ‘Thirty pounds—refurbished traveling coach’?”

“Abernathy Blackstock had at least one flaw, then. You must derive some satisfaction from that.” Mabel tucked her fingers under her thigh rather than allow herself to touch Richard’s sleeve or, worse, take his hand.

“Blackstock’s imperfection is some consolation, you’re right, but if a fellow must leave an entry incomplete, then he ought to lapse on the small matters. A two-pound tithe—though I realize two pounds is a grand sum to most—or a few shillings for a vale.”

The accounts truly annoyed him, which Mabel would not have anticipated, though thirty pounds was far from a trifling expense.

“Do you suppose your mother left Abernathy because he was an indifferent bookkeeper?”

Richard set the ledger aside. “Touché, and no. I fixate on the ledgers because I nearly lost my last groat taking a more casual approach. A junior clerk made a mistake, entering an expense as revenue, and for a sizable amount. The bank extended me credit, but I was months sorting the repercussions.”

“Did you sack him?”

“The clerk? Of course not. The senior clerk who should have reviewed the entries earned a dressing down, but the welfare of the business is ultimately my responsibility. I eventually came to enjoy the ciphering aspect of commerce more than almost any other.”

“I enjoy keeping the household accounts.” Mabel also enjoyed this somewhat aimless talk in the midafternoon sunshine. “Vicar Whidman allowed as how you are a fine young man. You did not mention at supper that you’d come across him. He was pleased to render judgment upon you in the sweet shop.”

“I was too busy at supper debating with a certain oratorically gifted party. Whidman sang Blackstock’s praises when I queried him about the past. Told me to sit down and be quiet, essentially.”

Mabel had never enjoyed Whidman’s sermons. Too much of thou-shalt-not and if-thy-right-eye-offend-thee. Precious little about love-thy-neighbor. “Will you, my lord? Sit down and be quiet?”

“What do you think I should do? I think I should kiss you.” He sounded marvelously disgruntled to not be kissing her.

“I should kiss you, too, but not where every footman, maid, Orla, and Wealtha will gawk at us. Orla seems to resent you simply for being on hand. Now that you’ve sacked Wopley the Weasel, she is hoping you will take yourself off.”

“While I hope she develops a sudden notion to visit friends in central Peru, meaning no insult to the Peruvians. Auntie was positively glum at supper last night.”

Glum and showing off her jewelry again, though, to be fair, Orla had a lovely collection.

“Step-mama wanted us to think she was tired rather than tiresome.” A younger Mabel would have been appalled at her own honesty. Years of enduring Step-mama’s guidance and her company were finally chafing past all bearing.

Thank you very much, Richard, Viscount Swidhelm.

“What exactly is the nature of her ailment?”

“Her physicians have been discreet. I heard references to a wasting disease, an excess of black bile, a wandering womb, and the imbalance of the humors typical of the older female.”

“That certainly narrows it down. Might she be malingering?”

The question put into focus a realization Mabel hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. “Probably. She can stand in the churchyard and collect gossip by the hour and then claim two days later that she lacks the energy to have Vicar over for tea. She will plead a megrim when Mrs. Johnson calls alone. Orla nonetheless orders a full tea tray and plays the gracious hostess, with Wealtha at her side, if Mrs. Johnson is escorted by her son Magnus.”

“Young Mr. Johnson has prospects?”

“His paternal uncle is a baronet, and Magnus is his heir. Magnus is a patient, good-hearted soul, a hard worker, and sensible. He is our magistrate, in addition to owning substantial acreage. He and Wealtha might suit.”

Might being the operative word.

“I’ve met him. I will make it a point to cultivate his acquaintance.” Richard crossed his legs and turned his face up to the sun. “When did your step-mother fall ill?”

He was too handsome, with the sunlight gilding his eyelashes and his breeches pulled taut across muscular thighs.

None of that. “Orla has always been prone to megrims, some of them blatantly convenient, but then, anybody can have a headache. I suppose she fell ill shortly after we moved to the Glen.”

“She had her own house before that?”

“She still does, thanks to Papa Joseph, but she did not want Wealtha to have to leave familiar surroundings after Blackstock’s death. We moved here and rented out the Fielding house.”

Richard regarded the tools in Mabel’s basket, dark earth still clinging to the trowel, the gloves dirty.

“Orla uprooted you rather than bring Wealtha to the Fielding house, where Wealtha had doubtless run tame for years. If funds were limited, then renting out the Glen would have generated far more revenue.”

“I made that point, to no avail.” For that matter, selling Papa Joseph’s house would have brought in some investable revenue and freed Orla of the cost of maintaining an aging dwelling. “Orla insisted that tenants at the Glen would wreck the place, and Wealtha would be devastated to leave the only home she’d known. Tenants at the Fielding house were apparently to be trusted.”

Richard rubbed a hand across his brow. “I confess, Orla’s choices puzzle me, but then, I’ve never had an auntie before, much less one widowed and left responsible for two very young ladies. I wonder if Orla is what Wealtha will become.”

“You wonder a lot, but I suspect they get on in part because they do understand each other intuitively.”

Richard patted Mabel’s arm. “I ought not to bother you with my ruminations. My mother said I was prone to brooding, and she was right. I learned not to pester her with my curiosity and questions, but my mind chases March hares all the same. Witness: I’m determined to make sense of ten-year-old ledgers.”

Large sums repeatedly disbursed without explanation was more of an unexplained rampaging bullock than a leaping hare.

“Did Blackstock’s mysterious entries follow any pattern?”

“I don’t know. Are you free to investigate the ledgers with me?”

Mabel admonished herself to stand, shake out her skirts, collect her basket, and cite a pressing need to count linen… but no. Richard liked linen closets, and their doors invariably locked.

No counting linen.

“As it happens, I am free for the next hour. You take one ledger, give me the one for the previous year, and we’ll see what we can unearth.”

Mabel discovered that the boring business of analyzing an old ledger was enjoyable when she sat across the reading table from Richard. Whenever she looked up, he’d catch her eye, smile, nudge her boot with his, and then go back to scribbling notes on a sheet of foolscap.

And for some reason, that shared smile and the ridiculous nudge of boots was the most special thing Mabel had ever experienced in a library by the broad light of day.

Or possibly anywhere, ever, barring a recent picnic at the fishing cottage.

15

“There you are.” Wealtha charged into the library not a quarter hour after Amabel had decamped to discuss with Cook the riveting matter of opening the summer kitchen. Why that decision required Amabel’s imprimatur, Richard did not know, but apparently everything, from whether to put hind shoes on Fergus Fothergill’s gelding to how many sheep might be run on Angus Dinwiddy’s south pasture, required a consultation with Amabel Fielding.

Running an import business would be no challenge at all for her, and yet, Richard had allowed that one enterprise to absorb most of his waking hours in recent years.

“I am here,” Richard said, rising. “I have been closeted here rather longer than I prefer on such a pretty day. Your papa’s ledgers are not exactly scintillating company, meaning no offense.” The scintillating company was at that moment likely opening dusty cupboards.

Wealtha reversed course and closed the library door. “Papa’s ledgers can wait. I have business to discuss with you. You stopped at the bank when we were in York.”

How had she ascertained…? Ah, by interrogating St. Didier, perhaps. “I did stop at the bank.”

“Aunt Orla says you have taken my settlements in hand, just as you said you would.”

She stood on the other side of the reading table, exuding neither good cheer nor ire. Had anybody told Richard that Wealtha Blackstock could be hard to read, he’d have been astonished, but he could not discern her mood.

“I did make some arrangements regarding your settlements while I was at the bank. I generally keep my word, Wealtha, absent exigent catastrophes. I hope you already know me that well.”

She paced around the table and began fussing. A sketch of the Glen in high summer had to be tilted a quarter inch to the right. She moved the candelabrum on the mantel two inches closer to the center and closed the French door that had been letting in a pleasant breeze.

As negotiation tactics went, her dithering failed to impress. Richard was supposed to be so concerned by her apparent agitation that he would ask her to unburden herself. Whatever followed would then be at his invitation.

He instead tidied up the papers and ledgers on the table, taking a moment to admire Amabel’s lovely penmanship. She was a delight to flirt with, so prim at her ledgers, while she indulged in surreptitious boot-kisses beneath the table…

“I truly don’t know you,” Wealtha said, pausing under an oil portrait of her grandfather. She had her progenitor’s somewhat definite chin, though she’d been spared his nose. “We aren’t even genuinely related, and that is not my fault.”

Well, then. Her mood was petulant. Richard adopted the tone he’d use with a Portuguese drayman intent on fleecing a gormless Englishman.

“Nor is it my fault, Wealtha. We share unusual circumstances, though they need not be trying circumstances.”

“When you lark about the village asking peculiar questions, you try my patience sorely, my lord.”

She sounded exactly like a cranky governess. “My patience is tried even more sorely when questions having to do with my mother and my own origins are met with either supposed ignorance or a scold. I have interviewed exactly two people, Wealtha, and neither one of them was forthcoming in the least.” Four, if he counted old Fothergill and Aunt Orla.

“They weren’t?”

“Both extolled Abernathy Blackstock’s virtues at length and admonished me to stop prying, just as Aunt Orla did. I fail to see how the matter involves you, just as I fail to see what motivates a universal silence regarding my mother’s past.”

“Then you are a dunderhead, and I wish you weren’t my brother.”

Were she not fingering a vase of exquisite Sèvres porcelain as she spoke, her taunt would have come across as juvenile. Instead, she was becoming tiresome.

“Wealtha, we are more or less stuck with each other. If I have done something to discommode you, and you’d like me to repair the situation, you must state the problem plainly.”

“You already talk all viscount-ish. You could leave. Then you would not discommode me in any way.”

This again. “I very likely will leave from time to time. I have business to tend to, and Yorkshire winters are legendarily fierce.” What has you in such a snit? He would not ask. She’d sought him out. Let her state her case like a rational adult.

“Winter is months away.”

“So it is.” Not for the first time, Richard was glad this young woman was no relation of his. She was not related to Amabel either, and yet, Amabel had endured her company for years.

“Do you not realize, sir, that if you ask all and sundry to think back to your mother’s disastrous behavior, that they might also ponder when exactly she died?”

“In the first place, two elderly people aren’t ‘all and sundry.’ In the second, your neighbors have had years to wonder when Marie Blackstock died, and not a one of them has asked me about it, nor would I be forthcoming with a specific date if they did. That information is not easily obtained, Wealtha. Marie used a different name once she left the Glen, and she died just as quietly as she lived. She was also declared dead by the courts before you arrived to this earth.”

Richard kept his voice level by sheer self-discipline. He and his nominal sibling weren’t debating the price of a good wine or the cost to ship it. Wealtha was attacking his right to understand his own mother and the choices Marie had made that had resulted in his birth.

Mama had known he believed himself to be illegitimate, when the legalities placed him in a very different and higher, more acceptable status.

“You don’t know our neighbors,” Wealtha said. “They smile to your face and gossip behind your back. Vicar Whidman has no discretion whatsoever.”

“He will be discreet. He presided at the wedding of Marie and Abernathy without ascertaining whether the bride was coerced.”

Wealtha moved the vase six inches to the left. “She was not coerced. Marie was lucky to marry my papa. He was handsome, charming, one of the wealthiest men in the shire, and his third cousin or something was a viscount. Why wouldn’t Marie want to marry him?”

“Given the reticence that prevails regarding the past, I’ll probably never know. I assure you, Wealtha, that your origins will remain a private family matter.”

“About my settlements. I would like to know the details.”

In her present mood, she would likely find the crown jewels of England, France, and Russia insufficient.

A tap on the door heralded Kepler’s timely arrival. “A visitor, my lord. Mrs. Johnson and her son Mr. Magnus Johnson.”

Wealtha became a different person. Her features smoothed into cheerful welcome, her posture relaxed, and she put the vase back where it belonged.

“You must receive them,” she said. “They are old family friends, and if you try to stand on some ridiculous high-stickling notion of protocol and make them wait for you to pay the first call, I will never live down the shame, and neither will you.”

Richard would welcome with open arms anybody whose arrival spared him more of Wealtha’s pouting and seething.

“I have lived down more shame than you can imagine, Wealtha Blackstock. Some of it not even of my own making. As it happens, Magnus Johnson and I crossed paths the other day by the yearling pasture. I will happily receive my neighbors, even if they are not necessarily overjoyed to receive me.”

Richard assayed that minor tirade just to see how Wealtha would react with Kepler standing silently by the door.

She chose retreat, suggesting she wasn’t at all as featherbrained as she wanted the world to sometimes think her.

“I meant no offense, my lord. I’ll just freshen up and join you in the formal parlor shortly.”

“The informal parlor,” Richard said. “Neighbors paying a casual call can be received without pomp and posturing.”

She glared at him, balled her fists, and swanned out without another word.

“How did I do?” Richard asked.

Kepler shook his head. “With that one, winning a skirmish is often followed by losing a battle. You certainly held your ground, my lord.”

“I’m out to win the war, Kepler, but I will settle for besting her in a skirmish for the nonce. Please let the kitchen know we have guests and ask Cook to do the Glen proud with the tea tray.”

“And Mrs. Fielding, sir? Should I inform her that callers have arrived?”

“Mrs. Fielding’s rooms overlook the drive. She will already be aware that we have visitors, and she will know who they are based on their conveyance. Wealtha will inform her, and if my aunt does not care to join us, I am perfectly capable of greeting neighbors on my own. If Miss Fielding is available, she ought to be told.”

Rescued from the dread bowels of the summer kitchen, more like.

Kepler bowed shallowly. “Very good, my lord.”

Richard wasn’t sure ignoring Aunt Orla’s role as hostess was at all sound tactics, but she needed to realize that he wasn’t going away, nor would he support the notion that she could in any regard tell him what to do.

If he won enough skirmishes with his newfound family, perhaps all-out war might be avoided.

And perhaps not.

Mabel regarded another stack of packages on the sideboard next to the footmen’s stairs. Truly, Wealtha had outdone herself in York. Two hatboxes, another box that doubtless held the green merino cloak Wealtha had insisted she must have, and several more parcels from the mercer’s.

Fabric that Mabel was expected to stitch into the latest fashions, finishing at least one frock before the assembly. She stacked the plunder from the mercer’s in her arms and headed up the footmen’s steps. If Wealtha caught sight of the treasure, she’d commence reminding Mabel that the assembly was just days away—a fortnight was composed of days, after all—and a young lady did want to look her best especially on public occasions.

Wealtha had all but simpered at Magnus Johnson when he’d expressed the hope that Wealtha would attend the assembly. She had stopped short of sighing over her lack of a partner for the minuet, which was fortunate. Magnus had been merely polite—he was by no means a foolish man—and Wealtha had taken his commonplace for flirtation.

Spare me from rural assemblies. The punch was invariably too strong, the assembly rooms too hot, and the fiddles went out of tune by the end of every set.

The sewing room was a pleasant space, full light from four tall windows, one of which somebody had opened to let in the afternoon breeze. Mabel unwrapped Wealtha’s treasures—yards of silk to line the merino cloak, more yards to make up a summer dressing gown, yet still more yards for two new evening dresses…

“I am tired of sewing Wealtha’s dresses.” Tired of sewing Orla’s as well, though Orla did not demand as much fine needlepoint on hers. “I am tired.”

Mabel nearly admitted aloud that she might like to wear silk herself for some noted public occasion.

She refrained from that confession because she could hear voices through the open window. The sewing room was situated such that the windows of the sewing room and the windows of Orla’s sitting room were at right angles, sharing a corner overlooking the back terrace.

“Correct me if I’m mistaken,” Orla said, “but my guess is, Mabel all but monopolized Magnus Johnson’s conversation. I’m sure you’re annoyed, Wealtha dearest, though you must admit desperation ill becomes a woman so firmly on the shelf. Magnus is younger than Mabel by several years.”

“Mabel brought up shearing,” Wealtha replied. “Of course Magnus went off into flights about this year’s crop of lambs and some nonsense about a breed from the Cheviot Hills. I could not get a word in to save myself.”

Magnus had brought up shearing, on which his farms had made a late start. Mabel had sympathized. Magnus was her elder by at least a year. Orla was apparently trying to console Wealtha, though, and bending facts often figured in that thankless exercise.

“If Mabel was a bit forward,” Orla said, “we must not blame her. She was doubtless told in London that women who draw attention to themselves are regarded as original. Nothing is further from the truth, of course, but that trip to Town likely lives in Mabel’s memory as the accomplishment of a lifetime.”

“But she failed,” Wealtha retorted over the clink of porcelain and silverware. “She came home without a single offer.” Wealtha’s tone conveyed more puzzlement than malice. “How can she be so proud of a failure?”

She is not. Though Mabel was, in an obscure, inexplicable fashion, proud of resuming her life and putting the past firmly to the side.

“Mabel had her Season, Wealtha dear. She is one of very few in this shire who can say even that much.”

Why remind Wealtha of a point that would doubtless cause her pain?

“Her almighty Season was years ago and just a few weeks, really. Might I have the biscuits, Auntie?”

“Exercise restraint, Wealtha. You’ve had two already. You cannot eat as Mabel does unless you’re willing to hare all over the property in the same unladylike manner. All that time out of doors has taken a toll on her complexion. Such a pity.”

I should go. Magnus Johnson had failed to flirt with Wealtha, and Wealtha’s confidence needed bolstering. Orla’s preferred approach to that challenge was apparently to denigrate Mabel.

Mabel turned for the door as Orla spoke again.

“Did Mabel try to convince you to purchase less costly fabrics in York?”

“Her and her everlasting economies.” A cup was set down with a definite plink! “We weren’t spending our silly little allowance. We were spending Richard’s money, and still she did not relent. Mabel said silk is the devil to keep clean and snags too easily. Am I to spend my entire summer in dowdy old muslin, for pity’s sake? The shopgirls gaped at her as if she had two heads, trying to deny me any silk for my summer wardrobe.”

The shopgirls had gaped at Wealtha, who’d bought enough fabric for two dresses, when Mabel had tried to convince her that even one silk dress might be impractical.

Not expensive—though it certainly was—but impractical.

I truly should go. Mabel instead sank into a rocking chair doubtless purloined from the nursery.

“Mabel might have been thinking of tattling on you to Richard,” Orla said. “Complaining of your extravagance. She is clever enough to goad you into buying more than you need by implying that you should not. You do have a stubborn streak, Wealtha.”

“I am determined, not stubborn. Richard said I am to have my heart’s desire. My heart desired two silk dresses.”

“Well, good for you. You will look splendid in silk, I’m sure. Have you thanked Richard?”

“I thanked him in front of the Johnsons.” Wealtha spoke as if her mouth might be full of cinnamon biscuit. “To shop without regard to cost was glorious.”

Mabel had found it tiring and upsetting. Watching Wealtha make purchase after purchase, mostly items she did not truly need, had been like watching an inebriate succumb to the bottle. Sad and disquieting.

“You were wise to take advantage of the opportunity to refurbish your wardrobe. Richard will soon tire of the Glen. I much preferred the place when he wasn’t on hand to upset every routine. The Johnsons are just the start of the calls we’ll receive.”

“I like having callers.”

“But the calls must be returned, Wealtha, and my health has only begun to improve. You will have to take Mabel with you for propriety’s sake when my energy falters. Tell me, did she usurp your right to preside over the tea tray?”

Mabel glowered at the open window. Wealtha had spent so long dithering with her toilette that the tea would have been cold had Mabel not poured out.

“She absolutely did, Auntie. Sat there before the service like the queen of all she surveys.”

“Right across from Magnus Johnson?”

“Almost.”

Mrs. Johnson had been across from Mabel, her son beside her. With every question and observation, Orla was determined to show Mabel in a bad light.

“She was doubtless trying to impress Magnus with a pretty, domestic picture. That sort of behavior is common in Mayfair, I’m told.”

“I wish I had had a Season,” Wealtha said. “I’m still not too terribly old, but people might recall that Mabel is my relation of some sort, and her Season was a failure.”

“No relation at all, really. She doesn’t share your name, and I’m sure she made little impression on anybody who matters. Better, though, to be the prettiest young lady in the shire than to try to outshine dukes’ daughters dripping in diamonds, Wealtha. Have one more biscuit, why don’t you, and then you must leave me in peace. I do feel a megrim coming on. Too much upheaval. I cannot wait for Richard to quit the Glen.”

Why emphasize that sentiment to Wealtha?

“I like Richard, mostly. He can be stern, but he’s not mean.”

A surprisingly accurate assessment.

“I do not like Richard. As willful and obstinate as Mabel can be, she declares that she has no ability to persuade him to go. When has Mabel ever doubted her own capabilities, I ask you?”

“She had no success in London, Auntie. That had to leave her with some doubts.”

Wealtha was a font of wisdom today.

“Doubts, perhaps, but precious little wisdom or humility.”

“Nobody tells Mabel what to do. I envy that about her. She just does as she pleases. Magnus Johnson is handsome, but he’s not a great catch. Perhaps Mabel should marry him.”

“You are being fanciful. Magnus Johnson might have shown Mabel some polite interest on topics that qualify as small talk, but Mabel has nothing in the way of settlements, she’s too old to bear many sons, and you are far, far prettier and more accomplished.”

I have my competence. How often had that notion been Mabel’s sole comfort in a tiring and cheerless world?

“Odd,” Wealtha said on a rustle of fabric. “I don’t feel accomplished. Mabel can stitch up a pretty frock in less than a week, while I can barely embroider a recognizable daisy on a pillowcase. Good day, Auntie. Shall I convey your regrets at supper?”

“Yes, please. I will take a tray and hope that solitude and quiet will spare me the agony of another headache. Richard really must go and go soon, Wealtha. I do hope you agree.”

“Certainly, Auntie. He’s handy to have about when a lady needs to visit the shops, but all that business with title and so forth… Very awkward. If he has tended to my settlements, then he’s welcome to remove to Portugal for all I care.”

Mabel set the chair to slowly rocking as she tried to make sense of what she’d heard. She’d never attributed sheer meanness to Orla. To Wealtha, yes, but not to her step-mother. Orla was practical, biased in Wealtha’s favor, and more than a little bitter over life’s injustices, but she wasn’t spiteful.

The evidence of Mabel’s own ears contradicted that conclusion and raised an uncomfortable question: Why snipe and find fault like that? Why goad Wealtha into a resentment that had little basis in reality?

More voices came through the window. Clementina had come to clear the tea tray.

Mabel rose, abruptly glad Orla had sent regrets to supper. Perhaps it was Orla who needed a change of air. Not Richard. Orla.

Or—another uncomfortable thought—maybe it was time Mabel quit a situation where she wasn’t appreciated and apparently never would be.

16

“Your mother was the only Tuffington who had a smile for anybody,” Dingle Fothergill said.

He was a tidied-up version of his bibulous brother Fergus. Dingle’s beard was trimmed, his country-squire attire had been tailored to his lanky form, and his cravat was clean if a bit wrinkled.

Richard had sought an excuse to ramble after putting up with Mrs. Johnson’s twittering and cooing and Wealtha’s lowered lashes and coy smiles. Magnus Johnson was a man of apparent fortitude. He’d sipped his tea and replied genially, all the while ignoring Wealtha’s flirtations.

Mabel had poured out with relaxed dignity. Richard hadn’t known whether to laugh or run howling for the door as Mrs. Johnson had prosed on and on about her position as chair of the assembly committee.

A stroll to the mill pond had been in order, and lo, Dingle Fothergill had been of the same mind. Providence or good luck, or the probabilities of life in a small village.

“Half the village was in love with Marie Tuffington,” Dingle went on, ambling at Richard’s side. “Your mama was sweet. Not a vain bone in her body, despite her fine looks. Mind if I have a nip?”

He produced a flask that glinted in the late afternoon sunshine.

“Of course I don’t mind. What of Orla?” Richard asked. “Was she well regarded?”

“Let’s sit, shall we?” Fothergill gestured with a honey-colored oak walking stick lathe-turned into a spiral pattern. “I am in that phase of life where I mustn’t overdo, or my hip makes me regret my excesses, and I mustn’t be too sedentary, or other departments register complaints.”

For all that, Dingle Fothergill appeared spry, content, and well-spoken. His accent was local without being unintelligible, and he moved at a steady, balanced pace.

Richard took the bench, recalling the last time he and Mabel had done likewise. A lifetime ago and also mere days in the past.

“I cannot,” Richard said, “for the life of me, understand why my mother, a sensible, intelligent person, would abandon a marriage to a fellow as estimable as Abernathy Blackstock. He was quite well set up, hardly ancient, and universally liked.”

Dingle lowered himself to the bench, putting his right leg out straight, bending the left at the knee. “I didn’t care for the man.”

A minority opinion, at last. “Whyever not?”

“Too desperate for approval, as if he were running for the board of aldermen, though he wasn’t, in fact, interested in that office. Like the young lady who is always laughing. She might turn heads at first, then she becomes a tiresome fixture at any gathering she attends. Blackstock was so relentlessly genial, his good cheer rang hollow to me. Then too, his domestics never lasted long, not the women, not the men. They came from agencies in York, and within a few months, back to the agencies they would go.”

Richard thought of the odd entries in Blackstock’s ledgers. “Could they have blackmailed him over something?” A drinking problem? An ongoing affair with an unsuitable lady?

“I doubt it. A parlormaid faces significant difficulties if her employer won’t write her a character. They simply didn’t care to continue in his employment.”

“Did that change when Marie married him?”

Dingle stroked his beard. “I don’t recall, my lord. I only know what I observed. My brother’s disagreeable nature has made the Fothergills somewhat unpopular hereabouts. We are received only when necessary—Christmas open houses, a hunt ball, that sort of thing. I am content with my books and correspondence, and I foster what good relations with my neighbors I can. I understand that Fergus is the problem, and I don’t make an issue of it.”

Half exile. Richard was all too familiar with the condition. He knew, too, that one could observe a great deal from society’s periphery.

“What did you make of Blackstock’s decision to court Marie? He’d been a bachelor for years, and then he chose her. Why?”

“He seemed smitten. We all thought Orla had set her cap for him, young as she was, but he apparently noticed Marie when he paid his neighborly calls at The Oaks. She was worth noticing, not merely for her looks. She had a blithe spirit, and that couldn’t help but appeal to a man like Blackstock.”

Richard had apparently found the one person in the whole shire who had not been charmed by Abernathy Blackstock.

“Can you be more specific? Why would the soul of geniality seek a wife with a blithe spirit?” And what had happened to that spirit after Marie had spoken her vows?

“You will think me fanciful, my lord, an old dodderer who spends too much time with his nose in a book, but your mother’s joy was genuine. She loved this place. Loved its beauty and fierceness. She loved her cranky old papa and her petulant little sister. Her good-heartedness was honest. My sense—fanciful, I know—is that Abernathy’s good-heartedness was counterfeit. Pinchbeck and paste, compared to Marie’s sparkling warmth. He had to possess the genuine article, and that meant marrying her.”

What an extraordinary, interesting theory. “Possess?”

“Wives are chattel, or the next thing to it under what passes for the law of the land, my lord. Children occupy the same status. Their legal identities are subsumed under the personhood of the husband and father. I find the notion of taking so much responsibility for an adult, thinking female daunting, myself. Perhaps in centuries past, women were more biddable, but that is hardly a cheering prospect either.”

“And you think Abernathy Blackstock wanted dominion and control over the vivacious person of Marie Tuffington?”

“She wasn’t so vivacious after a year of marriage, though her basic warmth was unabated. She and Blackstock did little entertaining, in fact. One keeps track of events to which one is not invited, I am embarrassed to admit. Marie called on her neighbors, and they reciprocated, but even that sort of socializing trickled away after a year or so.”

“That doesn’t sound like Mama. To the last, she was interested in other people and concerned for them.” Even as she’d grown frail, Mama had fretted over whether the tweeny had seen past the footman’s ribald teasing. Was the squire taking his nightly posset the same as usual? Had anyone remembered to let the cat in on a frigid night?

“When the banns were cried,” Fothergill said, propping his hands on the owl carved from the head of his walking stick, “I felt a sense of unease. I am sure my unease was shared by others, but what can one say?”

Dragonflies danced over the water in the afternoon sunbeams. A rustle farther down the bank suggested some small creature traveling to the water for a drink.

A lovely, peaceful scene, though Richard’s thoughts were in riot.

“Was your unease like that of somebody who watches a friend buy a riding horse that is far too spirited for the friend’s abilities? You cannot counsel against the sale without jeopardizing the friendship.”

Another sip of tipple. “Something very like that, my lord. No point offering advice that might be mistaken for unkind judgment.”

“Was Blackstock perhaps a sot?”

“The absence of children resulting from the union sent my speculation in another direction. He might have been disappointing as a husband, if you take my meaning.”

Would Mama have left a man simply because he lacked amorous ability? Richard thought not, but very few nineteen-year-olds were the personification of rational judgment.

“Who might know more about the situation?” Richard asked.

Fothergill snorted. “Orla, of course, but she’s made it known the past is painful to her and not to be discussed. It’s not her past, for pity’s sake. Abernathy married Marie, not Orla. Marie was a better sister to Orla than she deserved, in my humble opinion.”

“You don’t care for my aunt?”

Fothergill banged the cork into the top of his flask and tucked it into a breast pocket.

“I’m sure you hold your aunt in fond esteem, my lord, so please disregard my uncharitable sentiments. We can agree I am old and crotchety, though not as crotchety as my dear brother. Orla Tuffington Fielding has always put on airs, and when Wealtha’s mama died, Orla swanned about at the Glen like she owned the place. She all but plucked Abernathy’s daughter from his loving arms. That Abernathy allowed Orla to meddle to such a degree still astonishes me. He doted on that girl, perhaps a bit too much.”

A lot too much. “Orla seems to dote on her, too.”

Fothergill put his stick between his knees and scooted forward. “Orla dotes on Orla.” He levered to his feet by balancing on the walking stick and shoving himself upward. “She wasn’t so bad before she was sent off to that finishing school. Since then, she’s always had the finest fashion in the churchyard. Her gloves, bonnet, and reticule invariably match, and those scents she wears weren’t decocted in the Glen’s still room. Her set of pearls is the envy of the local ladies. You’d think she was royalty come to the shires.”

“You truly don’t care for her?” Richard wasn’t sure he did either.

“I do not. Had she invited Fergus and me to the Glen even once for tea, or let me escort her on the opening promenade at an assembly, Fergus would not be regarded as such a reprobate, and our situation might be more tolerable for him. His great sin is to sit in the snug at the Rooster and drown his sorrows of a night. He isn’t evil, he has committed no crime, and he provides the Rooster with consistent custom.”

Fothergill balanced his walking stick over one shoulder, like a cudgel. “For this, he has been judged contemptible, at least in Orla Fielding’s eyes, and the village has largely followed her lead. I do not like her, my lord, and not even to a man of your consequence will I put the lie on my tongue that says otherwise.”

Richard rose as well and extended a hand. “I am a bastard, you know. A cuckoo in Blackstock’s nest. The title ought to have been allowed to revert to the crown, but that would have meant hardship for the ladies at the Glen. Orla has all but told me to quit the shire and leave Blackstock’s estate in her capable hands with a suitable allowance for its maintenance and hers.”

Fothergill shook manfully. “Be careful, my lord. And if you do leave, please see to Miss Fielding’s situation before you go. She’s the pick of that litter, make no mistake, and even my brother would tell you the same.”

“I doubt I’ll be leaving soon, and Miss Fielding’s situation will be secure if I do.” Lady Swidhelm had a nice ring to it. “I like books, Fothergill, and so do you. You must sort through your hoard and find one you can bear to lend me. I will enjoy showing you the Glen’s library and inviting you to make free with its volumes. Bring your brother or not, as it suits you. We are neighbors, and neighbors should be neighborly.”

Richard had learned that much in his Hampshire upbringing, and Mama would certainly agree.

Fothergill lowered his walking stick. “I have a volume on Yorkshire fairy tales, my lord, that you would never find in the largest library in Wales. I’ll bring it around Tuesday next. Miss Fielding might enjoy it as well.”

“I will look forward to sharing it with her.”

When Fothergill had jaunted on his way, whistling the melody to “Loch Lomond,” Richard turned his steps in the direction of the Glen.

What had he learned? That Abernathy Blackstock had not been universally admired after all. At least one intelligent observer had found him insincere. More significantly, Mama had not been the first to depart from Blackstock’s household. A steady stream of domestics had preceded her—women and men—suggesting the problem wasn’t simply an inability to leave the pretty parlormaids in peace.

The man who’d shared these observations with Richard was all but ostracized from village social life, and Orla Fielding had had a hand in his half banishment.

Richard returned to the manor preoccupied with Fothergill’s disclosures and more than a little relieved when Mabel informed him that Orla had sent her regrets for dinner.

“The ledgers follow a pattern.” St. Didier took off his spectacles and rubbed his tired eyes. “I can feel it, but I can’t see it. Like knowing the heir to a title is that fellow across the barnyard slopping the hogs—he’s the image of the last title holder in younger years—but having no clue how to establish his provenance.”

Or like knowing that Swidhelm and Miss Fielding belonged together and having not an inkling regarding what was keeping them apart. Something did. Something all the picnics and tender glances in the world could not overcome.

A candle on the sideboard guttered, adding literal gloom to the figurative variety clouding St. Didier’s mood.

“I have the same sense,” Miss Fielding said. “We’re staring at a riddle, and the answer is staring back at us, but from the margins and footnotes, not from the middle of the page.”

“The answer,” Swidhelm said, “is in the blank spaces, in the lines where an explanation of the expenditure should be, and instead, Blackstock wrote nothing. If he had a fancy mistress in York or a gambling problem, he hid it well.”

This postprandial session with the old Blackstock accounts had been inspired by Wealtha’s decision to spend the end of her evening with fashion magazines. St. Didier had been given to understand that Miss Fielding must be guided in detail when designing Wealtha’s new dresses, and only the latest styles would do.

Supper conversation had revolved around flounces, piping, feathers, and St. Didier knew not what else. Swidhelm had acquitted himself admirably on the topics of ladies’ gloves—To embroider or not to embroider? To choose a contrasting hue or something complementary?—and Miss Fielding had added the occasional comment on spencers, shawls, and reticules.

St. Didier might have been at any particularly silly Mayfair at home. Why did everybody indulge Wealtha Blackstock as if she were the Princess Royal of the West Riding?

“Perhaps we are too tired to think clearly,” Miss Fielding said. “The long days and short nights take a toll.”

Swidhelm went to the sideboard and poured a round of brandies. “They don’t usually take a toll so early in the year. I’m convinced half of Mayfair retires to the country by the end of June simply to sleep for a month before grouse season begins.” He handed a drink to Miss Fielding and another to St. Didier. “To an abundant hay crop.”

He resumed his seat, his expression preoccupied.

The toast was suitable. St. Didier would also have drunk to the course of true love. Miss Fielding didn’t seem the type to toy with a man’s affections, and yet, some serpent was slithering around in the garden of her matrimonial prospects.

“I ran into Dingle Fothergill at the mill pond this afternoon,” Swidhelm said. “Pleasant fellow.”

“Very well-read,” Miss Fielding added, sipping delicately. That she took spirits for other than medicinal purposes and didn’t make a great fuss about the occasion spoke in her favor. Yorkshire winters were brutal and toddies all but imperative.

Ladies did take spirits, in moderation. Men drove them to it. St. Didier was privy to that wisdom thanks to Her Grace of Chanderton, among others.

“Dingle is the closest thing we have to a local scholar,” Miss Fielding went on, “meaning no disrespect to the present or former vicar. Dingle knows the philosophers and the poets and can read French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Danish.”

Swidhelm shoved the ledger before him to the center of the reading table. “He also can read people and opined that Abernathy Blackstock was a fraud. The legendary charm was insincere, according to Dingle, and covering for some deeper lack in the true man.”

“Peculiar observation. What else did Fothergill have to say?” St. Didier asked. The brandy was excellent, imparting a pleasant warmth to the innards.

“He had no explanation for why Abernathy, the catch of the shire, would marry Marie after years of contented bachelorhood, unless Abernathy simply coveted Marie’s genuinely outgoing nature.”

“Covetousness and marriage strike me as a strange pairing,” Miss Fielding said. “I understand that at the highest strata of Society, dynastic considerations can affect who marries whom and on what terms, but the Glen is about as rural as England gets, short of absolute moorland.”

“Mama was sweet.” Swidhelm held his drink up to the firelight. “She was kind to a fault, sometimes too kind to me in particular. She had no dynastic anything. I have wondered if all her prevarication about the past wasn’t an attempt to spare me some sorrow or shame.”

“You were blameless,” Miss Fielding replied a bit sternly. “If there was sorrow or shame, Society attaches it to her.”

“Do you attach shame to her?” Swidhelm asked.

The question was so personal as to approach intimacy. St. Didier made a visual study of his brandy.

“Of course not. Your mother was in service, managing as best she could.”

“I meant, do you regard her leaving Blackstock as shameful?”

Miss Fielding closed the ledger before her. “Marie did not leave only her husband, my lord. She left her sole sibling, her aging papa, her settlements, her home, as well as the friends and neighbors who had known her for her whole life. She left her pin money and most of her worldly goods. She did so knowing Abernathy could call upon the law to drag her back here from London—from anywhere in the realm.

“I conclude that she had to leave,” Miss Fielding said quietly. “Maybe she was carrying another man’s child, but then, why didn’t her paramour aid her? Or was he unable to aid her? Maybe she had committed a serious crime—taken a life, stolen a fortune—but in a village like ours, those actions would be noted and gossiped about for years.”

“Unless Orla decreed that no gossip would be permitted,” Swidhelm observed.

Miss Fielding shook her head. “Such a decree would ensure gossip flourished.”

The lady had the right of it. “Nothing boosts sales of a pamphlet,” St. Didier said, “as effectively as the government declaring the contents seditious.” Which the government was lately doing at a great rate.

Swidhelm finished his drink and took the glass to the sideboard. “You imply that people are keeping quiet about Marie’s past not only out of consideration for Orla, but also because they truly do not want to discuss the matter. What am I to make of that? Dingle said he was uneasy when the banns were cried between Blackstock and Marie, and he allowed as how that might have been a general sentiment.”

“What else did he say?” St. Didier asked.

“That most of the village thought Orla had set her cap for Blackstock.”

Not good. If Marie had stolen a march on her younger sister…

“Orla is bitter,” Miss Fielding said slowly. “More bitter than I’d imagined. I overheard her today—I was not eavesdropping, I assure you—and she was pouring such bile into Wealtha’s ears that even were Wealtha the most mature and amiable person in Yorkshire, she would have resented me for breathing.”

Swidhelm returned to the table, taking the seat next to Miss Fielding. “What did Orla say?”

Not Auntie or my aunt. Orla. Swidhelm’s patience with his newfound relation was apparently wearing thin.

“Step-mama reminded Wealtha repeatedly that I’d had a London Season, though Wealtha pointed out that my Season was entirely unsuccessful. Orla implied that I’d tried to make Wealtha look shabby before Magnus Johnson. Step-mama also painted me as a miser on the shopping expedition to York. She more or less added that I’m lazy and headstrong and the most burdensome relation poor Wealtha could have been saddled with.”

Swidhelm reached for Miss Fielding’s hand, caught himself, and patted her wrist. “I’ll send them to the dower house, the pair of them.”

“I would have to go with them, but thank you for the sentiment. There’s more.”

St. Didier wasn’t sure he wanted to hear more.

Swidhelm sat back. “Say on, and don’t be diplomatic.”

“Orla has done the same thing with me. Implied that Wealtha is a burden, stupid, vain, and immature, and I have been happy to nod along. Wealtha can be all those things, but she is also young, motherless—not even a step-mama—and coping with the loss of an inheritance that any young woman would be hard put not to miss.”

“Orla is keeping you and Wealtha apart,” Swidhelm said. “You and Wealtha have much in common. Loss of your mothers, local connections, financial challenges, family history… And yet, Orla has sown resentment between you.”

“That,” St. Didier said, “is the work of a nasty soul. You three women have had to muddle on as best you can for years, yoked together by circumstances and necessity. You should be allies.”

Miss Fielding stood, collected St. Didier’s empty glass, and took it and her half-consumed portion to the sideboard.

“Step-mama has never been my ally, and now I’m wondering if she’s Wealtha’s ally. I’ve always thought she doted on Wealtha, but Wealtha probably thinks that Orla defers to me. Wealtha did not want you, Mr. St. Didier, searching for his lordship, and my will prevailed. Orla capitulated to my arguments.

“I set the menus,” Miss Fielding went on, remaining by the sideboard, arms crossed. “I decide when the underfootman can take a holiday to see his family. I see the wages paid and handle what passes for the household accounts. That is all so much duty to me, but to Wealtha, Orla likely paints each responsibility as unearned authority and evidence of my grasping nature.”

Swidhelm stood as well and dealt the fire a rather savage poking up. “Why? You are all that stood between Wealtha, Orla, and the poorhouse. I can understand that Orla wanted Blackstock for herself, but that is no reason to drive a wedge between you and Blackstock’s daughter.”

St. Didier got to his feet and had to steady himself momentarily with a hand on the back of his chair. He’d drunk his nightcap too quickly and sampled the wines at supper too freely. Bad form, that.

“Orla Tuffington Fielding might simply be mean in her bones,” he said. “She was overshadowed by her lovely sister in girlhood. Her sister had the better settlements, and her sister married the better man. Blows like that can leave the heart scarred.”

“Don’t expect me to pity her,” Swidhelm retorted, putting the poker back on the hearth stand. “If I learn that Orla had anything to do with my mother’s flight into scandal, Orla’s effects will be tossed onto the drive in the middle of a downpour, and she will be offered only the knacker’s cart to take her to the posting inn.”

Make her walk through the mud barefoot. That was the brandy talking. “I don’t see how Orla could have inspired your mother to leave Blackstock,” St. Didier said, “but the hour is late, and my faculties are dulled by good spirits. I will leave the two of you to ponder these recent developments. I daresay focusing on more sanguine topics might lead to a better night’s sleep.”

He withdrew, though, in all propriety, he should not have. He should have offered to light Miss Fielding up to her room, sent Swidhelm a menacing glower over his shoulder, and defended the dignity of the house with his best finishing governess manners.

Why must every fledgling peer stumble into amorous thickets just as he’s learning to manage his title? The pattern became no easier to watch for being repeated the length and breadth of England.

No more nightcaps.

St. Didier left Swidhelm and Miss Fielding standing in close conversation by the sideboard. Their voices quieted as soon as the library door was shut, and St. Didier would have bet his best pair of old slippers that a fierce embrace was underway.

The Bard had the right of it. The course of true love never did run smooth…

Not ever, and especially not when a smooth course was most earnestly deserved.

Richard’s hands traveled over Mabel’s back, leaving trails of comfort and pleasure. “Orla hurt your feelings.”

Mabel bundled more snugly into his embrace. “Not exactly. Step-mama and I have never been close. I concluded as a child that she found Wealtha easier to love, and that meant I was left in peace to a greater degree. That feels marvelous.”

Dangerously marvelous, blast and bless him.

“Orla upset you, then.” Richard moved his hands to Mabel’s shoulders and squeezed gently in a slow, circular motion. Had Mabel been capable of purring, she would have rivaled Thunder at his most sonorous.

“Orla disquieted me.” Mabel took one final sniff of the balsam and cedar scent lingering about Richard’s person and ended the embrace. “She disparaged me relentlessly, all the while pretending a sort of pity for all my shortcomings and great sympathy for Wealtha, who has suffered for being my relation-of-convenience.”

Richard set about tidying up the ledgers on the reading table. “You have suffered from Wealtha’s petulance and self-centeredness. I don’t hear you whining about it.”

“I do whine, sometimes. The steward has caught me in more than one self-pitying mood.”

Richard stacked the ledgers atop one another. “We all have occasional weak moments. What you describe with Orla is more of a campaign, pitting you and Wealtha against each other. Orla has entertained at the Glen only minimally, and thus neither you nor Wealtha have developed more than nominal ties with the neighbors. I know what it’s like to always be the outsider, Amabel. To be perpetually cast on one’s own meager resources.”

At least in Wealtha’s case, there was a bit more to the tale. “We socialize. We don’t entertain, and that’s primarily for budgetary reasons.”

“To host friends for tea costs little. To share a lady’s pint with a neighbor on market day even less. Orla has set herself up here at the Glen as a grand dame in semi-seclusion, such that only the Mrs. Johnsons of the world—determined to have a peek at the new viscount in the role of host—will intrude.”

“Daniela Johnson is something of a grand dame too. She would be the one to lead the charge. You acquitted yourself well, by the way. Genial, not too friendly, knowledgeable about agrarian matters.”

“Because you have been educating me and because Magnus Johnson was also being friendly. I invited Dingle to stop by.”

Oh dear. “Orla won’t like that.”

“Orla can go to perdition. I will dispatch her there in a comfortable coach and see that Wealtha’s needs are met in Orla’s absence. This house does not now and never has belonged to Orla. Dear Auntie needs to reconcile herself to that singular fact.”

“Be careful, Richard.”

“Dingle gave me the same advice, and I will follow it.” He studied the stack of ledgers on the table. “Orla’s finances interest me.”

As far as Mabel was aware, Orla’s finances consisted of her widow’s mite, the Fielding house, and any profit resulting from renting out that dwelling. She had a splendid collection of jewels, all of which she claimed to have inherited. She’d been wearing select pieces to supper, probably in deference to St. Didier’s discerning presence.

“Orla inherited the jewels you’ve seen her wear. Other than that, I believe Papa Joseph left her modest means.”

“Then perhaps it’s time she started living on them and ceased relying on the Glen to provide for her every need.”

That Richard would distance himself from his only extant blood relation suggested he was not merely annoyed, he was angry.

“Richard, Orla has exerted herself for years to ensure Wealtha did not find herself in awkward circumstances. In a sense, you owe her for that. Somebody owes her. She has provided proper chaperonage to me as well, though I’m approaching spinsterhood at a brisk canter. She could have gone on extended visits to her old school chums—they are all still very close—or taken herself off to York and set up her own household. In either case, Wealtha and I would have had to shift for ourselves.”

Richard swung the landscape of the Glen in summer out from the wall, opened the safe behind it with a key, and deposited the ledgers inside. He closed the safe with a decisive snick of the lock.

“Had Orla been unavailable, Amabel, you would have hired a companion. You would have moved Granny Wexler or somebody equally formidable in here to appease the gossips. Perhaps your great-auntie on the Fielding side would have recommended a lady fallen on hard times. Somehow you would have created a way forward if Orla had jumped ship.”

“Great-Auntie has long since gone to her reward.”

He returned the landscape to its intended position and made an interesting picture standing by the rendering of what had become his birthright.

He and the Glen were of a piece. Impressive, handsome, complicated. Firelight suggested the man he’d become in later years, not much changed, but for an enhancement of dignity and wisdom, perhaps, and graying hair. He’d still be bold, shrewd, and attractive.

Mabel was abundantly aware that she wanted both the man and his estate in her future—she loved them both—and equally aware that her wishes were unlikely to come true. Orla had told her, before that long-ago Season in Town, that Mabel would rue the day she set foot in Mayfair, and in that regard, Orla had been prescient.

“Perhaps I would have found a way forward,” she said, though no way forward without Orla had occurred to her at any point. Why not? Because Orla’s hovering presence had obscured such possibilities. “Right now, I intend to find my way to bed.”

“May I light you up?”

The sensation of Richard’s hands on Mabel’s shoulders returned, melting her bones and threatening to set fire to her common sense.

“Best not.”

He smiled a quicksilver flash of mischief. “Perhaps another time. Do we dare a good-night kiss?”

She was in his arms in the next half second and remained there for a delightful span of moments, then forced herself to beat retreat one, whole, entire step.

“You know things,” she said, hands braced on his arms, “that tempt me to be impulsive.”

“I have work to do, then. My objective is to tempt you to be recklessly demanding. I shall look forward to that day, or night.”

He was capable of flirtation, while Mabel was hard put to even catch her breath. “Good night, my lord, and we will resume our battle with the ledgers tomorrow.”

He bowed, blew her a kiss, and waited with his hands behind his back while Mabel attempted a dignified retreat.

She climbed the stairs, wondering if she would find a way forward for her and Richard. He had great confidence in her ingenuity and determination, though Mabel feared that his confidence was sadly misplaced.

17

Alight shone from beneath Orla’s door. Mabel made it two yards past the latch before she wheeled around and stood staring down at the little sliver of illumination on the floor.

Why sow enmity between me and Wealtha? Why emphasize our faults, dismiss our virtues, and position yourself as necessary to us both? These questions went back prior to Richard’s arrival, to a pattern of mischief that had existed for years.

Mabel rapped on the door before her courage deserted her and before she could talk herself out of her anger.

Step-mama sat on the tufted love seat, reading yesterday’s London Times, her slippered feet on a footstool embroidered to resemble a bouquet of irises. Mabel had come to hate working with purple thread as she’d created that design, but Orla had wanted the perfect purple accent piece.

Step-mama lowered the newspaper a few inches. “Mabel dearest. I am quite well, for me. If you’ve stopped by out of concern, I thank you and bid you good night. I know how busy you keep yourself and would not deny you your slumbers.”

The Glen kept Mabel busy, and Orla had denied Mabel a night’s sleep on any number of occasions, gently insisting that Wealtha’s next beaded reticule or matching fichu must be finished with completely unnecessary haste.

“You’re not suffering a megrim, Step-mama?”

“Not at present, thank the heavenly intercessors. I trust supper was uneventful?”

“Entirely. We spoke mostly of fashion and the upcoming assembly. Wealtha seems to be looking forward to it.”

“As she should. As she most definitely should. This will be her first outing as the new viscount’s sister, and we must ensure she looks the part.”

No, we must not. That job fell exclusively to Mabel and explained her mild dread of the seasonal gatherings.

Mabel took a seat in a wing chair. A supper tray—not a crumb to be seen—remained on the low table before her. A second tray held a tea service and a dish bearing a few petits fours.

For an invalid, Step-mama enjoyed a consistently robust appetite. “His lordship, Mr. St. Didier, and I spent the rest of the evening reviewing the Glen’s ledgers from the days of Abernathy Blackstock’s tenure.”

Step-mama sat up and put her paper aside. “Whyever waste your time on such an endeavor? Doesn’t Richard have enough to do with planting and haying and entertaining that dreadful Johnson woman and her galoot of a son?”

“That galoot could well become Sir Magnus before too much longer, ma’am.” Mabel held out the plate of petits fours.

Step-mama took one. “Better that Richard get the neighborly calls out of the way than bury his lordly nose in the ledgers. Really, Mabel, you must explain this to him in plain words, one of your several dubious gifts. The Glen is now on solid financial footing. His lordship is free to return to London or Spain or wherever he prefers to bide. We have discussed this often enough, but you don’t seem interested in persuading him onto the proper course.”

He prefers to bide here. So do I.

Painful thoughts. “Perhaps I could ask his lordship to call on the Fielding solicitors and have a look at my funds,” Mabel said, mostly to distract Orla from her usual make-Richard-leave chorus. “My competence should be available to me as of my last birthday, if I recall aright.”

Orla put down the uneaten half of her petit four. “Your competence? Mabel… I hardly know… Your competence? You have no competence. Whatever made you think…? Oh, my dear. When Joseph died and our means were so terribly restricted, I was forced to use that money simply to keep a roof over your head. The solicitors assured me the terms of the bequest allowed those measures. The alternative was to see you go into service or, worse, put you on the parish. My conscience would allow neither fate.”

You have no competence. The rest of Orla’s explanation washed over Mabel as so much false solicitude.

Mabel understood in that moment why Wealtha had smashed more than one tea service to bits. Why she’d upended furniture and hurled any available projectile through the nearest window.

“I have no funds of my own?”

“Not unless you’ve saved a bit from the Glen’s monthly allowance.”

“That would have been stealing, ma’am.” And there had been no bit to be saved, in any case. Mabel put the dish of petits fours back on the tray. “If you will excuse me, I will follow your advice and seek my bed. I’m glad you are well.”

She rose and made herself advance on the door at a dignified pace.

“Mabel, if the news of your relative poverty comes as a shock, I do apologize. I thought the solicitors would have told you. This was all so very long ago, and you had not yet attained your majority. It wasn’t that much money, and I could not have lived with myself had I consigned you to a life emptying chamber pots and scrubbing floors.”

Mabel nodded, hand on the door latch. “I understand, Step-mama, and appreciate that the situation was difficult following Papa Joseph’s death. Good night.”

You have no competence.

“Good night, dearest. I applaud your sensible attitude. Such a pity a sensible attitude so rarely characterizes Wealtha’s little upsets and disappointments.” Orla propped her feet on the stool, picked up the newspaper, and appeared to dismiss the whole discussion as easily as turning from the Society pages to the fashion articles.

Mabel stood in the corridor torn between rage, heartbreak, and fear. She had meant to confront Orla about a campaign of disparagement that had shone a bad light on Wealtha and Mabel by turns.

All thoughts of confrontation had scattered like thistledown in high wind.

You have no competence.

That little store of funds had sat in the back of Mabel’s mind as the universal antidote to homelessness, hunger, cold… A small sum invested prudently and left to appreciate for a few decades could become an adequate sum.

She’d skipped off to Mayfair, secure in the knowledge that her modest bequest could form the foundation for marriage settlements. Her inheritance could have even added to the security Mabel’s daughters might have enjoyed.

She’d come home from that excursion with one comfort remaining in her life: I have my competence. If all else fails, I have my own funds, slowly gathering interest, waiting for the day when I can be free of Orla and Wealtha.

Mabel marched down the corridor, sleep nowhere on her mind. “Papa Joseph set aside that money when I was five years old.” Five hundred pounds from a windfall inheritance that Papa himself had not seen coming. The rest of that boon had gone to debts, of course, or perhaps to augmenting Orla’s jointure.

Or to buying Orla the jewels that seemed to bring her such joy.

Mabel had positively delighted in calculating the fund’s total each year on her birthday. What a petty, comforting exercise that had been. She stopped at the head of the stairs, sat on the top step, and in the shadows of the sconces, tried to calm her thoughts.

She had yet to achieve that goal when Richard came up the stairs, a carrying candle in hand. He paused on the landing and held the candle a trifle higher.

“Do I dare hope that this is an ambush, Amabel? If so, your expression suggests I might conclude the encounter in very sorry condition.”

She regarded him through a fog of hurt and determination. “I have been thinking.” Also growing chilly, but still too upset to consider going to bed.

“You left the library well over an hour ago, Amabel.” He took the place beside her on the step, warmth radiating from his nearness. “Were you contemplating the eternal verities this whole time?”

To sit right next to him was a pleasure and a heartache. “I am penniless.”

“Figuratively? I thought⁠—?”

She waved a hand to cut him off. “Orla has just informed me that my competence was used up years ago to pay off the arrears on Papa Joseph’s mortgage, or something of the sort. To keep a roof over my head, so I was spared the ignominy of going into service. I would gladly have gone into service to safeguard that money, and possibly even add to it, but I was denied the choice.”

Mabel spoke carefully, lest the ache in her throat become audible sobs.

“Your stolen funds coincidentally kept a roof over Orla’s head, too, I take it? Amabel, what else did she say?”

“She said that I have been a very great fool, and she said it lightly and even kindly.”

Richard put an arm around her shoulders. Mabel resisted the consolation he offered for the length of one shuddering breath, then she laid her forehead against the solid muscle of his shoulder.

“Step-mama stole from me, and you and I have matters to discuss somewhere private.”

Richard wrapped her in a two-armed hug. “Will your sitting room suffice?”

“Yes.”

He scooped her up and rose. Mabel wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as if her very last, most precious dream depended on keeping him close.

Richard had chosen Amabel’s sitting room because he wanted her in the most familiar, comforting surrounds available as she dealt with the reality of Orla’s crime. Perhaps as the adult responsible for Amabel, Orla hadn’t committed theft of the funds in a legal sense—Richard would research the particulars thoroughly—but Orla had most certainly purloined Amabel’s dignity.

At fourteen or even twelve, many a girl went into service, and Amabel—sturdy, sensible, in good health—could have fared as well in a domestic role as anybody. In any decent household, she would have thrived and even distinguished herself.

Richard dipped at the knees, Amabel dealt with the door latch, and then they were alone in her sitting room.

A single candle was burning on the mantel. “Why haven’t you any fire?”

“Clementina forgets sometimes. She’s the oldest of the maids, and we allow her latitude. She should have become a housekeeper, but that would have meant breaking ranks with her familiars. She had a hard enough time leaving The Oaks, and I suspect she will wear her maid’s cap until the three of them can retire together.”

Like the Fates, or Macbeth’s weird sisters. Richard deposited Amabel on a worn love seat and passed her a shawl that had been hanging on a peg at the back of her door.

“I will have a look at Clementina’s pension arrangements. Her seniority might mean she should become the underhousekeeper. Nothing need change, save for her compensation and her title. Perhaps she’ll take an extra half day if we insist.”

Mabel’s expression shuttered.

Richard wasn’t giving up on we, us, and our simply because Orla’s true colors were more in evidence. He started a fire and denied himself the relief of pacing.

“Don’t loom, please, my lord. What I have to say is difficult enough without you being all tall and broody.”

The appointments—worn rug, a sideboard in need of new varnish, a low table before the love seat that might have done service on Noah’s ark—offered no place to sit other than the lumpy cushion beside Amabel. Richard lowered himself to the love seat, which creaked under his weight.

“Why are you consigned to this mousehole, Amabel? I expect I will find a cot in the next room, a basin, towel, and nothing else.”

“I have a very comfortable bed. I chose this room for the view and because I am as far as possible from Wealtha without being in the attic.”

Richard’s view was of Amabel’s determined profile. A lady had never had a more perfect nose, exquisitely blending strength of character and femininity. He was also certain that he’d never seen Amabel more upset.

“Tell me more about your settlements.”

“They are the least of it, but I cannot prevaricate with you, or I will be like Orla, shading the truth, omitting facts that don’t suit me, and lying by innuendo.”

“You are not like Orla in any material regard.” He would have taken Amabel’s hand, save for the fear that she’d snatch it back.

Amabel slanted a look at him, curiously dispassionate. “I am like Orla. I have wanted what I should not have wanted—again—and I know better. I am not simply a spinster, my lord. I am a ruined spinster. You cannot court me. You cannot marry me. I have concluded that you would not disport with me without marriage in mind, so I am resorting to plain speaking for the sake of all concerned. I excel at plain speaking, according to Orla.”

This was sounding ominously like a dismissal for Richard’s own good, and that he could not countenance.

“I adore your direct manner, but, Amabel, I do not understand what you’re telling me. My own mother was ruined, and yet, she⁠—”

Amabel glowered at him. “Forget your mother for two minutes, Richard. I do not intend to repeat myself, and I need… That is, I hope you will listen to me.”

Forget his mother. Would that he could. “Whatever you wish from me, I will exert myself to the utmost to see that you have it. That is an oath, Amabel, so cease dithering and unburden yourself of this terrible tale of ruination.”

He did take her hand in both of his, and she allowed it.

“I went to London,” she said. “Great-Aunt was getting on, she’d been insisting for years that I deserved a Season, and I had a now-or-never conviction that spring. I did not want to marry some stranger who dwelled two hundred miles from my home, but I wanted to see the world, or a little bit of it. I wanted to be free for a few weeks of Orla’s subtle demands and Wealtha’s increasingly unpleasant company.”

“Good for you. If you’d instead chosen yet another spring stitching Wealtha’s frocks and ordering trays for Orla, you would have been some sort of martyr, and at an age when the world should have been expanding for you.”

“The world became an abyss. I had a barely suitable wardrobe for Mayfair at homes, but I had no armor. I had not memorized Debrett’s. I had no lineage. I vow the term ‘near relation’ in polite circles applies to anybody to whom one is related at even the seventh degree of consanguinity, but as far as I knew, my family tree hadn’t a single illustrious personage at even that far a remove. I was a bumpkin in a bonnet.”

“Don’t be cruel to yourself.”

“The term arose in the betting books, my lord, or so I was informed. The man who’d exerted himself most often to escort me, the fellow about whom I was building golden castles in Spain, bet that he could sample my charms with my consent. He won a tidy sum—earned it three times over. I earned eternal disgrace.”

The tale was nearly prosaic. Exactly the sort of admonitory fable governesses and chaperones trotted out to scare young ladies into caution, but the story was always supposed to be apocryphal.

A young lady came down from the rural north and failed to exercise proper decorum in the presence of a Town dandy. She came to a very bad end, and it took the bounder only thirty days, three carriage rides, and two walks in the park to bring about her ruin…

Richard was ready to visit ruin on the Town dandy responsible. “I knew Mayfair hadn’t impressed you favorably. I assumed your heart was broken, but not… not this. I don’t know what to say.”

He’d further assumed she’d allowed herself a few rural frolics, more fool he.

“You say farewell, my lord. You need not be delicate. I am still young enough to go into service. Perhaps, like your mother, I can find a housekeeper’s post. I am certainly capable, but somebody will have to do the menus here and count the linens and⁠—”

Richard wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “At the moment, I am not thinking about menus or much of anything, other than to whom I owe a very sound beating.” He certainly wasn’t thinking about his dear mama or her past.

Amabel resisted his embrace. He waited.

“You need not be so kind. I have lived with the knowledge of my lapse for years, but the situation was in the past, and as long as I comported myself properly, I could manage.”

“I am not being kind, Amabel. I am furious.” He squeezed her shoulder gently, when he wanted to curse down the rafters. “Your chaperone was lax. The precise sort of predator she ought to have been guarding against was probably all but invited under your skirts because she—who truly should have known a wolf in Bond Street clothing—was incompetent. You were hurt, you were harmed, and ever since, your Season has been thrown in your face as some great, undeserved privilege by those who should have been offering you comfort and support.”

The fire needed more fuel, but Richard stayed where he was, arm around his lady, heart breaking.

“Amabel, I know how London Society is. The marriage mart is a blood sport in disguise, and the innocent and unsuspecting become prey. They tried to make me prey and, to some extent, succeeded, but a bastard—ironically—is hard to truly ruin. None of this was your fault.”

She was still sitting up straight, ignoring the embrace he offered.

“It was all my fault,” she said. “On that at least, Orla has been correct. I climbed into that coach, I flirted to the best of my bumpkin ability, I did not protest, or not enough, and I am due the consequences of my actions.”

Later, after Richard had persuaded her to give up this self-flagellation, he would kick the wainscoting and howl and curse.

He would also send another letter to the duchess by express, express reply requested. “How did Orla even learn the details? Why is this any of her business? Blast the woman, she has convinced me that having family is a highly overrated blessing.”

“Orla doesn’t need to know the details to conclude that my Season was a rousing failure. I came home without any offers. I made no fancy Town friends. If my foray into Mayfair society came up in conversation, I changed the subject as quickly as I could. Orla has concluded that I failed badly enough to put a substantial blot on my reputation. I have not taken issue with her interpretation of matters because her guess is all too correct.”

“Your great-aunt kept the situation quiet?”

“Of course, as did I. But you see why we would not suit? You are a peer. You will vote your seat, and that means biding in London. I dare not return there. For that reason at least, you must give up any notion of a match between us. I should never have allowed matters to progress between us as far as they did, but I was being selfish, and Orla would tell you that is typical of me.”

“You are determined to believe Orla’s nonsense, and I will grant you that determination figures prominently among your gifts. We suit admirably, Amabel Fielding. What does not suit me at all is letting the past come between us—yours, mine, my mother’s, anybody’s.” And oddly enough, he meant that.

She took his arm from her shoulders. “I refuse to burden you with my scandal in addition to your mother’s. People will say terrible things if my past is known and you are associated with me.”

“What people? A lot of gossips swilling tea in Mayfair, the most ridiculous corner of the realm? I assure you, the local folk here in Yorkshire will be more concerned with whether the Glen deals decently with the tenant farmers than with Mayfair scandals from years ago. Please forgive yourself for youthful ignorance or a misplaced yearning for some cad’s regard. You were burdened by innocence, and we can blame others for that.”

It’s not your fault. Rather than bellow the words repeatedly, Richard settled for silence. He had learned patience while in Portugal, and he was prepared to be very patient—and very persistent—with the woman he loved.

Amabel hunched forward, gaze intent on nothing in particular that Richard could see.

“I detest the sampler in Orla’s sitting room.” The air of pique had left her words, replaced by a thread of sadness. “She asked me specifically to embroider that passage.”

Who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies.

“Orla was being vicious.”

Amabel’s brows knitted. “I excused her meanness because she was disappointed in me and she did not know how bitterly I would resent that particular passage. She was tacitly lecturing me, and I deserved it more than she knew, but…”

“But she had already stolen your birthright, so who was she to lecture anybody?”

Amabel nodded. “I was also disappointed in myself, though. I deserved for somebody to wield the lash on my conscience.”

She tucked her feet up and curled against Richard’s side. When his arm came around her this time, she snuggled closer.

“You did not deserve a perpetual scold, Amabel. You did not deserve to be put at daggers drawn with your step-cousin. You did not deserve to become the castle drudge and penniless into the bargain.”

“You did not deserve to be told you were illegitimate.”

A gratifying flicker of her usual starch infused that observation. Richard nuzzled her temple and contemplated consigning Orla to the Outer Hebrides, except that the Outer Hebrides—utterly gorgeous in a windswept, timeless way—did not deserve such a burden.

“You won’t argue with me?” Amabel asked, her arm around his waist. “You admit your mother should not have lied to you?”

I thought we were forgetting Marie for the nonce. Instead of dodging Amabel’s questions, Richard honestly considered them.

“Mama was wrong to lie to me. Perhaps when I was a small boy, she might have shaded the truth in this or that direction, but when she fell ill, she knew she was bequeathing me a life built on falsehoods, and she should have told me the truth.”

This admission felt to Richard more like forgiveness than accusation. Forgiveness for whom, Richard wasn’t sure. He rose to feed the fire and, when he had the flames roaring gently, returned to the love seat.

“What can I do to help, Amabel?” To help you. Every particle of his soul was certain that marrying him would sort out her situation to a nicety, but he dared not say as much lest she start up with her scandals and ruins and whatnot again.

“Nobody asks me if I need help,” Amabel said. “You assume I do, and you are correct.”

“They don’t ask me either,” Richard replied. “I would have told you I prefer it that way. But since coming to Yorkshire, I have needed somebody—the local elders, the village drunk, my only maternal auntie to aid my cause and…”

And perhaps with their silences, they had been trying to help him, or at least spare him from more sorrow. Novel notion. Not quite the same as self-serving reticence.

“And?” Amabel prompted.

“And what do you want, Amabel? What do you want for yourself?”

She pursed her lips, putting him in mind of Her Grace of Chanderton in a displeased mood. “Honestly?”

“With me, always honestly, Amabel. I will return the compliment.”

“I would like…” She squared her shoulders. “I like it very much when you hold me.”

“I like it even more when we hold each other.”

Richard took her in his arms, and while Amabel sniffled a bit and held him a lot, he had an extraordinary thought: Perhaps solo combat wasn’t a universally brilliant plan for a happy, meaningful life. Not for him, not for Amabel.

Before he could propose that notion to her—along with matrimony—he had some affairs to put in order.

18

“Would you care to join us, Aunt Orla?”

Mabel overheard Richard’s question as she approached the open door to the breakfast parlor.

“I would very much like to,” Orla replied, “but my stamina isn’t what it used to be. I’m told Swidhelm Abbey is all but a ruin. Perhaps Wealtha ought to go with you. The Abbey is part of her birthright, in truth, and⁠—”

And nothing. Mabel sailed into the breakfast parlor, feeling very much on her mettle. “Good morning, Step-mama. You are looking exceptionally well.” Also very odd, sitting at Richard’s right hand, which had become Mabel’s preferred seat. Orla usually sat at the foot of the table when she joined them for supper.

“Mabel, good day. I was about to tell his lordship that we have need of you here at the Glen for the nonce. Wealtha’s new dresses do not sew themselves, and the assembly is just around the corner.”

“I must insist on having Amabel’s company,” Richard said, spreading pear preserves on his toast. “She is best placed to evaluate the state of the Abbey. Hers is the sole expert eye I can call upon, while half the women in the village qualify as competent seamstresses. Recruit a few of them. I’m sure they can use the coin, and the dress will be just as pretty and more thoroughly admired for being a community effort.”

A visit to the Abbey had not been on Mabel’s schedule, but then, neither had pouring her heart out to Richard, drifting off in his arms, and waking with a sense of new and wondrous possibilities.

She recollected Richard bundling her into her nightgown and tucking covers around her shoulders, but such had been her exhaustion that the details were sweetly, pleasantly vague. She wasn’t to lose him, though. That much remained clear.

She had very nearly lost herself, though.

“You are enjoying a good appetite this morning,” Orla remarked when Mabel took the place opposite her and tucked into a full plate of eggs, ham, and toast.

“The fine weather does that for me,” Mabel said, “and the knowledge that my day will be spent in excellent company. Mrs. Tait will know who the best seamstresses are.”

Orla peered into the bottom of her tea cup. “But you always sew Wealtha’s dresses, and she will object to relying on other talents with the assembly so near.”

“You always take a breakfast tray in your rooms,” Richard observed, “but we have a happier start to our day because you have varied your routine. Wealtha can learn to adapt to minor changes. Amabel, I’ll alert the coachman and have Cook pack us a hamper. Shall we depart in, say, half an hour?”

She appropriated the nearly empty jar of pear preserves. “That will suit. Bring a greatcoat or cloak, my lord. This fine morning could become a sopping afternoon.”

“Forewarned, Miss Fielding.” He rose, bowed, and helped himself to a raspberry tart from the sideboard on his way out the door.

Richard was up to something. Mabel would learn the particulars within the hour. Orla was up to something as well, showing up at breakfast and attempting to thwart Richard’s authority.

“Mabel, what manner of scheme are you pursuing, hauling his lordship over hill and dale simply to view a wreck of a manor house that he need never lay eyes on?”

I am not the schemer here. “Richard has insisted on this outing, ma’am, as you yourself have heard, and that wreck is his responsibility. We know the solicitors dealt badly with the Glen. Just imagine the liberties they took with the Abbey.”

Orla poured herself more tea. “You will forbid his lordship from dumping a fortune into trying to rescue a moldering pile. Wealtha needs that money for her settlements, and I will thank you to remind him of his obligations in that regard.”

I no longer take orders from you. “Might I have the butter dish, ma’am?”

Orla passed it over. “I’ll have the honeypot, Mabel.”

The honey sat nearly at Orla’s elbow. Mabel went about buttering her toast. “Wealtha is welcome to come with us to see the Abbey.” Richard would manage that imposition with good grace, though Wealtha was the last person to regard a carriage ride through the countryside as a worthy use of her day.

“If the Abbey wasn’t so far, I might join you myself, but Wealtha has obligations here at the Glen. If you must shirk your regular duties by larking about with the viscount, then somebody will have to manage the women who will finally start to work on Wealtha’s new dress. My energies reliably fade by late morning, which means Wealtha will have to contend with the results of your absence.”

“She’s good at contending, in her way. We all have developed that ability of necessity.”

“See that you contend with the scandal you are courting, Mabel. I am loath to sound unkind, but it’s plain to all that you and his lordship are not related by blood or in law. A journey to the Abbey will cast you into his company for two hours in each direction, and rural minds can be narrow. If you continue to allow him familiarities, people will talk.”

Of course they would, particularly if Orla publicly lamented such familiarities with a convincingly disappointed shake of her head.

“He and I dwell under the same roof, we sit in the same pew at services, and we are connected through family even if we are unrelated. Our neighbors are not so narrow-minded or spiteful that they will manufacture wrongdoing where none exists. The omelet has to be one of the best Cook has made in ages.”

The consternation on Orla’s face was also satisfying in its way.

“I have only your best interests in mind, Mabel. I have had other occasions to urge you to exercise caution and be mindful of your place. You ignored me then and suffered significant humiliation a result. I apologize for such blunt speaking, but you once again appear determined on a foolish course.”

Blunt speaking with the door wide open, of course.

“Apology accepted. As far as I know, my course will take me to the Abbey and back before supper. I do not foresee great foolishness along that route.” Mabel finished her eggs and her tea and made further inroads on her ham and toast.

Breakfast with a side of self-respect was a much better meal than one with self-doubt on the menu. Richard—reasoning with her, arguing with her, cuddling with her—was largely responsible for the change.

“That is the most unrepentant smile I have ever seen on you, Mabel. I vow this contrary mood of yours bodes ill. I know of what I speak.”

“I am to spend my day on estate business, ma’am, the same as I always do, and I will conduct that business with the lord of the manor at my side, as I have on many other occasions. Why you insist on painting doom and ruin into that prosaic picture I do not know, nor do I find it a helpful aid to digestion. More tea?”

“No.” Orla balled up her table napkin, then refolded it and smoothed it beside her plate. “No, thank you, rather. Exerting myself to attempt a breakfast en famille was clearly asking too much. I doubt you will see me at supper, so taxing has this exchange been. You get your stubbornness from your father, and little good it did him.”

She rose and left, her air that of a widow summoning all her strength to leave divine services without a lapse in dignity.

To insult Papa Joseph had been a desperate tactic, one Orla reserved for when her usual strategies—false pity, false regret, false concern for Mabel’s future—failed to silence one of Mabel’s rare rebellions.

“Except this isn’t a rebellion,” Mabel informed the honeypot. “This is me, and I can own my mistakes and try to learn from them.”

She was still smiling unrepentantly when she met Richard at the porte cochere twenty minutes later.

“Sorry to abandon you at breakfast,” Richard said. “I had had enough of Orla’s nonsense, and I wanted us to get an early start on our errand. I trust you finished your meal in peace?”

“Of a sort. Orla had to warn me that my reputation will not stand the strain of a visit to the Abbey in your company, and a closed carriage is asking for ruinous gossip, and my father—the dearest man who ever read a child a bedtime story—was a trial to her nerves.”

“She said all that?”

“She sighed it, implied, alluded to it. I do believe she has retreated to regroup. We are not likely to see her at supper.”

“Well done. The day is too pretty to be spoiled by her machinations.” He smiled, a secret, confidential little expression of shared merriment that was mostly in his eyes. “You do look lovely this morning, Miss Fielding.”

“It’s worse than that, you handsome devil,” Mabel replied. “I feel lovely. There is no accounting for my high spirits, though present company could have something to answer for.”

“Likewise, I’m sure. I hesitate to tell you, but we might not spend much time at the Abbey.”

Mabel entertained the notion they could be heading for Scotland. If so, she would ask Richard for fifteen minutes to pack a valise and hope for good weather and good teams.

“And here I was looking forward to counting all the household linens.”

The humor in his eyes changed to tenderness. “I’ll explain when we’re on our way. I promise you a linen-counting expedition soon, but for present purposes, I had something far less engaging in mind.”

Drat the luck. The coach pulled up, four matched bays in the traces. “This team is from the livery?”

“I bought them in York. We’ll need a relief horse or two, and bays are plentiful.” He handed Mable up, then joined her on the forward-facing seat.

“Are you kidnapping me?” she asked as the coach jostled slightly at the weight of a hamper being secured to the boot.

Richard thumped on the roof, and the carriage rolled forward. “I am taking you to meet the Fielding family solicitors. I sent them a message last night, and they should be expecting us. I came across the name of the firm among Blackstock’s ledgers and journals.”

Mabel gave up trying to untie her bonnet ribbons. “Papa Joseph’s lawyers?”

“They should have been your lawyers and Orla’s, and they enabled her to steal your inheritance. I am most curious to know how she pulled that off and how she’s situated generally.”

“And you are doing this without announcing your intentions to Orla. That money has long since been spent, Richard, so why pursue the matter?” Good of him to think of it, but hardly an urgent errand or one deserving of secrecy.

“Because you should know the truth, and because I am now the head of what passes for Orla’s family-by-association. I need to know what transpired. In this case, that knowledge should be easily discoverable. Orla might even qualify as a poor relation—she has certainly relied on the Glen’s charity for years—and I am entitled to know the extent of her true needs.”

Mabel’s bright mood dimmed to seriousness, though not to sadness. “You don’t have to do this, Richard. For all I know, Orla did need the funds to house me. The solicitors might not tell you anything of the details you seek.”

“That was your money, Amabel. They might not tell me, but they will most assuredly tell us.”

The conviction in his voice warmed Mabel’s heart in a peculiarly bracing manner. She let Richard finish removing her bonnet, then took his hand and contemplated linen closets and lies, and a day that would include at least one private picnic.

“As I live and breathe, Miss Amabel Fielding, quite grown up. You resemble your father about the eyes, miss, and that is a compliment.”

Hereward Ingersoll might have been grandpapa to the Viking for which he’d been named. He was tall, solid, and wore a thick mane of white hair queued back in the old style. He regarded Mabel with snapping blue eyes that conveyed both warmth and intelligence.

“Please do have a seat, miss, my lord.” He gestured to a grouping of wing chairs by the fire, though the hearth was unlit and the windows of his spacious office open to the morning air. “I received last night’s note with a blend of rejoicing and foreboding. Whatever can I do for you?”

Richard watched this performance and decided it might not be a performance. Joseph Fielding’s aging solicitor appeared to hold Mabel, or the memory of her and her father in earlier years, in genuine affection.

“Shall I have a tea tray sent in?” he asked as Richard assisted Mabel into one of the wing chairs. “The clerks always pilfer a few cakes before the tray arrives. We order our sweets from the bakery up the lane, and I don’t begrudge the lads an occasional treat.”

“You always had cakes for Papa and me,” Amabel said slowly. “I’d forgotten that.”

“Your father preferred raspberry, if I recall aright.”

Amabel sent Richard a bemused glance. “I had forgotten that too. Please do sit, gentlemen. The occasion is not formal.”

She would make an excellent viscountess, provided Richard could persuade her to take him on as a husband.

“Not formal, perhaps,” Ingersoll said, “but serious, I fear. So much of a solicitor’s trade is serious. His lordship’s note alluded to possible irregularities in the Fielding family legal affairs.”

Ingersoll wasn’t wasting time or prevaricating, an encouraging sign.

“Before we take up the day’s business,” Amabel said, “how are Mrs. Ingersoll and your daughters?”

The old fellow beamed at a collection of sketches arranged on the wall opposite his desk. “Mrs. Ingersoll is a proud grandmama six times over. The lot of us are thriving and could not be happier.”

“I am delighted to hear that,” Amabel said, taking off her gloves and tucking them into her reticule. “I have not been thriving. I have instead been engaged in undeclared war with the firm of Wopley and Sons, as they’ve attempted to pillage the last groat from the Shepherd’s Glen coffers. His lordship’s arrival has put a stop to the larceny, but has also brought to light a claim that my inheritance was spent years ago.”

Ingersoll nodded. “Disbursed, miss. I cannot speak to the present state of the funds, because they were disbursed shortly before your twenty-first birthday.” He rose and collected a sheaf of papers from the blotter of his massive desk. “Against the advice of counsel, I might add. I’m surprised you don’t recall our exchange.”

He returned to his wing chair and handed Amabel the documents. “The last letter from me transmits to you a bank draft—made out to bearer, per your instructions—in the sum of 1,328 pounds. That is a copy, of course. Your final letter to me is the next document and so on.”

Amabel scanned a yellowing page with a few paragraphs of tidy script in the middle. She passed it over to Richard and took up the next page.

“Is there a problem?” Ingersoll asked delicately.

Richard saw all manner of problems, but Amabel had the floor.

“At the time this letter was supposedly written by me, Mr. Ingersoll, I was kicking my heels in London. Damn her. She lied.”

“Beg pardon, miss. Who lied?”

Amabel handed Richard the second sheet. “Orla Fielding, my devoted step-mother.”

Ingersoll wrinkled his substantial nose. “A managing sort of female, if I might be blunt. She demanded the whole of her widow’s portion within a week of Mr. Fielding’s demise, and I have not heard from her since. You suspect she appropriated your funds?”

“She recently told me that spending my inheritance was necessary to keep a roof over my head after Papa died. She assured me that you had approved her use of my funds. Papa had been gone for some time when this,”—she motioned at the letter in Richard’s hands—“transaction took place. She waited until I was away from the Glen and seized her moment.”

Amabel handed Richard the rest of the papers.

“Have you proof, miss?” Ingersoll asked. “Did Mrs. Fielding claim an unexpected bequest at the time? Will her bank balance show an increase of 1,328 pounds following our disbursement?”

“Even that wouldn’t be proof,” Richard said, leafing through years of correspondence. “Orla would manufacture some Banbury tale turning it into a coincidence. I notice you began corresponding directly with Miss Fielding when she turned eighteen. Is that your usual practice with a minor client?”

“Indeed, my lord. After Joseph’s death, Miss Fielding had no guardian of record. Joseph Fielding did not anticipate that he might expire before his daughter came of age. We mentioned this to him repeatedly—he had left her a tidy sum, he was not entirely negligent—but he never named a guardian for her. Mrs. Orla Fielding stepped into the role, though she never had legal authority to do so.”

“Contrary,” Amabel growled, “to her many representations to me.”

Ingersoll regarded the documents in Richard’s hands. “That is unfortunate. Most unfortunate. I did wonder, but one doesn’t want to intrude on a former client’s business when one has been dismissed. Then too, when it comes to necessities—and what could be more necessary to a young lady than her inheritance—even minors can make legally valid decisions.”

Richard took a closer look at the final letter purporting to be from Amabel. The last line thanked Ingersoll for his conscientious service and indicated those services were at an end.

Respectfully, Mabel Fielding.

“Is this your handwriting?” Richard asked, handing Mabel the last letter.

“Of course not. A good facsimile—my hand is legibly nondescript—but I don’t cross my t’s on a down slant, my initial capitals are more circumspect, and…”

“And?” Richard prompted.

“I sign my letters Amabel, never Mabel. Mabel is not my name, and particularly when writing to Mr. Ingersoll, only my legal name would do. I still sign all correspondence Amabel.”

“An old name, dating back to medieval days,” Ingersoll said. “The general meaning is ‘lovable,’ and your papa chose it for you.”

Amabel blinked several times even as she stared hard at Ingersoll’s empty hearth. “I did not know that. I knew it was an odd name.”

Richard passed her his handkerchief. “Ingersoll, would the handwriting and changed signature stand up in a court of law?”

“Before a jury? Possibly, particularly a local jury. Even here in York, Mrs. Fielding is not well liked. She’s part of a group of women who came of age together and went to finishing school together. They are thought to have their collective noses in the air. Squires’ daughters pretending to be something more. Memories for that sort of behavior are long, particularly when Mrs. Fielding ended up as nothing more than a squire’s wife.”

“A coven rather than a coterie?” Richard asked, while Amabel dabbed at her eyes.

“Precisely, my lord. I’m sure you came across their like in the south. Nasty schoolgirls who become busybodies, then meddlers, then universally resented righteous pillars, and finally malingering, gossiping poseurs. Mrs. Fielding’s preferred familiars number half a dozen or so, and at least three of them now bide in London much of the year. Joseph regretted his matrimonial choice, but he was too much of a gentleman to say so.”

“Can you get me a list of names?” Richard asked. “These ladies bear further scrutiny.”

“I can, my lord,” Ingersoll replied. “My wife is a contemporary of Mrs. Fielding and is among those who has cause to give the woman and the other Gundridge Gossips a wide berth. Mrs. Ingersoll keeps abreast of social matters, even those that do not concern her, because those developments are surprisingly relevant to my practice.”

“Amabel?” Richard passed the papers back to Ingersoll. “Are we finished here?”

She tucked Richard’s handkerchief into the cuff of her sleeve and sat up straight. “I would like a copy of Papa’s will.”

“Excellent thought,” Richard said, mentally kicking himself for not thinking of it. “You are curious about the family home?”

Ingersoll’s bushy brows drew down. “The house and property are yours, Miss Fielding. I was certain you knew that. Mrs. Fielding has a life estate—she can live in the house if necessary—but title passed to you upon your majority. The mortgage was paid off at the time of your father’s death from his own funds, so you are free to sell the property if you please.”

Amabel’s grip on her reticule looked quite snug. “I own a house? Papa’s house?”

Ingersoll looked a bit uncomfortable. “In fee simple, but for Mrs. Fielding’s life estate, which expires upon her demise, or execution of a quitclaim deed. You may live there any time you please, though you might have to tolerate her company. Despite her bottomless appetite for silks and jewels, Joseph provided well for her, enough to generate regular income. The details are in the will, and we will send a copy along to the Glen before sunset.”

“I own my own house? I didn’t think…”

“Women can certainly inherit property from family,” Ingersoll said, “if that’s the direction of your thoughts, else we’d have no heiresses. Mrs. Fielding inherited half of The Oaks, for example, though I am not familiar with the details of the property disposition. Wopley handled the matter, I regret to note.”

“Thank you,” Amabel said. “You have been very informative, Mr. Ingersoll, and I would never have discharged you. After I returned from my time in the south, I was much preoccupied with matters at the Glen. I should not have assumed my money was ticking along, earning interest for all this time.”

“Few people put as much emphasis on their legal affairs as they ought,” Ingersoll said, “especially early in life. What will you do about Mrs. Fielding?”

Amabel pulled on her gloves. “That will take some thought. I fear this is not the only mischief she’s wrought, and sorting out next steps is complicated.”

“Well said.” Richard rose and extended a hand to her. “Ingersoll, my thanks for an interesting and candid discussion. You’ve shed light on an aspect of my new situation that was much in need of illumination.”

They took their leave, though Amabel was quiet for the duration of the ride to Swidhelm Abbey.

“Talk to me, Amabel.” Richard had waited until the coach tooled through the Abbey’s gateposts.

She’d sat silently beside him, the picture of feminine composure, but Richard had felt her mental gears turning faster than the coach wheels.

“Orla has a kind of derangement,” Amabel said. “She was probably raised in Marie’s shadow, never having their papa’s best affections, no mama. She hadn’t her sister’s great good looks or Marie’s warmheartedness. She has been unsure of her worth from a young age, and so she steals security from others.”

St. Didier had posited a version of the same theory. “All the while, she appears to be a guardian of sorts. Now that you’ve explained her, do you intend to excuse her?” The decision, provided it was reasonable, was Amabel’s to make.

She took his hand and gave his fingers a squeeze. “If we send her away, we might never know why Marie fled.”

Finally. We. “I can live with that. Mama had her reasons for leaving and for obscuring the truth from me. I am more concerned with the future than the past, and that is how it should be.”

Those words were less of a surprise to Richard than they should have been. The choice was not between lies and the truth. The choice was between allowing the family malefactor to remain underfoot and sharing a future with Amabel unclouded by the malefactor’s presence.

No choice at all, viewed from that perspective.

“You truly believe you can be content without knowing the facts?” Amabel asked.

“Content enough. I still wish I knew the details of Mama’s past, but I refuse to allow old, unanswered questions to come between me and the most joyous future I can have. My own mother would counsel me thus, and so does my heart.”

Marie had chosen to take her chances with a risky future, and her courage had been rewarded with a mostly happy life. Richard was willing—now—to leave her decisions and motivations in the past, if a happy life with Amabel required that choice. He was confident that St. Didier, at least, would understand his reasoning.

The Abbey was, as most abbeys tended to be, an edifice of venerable stone. This one reposed at the end of an alley of equally venerable, if somewhat unkempt, lime trees. The façade looked tidy enough, though plain. Two lonely pots of red salvia sat at the bottom of the steps to the front terrace.

“It’s not falling down,” Richard said as the coach rolled to a halt. “We don’t have to inspect it now.”

Amabel put on her bonnet. “A quick tour only. This was our stated destination after all.”

Her air of distraction continued through the inspection of the Abbey, which was neither as large as it looked, nor as dilapidated as they’d been led to believe. Dusty in places, going threadbare in others, but structurally sound and reasonably appointed.

The housekeeper was a cheerful guide, clearly fond of the old place and respectful of her present employers, whom she referred to as a good Durham family who did not get above themselves.

“You are still preoccupied,” Richard said when they climbed back into the coach. “Shall I leave you to your cogitations, or might we discuss what troubles you? In the alternative, we can discuss what troubles me.”

A hint of a smile lit Amabel’s eyes. “You want to disown Orla. Fate finally hands you a maternal relation, and you wish you’d never met her.”

“There is that. No going back, though, and if I had to meet Orla to cross paths with the woman I love, the bargain is well met.”

Richard braced himself for you-mustn’t-say-such-things, my-lord-presumes, and several other scolds, remonstrations, and demurrals.

“I love you too. You left Ingersoll to me and intervened only when I had more or less quit the field. Even if you weren’t hardworking, patient, honorable, and good company at a picnic, I would adore you for that.”

Richard made a note to himself: He must aspire to become outstanding company at any and all private picnics with Amabel.

“You were owed a moment to gather your composure,” he said. “I claim a similar moment now. You love me?”

“I have said as much. You have said the same concerning my humble self.”

“And I’ve never meant words more sincerely.”

Amabel pointedly examined the view out the window—hills, sheep, stone walls—as a delicate pink crept up her neck.

“Richard, shall we stop for a picnic? I do not favor picnics in moving coaches.”

“Neither do I.”

After further discussion, they did not stop for a picnic. They barreled on home to the Glen, posthaste, and availed themselves of the amenities at the fishing cottage, though that outing consumed the remaining hours of their afternoon.

19

Mabel dropped Richard’s hand as they approached the place where the path from the fishing cottage opened onto the Glen’s park.

“I am reluctant to return to the house,” she said, gaze upon a façade she’d come to love. “I don’t want this outing with you to end.”

Richard set down the empty hamper. “I am supposed to say that all will be well, and we’ll have many such outings. That today is the first of many lovely days for us. I dearly hope that’s all true.”

How she adored his honesty. “You would rather not go in there.”

“But for meeting you, darling Amabel, I wish I’d never set eyes on the place. I have all my heart ever thought it desired—a title, property, legitimacy, means derived from the land rather than trade—but with those great boons has come disappointment.”

“I call it betrayal.” Mabel had been pushing that word to the margins of her imagination since leaving Ingersoll’s office and maybe for much longer. “Not only are we betrayed—you by Orla’s secrecy regarding the past and me by her thievery and lies—we are supposed to somehow sort out a future course for her while we reel with this disappointment you speak of.”

“And do that,” Richard said, “while Wealtha sighs and pouts and expects some prince of the Dales to propose to her and her soon-to-be-gargantuan settlements.”

Mabel permitted herself a brief lean against Richard’s chest, holding him loosely and fortifying herself with his embrace.

“If Wealtha had any sense,” she said, stepping back, “she would realize that huge settlements almost guarantee a mercenary union.”

“Wealtha has sense.” Richard picked up the picnic basket and offered Mabel his arm. “She also has ambition, guile, and determination. I will ask the duchess what’s to be done with such a young lady, whose marital portion is merely generous rather than enormous.”

“Will I ever meet this duchess?” Mabel was asking about more than an introduction to a family connection. Richard had to know that.

“Of course. And when Lily has put her seal of approval on you, aided by Sorcha, formerly Lady Barclay, you will be inundated with invitations, and nobody will dare mention any previous forays you might have made into polite society.”

“Must I make another foray into polite society?” The prospect daunted, even as Mabel also sought to redress a grievance she’d been done under the very nose of that Society.

“That is for you to decide. If you tell me the name of the scoundrel who took such unforgivable advantage of you, I will see to it that he’s urgently enjoying the sights on the Continent.”

The grass underfoot was acquiring the springy resilience of summer growth. The lengthening shadows were softer than in cooler seasons. Spring was yielding to warmth, light, and long, busy days.

Things change. “May I decide whether to take on Mayfair at some future date?” Mabel asked.

“Of course, or you may decide Mayfair does not deserve your attention. I can invite Chanderton and his duchess out to Hampshire, or up here to Yorkshire. Before you make their acquaintance, I would also like for you to meet my brother and his new bride.”

Richard would never, ever take family for granted. Mabel liked having that in common with him.

“I feel the need to do some weeding,” she said as they gained the path to the terrace steps. “Several weeks of it.”

“Amabel, you are not taking on Orla by yourself. We will approach her together, when we’ve had a chance to sort out options and verify a few details. An appointment with her banker is in order, and as to that, I want to find the deed to the house Joseph Fielding left you. Whatever real estate he bequeathed to you had to be recorded in the land records, and we will want that document if Orla proves contrary.”

Richard was a businessman. A viscount, too, and an exceedingly impressive companion at a picnic, but also a man of business. What a handy sort of fellow to have about.

“I wonder if trade is so denigrated by the landed classes because people who succeed in commerce acquire skills and means that imbue them with power irrespective of standing.”

“You must raise that theory with His Grace of Chanderton when you make the duke’s acquaintance. Are you truly intent on weeding, Amabel?”

He had always used her name, her true name, the one Papa had chosen for her. “No. The weeds will behave until our next spate of rainy days.” Amabel mounted the steps with Richard at her side. “This day has been upsetting and wonderful, and I am very glad I shared it with you.”

She wanted to kiss him, but all three maids, Kepler, Cook, and—more to the point—Orla and Wealtha might be peering down on the back terrace.

“If you continue to bestow such melting glances upon me, Amabel, my dignity will desert me entirely. Supper is less than an hour away, and I must compose myself for that ordeal.”

Mabel patted his arm. “Take courage, my lord. I put strawberry trifle on the menu, and that is Wealtha’s favorite dessert.”

She untangled their arms and started for the terrace door.

“Amabel.”

Richard remained at the top of the steps. His cravat had a few wrinkles, the toes of his boots were dusty, and his hair could use some combing, but to Mabel, he was dreams come true and wishes granted.

“Richard?”

“Until I take my dying breath, and beyond if the Deity allows, I will recall this day with more fondness than words can convey. The Glen is a house. Grand, impressive, and lovely in its way. You are the home my heart has longed for.”

Warmth, sweet and piercing, suffused her. “That is unfair, Swidhelm. You say such things when I cannot kiss you witless in retaliation. I will have my revenge.” She extracted the handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “I never cry, blast you, but I will immortalize your declaration on a sampler and shed a tear for every stitch.”

“Good.” He strode forward, looking quite pleased with himself. “I am new to this declaration business, and one wants to do his bit properly. What was that?”

The sound of breaking glass came from inside the house.

“Somebody dropped a vase,” Mabel said, though she knew as surely as Thunder took naps that nobody had dropped anything.

Another resounding crash shattered the late afternoon peace.

“I don’t care how fine the fabric is,” Wealtha bellowed. “I will not wear dowdy fashions just so Mabel can frolic about with my so-called brother!” Three more crashes in succession punctuated her sentiment.

Richard set down the hamper. “Wait here.”

“You wait here. I am accustomed to her tantrums, and the sight of you will only⁠—”

A teapot flew out an open window and crashed to pieces on the terrace flagstones.

Mabel picked up her skirts and ran, Richard half a step behind.

The scene that greeted Richard in the informal parlor resembled the aftermath of a riot. The three women perched on the sofa wore various expressions of shock, though Mrs. Tait’s gaze might also have been a bit gleeful. She held a tea cup, which she’d in all likelihood forgotten.

A curtain was torn and hanging askew from the rod. The glass framing two sketches had been cracked beyond all repair and the sketches left upon the carpet. The tea service was no more.

St. Didier stood before the ladies, putting himself between Wealtha and her guests.

“What in blazes is going on here?” Richard asked.

“My dress is already a horror in progress,” Wealtha said. “I will not have it. Mabel is to sew my clothes, not spend her days larking about in a closed coach with the likes of you. You are illegitimate, in trade, and a mushroom! You can only mean to ruin her, and she is foolish enough to allow that.”

The carpet was littered with porcelain. A fleck of scratch adorned St. Didier’s right cheek, which was red compared to the left.

Wealtha Blackstock had a great deal to learn about who allowed what at Shepherd’s Glen.

“I have plenty of time to sew you a new dress, Wealtha.” Amabel spoke calmly as she gestured for the ladies to take advantage of the open door. “The past few weeks have been trying for you, but you have no need to indulge in histrionics.”

Histrionics was a vast and charitable understatement. The ladies sat as if rooted to the sofa. St. Didier remained poised to intercept enemy fire.

“I have every need!” Wealtha shrieked. “You are stupid, Mabel Fielding. A stupid, pathetic spinster without a groat to your name. You are a charity case, and you haven’t even sense enough to admit it. So what if you went to Mayfair for a few weeks years ago? Nobody cares, and you were a complete failure. I have settlements, and I am prettier—everybody says so.”

She grabbed the porcelain shepherdess from the mantel, and Amabel’s hands balled into fists.

“Put that down, Wealtha.” Amabel’s words vibrated with warning. “That shepherdess was Papa Joseph’s last gift to me, and destroying her will only bring you regrets.”

“I will make sure of it, Miss Blackstock,” St. Didier said. “Toss that memento, and you will not be received in any proper household with a hint of London connections.”

“Best do as Mabel says, Wealtha,” Mrs. Tait added. “You’ve made your point very”—she glanced around at the destruction—“emphatically.” She took a sip of her tea but did not put the cup down.

“Wealtha,” Amabel said, “this solves nothing, and if you think⁠—”

Wealtha drew her arm back.

Richard seized her about the waist, pried the shepherdess from her fingers, and handed it to St. Didier.

Wealtha thrashed until Richard got a grip on her wrists.

“That is enough, Wealtha. Ladies, you will excuse us. Miss Blackstock has suffered a series of shocks that have overcome her nerves. She needs peace and quiet in which to compose herself.”

Wealtha struggled against his hold, but he did not intend to let her loose.

“I’ll see you out,” St. Didier said, which prompted one of the younger women to lead the charge for the door. Mrs. Tait brought up the rear, her tea cup still in hand. St. Didier set the shepherdess on the sideboard and followed the ladies from the room.

Amabel closed the door after him. “Have done with this, Wealtha. You have proved nothing except that you still indulge your temper as you did when you were three years old.”

“I am overset! You heard Swidhelm. Let go of me, you brute!”

“You struck St. Didier,” Richard countered. “That is the behavior of a lunatic, Wealtha Blackstock. You have destroyed property that was not yours to destroy, which makes you a criminal. You have put on a spectacle for the neighbors, which makes you ridiculous. Cease your foolishness now.”

He used the tone of voice he’d applied to the rare case of a sullen clerk who habitually overindulged in beer for his nooning. Wealtha stopped squirming, and he let her go.

She raised her arm to swing at him, and Richard stopped her with another hand manacled around her wrist.

“Are you truly unhinged?” he asked quietly. “Or have these tantrums simply figured in your arsenal of schemes for ensuring you get everything you want, including the attention of the entire village from time to time?”

“She is not unhinged.” Amabel took down the sagging curtain. “A display like this never happens when Orla is about. Wealtha times her explosions for when she has a captive audience, then she goes crying to Orla about how circumstances were beyond provoking and nobody understands what a great burden delicate nerves are.”

“This is a regular occurrence?” Richard asked, positioning himself before the door. If Wealtha wanted to elude judgment, she’d have to climb out the window onto the terrace.

“Regular enough that Wealtha has dissuaded three eligible bachelors from courting her.”

“What does an occasional bout of nerves matter?” Wealtha snapped. “Without the Glen among my settlements, nobody will court me ever again. I am a laughingstock, and Auntie has already told me he won’t be doing much more than adding a few pounds to my settlements.”

“He,” Richard said quietly, “will get himself appointed as your guardian and have you consigned to a particularly devout French nunnery if you don’t show some sense.”

“You can’t do that.”

Richard turned a mild gaze on a carpet strewn with wrecked tea cups, shattered saucers, and broken picture frames.

“Try me, sister mine. I am illegitimate, in trade, and a mushroom. My audacity is equaled only by the humbleness of my upbringing. Go crying to Orla if you must, but first you will put this parlor to rights.”

“Keppie can assist the⁠—”

Richard shook his head. “You. Gather up the wreckage on your hands and knees, sweep the mess into the dustbin, clean up the spilled tea, honey, cakes, and cream. You do it and make a thorough job of it, or you will never again attend a local assembly.”

“That’s not fair!”

How could such a pretty woman exude such ugliness? “You are right, it’s not fair. For the way you’ve behaved, you should be confined to a garret on bread and water until at least Michaelmas. You are excused from supper, but we’ll expect you at breakfast with your best manners on display.”

Give her some time to sulk and pout—and marshal her temper.

“I won’t be hungry.”

Said every spoiled brat ever sent to her room. “Your passing moods and petty dramas are a thing of the past, Wealtha. I had intended to double your settlements, but I cannot in good faith consign hard-earned coin to the furtherance of any matrimonial scheme involving you until you prove that you’ve given up the tactics of a harridan.”

She actually looked a little harridan-ish, with her bun coming down on one side, a splash of tea on her sleeve, and that outraged light glittering in her blue eyes.

“Mabel, tell him I cannot possibly be expected… Tell him I must go to the assembly. My nerves are delicate, I am an orphan, and this parlor will take hours to put to rights. Hours!”

“His lordship is the head of this family, Wealtha, such as it is. Reconcile yourself to that reality. In future, please address me as Amabel. That is my name, and I will answer to no other from you.”

Amabel’s announcement had done what Richard’s threats and decrees could not. Wealtha shut her mouth and turned toward the hearth.

Amabel collected her shepherdess, touched Richard’s sleeve, and gestured toward the door.

He acceded to her judgment. Unless Wealtha ripped the stuffing from the cushions, she had wrought all the havoc possible on one small parlor. He bowed Amabel through the door and left Wealtha to clean up her messes for once.

“Is this a frequent occurrence?” he asked as they paused outside the door.

Amabel held up a hand.

Richard waited for another picture frame to shatter, but instead he heard snuffling that escalated into hoo-hoo-hoo weeping.

“She’ll be all right now,” Amabel said tiredly. “The rest of the household will walk on eggshells for a few weeks, sly glances will be exchanged in the churchyard, and Orla will be particularly solicitous toward Wealtha. Forbidding Wealtha the assembly was inspired.”

Perhaps not a frequent occurrence, then, but not out of character either. “She deserves no solicitude after a display like that.”

“I agree. I’ll send Clementina with a broom and dustpan and give her strict orders not to offer assistance. Clemmie is old enough to withstand Wealtha’s nonsense.”

Clementina was old enough to have firsthand memories of the Flood.

Amabel conveyed orders to Kepler, who’d apparently been lurking at the foot of the kitchen stairs in anticipation of a summons.

“Miss Wealtha sounded very upset, Miss Mabel, but Mr. St. Didier was present, and nobody rang, and one doesn’t… That is… One should never…”

“That was Wealtha’s last tantrum,” Richard said. “She’ll be lucky to earn a position teaching deportment to schoolgirls at Miss Gundridge’s Academy for Ill-Mannered Gossips if she doesn’t put aside her dramatics.”

“If you say so, my lord. I vow… Well, I hope you have the right of it.” Kepler shuffled off, muttering about modern times and hysterical tendencies.

“I’ll see you up to your room,” Richard said, though he also wanted to question St. Didier about the origins of Wealtha’s pique.

“You needn’t.”

“Yes, I do need. I want to hold you for a moment because I am overset—delicate nerves run in the family, as it were—and having you in my arms will settle my humors. For that, a closed door and privacy are still in order. Your habit of plain speaking is contagious.”

Amabel smiled at him. A weak effort and fleeting, but still a smile at him and for him.

“Come along, my lord. I trust Orla will take a tray for supper, and you and I can get an explanation out of St. Didier over the soup course. I will take a hand in fashioning Wealtha’s new dress tomorrow, and the domestic tranquility will restore itself.”

He offered his arm as they approached the main staircase. “I would rather Wealtha sewed her own dresses. She should be capable of that much, and she certainly has the time.”

“She is truly not very skilled with a needle.”

“From lack of practice, no doubt, but if the result is wearable, she’ll have something to be proud of for a change.”

Amabel stopped on the landing. “I hadn’t thought of that. I can assist her with⁠—”

“Not tomorrow.” Richard was reinforcing a point to Wealtha, and retrenching on that point wasn’t in his plans. “Tomorrow, you will escort me on an attics-to-pantries tour of this house. You’ve seen to it that I know my acres and my tenants and my shepherds, but I have yet to make the full acquaintance of the dwelling itself.”

He hadn’t really planned on another house tour, but Amabel needed a means of resisting Wealtha’s inevitable importuning and Orla’s subtle barbs in aid of Wealtha’s cause.

“Very well,” Amabel said, resuming her progress up the steps. “Attics to pantries, including the priest holes and smugglers’ cellar.”

“I shall look forward to it.”

Richard did not particularly care about the house’s nooks and crannies. He would take an interest in them because the denizens of Shepherd’s Glen needed to accommodate the notion that Amabel was its mistress. She might appreciate some time to adjust to that idea herself.

When they reached her sitting room, Richard closed the door, held her for as long as he dared, then excused himself to change for supper.

20

“Tea, Miss Fielding?” St. Didier asked, passing Amabel the pot.

Other than a slight nick on his handsome cheek, he showed no signs of having been involved in yesterday’s domestic upheaval.

“You may call me Amabel, and I shall call you Leopold.” That bit of boldness earned Amabel a bashful smile across the breakfast table.

“I would be honored, Amabel. How is Miss Wealtha this morning?”

“I have not bestirred myself to inquire. How are you?” He’d related a tale at supper last night that had fit Wealtha’s usual pattern. Conversation had burbled along pleasantly enough over the tea service, and then Mrs. Tait had remarked that stripes were apparently no longer in fashion, and piping was once again coming into favor.

The design of Wealtha’s new dress, for which the fabric had been cut that day, had favored stripes, at Wealtha’s insistence. Stripes, she’d declared, imparted a willowy delicacy to her frame.

The tea cups had gone flying shortly after Mrs. Tait’s announcement.

“You ask how I am,” St. Didier said. “I am procrastinating, putting off my next task. I enjoy the country generally and the West Riding in particular. I am developing a circle of acquaintances here such that the life of a perpetual houseguest has developed strong appeal.”

Richard sailed into the breakfast parlor. “If I recall aright, your circle includes my brother Bernard and his cousin Lord Lorne. Bernard and his bride—she also counting among your acquaintances—are either journeying toward Lorne Hall on this lovely morning, or they are already biding there. We can pay a call in the next few days.”

Richard looked to be brimming with energy, as usual, and yet, Amabel detected a hint of strain behind his words. Wealtha’s displays of temper always took a toll on the household, and Richard had probably never seen an adult female comport herself so violently.

“Lorne Hall is overrun with children,” St. Didier said. “It’s the noisiest stately home in the realm, and Lorne and his lady wouldn’t have it any other way.”

St. Didier clearly liked children. Amabel sipped her tea and did not allow Richard to catch her eye as he took his seat at the head of the table.

She passed him the teapot. “His lordship and I are for the attics this morning. We’re making an inspection of the premises. You are welcome to join us.”

“Safety in numbers,” Richard said, pouring himself a steaming cup. “Wealtha has not been confined to quarters, and Orla hasn’t been spotted since yesterday’s affray.”

“We are refining our plain-speaking abilities,” Amabel said as her last strawberry tart was snatched onto Richard’s otherwise empty plate. “His lordship and I visited with the Fielding family solicitor yesterday, and I anticipate that Orla will dislike the results of our meeting.” Somehow this topic had not come up at supper yesterday. Too much else to discuss, perhaps.

“I dislike the results of our meeting,” Richard said, tearing the tart in two and returning half to Amabel’s plate. He’d done the same thing at yesterday’s picnic, which seemed a lifetime ago.

“Larceny and chicanery?” St. Didier asked.

“Orla has indulged in forgery, misappropriation, and worse,” Richard said. “We probably can’t prove it, but we can ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

How would they foil her when she’d been pillaging at will for years? Amabel had considered that question for much of a short and sleepless night.

“A thought occurred to me.” She took Richard’s plate to the sideboard and heaped it with omelet, slices of ham, and more strawberry tarts.

“Do tell,” Richard said as she put the plate before him and resumed her seat.

St. Didier’s eyes lit with amusement.

“Orla stole my competence. She tried to steal my house. She has exerted a sort of blackmail over me ever since I returned from London, subtly threatening to reveal the failures of my past should I grow too headstrong.”

Richard whipped his table napkin across his lap. “Threatening how?”

“Reminding me that if word of my unfortunate missteps in London ever reached Yorkshire, I would be ruined. Suggesting that old humiliations could travel on wings of gossip far more easily than I knew. Never admitting that she herself might spread unflattering tales through her familiars, but never promising discretion either.”

“And you,” St. Didier said, “having to rely on her for chaperonage, or what passes for it in these surrounds, did not allow yourself to form that accusation even mentally.”

“True. She apparently has been discreet thus far, probably for Wealtha’s sake.”

“She will continue to be discreet,” Richard said, taking up his knife and fork. “But this begs the question, does she know the particulars of your past, and if so, how did she come upon them?”

Amabel finished her tart. “You asked me that before, and I have been pondering the answer. I never gave Orla any specifics, and I know great-aunt kept mum. Orla does have London connections though, thanks to Miss Gundridge’s Gossips. I actually met the author of my missteps through one of Orla’s old school chums. I would not say she threw us together, but she certainly fostered opportunities for us to become better acquainted and then played least in sight.”

St. Didier gazed intently at the sunbeams slanting through the French doors. Amabel would have given at least three more strawberry tarts to know what he was thinking.

“Orla has much to answer for,” Richard said, buttering a slice of toast. “Confronting her will be distasteful. I am more concerned with what’s to be done with her.”

“Lorne sent his aunt to the Antipodes,” St. Didier observed. “A better fate than she deserved. Miss Amabel, should we change the topic? Your expression suggests disquiet.”

Richard set down his utensils. “Tell us. If it troubles you, it troubles me.”

A very fortifying bit of plain speaking. “Orla is a thief,” Amabel said. “She has stolen coin, property, and to some degree, happiness from me. She has stolen Wealtha and me from each other, keeping us apart when we should have been allies. In the Blackstock books, we found repeated, sizable disbursements without any explanation. I have been wondering if Orla stole from Abernathy.”

In the ensuing quiet, a robin’s cheery song fluted across the morning air. The little bird was in good voice, while the breakfast parlor was otherwise silent.

“Of course she did,” Richard said, frowning at his toast. “Of course she did. She knew Marie was alive.”

“That’s the puzzling part,” Amabel said. “Those missing sums begin well before Abernathy had any thought of remarrying, so why should he pay Orla to remain silent about Marie? Orla did not know where Marie dwelled by then, or not precisely, and Abernathy had no reason to assume Marie was dead.”

“Puzzling,” St. Didier said, “but your surmise makes sense. A woman with a penchant for taking what isn’t hers closely orbits Blackstock’s daughter, and Blackstock’s books show evidence of blackmail or extortion.”

“Three hundred pounds a year,” Richard said. “I did some ciphering. The sum works out to three hundred pounds every year that I’ve examined so far.”

Wealtha chose then to make an appearance. Her demeanor was not precisely meek, but neither was it sullen.

“Help yourself to some strawberry tarts before Swidhelm decimates them,” Amabel said. “They are quite good.”

Wealtha nodded, made a pass along the buffet at the sideboard, and took the seat next to Amabel.

“Am I supposed to apologize?” Wealtha asked, staring at her plate. “I am sorry, but then, I am always sorry when I make an ass of myself. I shouldn’t say ‘ass,’ but Auntie isn’t here to correct me, and I was awful.”

St. Didier or Amabel might have offered an olive branch—you have been under a strain, we all have bad moments—though neither did.

“You behaved awfully,” Richard said. “You are not awful, and you can make amends by improving your future deportment. The family parlor was quite tidy when I looked in on it this morning. Shall I send for a fresh pot?”

Wealtha peered at him. “I do prefer my tea hot. Might I have the butter?”

Amabel breathed a mental sigh of relief. The requisite step forward, away from yesterday’s debacle, had been taken. May it please be the last debacle of its kind, for everybody’s sake, including Wealtha’s.

“I thought I’d venture into the village later this morning, Miss Blackstock,” St. Didier said. “Might you accompany me? I have letters to post and doubtless more letters to collect, and the day is promising excellent weather for a ramble.”

That was more gallantry than Wealtha deserved, but no less than Amabel would have expected from St. Didier. His offer also meant she and Richard would make their house tour without his escort.

She would find the resolve not to inspect the linen closets with Richard too minutely, despite the temptation to barricade herself in one with him until Orla was snatched away by the fairies.

“I’d like a chance to stretch my legs,” Wealtha said. “Thank you.”

The rest of the meal passed peacefully enough, with St. Didier regaling the company with the tale of Lord and Lady Lorne’s decision to move the denizens of an orphanage into one of the north’s finest family seats. The bannisters of Lorne Hall, according to St. Didier, had never been so highly polished.

Amabel smiled along with Richard and Wealtha, though she was aware that Richard was preoccupied with their earlier conversation.

Orla the thief must be dealt with.

“I am ready to begin my house tour,” she said, folding her napkin beside her plate. “My lord, you are doomed to escort me.”

“It shall be my pleasure. Wealtha, St. Didier, enjoy your outing. If I don’t appear for supper, please have a look in the smugglers’ cellar and the priest hole.”

The linen closets would be a better bet. Amabel led the way up three flights of stairs to the attics, which were a series of connected rooms off a central corridor, each organized to provide storage for different parts of the house.

“This one,” she said, opening a low door, “is for the gallery. Abernathy had pretensions to artistic taste, or he paid somebody to have those pretensions for him. The old inventory is stored in here, mostly simpler landscapes and portraits considered less than impressive.”

Amabel had never gone through them in detail. She simply knew the purpose of the room and, in a general way, what it held.

“I might like those older landscapes,” Richard said, “before Capability Brown put true wilderness out of fashion.”

He went to a group of frames leaning against the wall, the paintings turned away from the light. After flipping past the first three, he stopped, and his posture subtly shifted.

“Find something interesting?” Amabel asked.

He said nothing, nor did he move.

Amabel went to his side. The painting on view was a portrait. She made out that much in the dim light before realizing the art had been badly damaged. The lady’s pretty features beamed joy from the canvas, but the depiction of her fichu was slashed repeatedly.

The young woman in the painting had been stabbed, figuratively. Slashed over and over, until the bottom portion of the painting was more ruin than art.

And yet, her resemblance to her son was plain for Amabel to see. The same smile, the same steady, confident, open gaze.

“Your mother?”

Richard drew in a ragged breath and nodded.

Amabel gently drew him to her, away from the awful wreck of a portrait, and closed her arms around him.

“Don’t fuss,” she said. “I need to hold you just now.” She took him in a firm embrace, and gradually, he reciprocated. She waited until a shudder went through him, followed by another and then another, and still she held him while he and his grief made not a sound.

Richard mustered the self-discipline to search through the whole room of discarded art. He found another portrait and a miniature of his mother. The second portrait, more staid, less youthful, had also been half destroyed.

The glass of the miniature’s frame had been cracked to shards about the edge—the sort of damage a bootheel might have done—but the image itself was unblemished and smiling, also quite an accurate likeness.

Amabel had half dragged him from the attics thereafter, the miniature in his hand.

“Your mother was beautiful,” Amabel said, pausing as a pair of common blue butterflies flitted among the billowing border of lavender.

She had brought him into the sunshine, into the garden she kept so tidy and peaceful.

“Mama considered that beauty a curse, and now I understand why.”

“Enlighten me.”

Richard did not want to say the words, did not want to desecrate this lovely, orderly place with such sordid admissions, and yet, Amabel was equal to hard truths. With her, Richard could face them too.

“The Glen is a beautiful dwelling,” Richard said, wandering down the walkway hand in hand with Amabel. “Wonderful proportions, first-rate construction, but here and there, a panel of the wainscoting has been replaced.”

“I suppose it has.”

Amabel was too kind to hurry his recitation, which was fortunate because Richard had to manage the telling in small steps.

“The front door is impressive,” he went on, as they approached the fountain, “but the window on one side is mullioned, while the other is not. Have you ever wondered why?”

“It’s been that way forever. I assumed mullioned windows went out of fashion, so a cracked window was replaced with clear glass.”

He could not blame Amabel for misinterpreting or ignoring evidence. The whole village had likely ignored evidence for years, or tried to.

“In the family parlor,” Richard said, “your shepherdess was positioned to hide a gash in the mantel. Somebody took a poker to the wood, swung hard, and damaged seasoned oak. That takes a great deal of force, Amabel.”

He waited, hoping Amabel might say the words for him. She remained silent and took the bench by the fountain.

Richard took the place beside her. “Abernathy could not keep staff about the house,” he said. “Why not? The gardeners and stable lads were content to work here, but people in positions that required frequent interaction with the lord of the manor never stayed on long. That is not only a mystery, Amabel, it points to a secret.”

“You don’t care for secrets. Neither do I. Does this have to do with the missing three hundred pounds?”

“I very much fear it does. Dingle Fothergill told me that Abernathy was a fraud, that the geniality and good cheer were counterfeit, and Dingle was right. Having seen Wealtha in high dudgeon, and recalling your observation that Marie must have been compelled to leave Shepherd’s Glen, I conclude that when private with his wife, Abernathy Blackstock could be a brute of a husband. Smashing windows, destroying paneling, laying about with a poker… he was dangerous.”

Amabel went still beside him. Richard could feel her assembling the facts—the damage to the house, the staffing troubles, an entire village’s reticence about the past, Wealtha’s behavior when vexed, and of course, the violently damaged portraits. Blackstock had commissioned them, and Blackstock had all but destroyed them.

Richard made himself say the rest of it. “Mama would not have left over an occasional cuff on the shoulder or a shove in anger. Her own husband apparently terrified her, made her life a misery, and with his violent temper convinced her that ruin was better than bringing children into such a union. I would not be surprised to learn that she feared for her own life.”

“How she must have delighted in your very existence, then. A fine, healthy boy to love, despite all the dangers she’d faced. You were her consolation in several regards.”

What an interesting conclusion to draw from such a miserable history. “She loved me,” Richard said, turning his face up to the Yorkshire sun. “She also feared for me. I thought the problem was Lord Jerome. Even he would have been hard put to stop Abernathy Blackstock from claiming me, the legalities being what they were.”

Had Mama chosen such a lofty protector precisely to intimidate Blackstock if the need ever arose? The question circled in Richard’s mind without urgency. Sufficient unto the day…

No wonder Mama had never breathed a word of her connection to Abernathy Blockstock.

Amabel squeezed his fingers. “Your mother protected you, and now you have the property that might well have been hers upon Abernathy’s death.”

That suggestion also took some pondering. “Ironic, or was Abernathy’s will meant as an apology to a woman he’d wronged terribly? He probably knew by then that Marie had had a son.”

What a sad, tangled web.

“If Orla mentioned your existence to Papa Joseph, he might well have conveyed the information quietly to Blackstock. She’d do that, tut-tut to her spouse over Marie’s worst misstep while inwardly gloating. Papa Joseph did not believe in convenient lies.”

Bless Papa Joseph, who’d put up with Orla far longer than Richard had. “I am all but certain that Abernathy Blackstock knew about me. That explains the will in all its details. Blackstock could not easily disinherit me without very sordid information coming to light. Maybe he was apologizing to Marie for his abuse, but more likely, he was taking revenge on Orla for her blackmail. She knew of his temper and knew exactly why Marie had left him. He paid to keep her mouth shut.”

“If Orla knew of Abernathy’s temper,” Amabel said slowly, “she doubtless learned of it because Marie made her desperate plight plain to her only sibling.”

Amabel’s word—betrayal—reverberated against the sadness and anger reeling through Richard’s heart, even as he tried to parse what history he knew with probabilities.

“Blackstock,” he said, “bequeathed to Wealtha enough means to attract a husband, but left her poor enough that Orla would have little incentive to prey on her. He wasn’t entirely a demon.”

“Orla has much to answer for.” Amabel squeezed Richard’s fingers. “Our neighbors must have had more than an inkling what manner of man Marie had married, and none of them put a stop to the union.”

That much was painfully obvious in hindsight. “Abernathy could not keep servants, and half those servants were probably from Dales families—cousins, nephews, and second cousins to folk in the vicinity of the Glen. They knew, they said nothing, they did nothing. Marie might have importuned some of them for help.”

Logic completed the thought: Marie had asked for help, probably from her father or her vicar, and been refused. Orla had been no sort of ally at all. Marie had taken desperate measures because they were the only option she had left besides fearing for her life until Abernathy landed one blow too many.

“Orla knew this whole sorry tale,” Amabel said. “She would likely have been the first place Marie turned for aid.”

The law allowed no interference between a man and the chattel he’d acquired at the church altar, but Orla had even then had some influence on public opinion. She could have invited her sister to visit. She could have prevailed on her father to intervene.

“I know why you keep this garden so tidy,” Richard said. “Weeds spread. They take over, creating chaos and choking the life from the flowers chosen and nurtured with such care. The weeds can flourish all they want outside the garden walls, but the garden is for enjoying and should not be a battleground. Rip out the invaders, or they will leave wreckage from wall to wall.”

He was babbling. He wanted to shout and rant and perhaps—difficult admission—throw a teapot out a window. Instead, he clung to Amabel’s hand.

“Orla betrayed me,” Amabel said. “She betrayed her sister, you, Wealtha, Wealtha’s mother… Nobody would blame you for turning her over to the law.”

Amabel was thinking rationally. Richard could barely think at all. “On what grounds would I have her charged?”

“You wouldn’t. I would—I own a house she has claimed as part of her widow’s jointure. She has kept every penny of rent paid on that house, assuring me the funds were necessary to pay the mortgage. You heard Mr. Ingersoll assure us that the mortgage was eliminated upon Papa Joseph’s death. Surely this scheme of Orla’s is a crime?”

“Likely several crimes. This explains why she did not sell the house outright,” Richard said. “When real estate changes hands, the legalities and documents matter, and only you have the right to approve a sale of that house. A sale would have revealed Orla’s conniving to any half-competent solicitor. Amabel, you are as shrewd as you are lovely.”

Her insight—that Orla had not entirely outwitted the law—brought Richard a great measure of balance.

“We’re to have company,” Amabel said as voices sounded outside the garden wall. Wealtha and St. Didier came up the steps a few moments later, Wealtha in great good looks and even St. Didier appearing less forbidding than usual.

“We stopped at the sweet shop,” Wealtha said. “I had half a dozen cinnamon biscuits. Mr. St. Didier has sworn he won’t peach on me to Auntie.”

Richard stared at his putative sister with a sense of weary bewilderment. Wealtha was older than Mama had been when she’d decided to save her life at the cost of her reputation.

“We bring tidings from afar,” St. Didier said, brandishing a packet of letters. “I feel as if I ought to hike back to the village all over again because of that detour to the sweet shop. I had a biscuit or two myself.”

Richard rose and assisted Amabel to her feet. How did one make small talk when newly aware that one’s mother had feared for her life? That her fears had been repeatedly dismissed by those who should have most cared for her?

“You’ll want to read the one from Her Grace, I’m sure,” St. Didier said, holding out a half-dozen missives. “I did not mean to peek, but the duchess’s stationery is distinctive.”

Amabel sorted through the letters and passed Richard a folded and sealed sheet of cream paper. “She has a pretty hand, your duchess.”

“Richard corresponds with a duchess?” Wealtha asked.

“Several of them,” Richard muttered. “Amabel, I’m sure you’ll want to read this too. A question for you, Wealtha. Did your Papa Blackstock suffer from a sore temper?”

Wealtha’s gaiety dimmed. “Poor Papa had a terrible temper. I knew from an early age to lock the nursery door when one of Papa’s moods was upon him. Papa himself told me to do that. He was never wroth with me, and he always had a reason for being so angry, but yes, he had a mighty temper. He was always sorry, and I wasn’t to speak of his bad moods to anybody ever.”

“Orla knew of his moods?”

“Oh, certainly. She advised me to ignore them. She said many men have a tendency to hysterics, but we aren’t to use that word to describe their outbursts.”

“This is about the past, isn’t it?” St. Didier asked quietly.

Richard nodded. “And the present and the future. Wealtha, you need to be put in possession of some facts. Orla will be leaving the household shortly, possibly taken into custody by the magistrate. You are free to protest on her behalf, but I dearly, dearly hope you don’t. You are of age, I am not your guardian, and I will not forbid you from making your own decisions when it comes to your aunt’s situation.”

“Has Orla been naughty?”

She’d been evil. “She has been greedy and mean, at least. We have reason to suspect that she cheated Amabel out of the rent paid for Joseph Fielding’s house, a house Amabel inherited.”

“Orla owns that house. Orla has told me that any number of times.”

“She told you that,” Amabel said patiently, “knowing you’d repeat it in the village and create the assumption locally that she owns that property. I own it.”

Wealtha studied the fountain, where the butterflies were now cavorting. “You needed that money, Mabe… I mean, Amabel. You are a poor relation, and you should have what your papa meant for you to have.”

Wealtha’s version of reality was a curious blend of childlike simplicity and guile. Richard consigned himself to never really understanding his sister.

“I have doubled your settlements, Wealtha, and I will add a tenant property in good repair. You will have an allowance until such time as you marry that will be yours to save or spend as you please. I suggest you do some of both, but that is a discussion for another time.”

“If I have an allowance,” Wealtha said slowly, “you cannot tell Orla. She will want to manage it for me. She can’t do that, can she?”

Richard felt as if he were dealing with a dotty aunt who was yet capable of flashes of wisdom.

“Wealtha, Orla will be leaving the Glen—for good and soon. Whether she’s bound over for the assizes or banished to the Continent, she cannot take you with her unless you want to go with her. We have every reason to believe she blackmailed Abernathy over his temper, among other things, and we know she has behaved criminally with respect to Amabel’s inheritance.”

“Don’t go with her,” Amabel said. “Be prepared for her to wheedle, threaten, lie, have a relapse of her mysterious ailment, and even indulge in tears or a tantrum, but please don’t yield to her manipulations.”

“Be wise,” St. Didier said. “Your father would want you to look after yourself, not tie yourself to such a one as Orla Fielding.”

Wealtha wrinkled her nose. “Orla isn’t very nice. She is polite, and she says polite things, but she’s sly too. She is never happy, even when she’s smiling. She bought me a lot of bonnets just to keep in my good books, and I fussed and gushed just to keep in hers. That’s foolishness. The Glen is my home, and I will stay here.”

“Good choice,” St. Didier said, which was more graciousness than Richard was capable of at the moment. “My lord, Miss Amabel, will we see you at luncheon?”

He was asking if Richard had a battle plan. “I will read Her Grace’s missive before I make that decision. If you are summoned to the study, please come hotfoot.”

“Understood. Miss Wealtha, I believe there’s a letter or two for you in that stack. Perhaps you’d like some privacy with your mail?”

Amabel passed over two epistles. “A lady must not neglect her correspondence.”

“These are just tattle from my school chums. They are very tedious, but one can’t tell them that. They would whine to their mamas and their mamas would complain to Orla.” She took the letters and wrapped a hand around St. Didier’s arm. “You are sworn to secrecy, please recall.”

“I’ll say nary a word. They were very good biscuits, though.”

Amabel waited until St. Didier had escorted Wealtha into the house. “You regard the duchess’s letter like it’s a writ of attainder.”

“Lily knows everybody and what they get up to. I have a suspicion, Amabel, that as angry as I am now at Orla, you will be even angrier when we finish with Lily’s report. Just a hunch, though my hunches have been known to be prescient.”

“That sounds ominous, but then, Orla’s comeuppance is long overdue, and she has doubtless been watching us from her window for the past hour. She has to know her schemes are coming to an end.”

“Years too late.” Too late for Mama, not too late for Richard and Amabel.

They read Her Grace’s report in the study, and as Richard had predicted, the news left Amabel pacing and muttering and Richard thinking very, very carefully.

21

“Orla set me up to be ruined,” Amabel said, feeling as Richard must have felt when he’d gazed on his mother’s wrecked portraits. “She would have known exactly what sort of escort Samuel Hastings would make and made sure Samuel’s dear auntie thought I was the next thing to a dolly-mop from the Dales.”

The study was too small to admit of much pacing, though what Amabel truly sought was to run fast and hard from the information in the duchess’s letter. Her Grace’s letter had not laid out facts end to end, but she’d conveyed enough information and recalled enough of the whispers that Amabel finally had an accurate picture of her notorious Season in Town.

“Shall I have Miss Gundridge’s Select Academy closed?” Richard asked. “I have no doubt this godmother or aunt or cousin of Hastings’s is one of Orla’s cronies.”

“She is—one of the London contingent—which only made me more trusting where Samuel was concerned. After the introductions were concluded and Samuel’s interest in me became noticeable, Orla’s old friend made no further overtures toward me. Hastings kept seeking me out. I was flattered, until his game became obvious in hindsight. Then I was relieved that Orla’s old friend hadn’t fostered a lasting acquaintance with me.”

Her Grace had named only a few names, but they were enough: Miss Mabel Fielding had arrived in Town in the company of a somewhat frail great-aunt. The young lady had initially been received tolerantly, with neither interest nor censure. She was one of many hopefuls who came to London from the shires, as much to see the sights as to circulate in society.

Samuel Hastings had been the sort of bachelor one did not turn away from an at home, provided he was in company with a female relative of good repute. One did not add him to guest lists or even include him to make up numbers. He was accepted to only a minimal degree. His uncle was a banker who’d married the daughter of a Yorkshire wool snob of the more-acres-than-coin variety.

Hastings’s pursuit of the nobody from Yorkshire had soon been remarked, according to the duchess, and not with any hope that the young lady would reform the rake. He’d had a reputation for misbehaving with the unwary. After Miss Fielding’s departure, whispers were heard to the effect that he’d both wagered on her ruin and taken coin to bring it about. He hadn’t been seen much in London thereafter.

“Samuel was very persistent and very charming,” Amabel said. “I genuinely thought we were to be married.” What an innocent she’d been. As gullible as she’d been ignorant.

“Hastings needed you to think he was courting you in good faith,” Richard said.

Richard was so calm, half sitting on the desk, arms crossed. Too calm?

“I cannot believe Orla paid him to ruin me.”

“Amabel, how else did she know the details of your misfortune unless she’d authored them? She had coin—your coin, as it turns out—and she could not have you marrying and involving solicitors in your situation. They would have looked over Fielding’s provisions for you as a matter of due diligence and learned that he’d left you both a sum in trust and a house.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” So much Amabel hadn’t thought of. “I have been as featherbrained as Wealtha.” Did Wealtha feel this overwhelmed by the greater world? “I should be weeping and ranting, but I am too upset for even that.”

“Too betrayed,” Richard said, holding out his arms.

Amabel went into his embrace with a sense of having found her only safe haven in a world turned deceptive and dangerous.

“I was no match for my step-mother,” Amabel said. “Orla turned even my dreams and hopes against me. I want to bellow accusations at her and also to never see her again.”

“We don’t have to do anything yet,” Richard said, stroking Amabel’s back. “We can bide our time and gather information. I still want to meet with her bankers.”

Amabel wanted to throw a certain sampler into the fire, and the thought of sitting down to supper with Orla… Absolutely not.

“This is not commerce, my lord, where patience and persistence will often win the day. Orla is your aunt, she is my step-mother, and she has trespassed egregiously against every member of this household.”

Richard eased his hold and took both of Amabel’s hands in his. “We do as you say, dearest Amabel. If you want her off the property by sunset, she will be marched into the village at sword-point. If you want the magistrate to arrest her, I’ll summon him in person.”

“Magnus Johnson is the magistrate. He could be here in less than an hour.” Magnus would not hesitate to apply the law either.

“You have another option.” Richard led Amabel by the hand to a wing chair, and when he’d seated her, he perched on the hassock at her knee. “You can bring a civil suit, for conversion.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“The law is available to handle disagreements that don’t rise to the level of a crime. Two parties get into a spat, but greater society is not affected by their differences. It’s not a criminal situation, just a difference of opinion.”

“This is like when somebody’s sheep ruin a neighbor’s strawberry crop?”

“Exactly like that. Orla might have had an excuse to collect the rent from the Fielding house—she was an adult and your step-mother, while you were a minor without a guardian—but she kept that money for herself rather than turning it over to you or holding it for you. She converted it to her own use without your permission. You can bring suit over that in a civil court.”

How long had Richard pondered particulars before coming up with this strategy? “That would involve me in a scandalous proceeding.” Amabel did not much care that she would be involved in scandal—another scandal—but Richard did not need that bother so soon after assuming his title.

“Having Orla arrested would be scandalous.”

“Having Orla arrested would be a relief.” Also, Amabel hoped, a measure of justice. “Send a groom for Magnus Johnson, and if anybody asks, we’re inviting him for luncheon. If you gallop down the bridle path yourself, that will be remarked.”

“Do you know how badly I want to gallop for the law?” Richard said, smiling slightly.

“Yes.”

He scrawled a note at the desk and rang the bell-pull. “I hope Magnus Johnson has a fast horse.”

“He does. A splendid chestnut that he won in a card game, or so he tells it. Orla will not go quietly.”

“You can absent yourself from any confrontation with her, Amabel. In fact, I hope you do.”

Retreat appealed. Hide in a convenient parlor while the drama unfolded. “I would say the same to you, Richard. That I will deal with her betrayal of her own sister for you and withstand her invective and lies and threats. You would not ask it of me, and I do not ask that you do as much for me. I ask that we manage this together.”

He looked to be considering some gallant, high-handed nonsense when a tap sounded on the door. The note summoning the magistrate was passed over to the footman, and Amabel was once again alone with her intended.

Richard was that. Somewhere between picnics, old scandals, and shocking revelations, she’d quietly accepted that he was her future, and she was his. The realization brought warmth and fortitude and a need to touch him.

“Together,” she said again, taking his hand. “Please.”

Richard kissed her knuckles. “Together, though I will probably misstep and bungle. You will have to be patient with me.”

“And you with me. Let’s find St. Didier and explain the duchess’s letter to him.” Amabel detested the thought of rehearsing the whole sordid tale again, but St. Didier was nothing if not a trusted friend.

“He’ll be in the library,” Richard said, “and that’s as good a place as any to see this business finished.” He kissed Amabel on the cheek. “I came to Yorkshire looking for answers, and I have found them. I also found you, and for that, I will always, always be grateful.”

They did not join St. Didier in the library until twenty minutes later, and when they did, Amabel was feeling battle-ready and determined. When Magnus Johnson was announced, Richard was looking his most severe and St. Didier his most forbidding.

Amabel did not offer their guest tea, wanting to keep the breakables in the room to a minimum. She did, though, ask to have a footman at the ready in the alcove across the corridor from the library door and a pair of grooms stationed out of sight on the terrace just beyond the French doors.

The sight of Orla sashaying into the library in all her tastefully understated fashion made Richard long to howl.

She paused when she caught sight of Magnus Johnson. “If it’s not young Mr. Johnson, gracing us with another visit and in the middle of haying.” She smiled with a blend of graciousness and patience guaranteed to convey anything but welcome. “Should Mabel ring for tea?”

Her name is Amabel. “We’ll not be having tea,” Richard said as the footman closed the library door. “I asked Mr. Johnson to attend us in his role as magistrate. Mr. St. Didier observes as a witness.” A witness maintaining a thunderous silence by the empty hearth.

Orla put a hand to her throat. “Oh dear. Has Clemmie taken to pinching the silver in her dotage?”

“Somebody has tried to pinch an entire house,” Amabel said. “You’d best take a seat, Orla.”

She chose the chair behind the desk. “I trust we do not refer to Richard’s usurpation of Wealtha’s birthright?”

“His lordship,” Magnus Johnson said, “is the rightful owner of Shepherd’s Glen, Mrs. Fielding. I had a word with Mr. St. Didier when he first started nosing around months ago. Our discussion inspired me to make a few discreet inquiries in my capacity as guardian of the king’s peace.”

In the midst of all the serious and distasteful business to be transacted, Richard had the odd thought that he’d like having Magnus Johnson for a neighbor.

“The house Joseph Fielding owned,” Amabel said, “is a secondary consideration, Orla. You forged my signature on legal documents still in the possession of Hereward Ingersoll. You then took control of my funds, squandered them, and claimed the money was needed to pay off a mortgage that Papa Joseph’s estate had already eliminated. You probably claimed ownership of the house as an afterthought when you realized selling it would bring scrutiny you could not afford.”

Amabel stood by the windows, her arms folded, her posture serene and dignified. She spoke calmly, even mildly, though Richard was sure this display of composure was costing her.

A display of composure was certainly costing him.

Orla picked up the white quill pen in the silver standish and examined the nib. “Mabel, you mischaracterize my good intentions. This is not well done of you, particularly with Mr. Johnson looking so serious and Mr. St. Didier so forbidding. I never said I owned that house. I said I was responsible for it, or managing it, or some such, and I did manage it. The rent was nominally yours, but you required feeding, housing, clothing. Need I remind you such amenities are not free?”

Richard stood before the desk. “You required feeding, housing, and clothing, Orla Fielding. You have expensive tastes—sapphires come dear—and you wanted funds with which to spoil Wealtha. I do mean spoil. Amabel’s needs were met from the Glen’s household funds. You, by contrast, were and are a parasite.”

The white feather went still in her hands. “Richard, that is an ugly word, especially from somebody to whom some very unsavory labels could be applied with perfect accuracy. If you apologize, I will overlook your lapse just this once.”

For the first time, Richard entertained the notion that his aunt might have a variety of madness.

“Madam,” Magnus Johnson said, “I myself have heard you refer to the Fielding house as yours—not to manage, but yours outright. Part of the legendarily small security you claim Joseph Fielding left you, even as you are known to have a jewelry collection to rival any in Yorkshire.”

He’d positioned himself by the door, and when not chatting over tea, Magnus Johnson looked like the country squire he was—fit, sizable, and possessed of pragmatism equal to even distasteful occasions.

“You misheard me,” Orla said.

“I did not mishear Mr. Ingersoll,” Amabel countered with equal assurance. “I did not misremember signing documents resulting in the release of my funds and Mr. Ingersoll’s discharge. The forgeries are obvious, Orla.”

“Forgeries? How can you prove I wrote them?” Orla retorted.

“You had the total remitted to your attention,” Amabel said. “A bearer note, true, but I am certain that your bank records will reveal the entire sum deposited into your account, and I will swear upon Papa Joseph’s sainted memory that I never, ever gave you leave to steal my inheritance.”

Orla tried to put the quill pen back into its stand and missed twice. “You are being unnecessarily dramatic, Mabel, and⁠—”

“Amabel.” Richard, St. Didier, and Amabel herself had spoken as one.

Magnus Johnson smiled slightly. “You had best cease prattling, ma’am,” he said. “I have heard your lies myself, and now you are accused of forgery, theft, and misappropriation. If I examine the facts closely enough, extortion and blackmail might apply as well. The prospect of being charged with a half-dozen or so hanging felonies ought to imbue you with some reticence.”

Richard waited for some condescending little rejoinder from Orla, though she finally seemed to realize that she was in real peril. She glowered at Johnson and then pointedly shifted her gaze to stare at the biographies shelved across the room.

A failed attempt at some kind of cut.

“We might also see you charged with blackmailing Abernathy Blackstock,” Richard said. “His heirs could have standing to sue you for the funds you extorted from him.”

Orla swung her glower in Richard’s direction. “Don’t be ridiculous. The man is dead and gone, and his life was made a misery by your own mother. She subjected him to scandal and ridicule, followed by years of uncertainty. What he spent having her declared dead would buy the Fielding house and all its furnishings twice over.”

“He had Marie declared dead,” Richard said, “precisely because you’d told him she was yet extant, and you’d told him that she had a son as well. In the alternative, Joseph Fielding apprised Blackstock of the truth. The one thing Abernathy Blackstock had likely begged heaven for year after year—a legitimate son—became another taunt in your hands.”

“You excel at taunting the unsuspecting,” Amabel said. “You have taunted me with my failure in Mayfair for years, subtly, cruelly, but we now have reason to suspect that my terrible experience there was your doing as well. Her Grace of Chanderton provided supporting details in today’s post. She reports that Samuel Hastings bragged about being paid for his efforts to ruin me, at the same time he won wagers predicting my downfall.”

“More misuse of the Fielding rental monies?” Magnus Johnson asked. In the past two minutes, he’d seemed to gain three inches of height and six of muscle.

“I paid that young man to provide you an escort.” Orla’s words took on a snarling tone. “I knew you’d fail to gain attention from bachelors worth the name, and if Samuel took a few liberties, well… You are from the country. Your standards of conduct could not possibly measure up to London expectations, and I might have intimated as much to Samuel’s aunt. You simply proved my predictions correct.”

She rose, hands braced on the blotter. “If you lacked the sense to keep your virtue safe in the presence of a bounder, then you were better off back in Yorkshire. You should be thanking me.”

Amabel turned a serene expression on Magnus Johnson. “Arrest her. She is a menace to the king’s peace, a liar, a thief, a blackmailer, and worse. She has betrayed every trust ever reposed in her.”

Orla resumed her seat, seeming not to have heard Amabel’s decision.

“You betrayed my mother as well, didn’t you?” Richard asked, though he no longer needed Orla’s corroboration of family history. “She begged you for help when Abernathy Blackstock’s temper became evident, and you turned her away.”

“Of course I turned her away. She doubtless provoked him and got exactly what she⁠—”

Richard had to move quickly to interpose himself between Orla and St. Didier, who’d somehow crossed the library in the space of a heartbeat.

“St. Didier,” Richard said, “the sentiment is appreciated and all too understandable, but you must allow the law to take its course.”

“I meant only to put a hand over her vile mouth.”

“And you’d do it gently too,” Amabel said. “I mean to ask you for a different kind of assistance.”

St. Didier stepped back. “I am at your service, Miss Amabel.”

“You are also a friend of the Duchess of Chanderton. Might you prevail on her good offices to acquaint polite society with Orla’s various crimes? Note in particular that the fast friends Orla made in her school days have abetted her mischief.”

“Naming at least one name would be appropriate,” Richard said, silently commending Amabel for giving St. Didier a means of enforcing justice in the arena where he wielded the most power. “If Hastings is extant, I want his particulars as well.”

“Done.” St. Didier stared hard at Orla. “A jury of your peers might not convict you of anything other than being a miserable excuse for a human being, but polite society will bruit your misdeeds about from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Depend upon that.”

Orla turned her head rather than meet that stare, and she kept her mouth shut.

“Orla Fielding,” Magnus Johnson said, “I am arresting you on suspicion of forgery, theft, and misappropriation. Further charges might result from additional investigation. You may gather up such personal effects as you will need for an incarceration of several weeks and such means as you have to pay amenities while you’re jailed. You are fortunate that the assizes are so near at hand.”

“I don’t understand.” Orla had risen again, this time making a great display of leaning on the desk as if for support. “I am not well, and surely in a civilized nation, a lady can await the hand of justice, such as this travesty of accusations and lies has anything to do with justice, in the comfort of her own⁠—”

“You have one quarter of an hour,” Richard said, “to gather up some necessities. Don’t think to bother Wealtha with your troubles. She knows the scheme you hatched to torment her father, and she is affronted personally and on his behalf.”

“Take some books,” Amabel said, with what appeared to be complete sincerity. “You will need them to occupy the time.”

Orla turned a sniffy expression on each person in the room. Richard wanted to parody her, but settled for waiting her out. When nobody reacted to her posturing, she made for the corridor, head held high.

Magnus Johnson closed the door in her wake. “She is very likely facing conviction,” he said. “Even in York, she is unpopular. My mother has had occasion to remark as much.”

“She will not be convicted,” Amabel said. “She will throw a few things into a valise, collect what coin and jewelry she has, and disappear down the steps that connect her dressing closet to the lower floors. From there, she will take the bridle path into the village and hop the two o’clock stage for Leeds and Liverpool.”

“The path completely obscured by trees?” St. Didier asked.

“Should I stop her?” Johnson asked.

Richard was of two minds. “She will prey on others, Amabel.” But she’d be gone—no hearings or trials, no upheaval in the village, no public testimony quoted in the newspaper.

No putting the new peer on display in a court of law. Amabel would consider that as well, while Richard would have shouted Orla’s perfidy to the rooftops.

“Don’t stop her,” Amabel said. “She will try to prey on others, but she will not be the respected widow, nor will she have a small fortune to squander as she pursues her schemes. She will be forced to pawn her jewels, garnering only a fraction of their worth.

“She will have nothing and nobody,” Amabel went on. “She will be forced to part with her treasures one by one, and make do with less and less, until she is cast entirely on her wits or the charity of her neighbors.”

“You are saying,” St. Didier murmured, “that the crown would have to pay to transport her, but the result would be the same if she’s simply allowed to flee.”

“Her French is terrible,” Amabel said. “And all of her wrongdoing has involved abusing somebody’s trust. Who is left for her to betray? I do not predict a long or happy life for my step-mother, but neither will I concern myself with the particulars of her fate should she flee.”

“A pragmatic view,” Johnson said. “My lord, have you anything to add?”

Richard looked to Amabel, who beneath her dignified calm exuded weariness of the spirit. She’d battled to keep the Glen on its feet, battled for years to maintain order in a household tainted with ill will and lies, battled to regain her self-possession after being sorely abused in London.

“As long as Orla doesn’t show up in Portugal or Madeira,” Richard said, “she is free to make her way as best she can anywhere else in the world.”

Johnson looked puzzled. “Why not Portugal or Madeira?”

“I hope to include those destinations on a long and peaceful wedding journey,” Richard said, which inspired a small smile from Amabel. “My bride will decide our itinerary, but those will be among my suggestions.”

“Congratulations?” Johnson looked from Richard to Amabel. “I presume an announcement will be made at the assembly?”

Amabel’s smile became more of a glow. “You presume correctly. Mr. St. Didier will stand up with us, when the time comes.”

St. Didier got a bit glow-y, too, and more ferocious than usual. “I would be honored.”

Amabel’s gaze went to the window. “Orla is making her escape. At least she thought to wear a cloak.”

“The better to hide her identity,” St. Didier said, joining Amabel at the window. “How I wish I had a rotten tomato with which to stain that cloak.”

Magnus Johnson ambled to the window as well. “She’s wearing boots. Always a sensible choice when making a long journey. Shall I follow her just to make sure she gets on a stage?”

“I claim that office,” St. Didier said. “You will stay for lunch and exchange pleasantries with the happy couple.”

Clearly, St. Didier had a few parting words for Orla. Richard left him to it, certain those parting words would speak for all concerned. Orla had notice of the charges against her. A warrant would be issued, along with a detailed description of the wanted party. If she had any sense, she’d be on a ship bound for a foreign port in the next forty-eight hours.

“As it happens,” Magnus Johnson said, “I am a bit peckish, if it wouldn’t be intruding?”

“Not at all,” Amabel said. “My lord, shall we alert your sister to the presence of a guest at luncheon?”

“We shall not. Wealtha is busy with her correspondence, and the discussion at lunch would likely not amuse her.”

“I will manage to contain my disappointment,” Johnson murmured.

A beat of silence went by.

“As shall I,” Amabel said. “And his lordship would make it unanimous, if he weren’t trying to puzzle out the demands of fraternal loyalty. We have hopes that when she’s free of Orla’s goading and manipulation, Wealtha might become better company. But tell us how haying progresses. The Glen’s crews are ahead of schedule, and this year’s crop has so far been gorgeous.”

Hay could be gorgeous, sheep could be beautiful, and a simple meal of soup and sandwiches could be delicious. Richard knew from the glances Amabel sent him, from the quality of her speech and small gestures—a hesitation before refreshing her wineglass, the care with which she folded her table napkin—that Amabel was not as at ease as she seemed.

Neither was Richard, but the ease would come in time. They would make certain of it, together.

“Will Mr. St. Didier be biding in the area much longer?” Johnson asked when the cherry tarts with clotted cream were but a memory.

“He has said not,” Amabel replied. “The press of whatever passes for business with him is apparently growing urgent. Why?”

“I’d like to seek his counsel regarding some business that’s about to press on me,” Johnson replied. He turned a troubled gaze on the tray that had held the tarts. “I’m in line for a baronetcy. That is common knowledge and of no great import.”

“A well-deserved honor,” Amabel observed. “The holding is a tidy estate near Durham, if I recall correctly?”

“That’s part of it, but the baronet has only recently apprised me of another aspect of my inheritance for which I am entirely unprepared.”

Richard mentally ceased building castles with lots of bedrooms in Portugal. “One sympathizes on the matter of unlooked-for inheritances. Are you to be saddled with a barony? I survived the shock of becoming a viscount, with Amabel’s aid and support. A barony might not be too bad.”

“A marquessate,” Johnson said. “In Scotland. Uncle started out something like seventh in line, but number six is the current title holder and in poor health with no sons, no brothers, nothing but Uncle for an heir and me for a spare. Uncle’s health is failing as well. My mother is quietly in transports, while I am…”

“Seeking some counsel from Leopold St. Didier.” Amabel set the carafe of wine by Johnson’s elbow. “If there is a way to elude this title, he’ll know it. You may rely on him utterly in that regard.”

“And if there is no way out,” Richard added, “St. Didier will at least see you through the initial shock. He’s good at it. Let’s have a few more tarts sent up from the kitchen, shall we? The morning has been eventful, and Cook’s tarts are amazingly restorative.”

By the time St. Didier returned from his errand, Johnson had been sent on his way, mightily fortified with cherry tarts, wine, and good wishes.

Richard and Amabel started their afternoon planning a house party for late summer—Their Graces of Chanderton first on the guest list—and a wedding journey for early autumn. When St. Didier next saw them in the later afternoon, they were ambling in the direction of the path that led to the fishing cottage, a wicker hamper in Richard’s hand.

Never had a couple become so proficient at picnicking prior to speaking their vows. The prospect of acquiring another godchild sat pleasantly with St. Didier, though a bit sadly too.

He set that sentiment aside and sent a note to Magnus Johnson arranging to meet for a morning hack. St. Didier had been patient as long as he could afford to be, and the next Marquess of Duncarron needed to be taken in hand.

Though that, of course, is a tale for another time!

TO MY DEAR READERS

Anybody else missing those beautiful Yorkshire vistas? We might have to drop in on the newlyweds at Shepherd’s Glen and enjoy the scenery first hand! Look for Magnus Johnson’s tale early next year—I am missing Scotland too!—working title, An Heir of Intrigue.

And speaking of intrigue… our thirteenth Lord Julian mystery, A Gentleman of Very Few Words, will be available from the web store on Nov. 13, 2026, and from the retail sites on Nov. 20, 2026. His lordship has become very focused on speaking his vows with Miss Hyperia West, and therefore, as a conscientious author, my bounden duty is to mess with Julian’s plans (apologies to Perry). I had tremendous fun with this one, in part because Hyperia and Julian land amid a gaggle of authors, at least one of whom is being very, very naughty. Excerpt below.

I am in the early drafting stages of using Gent Very Few as a springboard for a Christmas novella. The setting will be Caldicott Hall, but the plot will be (mostly) romance. A Gentleman in Winter involves—wouldn’t you know it—a rural vicar facing bleak mid-winter all on his lonesome (waves to Pietr Sorenson of A Rogue in Winter fame), but Abel Faucon’s expectations are about to be deliciously upset by an invitation he doesn’t see coming. Wheee! Ordering links available soon.

If you’d like to stay up to date on these and other upcoming releases, you can sign up for my newsletter. Unsubscribing is easy, and I will never sell, swap, or give away your personal information. I also post to my blog most Sundays, and my Advanced Reader Copy distribution list starts with those good folks commenting on my blog posts.

Happing reading!

Grace Burrowes

Read on for an excerpt from A Gentleman of Very Few Words!

A GENTLEMAN OF VERY FEW WORDS—EXCERPT

AGentleman of Very Few Words by Grace Burrowes

The Lord Julian Mysteries—Book Thirteen

Chapter One

“A wedding journey by the sea!” My beloved gazed southward, as if crashing waves and brisk shore breezes lurked behind Caldicott Hall’s home wood rather than miles away. “What a marvelous idea, Julian. We can take Leander and Atticus and they will recall the happy memories for the rest of their lives.”

A wedding journey by the sea was not to my taste. A wedding journey by the sea with a couple of fidgety boys in tow struck me as a month’s worth of disasters waiting to happen, which I would recall for the rest of my life.

And not fondly at all.

“For our honey month, might I not have you to myself, Perry? A forced excursion to the shore, much less for both children, might hold little appeal for them. They are hardly boon companions.” And Hyperia, fair-minded to a fault, would not choose between Atticus and Leander.

My intended and I occupied the gazebo along a slope in the Hall’s park. Beyond the hedgerow at the foot of the hill sat the stables and various other outbuildings. Above us, the Hall reposed in all its springtime, neoclassic glory.

I was honestly not keen on leaving the place, which might be why the whole topic of a wedding journey hadn’t earned much of my attention.

“Who could object to time spent by the ocean, Julian? No vista is as imposing, no sunlight as bright as morning sun upon the water.”

The very same bright sunlight that literally hurt my eyes. “The sea has tempests,” I said, gaze upon the solid reality of the Hall’s eastern façade. “Those tempests sink ships. People drown in the sea, and as for the shore, it frequently smells like rotten eggs and is rife with flies. Great and terrible waves rise up from the sea and wipe out entire villages, for no discernible reason. Unpredictable currents bear the unsuspecting to a watery death if they are foolish enough to swim beyond the shallows.”

Hyperia rummaged in our picnic basket and produced a pair of oranges. “You list all the reasons why little boys would be fascinated with the ocean, and rightly so. The sea is one of creation’s most impressive wonders, and no son of Britannia should go his entire life without beholding it.”

The sea had taken so many of Britannia’s sons off to war, sons who never again beheld their native land, that the sea should beg Britainnia’s eternal pardon. Bad enough that the rubbishing sea was no longer much of a safeguard against invasion, but must it speed so many good men to their deaths?

My darling passed me an orange, which I set about peeling. “I grant you the sea is an impressive sight.” A heartbreaking sight as the shores of one’s homeland grew smaller and smaller. “Supervising two small boys on holiday will require impressive resources.”

“That’s easy. We take Miss Hunter and a pair of nursery maids. A couple of the younger footmen will be delighted to accompany us, and I’m sure Lady Ophelia’s staff will aid the cause.”

I ripped off a strip of peel too precipitously and got a squirt of juice on my fingers for my heedlessness.

Hyperia took my hand and put my fingers into her mouth. “Delicious,” she said, running her tongue over the tip of my index finger. “I promise not to neglect you on our wedding journey, Julian, but we must find something to do during the day while we recover from our nightly connubial exertions.”

Was there ever a more luminous phrase than nightly connubial exertions or a more strategically deployed distraction?

I was in the middle of a serious debate, and marshaled my wits accordingly. “I thought, wherever we journeyed we might picnic, go for a stroll, nap, read, nap, hack out, nap some more.” I’d contemplated long, lazy days spent mostly in bed or in deshabille, and long lazy nights spent celebrating the joys of the married state.

Nattering children, rotting seaweed, and bad memories had not figured in my fantasies whatsoever. For that matter, neither had imposing on my godmother’s hospitality, much less taking an entourage of staff who would report the details of our excursion to my mother, and to the larger community at the Hall.

“Hyperia, what I seek most of all on our wedding journey is privacy with you. The sort of privacy we haven’t had much of, for various reasons. I want time to talk about trivialities and read the newspaper to each other over breakfast. Time to pretend to fish while I ogle your ankles as you wade barefoot in some obliging steam…”

“My ankles are simply ankles, Jules.” She took the orange from me and finished peeling it. “We will have a lifetime to read the newspaper to each other over breakfast. We need not accept Lady Ophelia’s offer, but we have seen little of her lately, and she was instrumental in bringing us back together.”

Hyperia, perhaps unknowingly, had just fired some heavy artillery.

At Waterloo, where seasoned officers had been in perilously short supply, I’d acquitted myself adequately. That effort on my part had been not only my irrefutable duty, but also a futile attempt to atone for earlier failures in uniform.

While serving in Spain, I’d been taken captive by the French, which would have been disgrace enough for several eternities. While imprisoned, I had also accomplished exactly nothing to protect my older brother Harry, who’d been taken prisoner as well. He had not survived the ordeal.

That sequence of events had sent me into a melancholic spiral at the bottom of which lay the ultimate act of surrender.

Former officers were notoriously prone to accidents while cleaning their pistols. I had been contemplating such an accident nearly a year after the final battle, when Lady Ophelia had demanded that I escort her to a house party.

The notion had struck me as bizarre. What mattered pall mall and polonaises when one’s brother was likely rotting in a shallow grave on some French mountainside?

And yet, one did not lightly refuse her ladyship, who had herself been acting at Hyperia’s prompting. I would not consign my godmother to unescorted travel on Albion’s rutted roads, and thus my duty had been clear.

Perry had been among the guests at the party, and that encounter had begun my slow climb from the Slough of Despond back to a semblance of normal functioning.

So normal had my functioning become that I was soon to marry the most wonderful female personage ever to grace a man with her smiles.

“If we spend our honey month along the southern coast,” I said, “we might look in on her ladyship as we journey back to the Hall. The idea of imposing on her, and expecting her to play hostess to the children as well, might be asking a bit much.”

“She is inviting us, Julian, and she specifically mentions bringing the boys.”

She would. Godmama had lost two children to the vagaries of illness, and she blamed herself for her son’s death in particular. She had two other children enjoying healthy adulthood, but the losses were yet carried in her heart.

For all I knew, she was more interested in renewing her acquaintance with Atticus and Leander than she was in hosting a newly wed couple.

“Eat your orange, Jules.”

I tore off a section and did as I was told. “Delightful,” I said, gazing like a fool in love at Hyperia’s mouth. “Delectable and delicious.”

“A lucky orange, so late in the season.” She started peeling the second orange. “Her ladyship writes that she’s surrounded by interesting people for once. She says her patch of the seaside usually attracts governesses on holiday and pensioners, J. Worthington Pierce has decided to take a seaside holiday in the vicinity, and all manner of literary fashionables are in evidence as a result.”

Literary fashionables. Spare me, Great Jehovah. Fops fashioning fanfaronades about their fiction. Etiquette aunties. The marquess’s martial memoirs.

“Pierce writes children’s books.” The sum total of my knowledge regarding Mr. Pierce.

“I am astonished that you recognize the name, though half the realm has bought his tales. They are written to appeal even to boys, and have succeeded enormously.”

“He’s mentioned in the society pages, and I read those.” A former recognizance officer never lost the habit of vigilance. “His characters are intrepid, plucky, and tiresomely dauntless.” Also bratty, proud, and foolish. “They have loyal dogs for pets or sagacious cats that never chase Miss Verbena’s loose canary. They invariably run afoul of trolls or talking frogs.”

“Miss Verbena?” Hyperia dropped her peels over the side of the gazebo and tore off a section of orange. “I must have missed that one.”

The nursery collection held six Pierce titles, though the author was always referred to as the notably prolific Mr. Pierce. Considering how short the stories were, six was doubtless only a sampling of his work.

“Miss Verbena is my own invention. Her Grace added some J. Worthington Pierce titles to the offerings in the nursery. I might have read one or two to Leander.”

But not to Atticus, who having come from humble origins, had attached himself firmly to the stable. He had a rudimentary sort of literacy acquired through Hyperia’s tireless tutelage. Atticus would not have made the same strides for me, but for Hyperia, he would do battle with even the hazards of proper English.

And like my intrepid tiger, I would take on any foe at Hyperia’s behest.

“We could be married by sea, Jules.” Hyperia’s tone became wistful. “To the music of the waves, in the sparkling light, the fresh air wafting about.”

The scent of rotten eggs, clouds of flies. Pestilential sea gulls threatening the buffet. A grim horizon that led to death and disgrace.

“You’d like that?”

She nodded and took another section of orange. “I am not fanciful by nature, but a seaside wedding would be different, as we are different. I’m sure Her Grace would understand.”

We had completed our last investigation agreeing to wed within a week. The duchess had suggested we wait a month, lest our wedding breakfast menu consist of cold eggs and day-old bread.

Neither Hyperia nor I had cared one whit for the menu, but we did esteem the duchess, and wanted to get off on a good foot with her.

“Her Grace will join our royal progress,” I said, trying not to sound despairing. “She enjoys the seaside.” Though in the name of all that was reasonable, what new husband wanted his mother underfoot on his wedding journey?

“She speaks highly of Mr. Pierce.” Hyperia passed me a section of her orange. “I gather their paths have crossed in the occasional salon. The duchess says if books such as Mr. Pierce’s had been around in your childhood, Harry might have turned out to be a better scholar.”

Harry’s name was not the blight on our conversations that it would have been even a year ago, but nothing about my late brother was a happy thought.

“Leander would enjoy meeting Mr. Pierce, I’m sure,” I said, then regretted the words. What was I doing, making Hyperia’s arguments for her? She was blazingly capable of holding up her side of any debate.

“I was thinking more of Atticus,” she said. “He disdains letters, but if he could see that skill with the pen can make a man respected and well set up, he might revise his stubborn opinion.”

Atticus simply lacked Leander’s aptitude for book learning. He did not disdain literacy, so much as reading and writing were hard for him, and had thus far failed to yield him any noticeable advantages. Skill in the saddle, a willingness to work, and to do a reliably good job were respected in Atticus’s equine world.

Perhaps I could persuade Pierce to write some horse stories.

I recognized the thought for the surrender it was. “Do you want to make this journey for the sake of the boys, Hyperia, or for your sake? We can invite Pierce and his family here to the Hall, and he will likely come out of respect for Her Grace. If it’s the wedding by the sea you long for, that’s a different matter.”

“I want both, Jules. I want that wedding by the sea, and I want the boys to have a memorable holiday. We have been so busy investigating in recent months that we haven’t had a proper holiday ourselves, and that does not bode well for our married habits.”

“A valid point. Children should not be expected to endure endless toil.”

Hyperia popped the last of her orange into her mouth. “Neither should grown men who spend hours every day on estate business when they aren’t investigating every potentially scandalous conundrum polite society tosses at them, because Lord Julian Caldicott will never fail what he sees as his duty.”

“I like investigating.” In fact, I needed the occasional vexatious puzzle to… to what? Keep sharp skills earned in wartime? To feel useful and necessary? To feel important? To feel alive?

“You don’t rest enough, Julian, and we must undertake to reform that sorry habit immediately.”

“Beloved, I strongly suspect that once we are married, I will be spending a great deal more time in bed, and that the effects of this change will be deeply reviving whether or not I am resting in the strictest sense.”

I was flirting, also dodging Hyperia’s accusation. I did not rest enough—I could not sleep well most nights—and my record in this regard was unbroken well before Waterloo. Marriage was more likely to have a detrimental effect on Hyperia’s sleep than a salubrious effect on mine, if she preferred that we share a bed.

We hadn’t discussed our sleeping arrangements either. Too busy investigating, perhaps. More likely, I did not want to hear that she preferred her own quarters, after the manner of most couples with sufficient means.

“The sea is marvelous for rebalancing the humors,” she said. “If you would rather have a quiet little ceremony in the family chapel, we can do that. We can do two ceremonies, if you prefer, but I fear that Lady Ophelia’s offer might not be repeated, and not because she lacks the generosity of spirit to extend it.”

More artillery. I considered what facts I knew, and kicked myself for my oversight. “The Season is reaching its crescendo, and her ladyship has already repaired to the seaside. She would hardly quit Town early for anything less than her health.”

At my last sighting of her, Lady Ophelia had seemed slightly diminished. Not aged so much as faded. The sparkle was still there, the inherent grace, the snap and energy of a vivacious mind, but the bodily temple was growing less robust, even frail.

Lady Ophelia was at least of an age with my mother, a daunting realization.

I stood no chance against Hyperia’s arguments when taken together: Lady Ophelia’s delicate health, the need for the boys to have some leisure, the appeal of the seaside to Hyperia’s imagination, and my mother’s insistence on a bit pomp and forethought regarding the wedding particulars.

“We shall be wed by the sea,” I said, trying to surrender with good grace, “and make lasting memories for every member of the wedding party, including the bride and groom.”

“Thank you, Jules.” Hyperia deposited herself in my lap, and treated me to such passionate kisses that all thoughts of tempests and troubles flew from my head, replaced by thoughts—if one could call them that—of a very husbandly nature.

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