Three

 

Laurence was not a coward. He’d thought for a while, when he was quite small, that he might be. Because of the nightmares that had plagued him. But he’d learned through experience that he would fight back if he was attacked. Facing down bullies at school hadn’t been terribly difficult, even before he’d grown too large for them to threaten. He hadn’t served in the army, but he suspected he would kill if pushed to the limit. Called upon to protect an innocent, say. A child.

He could handle guns and shoot birds he intended to eat. He could tolerate firing on all sides, as was happening now on this second day of the Deepings’ shooting party. He could career across the country in a mob of intrepid riders, jumping any obstacle that presented itself. Indeed, he was always more comfortable outside than in closed spaces. The din of conversation bouncing off walls, well, that was something else again. Walls could begin to feel as if they were closing in on him. Thankfully, the nightmares were a thing of the past.

“Good shot!” cried Bertram Deeping on his left. “You are the most complete hand, Henry.”

His eldest brother accepted the praise with a grin. Henry was one of the best marksmen Laurence had ever seen, but he wasn’t vain about it. He simply demonstrated excellence and made light of the admiration it roused. One of the dogs brought his kill and dropped it at Henry’s feet. He reached down and ruffled her silky ears.

All the fellows at the Deepings’ seemed good-natured and easygoing. Laurence had seen none of the sneers and sniping he’d disliked in London during the season, not even from the dandy, Cecil.

Laurence had endured most of one season in high society because it was the thing to do. But he’d broken after two months and fled the hordes crammed into overheated rooms talking at the top of their lungs. It had felt like a sort of prison. The banter between the brothers was nothing like that. Something inside Laurence was relaxing in this pleasant company.

If he could feel as much at ease with Miss Charlotte Deeping, all would be well. But she was… What was the opposite of relaxing? Exciting, suggested an insinuating inner voice. Annoying, offered another. Dangerous, argued a third. No, that was silly. She was just a young lady, like the crowds of them he’d met at balls and evening parties in London.

Only she wasn’t. Those girls had simpered and postured to attract his interest. They’d agreed with anything he’d said, sometimes before he’d finished saying it. They certainly hadn’t…skewered him with a dark, measuring gaze and spoken to him as if he was dull-witted. That was why he’d let slip a bit of his history, Laurence decided. She’d goaded him. He’d wanted to shake her up. He’d succeeded. But he was concerned now that it had been a mistake. He’d caught the gleam of curiosity in her eyes. It had been like a sort of flame—a fire from which it was hard to look away.

“Is there something wrong with your gun?” Stanley called from his left side.

Laurence started. He’d been standing like a stock while the shooting went on around him. “No,” he answered, raising his gun and looking for a target. None immediately presented itself.

He would see Miss Deeping at dinner that evening, Laurence thought. If not before. Had he ever felt such a mixture of anticipation and doubt? He couldn’t recall another occasion.

***

At the same moment, in a pleasant parlor in the Deeping house, Charlotte’s mother said, “I have discovered that Henry’s friends are both engaged. What a take-in.” She vented her irritation on her embroidery, savagely yanking a thread through the canvas. The late-October sun streaming through the window illuminated her peevish expression.

“Didn’t you do your research?” Charlotte asked, half teasing.

“I told Henry… Well, I might not have been clear.”

“Or he might have realized I would object to being put on show like one of our horses.”

Her mother ignored this. “There’s still Glendarvon.”

There definitely was, and he had become an object of fascination to Charlotte. As soon as she’d promised not to mention anything about his history, her mind had filled with questions. Had there been a robbery when his parents were killed? Did they have enemies? Who had investigated the crime? Surely they had found something? Had no signs been left behind? How would she ever make light conversation with him when her brain was occupied by this topic? Whenever one was ordered not to think of a thing, one immediately did.

“He is quite attractive, don’t you think?” asked her mother.

Charlotte didn’t want to talk about that. “I’ve had a letter from Cecelia,” she replied as a diversion. “She and the duke will be arriving tomorrow.”

“Here?” cried her mother. “We have no room.”

“No, no, Mama. They are coming to an old hunting box near Melton Mowbray. I told you.” Charlotte and her friends had grown close to Cecelia Vainsmede, now the Duchess of Tereford, during the season. They had been corresponding since it ended. “You remember, the previous duke left his estates all at sixes and sevens.” Or as Cecelia liked to say, “afflicted by a surfeit of chaos.” Charlotte continued, “They’ve come up to deal with one of his properties.”

“Oh. Yes. Well, they will be a welcome addition to our society.”

“They may be too busy for that. Cecelia’s letter mentioned some problem there. I shall go and visit, see if I can be of help.”

“What sort of help?”

“They may need to hire local people.”

“The duke will join the hunting, I suppose.”

“Perhaps he would like to borrow a horse.”

Mama’s lips quirked. “I’m sure your father would like to sell him one. Or two.”

***

As the house party gathered to go in to dinner that evening, strong hands closed on Charlotte’s waist, swept her off her feet, and swung her around in a wide circle. The skirts of her evening dress belled out in the air.

“Bertram, put me down!”

He did so, saying, “You are the best of sisters.”

“Your only one, I know.”

“You’d be the best even if I had dozens. Papa is allotting me three mares to cross as I wish. I am to take charge of the foals and train them.”

“Oh, good.” His happiness was palpable. She was glad for him.

“You are the best of all my family, Charlotte. I mean it. If there is anything I can do for you, you need only name it.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

***

One didn’t rescue a young lady from her brothers, Laurence thought. Did one? But Bertram had put Miss Deeping down, and they were talking quite amiably. No one else seemed to find his tumultuous greeting odd. Tumult was endemic to the Deepings, he decided. Miss Deeping must be accustomed to it.

They went in to dinner, and Laurence found the young lady in question was seated beside him. Last night she’d been placed by one of the other houseguests, and he wondered a little at the change. Had she requested it? Or perhaps the ladies were rotated through the overabundance of male diners? Her expression gave him no clue.

Platters emerged from the kitchens. Once again, the food was ample and delicious. Once again, the table erupted in debate. The Deepings did not acknowledge any rules of dinner party conversation. Everyone talked to whomever they wished, however distant around the table and as loudly as necessary to make their point. The din rose, words overlapping and bouncing off the walls. Laurence hunkered down and addressed himself to the succulent roast chicken.

“Charlotte knows,” cried Bertram several minutes later. Laurence hadn’t caught the beginning of this conversation. “Don’t you, Charlotte?” the youngest brother added.

“I know many things,” Miss Deeping replied. “But whether porcupines are related to hedgehogs is not one of them.” She was cool and unmoved by the rowdy crowd. Laurence decided that if he ever had to enter one of these raucous arguments, he would try to bring her in on his side. “I think it doubtful,” she added and continued cutting her portion of fowl into small precise pieces.

“They’ve both got spines,” Bertram replied.

“Cats and horses both have pointed ears,” said Miss Deeping. “But they are unrelated.”

“That’s not the same,” her brother objected.

“I think it is, actually, Bertram,” she answered.

He gave her a sulky look. “You might have just agreed with me. No one would have known the difference.”

Miss Deeping seemed shocked at the idea of careless deception. Laurence liked her for it. “You could write a letter to the Royal Society and inquire about porcupine lineage,” she suggested.

Bertram looked daunted. Miss Deeping returned to her dinner.

Laurence supposed she’d learned her impervious behavior during a lifetime of fraternal disputes. The noise that reduced him to uneasy silence was simply background to her. If he’d grown up here, he’d probably be the same. Though he couldn’t quite imagine it. He noticed that she’d turned to him.

“I am riding over to a house near Melton Mowbray on Tuesday to see some friends,” she said. “Perhaps you would like to come along. You asked me to show you the best fox runs.”

“You seemed uninterested in doing so,” Laurence replied before he thought, and then clamped his jaw shut. How did she disconnect his tongue from his brain? He was more careful than this. Was he being affected by the freewheeling atmosphere?

“I was rather shaken up. From being ridden down.”

“I didn’t—”

“Nearly ridden down,” she corrected. “I would be happy to show you about.”

He looked at her. Those dark eyes were compelling. Deep. Not unlike those of a snake enchanting a rabbit. A what? Why had such a ridiculous image popped into his head? Still, he thought she had some hidden motive. And not just the usual interest of an unmarried young lady in a single gentleman. She was the least flirtatious girl he’d ever met. “I…er…”

“I don’t know what my brother told you about me,” Miss Deeping continued.

“Stanley said never to take your satirical manner as unkindness.” Which had been reassuring and dismaying at the same time. Many people must have made that mistake if a warning was necessary.

She looked startled.

“And that there was no one he’d sooner count on in an emergency,” he added.

Miss Deeping blinked several times, rapidly.

Surely those were not tears. He could not imagine Miss Charlotte Deeping in tears. She turned away for a moment. When her face was visible again, it showed no sign of emotion. But her voice was uneven when she said, “That was…decent of him.”

Laurence accepted her invitation.

***

Charlotte met the marquess at the stables after breakfast on Tuesday morning. She hadn’t left the house with him because she didn’t want to gratify her mother too much. Details of the expedition would certainly get back to Mama. And Charlotte would certainly be grilled about it. But not now.

Rolfe, a senior stableman Charlotte had known all her life, had her mare ready. As well as his own mount. He would be following along behind them for propriety’s sake. “She’s resty today,” he said.

Charlotte set a hand on Stelle’s satiny neck and received an affectionate nuzzle. “We’ll give her a chance to stretch her legs.”

Glendarvon came up, riding the same horse that had nearly killed her a few days ago. All seemed forgiven, however. The tall bay gelding greeted the party with spirited good temper. Charlotte was making use of the mounting block when her brother Henry emerged to join them, riding one of the freshly trained mares. She hadn’t realized Henry planned to come, though it made sense as the Duke of Tereford was a good friend of his. It did put a crimp in her plan, however. Fortunately, another of their houseguests, Henry’s crony, was mounting up as well. It seemed he, too, was acquainted with the duke.

She settled the long skirts of her riding habit, and allowed Henry to lead the way out. He took them down a lane that ran beside the paddocks rather than out the front entrance. His guest rode at his side, chatting, leaving Charlotte and Glendarvon to follow.

The marquess rode exceptionally well. She’d noticed his skill at their first encounter, but now she had the opportunity to observe details. An easy seat, light hands, an obvious bond with his mount.

“You ride very well,” he said, as if echoing her evaluation.

“No child of my father is a poor rider,” Charlotte replied. She might not be half centaur like Stanley or Bertram, but she held her own.

They came to a stretch of trail with no low branches or rabbit holes to endanger the horses. Henry and his friend put on speed. “Shall we give them a gallop?” Charlotte asked.

Glendarvon grinned. In unison, they gave the signal and pounded off. Rolfe came right behind. Any groom from the Deeping stables was a bruising rider, and none of their animals were slugs.

Exhilaration filled Charlotte as she leaned over Stelle’s neck. The wind of their passage tugged at her hat. Her muscles adjusted automatically to the movements of the powerful creature beneath her. The hedgerow flew past. Glendarvon drew ahead with his gelding’s longer stride, but she didn’t care. Nor did Stelle. This was about the joy of movement, not a race.

They thundered on until their horses indicated they’d had enough of a gallop. Slowing, Charlotte complimented her companion’s horse.

“Ranger’s a good lad,” the marquess replied. “Stanley helped me pick him out at Tattersall’s.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t try to sell you one of ours.”

“I expect he’ll manage that in the end.”

“Yes?”

Glendarvon grinned again. He had an engaging smile. “He shows off his pets with nary a mention of selling. He just lets you see how good they are and leaves you to draw your own conclusions. It’s masterful.”

He noticed subtleties, Charlotte thought. Her first impression of him had been too narrow.

“You’ve been riding most of your life, I expect.”

Charlotte nodded.

“It shows.”

This simple statement was nothing like the florid compliments she’d heard other girls receive from London beaus. Perhaps for that very reason, it struck a strong chord. Charlotte felt herself blush.

Ahead of them, Henry had paused. He pointed across a meadow stretching down to a small stream. “There’s a very good run down that way,” Charlotte said, as her brother was no doubt telling his friend. “The foxes sometimes slip into the water and put the hounds off the scent. One wily old fellow likes to lure them into that thicket on the other side, then jump up a tree, run along a branch, and abandon the pack among the thorns.”

“You know a good deal for someone who doesn’t hunt,” Glendarvon commented.

“When I was small, I used to come out and watch the foxes.”

“Not the hunters?”

“The foxes were more interesting.”

He looked at her. Charlotte felt his gaze on the side of her face. “More than the people?” he asked.

“Well, I saw people all the time.”

“Um.”

It was the sort of noise listeners made when they couldn’t think of what to say to her. Charlotte was quite familiar with it. Still, she couldn’t resist adding, “Foxes are also inhabitants of this place. Also there would be no sport without them.”

“I suppose.”

“And so the smarter they are the better, I would think. For the sake of sport, if nothing else.”

He looked at her. His expression, never very readable, was even blanker than usual.

He thought she was odd, Charlotte concluded. Well, she was. She’d spent an entire London season trying to appear not odd, and she was tired of it. Let him think what he liked. Henry had moved on. She urged Stelle forward.

A little farther along, she turned the mare and put her to a hedge. Stelle gathered herself and jumped. They cleared it easily, moved across a grassy meadow, and took another stand of bushes on the other side. Stelle sailed through the air with exuberant ease. The others came after her a moment later.

“That was cracking,” said Glendarvon when he caught up to her.

“And there was no one walking on the other side either.”

“You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

“I don’t imagine I will,” Charlotte said, then saw that her answer implied they had a future before them. Which they didn’t. Not a long one anyway. Not likely. A few weeks at most.

She turned Stelle, following Henry and his companion toward the road to Melton Mowbray. She’d arranged this outing with a purpose. It was time to get to it. She meant to interest Glendarvon in the idea of investigation. Surely this would lead his thoughts toward the mystery in his own past? Without breaking her promise to Stanley and simply asking. But how to bring up the subject without actually doing so? “You and Stanley were friends at school,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I had good friends at mine as well.”

“Oh, ah, splendid.”

“Sarah and Ada and Harriet. We solved mysteries together.”

“Mysteries?”

Of course he was surprised. People always were. As if girls were devoid of curiosity and incapable of rational thought. “One of the maids was accused of stealing a ruby ring by this beastly girl,” she added.

“Beastly?” he echoed with a slight smile.

It had been a schoolgirl word. Charlotte suppressed embarrassment. “The maid swore she hadn’t taken it, and we decided to find the truth.”

“You and Sarah and Ada and Harriet.”

He remembered the names. She recalled the moment when he’d said he was listening. It seemed he actually did. Charlotte nodded, their gangling troop of fourteen-year-olds vivid in her mind. “We discovered the ring had been snatched by a teacher’s pet crow.”

“I beg your pardon. Crow?”

Charlotte nodded. “The ring was hidden in the bottom of the bird’s cage, along with a number of other small lost treasures.”

“However did you learn that?”

“We searched and analyzed and methodically followed a series of clues.” This was important. It hadn’t been luck. She wanted him to understand that.

“Didn’t wring a confession from the bird, then.”

She ignored the joke. “The crow did speak. A few words. It couldn’t carry on conversations.”

“And yet you managed to expose its villainy.”

“Hardly that,” replied Charlotte repressively. “Mere…acquisitiveness. Sooty just liked shiny things.”

“As crows tend to.”

He didn’t seem to be taking her seriously. And his smile was threatening to divert her from her plan. He’d been so stolid before. She hadn’t realized he possessed a smile like that—lazy, beguiling. What had she been saying? “Last year we unearthed a hidden treasure in Shropshire,” Charlotte said. She should have started with that. It was much more impressive than the crow—the greatest triumph of her young life.

“Shropshire.”

“On the estate of the Duke of Compton. It had been lost for centuries.”

“Is this some sort of jest?”

“No, why would you say so?”

“It sounds like a boys’ adventure tale.”

“Boys!”

“Crows and buried treasure.”

“It wasn’t buried,” Charlotte snapped.

“I beg your pardon.”

Why did he not make the connection? She was good at solving mysteries; he had a mystery that marked his own life. The two cried out to be put together. But he was clearly not doing so. In fact, he had stopped paying attention to her when he came up near Henry on the crest of a low hill. All three men were staring down into the dip on the other side. Moving up to join them and following their gaze, Charlotte saw a house below. One wing had burned to the ground, quite recently it appeared. The rest of it—the main block—was singed and blackened.

“That is Lorne,” said Henry. “Tereford’s local property.”

“What happened to it?” asked his friend.

“I don’t know.”

“A mystery?” asked the marquess, glancing at Charlotte.

She eyed him. Was this mockery? Would he dare? She gritted her teeth and urged her mare onward, losing sight of the damaged building as she descended. She heard the others coming behind her. They reached a stone wall and rode along it to an open gate. Lorne was carved into one of the gateposts. Charlotte turned her horse into an ill-kept lane.

She’d gone only a few yards when a tall thin man with dark hair and worn clothes stepped out from behind a bush and shouted, “Halt! Who goes there?”

Stelle, startled, threw up her head and danced back a step. Charlotte soothed her. “Hello,” she said. “I am looking for my friends the Terefords.”

“Can you prove you’re their friend?” the fellow demanded.

“Can I…?” She examined him. He was a stranger, and his accent was not that of a countryman.

Henry moved up to her side. “Who are you?”

“Merlin,” the man declared. “Guardian of the gate, repeller of enemies.”

Behind Charlotte the marquess made a sound. Not quite a laugh. More of a choke. “Repeller is an awkward word,” she said. “Perhaps you mean repellent.”

Henry laughed at this.

“I must ask if you are carrying any incendiary devices,” the man before them inexplicably replied.

“Any what?”

“Like a bomb?” asked the marquess. “In our pockets?”

“What do you know about those, eh?” This Merlin person glared up at them.

Charlotte saw a figure walking across the far end of the lane. Henry saw him, too. He waved and called, “Hello, Tereford.”

The duke turned, looked, and began to walk toward them. He would clear this up. She turned to tell the man so, but he was gone.

“Hello,” Tereford said when he reached them. “Welcome to yet another of my great-uncle Percival’s debacles. There seems no end to them.”

“Do you have a guard?” Charlotte asked him. “There was a man who tried to stop us.”

The duke sighed. “Not voluntarily. Come along. Cecelia will be glad to see you.” He strode away.

***

As they followed, Laurence wondered how one involuntarily acquired a guard. The reasons that occurred to him were ominous, and seemed unlikely.

Near the house, they dismounted, and the Deepings’ groom took charge of all their horses, saying, “In the shed over yonder?”

The duke nodded. “If you can find room. I daresay you can’t. The stables were in the wing that burned.”

“How did that happen?” asked Henry Deeping.

“No one seems to know. My money is on drunken carelessness.”

“Whose?” Deeping inquired.

But the front door opened just then, and a lovely blond woman came out. “Charlotte,” she exclaimed, hurrying over, hands held out, to greet Miss Deeping affectionately.

The latter introduced Laurence. “This is the Duke and Duchess of Tereford,” Charlotte told him.

They exchanged salutations.

“Come inside,” said the duchess.

Laurence followed the others in, trying to reconcile this polished pair with the state of their house. He’d expected to meet some country neighbors. The Terefords looked like denizens of the highest reaches of London society. Their clothes, manner, and rank all proclaimed it. Lorne, on the other hand, was shabby and small. It would have been even if the wing had not burned.

Then all at once he remembered the name. Tereford—this was the couple who’d caused a sensation last season. Hadn’t there been something about a duel with a German princeling? Even he’d heard of it in his country home.

“We were stopped at the gate by the oddest man,” Miss Deeping said as they walked into a shabby parlor. “He called himself Merlin.”

The duchess sighed rather as her husband had when they’d mentioned the fellow to him.

“Oh!” Miss Deeping stopped short. “Sarah spoke of him in her letters.”

“I’m sure she did,” replied the duchess.

“The one who was in love with her husband’s sister.”

“Or thought he was.”

“I wish I might have seen him before he shaved off his beard and cut his hair.” Miss Deeping seemed to notice Laurence’s confusion. “He was a kind of hermit at their property in Cornwall,” she added. As if that helped.

Laurence looked around the room instead of answering. The furnishings were outmoded and rather dusty. It looked as if the place had been a fashionable hunting box perhaps half a century ago. Or earlier.

“There’s no staff here at all,” said the duchess.

“I can help you find people,” said Miss Deeping.

“That would be splendid. I don’t mind cooking, but there is so much else to do.”

The duchess had been cooking? Laurence examined her and received a look bright with intelligence. It said she did not care if he found her unusual. She nearly dared him to. She led Miss Deeping to a sofa by the back window, and they sat side by side, leaning together like old friends.

“We have become superfluous,” the duke said to the gentlemen.

That was obvious.

“Temporarily,” Henry Deeping replied.

“I certainly hope so,” answered the duke with a smile that said he was joking. “I was just looking over the grounds. Would you care to come along?”

There was no real choice, but Laurence didn’t mind. He preferred the outdoors. The male contingent went back out and began to walk.

“So no one knows what happened?” Henry Deeping asked as they skirted the burned area.

“Beyond the fact of a fire, no,” said the duke. “The caretaker—a term I use loosely—was at the village pub. Where he spent most of his time, it seems. When the alarm was raised, he staggered back here. And was no help to the neighbors in fighting the flames. He has departed.”

Laurence was not surprised.

“They barely saved what remains of the house,” Tereford added.

“And no sign of how it started?” asked Henry Deeping.

The duke shook his head as they left the ashes behind and walked over a stretch of unkempt lawn. “I feel sure it was carelessness. A candle left burning by a drunkard. A lantern kicked over in the stable as he left. We will have to rebuild. I had to send my coach and horses south.”

His sort of equipage would not be exposed to the elements, Laurence thought. And the inns hereabouts were full to the brim with huntsmen and their horses. There’d be no place for the duke’s carriage there.

“The one nag left here was a sad old creature,” Tereford added. “The caretaker claimed him, and I let him go.” A length of briar waving in the breeze snagged his immaculate coattail. He paused to remove it without ripping the cloth.

“How did the place come to this?” asked the fourth member of their group. Laurence tried to recall his name, but he’d forgotten.

“The previous duke, my great-uncle Percival, neglected his holdings,” Tereford said. “Shamefully.”

“He didn’t come here to hunt?”

This earned a snorted laugh. “I wish I might have seen that. No. This place was purchased by an earlier duke. I don’t think Uncle Percival was ever here.”

They walked through the remains of a vegetable garden. Fronds of asparagus gone to seed straggled near a swath of rhubarb grown huge and woody. The berry bushes had been picked over by birds. Henry Deeping and his friend went to examine the fruits of a gnarled apple tree.

“You are in Leicestershire for the hunting?” the duke asked Laurence politely.

“Yes. Staying at the Deepings’. Stanley is a friend of mine.”

“Ah yes, the Deeping stables. I suppose they could furnish me with a hunter.”

“There is no doubt about that,” replied Laurence with a smile.

“My wife will wish to stay until repairs are well underway.”

“You do not?” Laurence didn’t blame him. This place couldn’t be comfortable. He felt an impulse of gratitude for the care his trustees had taken on his estate. Wrongheaded as they might have been about other things.

“I, too, of course,” the duke replied, with something odd in his tone. “Glendarvon,” he added. “That name is familiar.”

With a sinking feeling, Laurence waited. The duke was young to have heard about the scandal of his parents’ murder. And it was mostly forgotten by this time.

“Oh, deuce take it.”

That seemed an odd reaction to the story. But the duke wasn’t looking at him. Following the other man’s gaze to a clump of trees at the back of the old garden, Laurence spotted a figure lurking there.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” muttered Tereford. “Was it good, though?”

“It’s that Merlin fellow,” Laurence observed.

“It is indeed. His actual name is Oliver Welden, but he insists on being called Merlin.”

Insisted? To a duke? “Was he really a hermit?” Laurence asked. Some great landowners hired men to play that part, he recalled. But that couldn’t apply here.

“No. He is…something of a lost soul.”

Laurence wasn’t sure how to take this unexpectedly poetic response.

“We brought him from Cornwall,” the other man added. “He wanted an escape, and I let myself be persuaded.”

“Ah.” What was one to say to that? He didn’t know Tereford well enough to respond.

“Pah,” cried Henry Deeping, spitting out a bite of apple. “They’re wretchedly sour.”

“Of course they are,” said the duke. He moved on. “Do you suppose that was a kennel?” Tereford strode off to look at a ruined pile. Laurence followed.

***

Through the parlor window, Charlotte and Cecelia watched them pass by. “Those two make quite a picture,” Cecelia said.

Charlotte followed her gaze. The dark-haired duke had been called the handsomest man in London. The marquess was nearly as good-looking, if not so polished.

“Who is your friend?”

“My brother Stanley’s friend,” Charlotte corrected. “He is staying with us for the hunting.”

“And riding out with you in the meantime?”

“With me and Henry and his friend.”

“So your brother invited him to accompany you?” Cecelia arched a blond brow.

Charlotte didn’t care to share her plan about the marquess, an idea that had not borne fruit so far. “I am not flirting with him.”

“Of course not.”

A very superior abigail appeared in the doorway. Her curtsy somehow managed to convey outrage. “I fear we cannot offer refreshment, Your Grace. As there is none.” She turned and walked out.

“My dresser is offended by the conditions here,” the duchess said. “James’s valet is taking it a bit better. He is in the village ordering provisions.”

“I’ll send over some helpers. Our housekeeper will know of people looking for work.”

“That would be so kind, Charlotte. Thank you.”

Charlotte vowed to consult the housekeeper at once. Lorne looked truly uncomfortable.

The gentlemen returned soon after this, and conversation became general. The duke was interested in the hunting that was about to begin. And Henry’s descriptions of past years’ runs engaged them all.

On the ride back to her home, the party stayed closer together, and Charlotte had no more opportunities to mention mysteries or investigations. It was vexing. She would have to think of some other way to get the marquess to confide in her.