A Gentleman’s Game (12 page)

Nathaniel would have liked to avoid London entirely on the journey south, but the city was too large. To swing wide of it would add impossible days to their travel. From Newmarket to Epsom was a long arrow-shot through London’s heart.

The following day, then, their quiet rural road began to change. London began long before one expected, the peaceful treed lanes and quiet roads giving way to wagon traffic, to inns and houses and shops, the blue skies smoke-smudged in inky thumbprints. Soon enough the blue would become gray, and the buildings would cluster and press more tightly. The crowds would thicken; the noise would swell.

He kept his pistol always primed now, though he had never had any difficulty traveling during daylight hours. With Rosalind riding Farfalla next to him on Bumblebee, he chatted and knew all was well with her. And with the help of the outriders, there was no reason to fear for one’s safety from criminals.

Nathaniel had not accounted for fashionable fools, though.

In late afternoon, when the sun was at its most insistent and Nathaniel began to drowse in the saddle and dream of iced wine, a burst of shouts split the air.

Then a panicked whinny. More shouting. The crack of a whip and a rumble of wheels—all so quick upon one another that almost before Nathaniel had taken in the first of these sounds, a phaeton barreled around a gentle curve in the road. It weaved and bumped over ruts, tilting and teetering on one of its great glossy wheels.

“Make way! Make way!” The driver’s face was hardly visible between the fluttering capes of his greatcoat and the high crown of his silk hat. He lashed his lathered gray with a whip, and the horse jerked to one side. On his precarious perch, the driver was nearly unseated. He caught himself only by tugging hard at the reins. Pulled up short only feet from Dill and Button, the horse reared up, pawing the air, before returning to earth with a jolt that made his driver whoop.

Nathaniel held trembling Bumblebee still, quite still, until the fool driver and his poor lathered beast had passed by, their hubbub and panic receding. “You’re all right, my good fellow.” He rubbed the cob’s withers. “I would never treat you thus.”

It had been a near scrape. Had they been farther around the bend in the road, the reckless driver might have barreled right into them.

Wheeling Bumblebee, Nathaniel studied the party. Rosalind gave him a nod; both she and Farfalla had kept their heads. The others looked well too, though a few yards away Pale Marauder was making a temperamental nuisance of himself. Lombard had his hands full but managed a reply to Nathaniel. “He’s all right. He just doesn’t want to see another horse causing more trouble than he is.”

“True enough.” Nathaniel was about to call for them to proceed when he noticed the coachman clamber down from his seat in the carriage. “Come about,” he called instead. Dill and Button cantered back to join the others, both cursing the phaeton driver.

In a knot of puzzlement, they made their way to the carriage that held the tack and baggage. The wiry coachman was crouching beside one of the front wheels, shaking his head.

“Felt a right jolt when I set them horses to walking again. Thought it might be a rut, but I hate to say it’s more.”

“More than a rut? Is the carriage stuck?” Nathaniel swung down from Bumblebee’s back and handed the reins to Peters. The big redheaded groom also held Epigram’s lead as the dark colt wandered to the side of the road to crop whatever grass he could reach.

“Someone is pleased by the stop,” Nathaniel noted. He gave each of the stolid carriage horses a pat on the neck before crouching next to John Coachman.

He cursed.
More than a rut
was right. John Coachman must have taken a quick turn to remove the vehicle from the mad driver’s path, and he had run over a rock. The formerly round wheel’s wooden rim, its felloes, had split and was now as lopsided as a half-cracked egg.

“Damn.
Damn
.” This was the same wheel that had been damaged on his way up to Newmarket, and it was the same damage too. He’d had it repaired with a metal plate, but he should have had the felloes replaced entirely. Once broken, the wheel was never as sound as it had been before.

But he had not wanted to be late reaching Chandler Hall. He had hurried, had made the quick repair instead of the right one. And then he had forgotten about making any further repair once there were sick horses to care for. A trip to prepare for.

Not the time for a poem
, he told himself.

John Coachman was apologizing, but Nathaniel halted him. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I was responsible for seeing to its repair.” Pushing to his feet, he then helped up the older man. “I am relieved beyond measure that you and the horses weren’t injured.”

Lombard peered around Nathaniel, then spat into the dust. “Migh’ be you could pop that plate back on to hold the felloes together. If ye’d somethin’ to use as a hammer.”

Nathaniel would have beaten his head against the side of the carriage if it would have helped. “A hammer… No, we’ve not got anything heavy enough. Do you remember if we passed a wheelwright recently?”

Spit
. “Passed a smithy ’bout a quarter of a mile back. Saw the smoke from the forge. I could ride back an’ borrow a hammer.”

Nathaniel mulled this over. He felt responsible for making the repair, and at once—but riding toward an unknown smithy would eat time he ought to spend moving the carriage and caring for the horses. “Very well. Thank you, Lombard.”

The groom took off on Bumblebee, and the rest of the party dismounted. Nathaniel and the other men put shoulder to the wounded carriage and rolled it to a stable portion of the road. They unhitched the carriage horses, and Nathaniel then pretended not to notice as the quartet of outriders and the roguish Noonan settled under a nearby shade tree with smoky pipes and surreptitious sips from flasks. John Coachman and Peters kept vigil over the horses.

And Nathaniel walked around to the far side of the carriage, worked open its door, then began tugging at the first trunk he could reach.

“What are you doing?” Rosalind’s voice.

He didn’t want her to look at him right now. Not when he had just failed them all. “If we can lighten the load, it will be easier to repair the wheel.” In truth, he had no idea whether this made any difference to a wheelwright. A carriage weighed more than a half ton on its own. How much could the luggage weigh?

Still, he heaved forth the trunk. It felt better to be doing something more than blaming himself. Something to help.

She reached around him to grab a smaller bag. “You’ve the look of a man berating himself.”

“And why should I not?” he grunted as he pulled at another trunk.

A light hand covered his, helping to support the weight of the heavy piece. “Because these things happen. Milkmaids exist. If anyone is to blame, it’s the wild driver of the phaeton.”

“A piece cannot break if it’s not cracked to begin with.”

“How does it get the crack, then? Doesn’t that allow for accident and chance?”

She meant well. He knew she meant well. But he couldn’t look at those green eyes, soft with
meaning well
. Not when this was why she was here: to make sure he, Nathaniel, did not bungle away his father’s chance at a Derby victory. To make him trustworthy, but only secondhand. She was Sir William’s secretary, Sir William’s eyes along this journey. Though he had kissed her, though he had tried to persuade them both she was not a secretary, the truth was…she was.

Nathaniel had asked her time and again to trust him. He didn’t want to see her stop, as his father had so many years ago.

Once he and Rosalind eased the heavy trunk to the ground beside the carriage, he moved to close its door. “You need not help me anymore. Please. Go rest beneath the tree like the others.”

When she did not move, he said again: “Please.” When he looked at her at last, her jaw was set.

“I hope,” she finally answered, “you are not as unforgiving of others as you are of yourself.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that, but at least she left him. He had time to heave free one more trunk, cursing under his breath at its unwieldy weight, before hoofbeats alerted him to the arrival of a rider. Shoving back his hat, he wiped at his forehead and stepped around the carriage to see Lombard returning on Bumblebee with a soot-smudged man in his shirtsleeves mounted pillion behind.

Clearly the blacksmith, the stocky, balding man dropped a kit of tools before swinging down from the large horse. “Wheel broken, your man here said?”

Nathaniel led him to the problem. The smith squinted at the metal plate. “Whoever forged this plate ought to be ashamed to call himself smith. Got cracks all through it, it does. Only a matter of time before it gives way.”

“Even so, it’s in better shape than the wood. Can you use it to splice the felloes?”

“Long enough to get you back to my shop, aye. M’brother’s, to be truthful. He’s the wheelwright, though we shares a space.”

Nathaniel caught Lombard’s eye. The wiry groom gave a nod, a shrug, and a spit, which Nathaniel interpreted as,
That’s what it looked like to me. I think this plan might work. Also, I need to spit.

He returned his attention to the smith, who had unrolled his tools from their heavy canvas. “And how long to complete the repair once your brother has the carriage?”

“If he has a felloes ready made to suit you, as fast as your coin allows. If he doesn’t have one, he’ll have to saw one bespoke-like. Could be a few days.”

A few days. Yet the carriage had sat unused on Sir William’s property for days on end, plated together piecemeal, when Nathaniel could have been repairing it.

Wasn’t that just the way? Fate was a colicky horse; every burst of relief came paired with a heap of shit.

He pressed at his temples. “Then I’ll hope he has a felloes ready-made.”

Calling the lounging men back from their shady respite, Nathaniel set them to following the smith’s instructions for shifting baggage weight and bracing bits of the vehicle itself. As he too set shoulder to the wounded corner of the carriage, he considered how to dispense with this latest and very large milkmaid. As the crow flew, they weren’t far from the Chandler family’s town house. If they skirted London’s roughest bits—no, then they would be caught in the privileged tangle of Mayfair. With a damaged wheel, he could not expect the carriage to survive hours of heavy London traffic.

They would have to go on without it, at least for tonight. They would have none of their baggage or tack, but for a night they could make do.

By the time the wheel had been clanged back into an approximately round shape and braced by the scorned metal plate, Nathaniel had concocted a plan. “I shall accompany the carriage and our belongings, and then I’ll find you all at Sir William’s town house. Egg? Love? You remember the way, I think? Good. You can see to Miss Agate’s comfort and safety then, and that of the horses. If our repair is completed as quickly as I hope, I’ll join you before nightfall.”

Rosalind cleared her throat. “I have another suggestion that might serve the party. If you seek a closer place to lodge, we could be at the Eight Bells within the hour.”

“Your parents’ place?” At her nod, curiosity lifted his gray mood. “We are that close to your family, yet you’d have said nothing had the carriage not tried to disintegrate itself? Of course you’ve got to visit them. Would you like to leave at once? Let me see—maybe Button could go with you.”

“We could all go. You’d be as welcome as I would.” He could tell when she realized everyone clustered about was listening; her eyes grew wide, and she rubbed at her right elbow. “That is—all travelers are welcome. But you—as a fr—ah, employer. My employer’s son. Your party would be well treated. As would all travelers.”

“Beggin’ pardon, Mr. Nathaniel,” Lombard spoke up. “If Peters”—
spit
—“and I’s to go with the carriage, you c’d stay with the horses. Take ’em to the maidy’s inn instead of Sir William’s house.”

The redheaded groom seconded this with an eager nod. Ready to be off his feet for a bit, Nathaniel guessed.

Stay with the horses, yes; Nathaniel ought to. They were his responsibility. Well, the carriage was too, but he couldn’t be in two places at once.

And if he stayed with the horses, he would stay with Rosalind.

And if he stayed with Rosalind, he would get to meet her family.

Interesting.

“Excellent suggestion,” he decided. Another few minutes had sorted out the necessary money for Lombard, Peters, John Coachman, and one of the outriders to accompany the reloaded carriage and find food and lodging until it was repaired. Everyone else mounted up or took up a lead line and continued toward the sooty boundary of London.

Nathaniel drew up beside Rosalind, a lead in each hand as he walked the two Thoroughbreds. She was now walking Farfalla, saying she wished to stretch her legs.

He wondered. He wondered if she wanted to approach her family on her own two feet rather than on a sidesaddle. “How long since you have seen them?”

A vague question, but she did not pretend to misunderstand. “Ten years. But we write to each other often.”

“You and your letters.” He smiled. “Do you give them favorable reports of yourself?”

He could see only her straw bonnet; she kept her face rigidly forward. “I hope they like what I write about myself. But I think…I think I learn much more of them than I ever have to tell.”

“Shocking,” murmured Nathaniel.

“You have no idea.” Amusement touched her tone. Then, her hand full of lead line, she rubbed at her right elbow. Quietly, almost too quietly for him to hear, she added, “But after ten years, neither do I.”

Rosalind had not been embraced by her mother for ten years, but the sensation was instantly familiar. Her face pressed the pillow of Mrs. Agate’s shoulder just as it had when she was a child—though her face was higher and the shoulder more pillowy than it had used to be. Each embrace came with the scents of flowery soap and lye and cooked meat, with the low hum that Rosalind and her siblings had once called “the mother song.” Mrs. Agate had no kind of a singing voice, but when she hugged one of her many children, a note always burst forth.

“My dear Rosie, you’ve grown up so beautiful! Oh, but I knew it was you at once. You’re the spit of me at your age.”

Though Mrs. Agate’s red-brown hair had faded to gray, her plumpness grown plumper, her features were strong and clean and familiar. Rosalind accepted this motherly effusiveness with a smile, then turned to her companion. “Mother, this is my—ah, my employer’s son, Nathaniel Chandler.”

What had she been about to say?
My friend? My fascination?
Or worse,
my Nathaniel Chandler
? Thank goodness she had caught herself in time.

Nathaniel’s greeting to her mother was just right. He didn’t sweep over Mrs. Agate’s hand like self-conscious charmers did; nor did he give her a chilly set of fingertips as some aristocrats were wont to. Tucking his hat beneath one arm, he made his bow, smiling that devastating Nathaniel smile, and told her how pleased he was to meet her.

“Though I wouldn’t have wished our carriage to meet with an accident, I’m glad for the opportunity to stop here. Your daughter’s love for this place was clear, and”—he tipped his head back to look up at the smoke-darkened beams of the ceiling, then back down across the wood-paneled public room where a scatter of people were eating and drinking—“I can see why.”

If he’d still been smiling, Rosalind would have thought he was mocking her. But he almost looked surprised, his dark-gold brows furrowed and the twist of his mouth…wistful?

“You are a sweet lad.” Mrs. Agate patted Nathaniel’s cheek. “Oh, I know I oughtn’t to do that to a grown man, but I’ve so many sons I can’t seem to help myself. Now come in properly. Mr. Agate will see your servants and horses settled, then he’ll join us. You’re a bit late for the public dinner, but we’ll find you something to fill your bellies.”

Mrs. Agate looked around for something else to pat, then settled for crushing Rosalind into another hug. “Oh, Rosie, your brothers and sister will all be so glad to see you!”

When she released her hold, she added, for Nathaniel’s benefit, “Now of course my three oldest aren’t here. Bert’s got himself married to a grocer’s daughter, and we can hardly get him away from work. Or his wife.” She winked. “And the twins are at sea, and two bigger scamps the Royal Navy never had on its hands.”

“I didn’t know you had twin brothers!” Nathaniel looked at Rosalind with some surprise. To his hostess, he added, “I have twin siblings too. But they are male and female, and hardly inseparable. And neither has ever been particularly scampish.”

“If not they, then someone else must be,” decided Mrs. Agate. “Someone always fills the role of scamp in a family.”

“I really can’t say. I’m the soul of propriety myself.”

Before lightning could strike him for this blatant falsehood, Rosalind spoke up. “You said you were still serving dinner, Mama? I want to help.” Every one of those words was strange and wonderful. Like speaking one’s native tongue after a long time in a foreign country.

“Nonsense. We’re almost done, and you look run off your feet. Go on into the family parlor if you like, and we’ll all settle around you when we’re able.”

The flapping of her hands could be gainsaid no more than her words. Even so, Rosalind didn’t want to leave.

She rather thought Nathaniel understood this, because when he took her arm in his, his eyes were kind. “Only for a few minutes,” he said, “and then you’ll all be together. And in the meantime, you’ll have the pleasure of my company. I’ll try to entertain you, even if I
am
the soul of propriety.”

“If
you
are the soul of propriety,” Rosalind said as Mrs. Agate again waved them away before melting back into the crowd in the taproom, “I cannot imagine what impropriety looks like.”

“That depends on the beholder,” he said, falling into step behind her as she led the way to the kitchen near the back of the inn’s ground floor. “Like beauty or wealth or good taste. You’ll never get everyone to agree on what those mean.”

“No, though you might get everyone to agree on what they are not.”

The kitchen of the Eight Bells, she knew, was none of the three. Much used and well worn, the bricks of the hearth still bore the stains of smoke that bled into them in the years of cooking over an open fire. When Rosalind was a child, her parents installed a Rumford range, all boxy brick and solid cast iron, and its efficiency won the gratitude of every cook and kitchen maid. Perpendicular to the wall of hearth, oven, and stove stretched a long wooden table, burned and scarred by years of too-hot pots and kitchen maids too impatient to fetch a bread board.

For the moment, the bustle of cookery had ended; that of scullery in the back kitchen was now underway. Rosalind peeked in at the familiar clouds of steam, the piles of dishes, and the quick hands of the maids who washed them.

It was odd to be here with so much the same yet the stamp of time unmistakable. Had she changed, or had she not?

Nathaniel felt no such oddness, she could tell. Seating himself on the edge of the long worktable, he looked around with the same wonder he had displayed on entering the public room. “Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever entered the kitchens at Chandler Hall. Is that strange?”

“Not at all. Why should you enter them? You’re a son of the house, and that’s a room for servants.”

“You’re a daughter of this house.”

“There’s a great difference between a coaching inn and a stately home. Everyone goes everywhere in this building.”

“Maybe.” He ran a finger along the smooth edge of a bread paddle, on which a half-sliced loaf still sat. “How can a house be a home if there are rooms you never go into?”

“That’s much what your father said about Chandler Hall, is it not? You mentioned he did not want attics built because he could not enter them.”

“Yes, that’s true.” He tilted his head. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Hopping up from the long table, he peered into the hearth. The fire now banked, it glowered and put out a saucy tongue of flame. “The house in which I was raised had a kitchen much like this, except for the range. I can’t tell you the number of times I sneaked into the kitchen. If I fixed the stove, I got a currant bun or whatever the cook happened to be working on.”

Her imagination painted the picture to accompany his words: a gilt-headed boy, quick of speech and quick with his hands. How the cooks must have doted on him. “Was the stove often in need of fixing?”

“Constantly. It smoked. The chimney smoked. Everything had been pieced together out of old parts instead of built with purpose. I suppose it was better than cooking over an open fire, but not by much. How the cook was able to turn out such wonderful breads and buns, I can’t imagine.”

He paced the length of the range, trailing his fingers
bump-bump-bump
over the edge of its brick-and-mortar front. He liked to touch things, Rosalind had noticed. He wasn’t a man of books; he was a man of stables and bricks, of determination and movement.

“You were lonely,” Rosalind realized.

He turned back to face her, a neat pivot on one boot heel. “What? I tell you I fixed a stove, and you get that from it?”

“You fixed a stove for entertainment. Was there no one to play with? Your parents were busy seeing to the twins?”

“And my little sister. Do not forget Hannah.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “Such is the tragedy of a middle child. No one had time for me, so I ran around stuffing myself with pastry.”

Smiling, he added, “Sorry to take the excitement from my story, Rosalind, but I was really quite all right. I had friends nearby too. The old house wasn’t off by itself like Chandler Hall, though the land it’s on has always belonged to my father. Nothing changed when he was given a baronetcy except the house he decided to live in.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all. Everything else had already changed.” He turned his back to the fire. “I wish the old place was still standing, but a fire got to it. Just as well. No one was caring for it. If I tried to go home again, I wouldn’t be able to. Not like you. Here.”

She was sure of no such thing. Everything seemed smaller and shabbier, but maybe she had only forgotten the size of utility. The shape of work. She was muddled by Chandler Hall, which no one could ever see in full, a house that felt like home to no one.

She was also not sure Nathaniel had not been lonely—or that he was not lonely now.

He rapped at the brick, the table, as he moved across the kitchen to again face Rosalind. “I am going to see to the horses and clean up as best I can. I don’t want to look like a disgrace when I meet any more of your relatives.”

“They won’t mind.” He looked dusty and tired, true, but that only proved that he had
done
things. That when something went wrong, he set his shoulder to the problem. That he would move heaven and earth—or a pile of trunks—to find a solution.

“Maybe not, but
I
would mind. Now that I know where the kitchens are, I’ll be back in a short while.” He paused, then took a step toward her. Close enough to touch, to lay a hand on her cheek. Close enough to lean forward and to kiss her forehead.

Her breath caught. The kiss lingered, surely longer than a quick gesture of parting ought to. When he pulled away, her skin tingled, warm where his lips had touched.

“I like seeing you here.” He touched the tip of her nose. “Rosie.”

“I…like seeing you here too.” The words spilled awkwardly forth, bringing a blush. A woman who rationed happiness like a twist of sugared almonds was unused to speaking so boldly.

And then he was off, and she was alone.

For a moment. Not much more. Someone might come in at any second—a long unmet brother or sister, or even a maid escaping the steam of the scullery for a moment.

She pulled out a chair and sat at the long table before the bread board. The wheat-warm scent of the half-sliced loaf made her stomach pinch, eager for a meal. But she could wait for the others.

They would all call her Rosie, wouldn’t they? She had not been called Rosie for years. Not since leaving her room at the Eight Bells as a half-healed, half-grown girl.

Cyfrinach, yes; she had been called that. Miss Any-Number-of-False-Names during her governess years. Jane before that, as a housemaid for a wealthy family who couldn’t be bothered to tell servants apart.

But never had she been Rosie. Rosie was soft and flowery, a girl who had dreamed of riding a pony while wearing a wreath of flowers.

Cyfrinach and Miss Agate and Jane didn’t dream. They did as they were told.

Now she was Rosalind. Rosalind rode a horse, and she did it damned well. And Rosalind bought her own flowers.

Rosalind knew what it was like to kiss and kiss and kiss. And that gave her something new to dream about.

She folded her arms atop the table, put her head down, and let her heavy eyelids fall closed.

* * *

“Of
course
it’s her, numbskull. Look, she has Mama’s hair. Or hair like Mama used to have.”

“But she doesn’t look anything like Carys. How could she be our sister?”

“Because she said she was to Mama, and besides, she looks like Rosie. You don’t remember Rosie? Nah, you were too little when she left.”

A jumble of voices woke Rosalind from her drowse, and she snapped upright. “I’m awake.” She shook her head, rubbing at sandy eyes. “Sorry. I just sat for a moment, and the warmth in here lulled me to sleep.”

Four of her seven brothers stood around her, stair steps of ruddy brown hair and wide cheekbones so much like her own that she could have laughed and cried at once.

“’S’all right,” said the tallest of the brothers. Severn, only a year younger than Rosalind. “Mama told us how tired you were and not to wake you. Except Elder”—he clapped the youngest brother on the shoulder—“couldn’t believe it was you. As if we have a lot of women sneaking back into the kitchen to sleep.”

“You have women sneaking all over, so how was I to know who she was?” protested the gangly youth. Elder had been a chubby toddler when Rosalind left home; now he was similar in age to the lanky youth who roasted food at the Kelting festival.

“Because I look like you.” Pushing back her chair. “Like all four of you. God, how good it is to see you.” One by one, she swept them into hugs. Severn, Alec, Wilfred, Elder—they were all taller than her now. Elder’s embrace was awkward, that of a boy hugging a relative he did not remember, with a fear that a hug might be followed by a pinch on the cheek or something similarly ruinous to his fragile dignity.

She did no such thing, only stepping back and looking up and down the row of them again. “My brothers. How long it’s been.”

“I thought you’d look fancier,” said Elder.

Rosalind laughed. “Fancier than what? I’m fancier than I used to be.” She smoothed her long skirts. They were dusty and the cut of her gown simple, but the green cloth and neat stitches were of good quality. “And so are the four of you. Waistcoats and cravats and fobs! You are young men of London.”

“You used to be less fancy?” Elder drew back his chin. “I thought working for a baronet would turn you into a fine lady.”

“Rosie, a fine lady? That’s a good joke.” Alec laughed. The only freckled one in the family, his hair was far more red than brown, and throughout childhood he had always had the readiest sense of humor. But then his smile disappeared, and he added, “Our Rosie has always been fine enough. Wish we’d known you were coming, Rose. I would have locked Elder in the larder.”

“It’s not too late,” warned Severn.

Rosalind covered her smile. “No one needs to be locked anywhere, at least not on my account. But I’m wondering, has any of you seen my…” She colored, stumbling over the word again. “Ah, my employer’s son? A Mr. Nathaniel Chandler? I traveled here with him and a party of servants.”