A Gentleman’s Game (7 page)

She wanted to ask, so desperately that she could taste the shape of the impossible words on her tongue.

He made another fold. The result was a sort of flattened paper pyramid.

What had Rosalind’s hands done that was good? For every horse she had helped, she had sent a prying letter.

She balled her hands into fists and stuffed them beneath the tabletop. The question she allowed herself was hardly urgent, though she’d wondered about it for some time. “Nathaniel. Why has Sir Jubal entrusted Epigram’s care to your father?”

“And to us now?” His grin was a quick flash before he returned his attention to the…whatever he was making. “Everyone knows of Sir Jubal’s dream to follow a victory in the Two Thousand Guineas with a triumph in the Derby. He has only a small stable, and he’s too frail to travel himself. So he trusted his… Well, I’m not sure Sir William is his friend. Doesn’t that seem like too warm a word? Like
puppy
or
chocolate
. I can’t imagine my father with either of those.”

With a pointed toss, he sent the flat pyramid-like thing gliding across the room.

“What is that?” Rosalind asked.

“I don’t know. Just something I made, wondering if it would work.” He stood still, poised like his gliding pyramid just before it was thrown. He was ready to leave, maybe. He
would
leave for now. Unless she gave him a reason to stay.

“Fly it again,” she said. “I want to see it fly.”

This time, when he gifted her with a smile, she returned it—yet she felt she had kept it too.

And after all, there was more than one way to pay a debt. The information for Tranc was in exchange for Rosalind’s medical expenses, which had piled and grown with interest over the past decade. Aunt Annie had paid them to save Rosalind’s life, then turned the debt over to Tranc.

But what if Rosalind paid the expenses with coin instead of stolen papers?

“I have a suggestion.” Her throat caught on the words.

A paper pyramid winged across the room and smacked into the wall. “What is that?”

“I will go with you to Epsom, and I will be as helpful as possible. And as long as the horses reach Epsom safely, I will write glowing letters of your progress and conduct to Sir William all along the way.”

He slid across the glass-smooth floor and scooped up his fallen paper. “I’m hardly going to argue with a suggestion like that. It sounds ideal. But you sound nervous, so there must be more to come that will not be ideal. What do you have in mind?”

She took a deep breath. “I want one hundred fifty pounds.”

He tripped, catching himself heavily against a shelf. “Say that once more.”

It was even more difficult to say the second time, but she kept her voice steady. “I
need
one hundred fifty pounds.”

“That is what you need? And I thought you needed only to carry out your work.”

He drew closer, and for the first time, Rosalind was heartsore at the way he looked at her. With suspicion.

She lifted her chin, thinking of her sister Carys. If Rosalind did not pay off her debt, Tranc would take Carys into his employment, making another Agate his puppet. And Carys was far too pretty, too whole, to lose her future through someone else’s failure.

“One hundred fifty pounds.” This third time, as she thought of her sister—only six years old the last time they had met, but now a young woman of sixteen—the words came more easily.
One hundred fifty pounds.
This time it sounded like a real sum rather than an impossibility.

Nathaniel was frowning deeply. “You think I can be bought for such a sum? There are many in the
ton
who would consider that nothing.”

“I don’t think it’s nothing. I can be bought for that amount.” She tried a smile. “As I said, though, the horses have to be safe. I won’t lie.”

He turned away, gazing toward the brightness outside the French doors. His coat-clad shoulders rose, then fell in a great sigh. “And if I cannot or will not pay you? Will you tell my father I am not to be trusted?”

“Of course not!”

“So if we make a safe journey—”

“I will say so.” A sinking feeling made her feet grow cold, her head pound. She really had no influence at all, no means of persuading him.

He turned back to face her. “I have a different idea.” The usual warmth had returned to his eyes, his voice. “I shall stake you for a wager once we get to Epsom. If you lose, no harm done. If you win, you can pay me back. How much you choose to wager, and on which horse—I’ll leave that up to you.”

“You will leave it up to me,” she repeated. “Why?”

“Encouragement, maybe? You’ll see the horses in good health to Epsom if you’ve a financial interest in their safe arrival.”

“I would do that all the same.”

“I suspect you would.” His blue eyes were warm. “But I can’t just
give
you the money, you know. That would be bribery. At least, it might seem so to people less ethical and honest than we are.”

“That makes sense.” She paused. “Then why did you agree at all?” Hers was a ridiculous request. A life-changing request.

He held out a hand, and she grasped it with her chilled fingers, uncomprehending. “Because there was no reason on earth that I had to. Which tells me, my soon-to-be-traveling companion, that your need is genuine.” Gently, he drew her to her feet. “And that you are a terrible negotiator.”

“Not so terrible.” Had she ever stood this close to him? He seemed so tall with her eyes at the level of his heart, and he smelled of salt and sweet hay. “Since you agreed to give me what I asked.”

He laughed, releasing her hand. “You could not have persuaded me with an argument that was any less terrible.” As she looked up at him, he turned serious. “It is not for anything illegal, is it? For any reason that could hurt someone?”

“Quite the opposite.”

“And you will let me know if there is anything I can do to help?”

There was nothing he could do to help, so this was an easy promise. “Of course I will.”

Again he extended his hand. She stared at it. “What?”

“We have an agreement. So we shake hands.”

“Oh. Right.” How scattered she was today. But relief bloomed in her and buoyed her. At last, she had the promise of freedom. She, who had never earned more than fifteen pounds in a year, would buy back her debt, and she need never betray anyone’s trust again.

Trust Nathaniel
, she remembered him saying when he arrived from London. A heartfelt plea cloaked in flippancy.

Trust Rosalind
. She had never had right or reason to ask such a thing before now.

His hand was warm and calloused. The hand of a rider, a driver, a man who knew how to make and fix things.

Too soon, she drew her hand away and took a brisk step back, bumping her calves against her chair. “I won’t disappoint you.”

“I don’t make promises I am not sure I can keep. But I shall do my best to make sure you get—and give—your money’s worth.” The silence that followed was long enough for one beat of her heart, one fidget of her feet, and then he smiled. “Don’t look so worried, Miss Rosalind Agate. You might find that keeping company with me is rather pleasant.”

In every line of his handsome face, in every angle of his body, there was the promise of adventure. Escape. Exploration.

Pleasant? She had never heard such an understatement. The incoherent reply she made could best be transcribed as “Humnah.”

“My thoughts exactly. A journey always transforms me into a Houyhnhnm. Pack something pretty for Derby day, will you? It’s a day of celebration.” And with a bow, he unlatched the French doors and strode out, whistling.

Her fingers tingled, still feeling the warmth of Nathaniel’s clasp.

Which made her wonder: did she owe a debt to herself too? And if so, how—and by whom—ought it to be satisfied?

For Nathaniel, Whitsun passed in a flurry of preparations for the journey to Epsom. Early the following morning, when the sky was still sunrise-pink and the humid air of this May morning was honey-sweet in his lungs, he and the band of travelers set off on the road south.

It was a road he knew well from his frequent trips to and from London. Back and forth, back and forth. That in-between time, that unfettered time on the road, was his favorite. Just then, he was exactly where he needed to be, and the next stop was all perfect potential.

Nathaniel was mounted on a stolid bay cob, a calm stepper named Bumblebee that he sometimes drove in harness. Lombard and Peters walked, leading Pale Marauder and Epigram in halters. Armed outriders—a quartet of Sir William’s burliest servants—kept pace ahead and behind. Another armed servant and coachman followed separately in a carriage filled with racing tack and travel trunks.

Riding at his side, Rosalind wore a gown the green shade of a riding habit—and, he thought, her eyes. For her, Nathaniel had borrowed a gentle mare from Hannah. His sister had lent Farfalla with many sighs of envy at the idea of riding for an entire week. “If you have a wonderful time, do
not
tell me. I cannot bear it.”

This would not be a problem. Far from having a wonderful time, Rosalind appeared to be concentrating almost too hard to breathe: clutching her reins tightly in gloved hands, tense in the saddle. “Miss Agate, if you cannot relax a bit, you’ll ache from head to toe before we stop for luncheon.”

“I am not able to relax right now. Perhaps later.” Her voice sounded like a pianoforte someone had tuned too tightly.

“You’re perfectly safe.” With gentle pressure on the bit, he slowed Bumblebee to match the shorter strides of Rosalind’s mare. “We’re surrounded by men with guns.”

“That sounds like the beginning of a horrid tale.”

“Er—well, perhaps, but they’re our men, not highwaymen, which makes a difference. And I’m armed too.”

Her exclamation was faint and, he thought, profane.

“Just with a pistol,” he added. “I’d be a fool not to carry some sort of firearm. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are at stake in each classics race, and we’re in the company of two potential champions.”

If he could see through the leather of her gloves, he was sure her knuckles would be white. “That was all I needed for perfect calm. A reminder of the level of trust heaped upon us.” Quickly, she darted a glance and a tight smile at him. “Truly, that’s not why I’m tense this morning. I have not sat a horse for ten years, and I fear I’ve lost the feel for it.”

A decade—about the time she mentioned she had left her parents’ home. What had sent her out into the world so young? Where had she spent her time since?

This was hardly the time for such questions, when her shoulders were squared with brittle determination. So he only smiled with reassurance—not that she was looking around to see his expression. “You’ll soon get the feel for it again, though I won’t take back what I said about you being sore as a—” He cleared his throat. Best to spare her the colorful similes. “We shall have a week on the road, and by the end of that time, you’ll be riding as well as a jockey.”

She looked unconvinced. He tried again. “Seven days, if you’d rather think of it like that.” A bit of quick arithmetic, and he added, “One hundred sixty-eight hours. The time will pass quickly, and you won’t have to sleep outdoors or anything of that sort.”

He explained the plan of shifts he and the grooms would take, stopping at the selected lodging houses where he stayed on his many trips to London, and where he trusted the owners to care for both human and equine guests.

She didn’t seem to be listening, so he finally gave up the explanation. “If you had attended to any of that, you would have been impressed by the organization and planning.”

She swallowed, flexing her hands on Farfalla’s reins. “No, no. I was giving my full attention to every word. I was very impressed.”

The mare sneezed, shaking her head.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Nathaniel.

There was more to Rosalind’s tense posture than the stiffness of a woman who had not sat a horse in a long while. Maybe she was worried about spending so much time in this company of men. Their number was so large that they effectively chaperoned her, but still he should have brought along a maid.

Or maybe this company of men and the unexpected freedom from work had set her to thinking of someone else. Someone special who lay heavily on her mind.

The idea that Rosalind had pledged her heart had never occurred to him before, and now he wished it would un-occur. Though that was hardly unlikely. As governess to an earl’s family, she had doubtless encountered every level of society from night-soil men to dukes. Raised by a horse breeder turned baronet, Nathaniel saw his own place as somewhere between trade and gentry.

Unfortunately, there was nothing between trade and gentry except a void.

“You must be missing someone,” he ventured.

“Hmm?” Her grip on the reins had slackened a bit since Farfalla’s emphatic sneeze. Beneath the shallow brim of her straw bonnet, Rosalind bit her bottom lip.

“Missing someone.” Unwise to poke at this snake of a subject, maybe, but he couldn’t resist. “You seem distant. Are you thinking of a loved one?”

“Unless you think I love my worry that I shall topple off this horse, no.”

Poke. Poke.
“No suitors left behind you in the earl’s household? Or ahead, maybe, somewhere on the road to London? You must tell me if there’s someone dear to you we ought to visit.”

“Secretaries don’t have suitors.” She ventured a pat to the withers of her mare.

“This from the woman who swore that ‘secretaries don’t’ would not fit into her vocabulary.”

“This from the man who assured me there was a time and place for such a phrase.” Her lips crimped with amusement. “If this is the sort of conversation you’re to threaten me with over the next week, I shall ride ahead and talk to Pale Marauder instead.”

Fifteen or twenty lengths ahead, the cream-colored colt let a dropping fall to the road.

“Or perhaps not,” Rosalind added. “I’ll keep company with you if you promise continence—”

“Done.”

“—and tell me about your own pursuits.”

“Not much to tell, really.”

“Because you are pure and monk-like, or because you don’t want to share your scandalous stories with me?”

“Ah…whichever one will get me in less trouble with you.”

She laughed, her shoulders relaxing for the first time since she took to her sidesaddle. Sensing the change in her rider’s grip, Farfalla eased into a trot.

“Oh!” The first jolt surprised an exclamation from Rosalind, bouncing her in the saddle.

Nathaniel clucked to Bumblebee, who was eager to lengthen his own strides, and they again kept pace with the other pair. “Do you like trotting?”

“I’d…rather…keep…my teeth.” Rosalind’s jaw jarred as she was tossed by each trotting stride rather than posting smoothly. Before Nathaniel could offer further instruction, she murmured something and gave a little tug on the reins. Farfalla’s ears swiveled back, listening, then she slowed to a walk.

Bumblebee’s ears pricked with interest. Given a bit more rein, he touched noses with the little mare.

“Making friends?” Rosalind wondered.

“Something like that.” Bumblebee might be a gelding, but he was still a male who appreciated a pretty female of his own kind.

Which reminded Nathaniel: Rosalind had asked him whether he’d ever played the suitor. He suddenly wanted to give her an honest answer. “You asked about my romances, Rosalind. Leaving aside the milkmaids—”

“Oh, must we?”

“—I courted a lady, but it came to nothing. Curse of a younger son, I suppose. The lady thought she could do better, and in the end she did. I’ve no real ties in either London or Newmarket.”

This would be a delightful time for her to say something like
How could such a thing be possible
or
No one could be better than you
.

Instead, when she spoke, she sounded puzzled. “Do you not wish for attachments? Even those of friendship?”

“Can you possibly be wistful? Rosalind Agate, who embraces the role of a secretary and lives in unfettered independence?”

Her little mare walked on a way before Rosalind answered. “I didn’t say I was unfettered. Or independent.”

“With a gambler’s fortune in your pocket, you’ll have all the freedom you wish. Settle down in a seaside cottage…keep sheep and cats…pickle vegetables…”

She made one of those Houyhnhnm noises. “What an idyll you describe.”

“It’s not for everyone, of course. But since I made that particular vision up in about three seconds, I could easily come up with a different one.”

“I don’t know what my vision would be.” She turned her head toward him for an instant, and he noticed something shadowed and soft in her gaze before she looked away again. “Let us reach Epsom before we worry about what comes next.”

“Let us reach Epsom,” he agreed. “And then we shall worry.”

That sounded too much like a promise, and the pistol felt heavy in the pocket of his coat. He flailed around for a new subject of conversation. “I started reading
As You Like It
,” he said. “Do you know the play? My sister Hannah told me it has a Rosalind in it.”

“Yes, I do know it.” She accepted the turn of subject readily. “I was bedridden for a time when I was younger, and to pass the time, I read whatever I was given. I made my way through all of Shakespeare and was delighted to find a heroine with my name. It’s not my favorite play though.”

“No, it’s awful rubbish. I’m not a scholar by any means, but I’m certain a woman couldn’t cavort around in trousers and fool everyone into thinking she was a man. Not only fool them, but get half the shepherdesses in the world to fall in love with her.”

“If you won’t allow for women cavorting in trousers, you’ll take away half of Shakespeare’s plots.”

“You’ve read all of his plays, have you?” That was interesting. “Do publicans’ daughters commonly read Shakespeare?”

“They do in my family.” She ventured another pat on the mare’s withers, then added, “The Agates fell into running a coaching inn rather than rising to it. My grandfather was a country squire who sold off all of his land to cover debts. After he died, his widow took boarders, and that’s how it began. Eventually the house became an inn. London was growing toward Holloway by then, and there was more custom from travelers than boarders. They never sold off the library, though. No matter how the household changed, each child in my father’s generation and my own got the finest education a gentleman’s collection of books could provide.”

A short version of what was no doubt a long tale, but it made sense. It explained her learnedness, her plummy accent. “You were fortunate,” he said, “to grow up in an inn, and with so many ideas about.”

“Compared to Chandler Hall, there’s a sad lack of marble on the floor.”

“Yes, but…” Surely if one operated an inn, one never knew what the day would bring. Which was the opposite of Chandler Hall, where everything had already been decided. Everything from the hour at which horses were fed to the number of bites of vegetable Sir William would take at dinner.

There was nothing for Nathaniel to do there. There was no need for him.

“You must have met a great many interesting people,” he finally said.

“Few milkmaids, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

When he turned, ready to protest, she winked.

And he smiled.

The rest of the morning passed in occasional conversation as the sun painted the sky pale blue and dried the surface of the road to a dusty gold. Around them, the terrain swelled into gentle slopes and open greens perfect for gallops, but the travelers kept to a sedate walk.

Mostly.

In the opposite direction, a few farm wagons passed, causing Pale Marauder to stamp with temper and Epigram to turn and follow the luscious scents of spring vegetables. Once he broke into a trot, which inspired Pale Marauder to match his stride. That one never could resist a race. But Lombard and Peters kept a capable hand on both horses, slowing them back to a walk.

One encounter with a milkmaid averted.

With about eighty miles to cover, their pace was good. If the horses could make fifteen miles today, they would reach the Dog and Pony before tonight, saving a day’s travel.

Saving it for what, though? The sooner they arrived at their destination, the sooner Nathaniel would be at loose ends again.

He called an early halt for luncheon.

The party exited the road into a treed field through which a brook threaded. When the laden carriage caught up with them, Nathaniel oversaw the unpacking of hay for the horses—an edict from Sir William, who did not want the Thoroughbreds cropping grass at the roadside. Instead, he had measured out feed in careful amounts that reminded Nathaniel of the way the baronet regulated his own meals.

Testing the water of the brook with a bare palm, Nathaniel found the water too cold. With the help of Noonan, the Irish-born groom who had ridden in John Coachman’s laden carriage, he hauled buckets for the impatient horses. Dill and Button, the first set of outriders, built a fire to boil water for a kettle of tea, and when it was ready, they splashed a bit into each bucket to warm the water for the thirsty horses.

The second pair of outriders to arrive were craggy, scar-faced former boxers incongruously named Egg and Love. It was unwise for a man to do so much as smile when either introduced himself, but their tenderness with animals could not be surpassed. They began removing the horses’ tack and setting it aside for a quick cleaning amid pats and quiet conversation seemingly at odds with their bulk and fierceness.

As Dill and Button took over with the water buckets, Nathaniel located Rosalind in the process of serving food out of a hamper. “There’s a chamber pot in the carriage,” he murmured. “If you’ve need. There’s room within for you to have privacy.”

He was not sure which of them blushed more, but—he had to say
something
. She might be a lady, but ladies were possessed of bodies the same as every other creature on this journey.