The Arrangement (24 page)

“Generosity is an admirable trait,” I murmured.

John looked down at his hands, which were resting on the oars. “There is no doubt that Raoul is generous—too generous, some may say.”

“Well, I can certainly understand your complaining of his generosity when it saddles you with unwelcome tasks like finding a new home for a strange woman and her horse business,” I said lightly.

His brown eyes lifted immediately. “Gail! I never meant you!” he said. “Believe me, I am more than happy to assist you. Nor have I ever before objected to any of the small, simple acts of kindness that Raoul has asked me to perform. It is just Roger and Harriet who rather stick in my craw.” He gave me his nice smile. “Please don’t take my words as any reflection upon yourself.”

I smiled and nodded and allowed myself to be assured that I was just a small, simple act of kindness and nothing more.

* * * *

I wore my blue dress to dinner, and when I arrived in the drawing room the only ones present were Harriet and her father.

“So you’re back again, missy,” Mr. Cole said as I marched straight-backed into the room.

“I might say the same about you, sir,” I returned.

He was wearing the same type of old-fashioned suit he had worn when I had seen him last and yet another brilliantly hued waistcoat. He stretched his lips in a strange grimace and it took me a moment to realize that he was smiling at me.

“I figure that since we must needs be living under the same roof for the next few months, we might as well be civil to each other,” he said.

I shut my mouth, which had dropped open in shock. “Yes,” I said faintly. “I will certainly agree to that.”

“Mind you, I still don’t cotton to the idea of my money going to that boy of yours, but since I’ll soon have a grandson of my own, there’ll be plenty left for him.”

I thought of asking him how he could be so certain that this time Harriet’s child would be a boy, but then I decided that such a query would not be in the spirit of his proffered peace.

At that point, Ginny came into the room. “Mr. Cole,” she said pleasantly, “I hope your journey was a good one?”

“Thank you, my lady, it was fair,” the merchant replied.

Wonder of wonders, I thought. I had been certain that Harriet would have told him of my threat against her and had girded myself to face a blast of hostility.

I had no idea what could have mellowed his attitude toward me, but I was more than happy to go along with it.

* * * *

Roger sent word that he was dining with friends in the neighborhood, so dinner at the castle was actually quite civilized. The children came down to say good night, and as I hugged Nicky he gave a big, jaw-cracking yawn.

I chuckled. “I know someone who will sleep well.”

“I didn’t sleep too good last night. Mama, because the room was strange and I missed you,” he confessed. “But I think I will sleep good tonight.”

I felt a totally selfish twinge of gratitude that he had missed me. Then I thought of what I had been doing last night and I felt a much deeper twinge of guilt.

“What do you have planned for tomorrow, sweetheart?” I asked.

“Mr. Wilson is going to take us back to the pool so I can practice my swimming in the morning, and then in the afternoon we are going to go for a ride to the Home Woods. Charlie and Theo have a tree house there, Mama, and there is a hermit’s cave as well!”

“My, that sounds like fun,” I said.

He nodded vigorously. “I’m glad we came to Savile Castle, Mama. I didn’t want to, but now I’m glad we did. I’m having fun.”

“It’s good for you to have boys your own age to play with,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean I want to go away to school!” he said hastily.

“There is no possibility of your going away to school, Nicky,” I said a little sadly. “We cannot afford it.”

In his pleasant, well-bred voice, Mr. Wilson said, “I think it’s time we were returning upstairs, Nicky.”

I hugged my son and watched him return to the troop of children heading back upstairs to the nursery under the supervision of Mr. Wilson and Miss Elleridge.

Raoul had seemed preoccupied all during dinner, and he excused himself right afterward, saying that he had to go somewhere. He left the house even before the port was served, leaving the rest of us to finish the evening without him.

The time after the children went to bed seemed very long, and by the time I went upstairs after the tea tray had been removed I felt utterly miserable.

He would not be coming tonight and I felt abandoned. I told myself that I was being foolish, that I could not expect him to stop the rest of his life just because he had a mistress, but the fact remained that I felt abandoned.

I dismissed Mary, got into my big empty bed, blew out my candle, and snuggled down, grimly determined to go to sleep.

But sleep would not come. My mind was too filled with what I had heard today from Ginny and from John, and my body was too filled with memories of the sensations that Raoul had awakened the preceding night with his lover’s touch, to allow me to find any rest.

Two hours after I had blown out my candle, I heard the faint rattle of the door latch being lifted. I bolted up in bed and watched as a tall, shadowy figure stepped silently into my room, his candle shaded with his hand.

“Gail? Are you still awake?” Raoul asked softly.

“Yes,” I said.

He took his shading hand away from the candle and came silently across the floor. He put the candle on the table next to the bed and sat beside me.

“Where were you?” I asked before I could wonder if it was within my rights to question him.

“Out looking for Roger.”

“Oh.” There was a note in his voice that told me I had indeed overstepped my place.

“I’m sorry I deserted you,” he said. He reached out to smooth my tumbled hair off my brow. “I was afraid you might have gone to sleep.”

“Well then, you would have just had to wake me,” I returned.

He grinned at me, his teeth very white in the darkness of the room. He was wearing riding breeches, not dress trousers, and his shirt was open at the neck and hastily stuffed into his waistband. He looked as if he had been in a hurry, and my heart began to sing.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” I said.

“Are you mad? I’ve thought of nothing else all day.” He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor, stripped off his breeches as well, and swung his long legs into the bed next to me. He said my name, then his body crushed mine down into the softness of the mattress, and soon the words of Ginny and John didn’t matter because I couldn’t think at all.

“Come for a ride with me tomorrow morning,” he said before he left me for the night.

“That would be lovely,” I murmured in languorous response.

And so several hours later we met decorously in the dining room under the benign eye of Powell, where I had coffee and a muffin and Raoul had coffee and an enormous plate of everything that was on the sideboard. Then we walked down to the stables to collect our horses.

Raoul swung up onto the back of an immense black Thoroughbred gelding. I had never in my life seen a horse so big.

“His name is Satan, but it’s a disgraceful misnomer,” Raoul informed me. “He’s not even remotely mean; in fact, he’s actually timid.”

“Timid?” I echoed, looking in amazement at the huge black standing quietly under his rider in the misty morning air, while a groom tightened the girth of my saddle.

“He was a complete failure in the hunting field—afraid of the hounds, afraid of the horns, afraid of the fences. I use him to hack about the estate, which is all he’s good for.”

“Why do you keep him?” I asked curiously. A fearful horse is not a joy to ride, as the fright-and-flight reflex is particularly strong in this type of animal.

“I couldn’t sell him; he is just the sort of horse who would be sure to be abused,” Raoul said. “And I can’t just pass him off to someone else on the estate to ride. You see, under this intimidating exterior of his, he has an extremely sensitive soul. The grooms all tell me that whenever I go away to London and leave him behind, he goes off his feed for weeks.”

The groom had finished with my girth and I shook off his assistance and swung up into my sidesaddle, hooking my knee around the horn. “You don’t take him to London with you?” I looked once more at the magnificent black. “I should imagine he would create quite a stir in the park.”

Raoul absently patted Satan’s arched neck. “He would be terrified of the city noise. Even new things around the estate and the neighborhood worry him, but he has enough confidence in me to cope with them. London would undo him.”

My horse was a delightful little gray Arabian mare, scarcely more than a pony in size but full of spirit. I felt her out as we crossed the causeway and turned to take the path that followed the left side of the lake. Stretching away from the shore on this bank was Humphrey Repton’s spacious lawn interspersed with clumps of trees and gracefully grazing deer. We cantered side by side along the wide, grassy path and I noticed how easily Raoul was able to regulate Satan’s stride to match the shorter stride of my little gray.

Several miles of park lawn rolled by us and then the path left the open and passed into what Raoul told me was the Home Woods, where Nicky and the boys were going to spend the afternoon. Once we were beneath the trees, Raoul slowed Satan to a walk and I did the same with Narsalla, and he pointed out the different walks to me and explained about the tree house and the hermit’s cave. We emerged from the woods just at the place where the lake narrowed into the river and the small wooden bridge crossed the swiftly flowing stream. We continued upriver and after a few miles the landscape changed to fields of ripening wheat. Farmhouses stood along the road, and Raoul told me that all of the land within my vision belonged to the Savile estate and was let out to tenant farmers. We stopped before one of the farmhouses and he turned to me and said, “Do you mind if I look in here for a minute?”

“Of course not,” I replied.

No one was about, so he dismounted from Satan and opened the gate for both of us. We tied our horses, then Raoul knocked at the neatly painted blue front door.

It was answered by a worn-looking woman in a faded orange dress. Two little girls peeked out at us from behind her skirt.

“My lord!” she said, her pale blue eyes widening in surprise. “I didn’t know you’d be coming.” Her hand went nervously to smooth down her already-smooth hair. “I have naught prepared…”

Raoul smiled and waved his hand in dismissal. “There is no need to prepare to receive me, Essie. You should know that. I heard about Hal from Mr. Melville. How is he doing?”

The worn face looked even more drawn. “You feared that he broke his leg, my lord?”

“Yes.”

“It’s bad, my lord. Doctor said he can’t get out o’ his bed fer a month at the least.”

“So Mr. Melville said.” Then, gently: “May I see him, Essie?”

She blinked and seemed to come out of a trance. “O’ course, my lord! O’ course! Come in, come in!” She stepped aside and said in a low voice to her daughters, “Go out back and play for a little, girls.”

The children disappeared as Raoul and I came into the house.

“I have brought Mrs. Saunders with me,” Raoul said, introducing me to the woman. “She and her son are staying at the castle for the summer.”

The woman bobbed me a curtsey. “How do, ma’am.”

Raoul looked at me. “Would you mind waiting while I make a brief visit?”

“Of course not,” I replied. “Take as long as you like.” I smiled at the woman. “I know how tedious it is to keep a man tied to his bed. I’m sure you need all the assistance you can get.”

She gave me a tentative smile in return. “That’s so, Mrs. Saunders. My Hal has been like a bear in a cage ever since this happened, I kin tell you.” She rubbed her hands in a nervous gesture and asked even more tentatively, “Would you like to come to the kitchen and take a cuppa tea?”

“That sounds lovely,” I returned promptly.

Essie and I were drinking tea in the kitchen when Raoul sought me out. She jumped to her feet when she saw him in the doorway and regarded him anxiously.

Savile said, “Well, he’s still not happy about his leg, but I think he is easier in his mind, Essie. I just told him not to worry about this quarter’s rent, and if the wheat crop is lost we can dispense with next quarter’s as well. I think I can get some help in here for Hal, though. Enough, at any rate, that you won’t lose your crop.”

The anxiety lifted from the woman’s face like magic. “Oh, my lord! I knew you would be understanding! I kept tellin’ Hal that he had naught to worry about. ‘His lordship will take care of us,’ I said. But he
would
worry!”

“Of course you should have known that I would be understanding. Did Mr. Melville not tell you not to worry?”

“Well, he did that, my lord, but he didn’t give us no specifics like.”

“Well, now you have them,” Raoul said easily. “I will ask Mr. Melville to hire a general workman to be around the house to help you, Essie, and then when the time for the corn harvest comes, we’ll hire a crew of migrant workers to help you out.”

“You were very generous,” I said as we returned along the road by which we had come. “So generous, in fact, that aren’t you afraid that all of your tenants might decide to break their legs? It’s far easier to lie in bed and let someone else do your work for you, I should think.”

Raoul chuckled. “I don’t think there is any fear of that. Hal Jenkins is an exceptionally good tenant—hardworking, honest, loyal. His family have had that farm for over a hundred years. Hal is utterly miserable at being forced to lie in bed, and everyone who knows him knows that as well.”

The sun had burned through the morning mist by now and it gleamed off Satan’s shiny black coat. Under that huge, muscled exterior might lie a timid, sensitive soul, but there could be no doubt that he was a splendid-looking animal. He and Raoul made a magnificent pair.

“Are you wearing those black boots to match your horse?” I demanded.