Cory Newlyn walked back to Kestrel Court in the midsummer dawn and this time he walked unmolested. He had dismissed Richard Kestrel’s offer of company a little abruptly, but he wanted to think. Specifically, he wanted to think about Rachel Odell.
It was ridiculous to suspect Rachel of being the Midwinter spy. He had said as much to Richard on the night of the discussion at Kestrel Court and he still thought it. Every instinct that he possessed told him that Rachel would never commit such treachery. And yet there was no denying that she had been out on the terrace that night when he and Richard were talking. Worse-and quite inexplicably-she had denied that she had even seen him. Cory had known she was lying, but he had not known why she should do so. As far as he knew, Rachel had never lied to him before. It disturbed him that she should start now.
It was another clear, moonlit night. Cory pulled his neckcloth free with impatient fingers and screwed it up in his hand. He felt better without the constriction of tight evening dress. He felt better out in the open air, if it came to that. Dancing with the likes of Lily Benedict and Helena Lang had been a sore trial to him. Lily had been surprisingly discreet and whilst gossip had fallen from Helena’s lips with no encouragement from him, he had learned nothing of interest. Instead he had been obliged to endure her prattle whilst watching Rachel being charming to that tailor’s dummy James Kestrel.
He acknowledged to himself that the argument with Rachel had been foolish, but she could be a provocative creature when she chose. Her accusations of insincerity had got under his skin when he had tried so hard to court her gently. But Cory knew the reason for the unresolved tension between them even if Rachel did not. He knew that the kiss in the billiard room, mistake or not, could never be forgotten.
Rachel was trying very hard to make that pretence a reality, Cory thought, but she was not succeeding. Nor could she quite hide her anger when he paid attention to other women. She was jealous and he found that rather encouraging. He was obliged to admit that he was jealous too. Rachel could arouse such an emotion in him without difficulty. It was a new experience for him and one that he acknowledged with rueful recognition. Miss Rachel Odell was his nemesis. He would never escape.
Chapter Eleven
It was several days before Rachel saw Cory again. On the morning after the ball he failed to arrive at the excavation and though Sir Alfred and Lady Odell were inclined to dismiss this indulgently as the results of a late night, Rachel felt even more out of sorts. Secretly she had been hoping that Cory would arrive early and apologise for his ungentlemanly conduct towards her, after which they might be easy together again. It did not happen.
Instead, Rachel checked the contents of the stillroom with Mrs Goodfellow, who was making jam, and spent the rest of the morning reading about the Midwinter Treasure. She had borrowed some of the local records from the Reverend Lang and, though they were in Latin, found the reading very stimulating. It was interesting to see how the myths and legends had grown up around the story of the Treasure, and how deep was the belief that if anyone tampered with it, they did so at their peril. Jeffrey Maskelyne’s maps and clues were making little sense to her, but they did seem to confirm that there was something hidden on the burial site. She did not intend to involve Cory in the search, however.
In the afternoon she went driving with James Kestrel, who was, of course, far too moderate in his habits to fail to get up the day after a ball. They had a pleasant hour’s drive by the river and at the end of it Rachel knew him for a man with many opinions on a wide variety of subjects and no sense of humour whatsoever. As a marriage prospect he had initially seemed a promising choice, but that was before she had seen him dallying with Miss Lang in the gardens. She felt that this argued a sad unsteadiness of character.
James pressed her to drive with him again soon, but Rachel declined, softening her refusal by agreeing to accept his escort to the Deben Regatta in a few weeks. She wanted to see the spectacle of the Regatta and thought it unlikely that the rest of the family would attend. She felt slightly guilty over this, for she was aware of using James Kestrel almost as much as he appeared to be using Miss Lang.
It rained on the Thursday of that week, shrouding the excavation in a light grey drizzle that sent Sir Arthur grumbling indoors to read the annals of the Archaeological Society and Lady Odell to the library to write some letters. In the evening there was a musicale at Midwinter Marney Hall, but Cory did not appear and Rachel found herself missing him. Sir John Norton was present, pressing in his attentions and flatteringly pleased that he was driving her into town the following day. Rachel wished that she could summon a greater enthusiasm for the outing, but found she could not.
Saturday was bright and hot again and Rachel took her sketching pad and went down to the fields. She walked slowly up to the knot of pines above the river and settled down and was soon engrossed in her drawing. She had seldom drawn people before-all her efforts had been confined to pots and vases and ornaments, to illustrate her parents’ extensive collection. For a little while she sketched her mother, trying to capture the movement of the trailing sleeves and flapping scarves, but Lady Odell’s round figure looked like a butterball on the page, so with a sigh Rachel turned to her father instead. Sir Arthur was digging out a trench at the easternmost extent of the burial ground and his thin stooping figure looked like a stick man in Rachel’s first attempt. She sketched him again, with concentration, only slightly distracted by the thought that his tweed jacket would be thick with dust by the end of the day and would require a good beating.
It was quite late in the afternoon when Cory Newlyn suddenly appeared, strolling down the path from the house, raising a hand to greet the Odells and walking across to the trench where Rachel had sat with him a few of weeks before. He moved with a casual grace. Rachel caught her breath as he approached. The passage of a few days had only hardened her intention to make him suffer for his cavalier behaviour at the ball, for she had been hurt and annoyed that their quarrel had meant so little to him that he had not hurried to apologise. Now that the moment of revenge had come, however, she felt strangely nervous.
She watched Cory as he exchanged a few words with Bradshaw, discarded his jacket and set to work. Not for Cory the formality of a tweed coat on a hot day. He was not wearing his disgusting hat today either and the breeze tousled his fair hair and tugged at his linen shirt, flattening it against his chest. His buff-coloured breeches hugged the taut lines of his thighs. Rachel blinked, decided that she had been staring for long enough, picked up her pencil again and set to work on the sketch.
Her first attempt was hopeless. She had got the proportions all wrong so that Cory ended up looking like a giant with a tiny head. It was ridiculous to think that such a picture could ever be the basis for one included in Lady Sally’s watercolour book. Far from humiliating Cory, she would embarrass no one but herself. She was ashamed to even think of approaching Mr Daubenay with the draft of the sketch. Impatient, Rachel flicked over another sheet and tried again. When her second attempt also failed she stopped and bit the end of her pencil thoughtfully. Perhaps she had not given her subject the attention that was needed. Perhaps she needed to study him properly and analyse his physique.
Cory was about a hundred feet away from her, but he had his back half-turned to her so there was little likelihood that he would see her. Rachel rested the drawing pad on her lap and studied him for a good five minutes, watching the way that his body moved with such smooth precision. She examined him with the dispassionate gaze of the artist and felt quite undisturbed. Then she began again.
She started with his face, for she could see it in profile-the clear-cut line of his cheek and jaw, the dishevelled tawny hair that fell across his forehead. He had his loose linen shirt turned up to the elbows now, and the muscles in his arms corded as he worked, lifting and digging, moving with a fluid energy and elegance that was a pleasure to watch. Every so often the breeze would flatten the shirt against the hard, sculpted lines of his back. Rachel started to sketch his torso and this time she got the proportions perfect. She was extremely pleased with her progress.
And then Cory took off his shirt.
One minute he had been engrossed in shovelling a pile of soil out of the trench, the next he had put down the spade and with one movement pulled the linen shirt over his head. The late afternoon sun shone upon him, burnishing his skin to gold. Rachel’s pencil fell from between her fingers and rolled away into the grass. She blinked, frowned and discovered that her mouth had fallen open. She closed it again quickly.
