cloud of dust in its wake, and the gig’s passenger, turning and seeing Rachel struggling on the grass verge, put out a hand and urged the driver to stop. When Rachel caught them up, she recognised two of the other members of the Midwinter reading group, the Honourable Mrs Deborah Stratton and her sister, Olivia, Lady Marney. Deborah Stratton leaned over and addressed her in the friendliest of terms.
‘Miss Odell! I am so sorry-we did not see you there! May we take you up with us? I assume that you are going to Saltires?’
Rachel looked at the gig’s narrow seat rather dubiously. Lady Marney, who was driving, had not seconded her younger sister’s invitation and Rachel felt a little awkward. She did not wish to force herself on their company.
‘I am not certain that there is room-’ Rachel began, but Deborah Stratton cheerfully overrode her.
‘Of course there is! Move up and make room for Miss Odell, Liv,’ she added, turning to her sister and suiting actions to words by huddling up on the gig’s seat. ‘It is only a mile or so further, at any rate. We shall all be as fine as ninepence up here.’
Rachel found her hand grasped in Mrs Stratton’s own, surprisingly strong one, and without further ado joined her on the cushioned seat.
‘Good morning, Lady Marney,’ she said, nodding to Olivia. ‘This is very kind of you.’
‘A pleasure, Miss Odell,’ Olivia said, although her voice lacked the warmth of her sister’s. She turned her attention back to the pony and the gig lurched forward again.
Deborah Stratton gave Rachel an encouraging smile. When Rachel had first been introduced to the sisters at the reading group the previous week, she had been struck as much by the differences as by the similarities between them, and the same feeling was reinforced now. Both girls were slender with corn-coloured hair and blue eyes, but Olivia’s face was grave in repose and held little animation. Deborah, in contrast, seemed almost to burst out of her skin with vitality. Rachel had liked her immediately and the two of them had fallen into conversation very easily and were now in the way to becoming firm friends. With Olivia, though, matters were different. Rachel thought that it might take some time to get to know Lady Marney.
‘I hope that you are settled in at Midwinter Royal House, Miss Odell,’ Deborah said now with a friendly smile. ‘It is barely three weeks, is it not? I always find that it takes time to accustom oneself to a new place.’
Rachel agreed. ‘I hope,’ she added, ‘that my parents will permit me to become settled in the Midwinter villages. We are forever on the move, you know.’
Deborah’s face lit up. ‘Of course! Your father is the prodigiously famous antiquary Sir Arthur Odell, is he not? We are most impressed to have such eminent neighbours.’
‘Impressed and not a little excited to discover what he will dig up,’ Lady Marney added unexpectedly. She gave Rachel a shy, sideways smile, taking her eyes off the road for a second. ‘No doubt it is all old hat for you, Miss Odell, but we have never experienced an excavation in the Midwinter villages before, though everyone has been wondering what is in those mounds for time over mind.’
Rachel laughed. ‘I cannot promise that it will be vastly exciting, Lady Marney, but I am sure that my parents will turn up something of interest. They usually do.’
‘I expect that you have travelled with your parents to the most extraordinary places, Miss Odell,’ Olivia Marney said encouragingly. ‘Egypt, Greece, Italy…’
Rachel sighed. It was always the same. Everyone found her life tremendously exciting except she herself. ‘Yes, I have been to all of those places and more, Lady Marney, although the recent hostilities have rather put an end to the more exotic assignments.’
The sisters laughed together. ‘My dear Miss Odell,’ Deborah said, ‘you sound quite
Catching Lady Marney’s smile, Rachel realised that Olivia was not standoffish, but merely shy. She could not wonder at it. Having a sister as ebullient as Deborah Stratton would be enough to cast most siblings into the shade. Yet it was odd, for the widowed Mrs Stratton could only be the same age as Rachel herself, whilst Olivia was a good few years the elder, and married to a viscount into the bargain. Rachel would have expected her to have more address.
Deborah patted Rachel’s hand consolingly. ‘Never mind, Miss Odell. We are pleased to have you amongst us. I think that you might become quite a curiosity! There is not that much society in the Midwinter villages, you know, and even as far afield as Woodbridge…’ She pulled an expressive face.
‘My sister is more accustomed to the sophisticated delights of Bath, Miss Odell,’ Lady Marney said drily. ‘I fear she finds country life very tame.’
‘I do not!’ Deborah objected. ‘I have lived in Midwinter Mallow for fully three years without being in the slightest bit bored, Liv.’
‘I hear that life in the Midwinter villages is likely to become much more exciting,’ Olivia said. ‘Ross, my husband, said that the Duke of Kestrel is paying one of his rare visits to Midwinter and has brought some of his family and friends with him.’
‘Lud, a house full of rakes and adventurers,’ Deborah said. ‘That will cause a flutter in the country dovecotes!’
Rachel imagined that the lively Mrs Stratton would find a man like Cory Newlyn vastly entertaining. She could picture Cory regaling Deborah with tales of his outrageous expeditions, smiling into her eyes whilst he spun tall stories about buried treasure. She had always viewed Cory’s conquests with an indulgent smile before, but now she felt slightly sick. She wondered whether it was the jolting of the gig that was responsible for her queasiness.
A moment later the carriage swept through the gates of Saltires and started its journey through the lush parkland that surrounded the house. Rachel looked about her with interest. Although she had visited Lady Sally a couple of times already, she had always walked from Midwinter Royal and the path along the river did not afford the same view of the beamed Jacobean hall as this long approach did. She gave a little sigh.
‘Oh, it is pretty, is it not?’
‘Vastly pretty,’ Deborah said, smiling, ‘and very old. It is the dower house for Kestrel Court, you know, Miss Odell. Lady Sally and her husband named it Saltires when the Duke leased it to them on their marriage. Justin Kestrel and Stephen Saltire were the greatest of friends, you know.’
Rachel had wondered how Lady Sally Saltire came to be living so close to Kestrel Court, for the tall, twisted chimneys of the larger house could just be seen beyond the trees of the deer park.
‘One would have thought it unconscionably awkward,’ Deborah continued, ‘for the Duke and Lord Stephen were both suitors for Lady Sally’s hand in marriage. When she chose Lord Stephen it was rumoured that there would be a duel for her hand!’ Deborah’s eyes sparkled. ‘How romantic is that?’
‘Not very,’ Olivia said crushingly. ‘The whole story was only a hum-Justin Kestrel would scarce have offered his old friend a home afterwards if they had fallen out over a lady, would he?’
Deborah’s face fell. ‘I suppose not.’
‘The Duke and Lady Sally have not rekindled their romance since her widowhood?’ Rachel ventured, hoping that Olivia would not think her prying. ‘If not, that might suggest there was no truth in the tale.’
‘No, they have not,’ Deborah said. She looked dissatisfied. ‘I do not believe they see each other very often, for Justin Kestrel travels a great deal and Lady Sally is for the main part settled in London. Oh, it was such a romantic story and now the two of you have utterly deflated it-and me into the bargain!’
Olivia laughed. ‘Romance, my dear Deborah, is a sadly overrated commodity,’ she said, unconsciously echoing Rachel’s comments to Cory earlier. ‘Far better to aim for a comfortable match and a settled life.’
Rachel smiled. ‘I had heard that Lady Sally was once a prodigiously famous beauty. Has she never wished to remarry?’
‘No.’ It was Olivia who answered. ‘With wealth and position and good society, why should she need to marry?’
‘Well,’ Deborah began, ‘she might need a man to-’
‘Deb!’
Olivia shot her sister a warning look, which Rachel intercepted. She almost laughed. It seemed that Olivia had been worried that her sister would make some unguarded remark about a woman’s need for male companionship. Such a comment was scarcely proper in front of a young unmarried lady, but Rachel wryly suspected that she would be unlikely to be shocked. It was Lady Marney and Mrs Stratton who would no doubt be horrified if only they knew the education that Rachel had been subject to from an early age. It did not matter that the frescoes and sculptures of bacchanalian pleasures and erotic excess had been unearthed by her parents and were supposedly classical; they
