events yesterday, which kept me from your hospitality.'
Lady Southwick looked pleased. 'A pretty speech. Lady Breckenridge has much praised your politeness.'
As she smiled up at me, I was struck again by how similar she was to Donata. The two ladies had different coloring, but her high-waisted, dark green gown with cream stripes must have been created by the same dressmaker; her cream silk cap with three feathers could have been made by Donata's milliner.
Lady Southwick, however, looked at the world as though she expected and believed that it would behave exactly as she wanted it to. Lady Breckenridge looked at the same world and knew that it never would.
'Forgive me if I upset you,' I said.
'Oh, you have not upset me. Lady Breckenridge is a bit put out with you, but you must expect that. Wives are always put out with husbands. I know I am constantly put out with mine.'
I did not point out that I was not yet married to Donata, because for some reason, I did not wish to remind this lady of my unmarried state.
'The other guests are a bit chatty about you as well,' she said. 'The subject of your very country manners has come up time and again. Mr. Grenville speaks highly of you, however, so your manners will be overlooked. You can make things up to me if you like in our little game this afternoon. Partner me, and all will be forgiven.'
'Game,' I repeated.
Lady Southwick rose and twined her fingers around my arm. 'Croquet. On the lawn. Now.' She gave me a smile.
'I have many errands this afternoon,' I said, not moving. Pressing ones. I needed to find people and finds things out, not tap a blasted ball around a green.
Her fingers sank deeper into my arm. 'Now, Captain, you must show these Mayfair gentlemen that you've risen above your country upbringing. A polite game, with the ladies, will do this.'
I knew that the gentlemen here didn't give a damn about me rising above my upbringing-which had been similar to theirs, in any case. But Lady Southwick was dragging me out the French windows to a little terrace that led to a lawn.
As we stepped outside, I saw Donata already walking on the grass. She had her hand on Grenville's arm and looked sublimely uninterested that I'd emerged from Lady Southwick's private sitting room with Lady Southwick, alone. Bless her.
'Ah, Lacey,' Grenville said. 'Good afternoon.'
He wore his man-about-town look, the one that said he was weary with ennui but would endeavor to be polite.
Rafe Godwin wandered by on his way to the croquet green. Rafe lifted his quizzing glass and studied me through it, turned away, and made loud, piggy noises to his companion, who tittered.
Grenville glanced at Rafe's retreating back. 'I might have to cut him,' he said.
Lady Southwick's butler handed me a mallet. 'If you cut every gentleman on my account, you'd have no one left to speak to,' I said.
Because Lady Southwick had turned away to give instructions to her butler, Grenville dropped his persona for the barest instant. 'What a relief that would be.'
Lady Breckenridge patted his arm. 'Nonsense. If you cut everyone, that would only make you the more popular. Human beings strive more to catch the attention of those who hate everyone than of those who like everyone. A strange thing, but I've observed it to be so.'
I smiled at her, then leaned to Grenville and spoke in a low voice. 'Can you get word to Bartholomew and Matthias? I'd like one of them at my house to keep Denis's men from tearing it up too much, and I'd like the other to have a look inside that windmill again. We might find something in the light of day that we missed last night.'
'And this afternoon is so very bright,' Donata said. 'Do not worry, Gabriel. Placate Lady Southwick with this tedious game, and then make your escape.'
I exchanged a look with Grenville, who had the impudence to grin at me. Lady Southwick returned at that moment, and we could speak no further.
'We are the blue team,' Lady Southwick said. 'Excellent. I hope that you are a good player, Captain. It's a guinea a wicket.'
A guinea… I had forgotten that ladies and gentlemen of the ton could not do anything so simple as play a friendly lawn game without gambling like mad. Knocking balls about the grass could become deadly expensive.
Grenville looked unconcerned, and I knew he was prepared to spot me the cash, though he knew how such things grated on my pride. Very well, then, I decided as I shouldered my mallet and led Lady Southwick away. I would have to play to win.
The game commenced, the house party alternating between standing about gossiping and giving intense attention to play. Grenville played politely-that is, he showed he did not intend to best everybody in sight, while giving the impression that he could if he wished.
Donata had no such compunction. She ruthlessly knocked her ball into her opponents' at every opportunity, and reveled in driving their balls off the pitch. She did not spare me. When her red-striped ball clacked into my blue-striped one, she put her well-shod foot over her ball and plenty of muscle behind the stroke that smacked mine away. My ball galloped across the green and dropped into the marsh grasses that pushed against Lady Southwick's cultivated lawn.
'What say you, Gabriel?' Lady Breckenridge said, a sparkle in her dark blue eyes. 'Five guineas on the game?'
'Of course,' I said. 'I always pay up my wagers.'
Her smile grew satisfied. She referred to the wager we'd made the first day we'd met, when I'd played billiards with her in a sunny room, and she'd challenged me.
I had to search through the grass for my ball, while Donata went on to score double points behind me. I took the opportunity to coerce Reaves, the young vicar, into helping me look for the ball, and so into conversation.
'What became of the Quinns?' I asked him, 'when you took the living? Dr. Quinn, you said, passed on. What about the rest of his family?'
Reaves blinked. 'Devil if I know. No, a moment. I believe the wife lives in Blakeney with her sister-in-law. I know her nephew is still about.'
'Terrance, yes. I spoke to him last night. What about the Quinns' daughter? Helena?'
'Couldn't say. She was gone before I arrived. Some scandal, I think, but I know little about it. You know what villagers are. Rattle on amongst themselves but close ranks against outsiders.'
Reaves was certainly an outsider. He was a city man, probably had lived his entire life in the circle of Cambridge and London.
'I remember Helena,' I said. 'When I was a boy, she'd follow me about, wanting me to teach her to climb trees and so forth. I thought her a nuisance.'
'Yes, well, apparently about-oh, ten years ago? — she up and ran off. Probably with someone her family did not approve of. Provincials can be quite close-minded. She's likely living in some cottage not far from here, teaching her own daughters not to run off with scoundrels.'
Reaves bent to tap his ball, finished with gossip.
Ten years ago. Had Helena Quinn gained entrance to my father's house, changed her debutante's gown for traveling clothes, and then gone off with her unsuitable man? My father had still been alive then. I could not see him helping illicit young lovers, nor could I see him allowing anyone outside the family into my mother's sitting room.
Perhaps one of the Lacey maidservants had found the dress discarded by Helena after her flight and had put it into the sitting room for safekeeping, knowing no one would disturb it there. Said maidservant could always bundle it away later to sell.
But if so, why hadn't she, why had the gown been spread so neatly, almost reverently, across the chaise, and why had my father allowed it to remain there?
I renewed my intent to find Helena Quinn, or whoever had left the gown, and ask for the story. In spite of Donata trying to persuade me out of my fears of the discarded gown meaning something sinister, I could not shake the feeling.
