'Shortsighted, is she? Well, so good that you could come. Have a look at the ruins. So frightfully medieval.' Grenville nodded at the priory then directed his gaze at the lady's sketch as though it absorbed his entire attention. The lady, the wife of a minor aristocrat, ignored me completely.
I walked to the ruins as Grenville had directed me. I'd found them a wonderful playground as a boy-the soaring pointed arches, especially in moonlight, had fulfilled the chilling fantasies of a nine-year-old lad.
Lady Breckenridge deserted her admirers to meet me for a stroll around the tallest of the standing walls. 'This is too ghastly, Gabriel,' she said, rubbing my arm as though she thought me cold.
'Picturesque, the guidebooks say.'
'I am hardly in the mood for flippancy. I do not mean the ruins; I mean this house party. Poor Grenville is put out at you, and Lady Southwick is full of innuendo. I will endure one more day, and then I am returning to Oxfordshire. Yes, I do know that staying with Lady Southwick was my idea. Do not cast it up to me.'
'I said not a word.'
'I will make a brief hiatus in London to speak to an architect about your house. Then I will be off to Oxfordshire. I miss my boy.' I heard the sadness in her tone. She loved her son, though she rarely spoke of him. It was a private thing, I'd understood when I'd at last seen them together.
I laid my hand over hers. 'Next summer, we three will come here together. My house might be livable by then.'
'An excellent plan. Do you know, Gabriel, why I am annoyed with myself?'
I smiled down at her. 'Because you wanted to observe how I would respond to Lady Southwick, who so blatantly makes herself available to any.'
'So you guessed that. I profess to be ashamed.'
'A natural worry, after what your husband put you through.'
Her fingers closed more tightly on my arm. 'He hurt me, Gabriel. I will admit that to you. And so I became a callous, rather reckless woman in response. I pursued you with a ruthlessness that makes Lady Southwick tame in comparison.'
'There is a difference,' I said, stopping. 'I never minded you pursuing me.'
We stood for a quiet moment, while the peace of the ages flowed around us. It must have been a terrible day here, when King Henry's men came to tear down the walls.
Lady Breckenridge cleared her throat then went on in a brisk voice. 'You flatter me, Gabriel. I found out about your Miss Quinn, by the bye. She eloped with a banker's clerk from Cambridge.'
'I heard he was a solicitor.'
She looked annoyed. 'I do wish that if you meant to find out these things yourself, you wouldn't set me to ask questions of ladies I do not like.'
'I found out by chance, and I think more than one version of a story is beneficial. Tell yours, please.'
We'd walked far from the others and stood beneath the archways of the long-fallen priory. I wanted to know what Donata had discovered, but I was distracted momentarily by sunlight on her dark curls that flowed from under her tilt-brimmed hat. I wanted to lean down and take a curl in my mouth.
'It seems that Miss Quinn pretended to be devoted to her cousin,' Donata said, 'until he'd been gone to war for about five years. Then she must have realized that she'd be left on the shelf if her cousin did not return, and so she set her cap elsewhere. She had ambition, Lady Southwick said. Wanted to leave dreary village life and have a house of her own in a city. London for preference.
'Then came the banker's clerk. Handsome, citified, sophisticated. He began walking out with Miss Quinn very quickly. However, the vicar, her father, put his foot down. Helena was to send this man away and wait for her cousin Terrance, like a good girl.'
'Hmm,' I said. 'I can imagine how well that went over.'
'Precisely. Next thing anyone knew, Miss Quinn was off and gone in the middle of the night with the banker's clerk and the silver candlesticks from the church. Never to be seen again. Her father wanted to declare her dead, but her mother cried and begged him not to take such a dreadful step. Her cousin Terrance returned, rushed to Cambridge, and could not find her. He gave up, came home, and is now sunk in melancholia. So ends the saga.'
'Except for the candlesticks,' I said. 'I found them.'
To her wide-eyed stare, I told her the story and about my visit to the vicarage.
'Good heavens,' she said when I'd finished. 'It seems you have had a much more interesting day than I've had. Why would they leave the goods behind? I assume they wanted to use them to fund their elopement to Gretna Green. Come to think of it, why would this banker's clerk or solicitor or whatever he was, need to rob the church, if he were so prosperous? Presumably he had the money to take Helena away, hence the reason she wanted to go with him at all.'
'The theft of the silver might have nothing to do with Helena and her Cambridge gentleman.'
'Humph. The vicar's daughter and the church silver going missing on the same night is too much of a coincidence. And there is the fact of the gown lying in your mother's chamber. What of that? The two maids I asked about it did not recognize it. Rather useless of them.'
'I'd like to show the gown to Mrs. Landon,' I said. 'She would know if the dress had belonged to Helena, since Mrs. Landon has lived at the vicarage as long as I can remember. I would have thought of asking her immediately, but I had no idea she was still there.'
'Take them to her tomorrow-after this bizarre shooting match Lady Southwick has decided to hold. I will be going then anyway.'
I stopped. The late summer air wafted around us, cool with the hint of fall.
'I'll not be able to leave with you,' I said. 'Too many things to do here.'
Her blue eyes were calm. 'I know.'
'I am growing used to not sleeping alone,' I said. 'I find I rather like it.' After years of bitter loneliness, having the scent and warmth of a woman next to me all night had grown intoxicating.
'I rather like it myself.' Lady Breckenridge touched the lapel of my coat. 'No matter. You finish here and come to Oxfordshire. I will instruct our housekeeper to once again put our bedchambers side by side.'
I lifted her hand to mine and kissed it. 'I believe I would like that,' I said.
Because of the picnic, there was no formal supper at Lady Southwick's that night, for which I was grateful. Bartholomew coaxed a bit of cold meat for me from the kitchens, and I ate it with pleasure. I had no complaints about Lady Southwick's chef.
The only benefit of Lady Breckenridge departing tomorrow afternoon would be that I could leave Lady Southwick's as well and take a room above a pub, which I'd wanted to do in the first place. The other bachelors could stay at Southwick Hall as they liked, but I would show devotion to my lady by moving out.
Lady Breckenridge brought me the white gown, which she'd rewrapped in paper, much later that night. I was already asleep, and the crackling of the paper when she laid it down woke me.
I did not leave the bed, and a few moments later, her sweet-smelling warmth was beside me. 'I've come to say good-bye,' she whispered, and kissed me.
Bartholomew woke me the next morning by throwing open the drapes surrounding my bed. He'd already pulled back the heavy curtains over the window, and sunshine poured in on me. Donata had gone in the night, and I was alone in the bed.
'Mr. Denis sent word,' Bartholomew said as he turned away to prepare my razor and shaving water. 'He would like a moment of your time.'
I propped open my tired eyes. 'Does he wish it on the moment?'
'Afraid so, sir.'
I grunted. 'Tell him Lady Southwick has engaged me to shoot at things. I will speak to him this afternoon.'
Bartholomew did not look up. 'His carriage is downstairs, sir, with two of his lackeys. They are waiting for you.'
Nothing for it. I threw back the covers and heaved myself out of bed. Bartholomew, like a good servant, turned away from my nakedness as I pulled on my threadbare but comfortable dressing gown.
