Hollis said, “I have frequently noted, my lady, that even the Norman church bells that chime so beautifully in New Romney need a bit of polish on the outside.”
“Corrie Tybourne-Barrett isn’t an old bell, Hollis, she is a new bell with excessive rust. Not acceptable. I would have nothing rusted in my house. What is wrong with you, Hollis? You are paying no attention to what is important, like my dish of prunes.”
Hollis merely smiled and made his way to the sideboard to fetch the prunes. He was humming under his breath when he poured Douglas some tea.
“At least you will be dressing her, Douglas, and that must certainly help.”
“It will,” Douglas said. “Who knows what we’ll find beneath those absurd costumes she wears.”
The dowager said, waving a slice of toast, “I have often wondered at Maybella and Simon. Why would they let the girl run around like a tart in breeches?”
Douglas realized he now knew the answer to that question, but he merely shook his head and smiled. Their strategy had worked-no budding fortune hunter would ever look in her direction-but at what cost to a young lady who’d never been a girl?
Douglas waited until his mother was concentrating her full attention on her prunes, then said quietly, “Hollis, when will we meet this paragon Alexandra saw you kissing in the butler’s pantry?”
“Ah, I thought I saw a shadow of movement, sniffed the lightest of perfumes.”
“Yes, it was her ladyship on a mission to discover what had happened to me. You routed her.”
“I will introduce you to Annabelle very soon now, my lord.”
“Annabelle?”
Hollis nodded and moved a small jug of milk closer to his lordship’s elbow. “Annabelle Trelawny, my lord. A very fine young lady, one of immense good will and fine taste.”
“Why don’t you bring her by this afternoon? I believe my mother will be off to visit some of her cronies.”
“That would be premature, my lord. Annabelle hasn’t yet agreed to be my wife. Can you imagine? Indeed, I fear that I may have to resort to seduction to bring her to the mark.”
There was a tic in Douglas’s left cheek. “Seduction, Hollis?”
“Yes, my lord. I realize it is indeed a grave step to consider, but I believe it to be one I may have to undertake.”
“I wish you luck.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“You have never before been married, Hollis. My father said once that you’d been the victim of a tragic love affair. Was he correct, or didn’t you appreciate the fairer sex until now?”
Hollis saw that the dowager countess was still concentrating on her prunes, but still he moved a bit closer to Douglas. “I was a victim of a love, my lord, and a sad time it was. Her name was Miss Drucilla Plimpton, and I worshiped the very air she breathed. It is an amazing stroke of circumstance-Annabelle actually knew my own dear Miss Plimpton. Ah, so many years ago it was.
“Ah, my lord, I have always appreciated the fairer sex. But after I lost my precious Miss Plimpton, I came to view wedlock as not enough wed and perhaps too much lock.”
“No wonder. You lived here.”
“There is that, my lord. However, I believe being locked up by Annabelle might be vastly amusing. So many stories Annabelle remembers about Miss Plimpton, even though she was younger than Drucilla. Drucilla, I believe, was very kind to her, teaching her stitching, correcting her manners. Of course, Annabelle also remembers me clearly as well, particularly my very fine head of hair.”
“It has remained very fine. Are you certain that my mother hasn’t kept you away from matrimony, Hollis?”
“Not at all, my lord.” Hollis took another quick look at the dowager, leaned closer, and added, “Although the notion about too much lock-well, never you mind. Robbie has informed me that Master Jason is waiting for you at the stables.”
“All right, curse him. At least James is in the estate room with Danvers.”
“Poor young man. Danvers will work Master James until his head is an empty gourd, an exceptional empty gourd I might add.”
Douglas sipped his tea. If Hollis only knew. James was not only enamored with celestial bodies and Kepler’s laws, he was also fascinated in every facet of the estate’s workings, had been from his earliest years, even before he’d fully grasped that Northcliffe would someday be his responsibility. No, it was James who would work Danvers to near exhaustion, not the other way around.
When Douglas rose, tossed his napkin on his plate, and strode from the room, his mother’s voice hit him squarely in the back. “I need more wallpaper samples, Douglas. Alexandra is incapable of making selections pleasing to anyone blessed with extraordinary taste, such as I.”
“I’ll see to it, Mother,” Douglas said, and wondered if there were any samples left in the warehouses in Eastbourne. Well, he supposed there could be samples found in New Romney, though he doubted it.
He met Jason in the paddock where Henry VIII was having a fine time trying to kill Bad Boy, James’s horse. Lovejoy was trying his best to save his favorite of the two, but Henry wasn’t having it. Douglas walked to the fence and whistled. Henry eyed Bad Boy for another moment, then wheeled about and came trotting over to his master, head high, tail swishing. Douglas patted his shiny black neck while he butted his head against Douglas’s shoulder.
Douglas held out his hand. Weir, the head stable lad, slapped two carrots sharply onto his palm, and stepped back because he wasn’t stupid. “All right, my big brute,” Douglas said, and watched with a smile as Henry ate the carrots.
“I’ll saddle him up, Weir,” he said. Two minutes later, he and Jason were riding toward Branderleigh Farm to look at the new hunters that had just arrived from Spain. Douglas was very aware that Jason was trying to look in all directions at once for a villain bent on murder.
Jason said, riding close to his father, giving him as much protection as he could, “Mother told me that the Virgin Bride had visited you, Father, when Mother had been kidnapped by that fanatic Royalist, Georges Cadoudal. She said you hated it, but if you were pushed, you would admit it because you don’t lie, at least not usually, at least not to her, usually.”
Douglas rolled his eyes.
Jason sighed. “Did you really see her, Father? What did she say?”
Douglas turned in his saddle to look at his boy-tall, straight, an excellent rider, a big man now, not a boy. At least the twins’ respective characters didn’t appear to be ruined by their incredible good looks, and surely that was a victory over nature. Where had the years gone? “Forget that ridiculous phantom, Jason. Whatever happened in the distant past will remain there. It is forgotten. Do you understand me?”
Jason said, “No, sir, I can’t forget, but I do recognize a granite wall when I see it. I believe I will go swimming later.”
“You’ll freeze your parts off.”
Jason grinned like a bandit. “That, sir, is an image that truly appalls.”
“It should. Forget that damned ghost.”
“Yes, sir.” But of course Douglas knew he wouldn’t.
He couldn’t for the life of him decide if the first shot had been intentional or not. Just because that damned phantom had predicted it-well, that made him want to dismiss it without another thought. However, he wasn’t stupid, curse it.
LATE IN THE afternoon, three days later, a messenger arrived at Northcliffe Hall with a message for Douglas from Lord Avery at the War Ministry.
The earl left for London the following morning, alone, his wife refusing to speak to him, and his two sons, whom he suspected would follow him, staring after him.
MICHAELMAS WAS THREE weeks away, Douglas thought, as he rode Garth into the stable entrance off Putnam Square, and he would be a year older, and wasn’t that the strangest thing. George IV had died in June, bringing his brother, the duke of Clarence, to the throne as William IV. William was good-natured, but, truth be told, he wasn’t smart enough to give wise counsel or recognize it when it smacked him in the nose. He had more enthusiasm than sense, was indiscreet to the point of lunacy, causing one wag to say,
