The Notorious Lord

Chapter Three

Rachel was halfway along the dusty road that led from Midwinter Royal to Saltires when she was overtaken by a gig containing two ladies. The pony was travelling at a lively trot and stirred up quite a 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 jaded by the whole experience!’

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 were still explicit and shocking and had left the young Rachel Odell in open-mouthed wonder. She could remember clearly the day that Cory Newlyn had come across her almost standing on her head in an attempt to work out whether a certain position indulged in by two figures in a fresco was physically possible…

Still, it was better to allow Lady Marney her illusions, Rachel thought. She was enough of a curiosity as it was, without shocking the ladies further, and she knew her unorthodox upbringing would give some people a disgust. It was a great pity, when all she had ever wished for was to lead an ordinary life. She smiled gently and said nothing.

‘I suppose it is too late for Lady Sally now,’ Deborah said with a sigh, ‘for she must be all of three and thirty if she is a day. Far too old to be contemplating remarriage!’

The gig drew up outside the main door and a liveried footman immediately appeared to help the ladies descend. Tucking her copy of The Enchantress, which she had borrowed from Lady Sally’s extensive library, under her arm, Rachel followed Olivia and Deborah inside.

The reading group was a very select affair. Only six of them sat around the polished walnut table in Lady Sally Saltire’s library. In addition to Deborah Stratton and Olivia Marney there was Lady Sally herself, Helena Lang, the vicar’s daughter, and Lily Benedict, a dark beauty married to a gentleman who lived retired.

‘Well, my dears,’ Lady Sally said when they had all discussed the first couple of chapters of The Enchantress, ‘we all suspect that Sir Philip Desormeaux will get more than he bargained for from his advertisement, but then any gentleman who advertises for a wife deserves to be put in his place…’

She smiled at them all conspiratorially and it felt to Rachel as though she was drawing them all into the warmth by the sheer force of her personality. From the top of her elegant head to the tips of her kid slippers, Lady Sally Saltire exuded the sort of style that left Rachel in open-mouthed envy. Lady Sally was sleek, elegant and effortlessly modish. Nor was it simply a matter of dress. Rachel reflected that Olivia Marney, for example, was fashionable but rather lifeless. Sally was vivacious, with all the style conferred through being a rich and supremely elegant society widow.

‘I always think that a man who needs to advertise for a wife must have something seriously wrong with him,’ Helena Lang said. Her tone suggested that she would never give such a poor-spirited fellow the time of day. ‘After all, there are plenty of dreadful men who still manage to attach a wife without having to resort to the newspapers, so how bad would one need to be to advertise? It is quite shocking when one comes to think of it.’

There was general laughter at this.

‘It is true that appalling men can marry quite easily if they are rich and titled,’ Lily Benedict agreed. ‘One sees it all the time.’

Lady Sally rang the bell for the servant. ‘More refreshments, ladies? I have another project that I wish to discuss with you all before you leave.’

Two footmen brought in trays laden with cake, tea and lemonade. Rachel accepted a glass of the latter for the day was very warm and it was quite stuffy in Lady Sally’s library. Though the casement windows were open to allow in a thread of breeze, the low, plaster ceilings seemed to trap the heat.

‘Lady Sally is well known for her charitable projects,’ Deborah Stratton whispered in Rachel’s ear. ‘Last summer she sponsored a race on the river and all the fashionable crowd came down from London to attend. It was the most exciting occasion! We seldom see such society in Midwinter.’

‘So, ladies…’ Lady Sally said, when the footmen had retired, ‘I wished to share the plans for my new project with you-and to ask for your help.’

Five pairs of eyes rounded with speculation.

‘I would like,’ Lady Sally continued, ‘to raise some funds for one of my benevolent societies. I thought that a little project might distract everyone rather pleasantly from rumours of this annoying invasion, so…’ she smiled with a hint of wickedness ‘…I thought that it might be rather fun to produce a watercolour book.’

A little sigh rippled around the group. A book sounded nowhere near as exciting as last year’s regatta had been.

‘Do you mean a book with watercolour drawings, Sally?’ Lily Benedict enquired. ‘That seems a little tame compared with your usual projects.’

‘Local views would look attractive in watercolours,’ Olivia Marney suggested. ‘The river, the watermill…’

‘I did indeed have local attractions in mind,’ Lady Sally said, stretching out a languid hand to pour herself another cup of tea, ‘but nothing so tame as the river, Olivia. I had in mind pictures of local gentlemen.’

Olivia almost choked on her tea and had to be patted on the back by her sister. Helena Lang, a buxom beauty given to vulgarity, gave vent to a thoroughly over-excited scream.

‘Portraits of gentlemen in a book? Lady Sally, you are so wicked!’

‘I know,’ Lady Sally said calmly. ‘Conceive of the potential profit to my charity, ladies. A few drawings of eligible gentlemen, with a little bit of text giving some essential information about them-’

‘Such as whether they are married and the size of their estate,’ Deborah Stratton suggested. She laughed. ‘It will be like a gazetteer!’

‘Precisely.’ Lady Sally nodded. ‘I had it in mind to host a ball in town during the little season and hold an auction. The ladies would be queuing out of the door to place a bid on a book that gives details of the most eligible gentlemen on the marriage mart! I am persuaded it would be all the rage, particularly if the gentlemen in the drawings were to attend as well.’

Lily Benedict was laughing. ‘It’s an outrageous idea, Sally! No one but you could get away with it.’

‘Which gentlemen will be featured?’ Helena Lang enquired, putting the question that everyone else was too reticent to ask.

Lady Sally ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Sir John Norton has already agreed to pose for me, as has Lord Northcote-’

‘But he is married already,’ Helena protested, pouting, ‘and Sir John Norton is a dreadful bore. You must have some more attractive gentlemen, Lady Sally. Positively you must!’

‘It would certainly make the watercolour book more popular,’ Lady Sally agreed. ‘Now that Justin Kestrel and his brothers are here for the summer, I intend to persuade them to take part…’ she gave a little smile ‘…and then I do believe we shall be overwhelmed with eager purchasers!’

Rachel, who had been listening quietly, saw Deborah Stratton look quickly away and fidget slightly with the cover of her copy of The Enchantress. Her colour had risen at the mention of Justin Kestrel and his brothers and Rachel could not help wondering which Kestrel brother it was that could cause such a reaction. Fortunately Helena Lang distracted everyone’s attention before Deborah’s discomfiture became too evident.

‘However will you convince the Duke to pose, Lady Sally? I heard tell that he is very high in the instep, for all that he is a thorough-going rake!’

‘I shall use my native charm, Miss Lang,’ Lady Sally said. ‘And if I fail, I shall ask one of you to approach him instead. Justin is very susceptible to a lady’s persuasion, I assure you. In fact, that is where I need your help.’

The ladies looked enquiring.

‘I need you to work your charms on all the gentlemen visiting Midwinter,’ Lady Sally said, smiling. ‘A little flirtation can work miracles, ladies! If you can persuade the Duke and his friends to take part in my book of watercolour drawings, then I shall be able to establish another school for the ragged children in Ipswich. No one can deny that it is for a good cause.’

‘You are still a few gentlemen short,’ Deborah observed. She appeared to have regained her composure. ‘Did you have any others in mind?’

Lady Sally smiled at Olivia, who had remained quiet throughout most of the discussion, as she often did.

‘I had thought that Lord Marney might be persuaded to take part,’ Lady Sally said. ‘I wondered if you might speak to him, dear Olivia.’

Olivia Marney’s head jerked up and bright colour came into her cheeks.

‘My husband pays no attention to my requests,’ she said sharply. She brushed the biscuit crumbs from her skirt with sharp little movements. ‘You would have better success were you to ask him yourself, Lady Sally!’

The atmosphere in the room was suddenly tense. Rachel had no notion why matters should be so awkward, but she could not miss the significant glance that Lady Sally shot Lady Benedict. The only person who appeared unaware of her sister’s tension was Deborah Stratton.

‘I will ask Ross if he will take part, Liv!’ she said cheerfully. ‘I am sure he will agree.’

‘Oh, well, if you ask him, Deborah, I am sure that there will be no difficulty at all!’ Olivia Marney said, and the bitterness was suddenly clear in her voice, so marked that even Deborah fell silent.

There was another awkward pause.

Lady Sally threw herself into the breach. ‘How splendid,’ she said, quite as though there had been no undercurrent to Olivia’s words. ‘And if I might prevail upon you, Miss Odell, to speak to Lord Newlyn, then I think we might rightly be proud of the collection of truly distinguished gentlemen who will grace my watercolour book.’

Rachel jumped. She had just been reflecting that Cory would detest being part of a project such as this when she realised that Lady Sally was addressing her. Rachel felt the eyes of the group fixed on her. Helena Lang was looking rather envious all of a sudden.

‘I doubt I have any influence with Lord Newlyn,’ Rachel said. ‘It is true that I have known him for years, but I would not say that he was a very persuadable gentleman.’

Lady Sally’s eyes widened with amusement. ‘Oh, do you think not?’ she said. ‘A great pity, for he is quite the most charismatic man of my acquaintance.’ She smiled gently at Rachel. ‘Would he not be susceptible to a little flirtation, Miss Odell?’

‘Not if I was the one doing the flirting with him,’ Rachel said, laughing at the very idea. ‘I believe he would ask me if I had had too much sun!’

Everyone laughed, although Lady Sally looked pensive. ‘It seems a pity,’ she said. ‘Lord Newlyn would look vastly attractive in watercolours.’

‘He would look vastly attractive in anything,’ Lily Benedict added drily, ‘or nothing.’

Rachel bit her lip and concentrated very hard on not thinking about Cory wearing nothing at all. She had only just managed to banish the image and here it was back with a vengeance. She fanned herself surreptitiously with her book.

‘Oh, please try to persuade him, Miss Odell,’ Helena Lang interposed. ‘Lord Newlyn would be the most perfect choice. He is so dashing.’

Rachel looked at the pleading faces. Her strongest impulse was to refuse. The thought of asking Cory to grace Lady Sally’s watercolour book was an excruciating one.

‘I really do not think-’ she began.

Lady Sally put out a consoling hand. ‘Please do not worry. I would not wish you to feel obliged to approach Lord Newlyn, Miss Odell, not if it would embarrass you. Perhaps one of the other ladies could exert a little charm to persuade him.’

‘I am sure that we shall be drawing lots for the privilege,’ Lily Benedict said.

Rachel frowned. The idea of another lady flirting with Cory made her feel rather possessive, although she knew this was entirely inappropriate. She looked at Lily Benedict’s face, with the slanting dark eyes that held a flicker of malice, and decided that she did not like her very much nor would she give her the chance to flirt with Cory. The same went for that vulgar Miss Lang.

‘I suppose I can at least talk to him,’ she said. ‘I should be happy to do that.’

‘Oh, goody!’ Helena Lang exclaimed. ‘How exciting to have such a famous adventurer in our midst! Was it not Lord Newlyn who wrestled a crocodile in the Nile and survived the curse of Amenhopec? He is the most complete gentleman, is he not?’

‘The crocodile incident was much exaggerated,’ Rachel said coolly, wishing to depress Helena Lang’s pretensions and reduce Cory’s appeal at the same time. ‘As for the curse, I do not believe that Lord Newlyn escaped so easily. He had a dreadful stomach upset for weeks after he excavated that tomb. They call it the Pharaoh’s Revenge.’

There was a ripple of scandalised laughter from the group as the ladies took her meaning. ‘My dear Miss Odell,’ Lady Sally said, wiping the tears from her eyes, ‘I do believe that you have demolished Lord Newlyn’s dashing reputation in one move. An upset stomach indeed! How very unromantic! I cannot wait to tease him about this.’

‘You might sketch Lord Newlyn wrestling a crocodile, ma’am,’ Helena Lang said hopefully to Lady Sally. ‘Without his shirt, perhaps-’

‘In the waters of the Winter Race?’ Lady Sally said. ‘What a fertile imagination you have, Miss Lang. Not that I totally discount the idea. So, ladies-’ she looked around the group ‘-to work! I am relying on you.’

The meeting broke up on that note. Rachel declined Olivia Marney’s offer of a ride back to Midwinter Royal in the gig, preferring instead to take the footpath that skirted the riverbank. The air was fresh here, straight off the water, and held a tang of salt. The Winter Race was a small tributary of the larger River Deben, originally feeding the watermill at Midwinter Bere, but these days the mill was derelict and the water flowed sluggishly between low banks in the summer and in the winter flooded the mud flats and marshes. On such a clear day she could see directly across to the Deben, where the yachts and wherries were moored on the quay at Woodbridge.

The sand track was soft beneath Rachel’s shoes. A rabbit scuttered through the undergrowth, startling a pheasant out of the bracken. As she walked she thought about Lady Sally’s reading group and the planned book of watercolour drawings. It was the most shocking matchmaker’s charter and as such she was certain it would be a raging success.

Rachel paused to look out across the Winter Race. The breeze teased tendrils of hair from beneath her bonnet and she stopped to tuck it back in. Ahead of her the riverbank sloped up towards the Midwinter Royal burial ground. There was a knot of pine trees that gave a sheltered lookout across the river in one direction and over the fields to Midwinter Royal in the other. Last year’s pine needles were a soft carpet beneath Rachel’s feet and they gave off a sweet, resinous scent.

She paused on the top of the hill to watch the excavation. Sir Arthur and Lady Odell were working in the southernmost corner of the field, digging one of the long barrows and sorting the earth into a huge spoil pit. Rachel sighed. It all looked so messy and she detested untidiness.

Cory Newlyn was much closer to her, digging a trench into the side of a burial mound. Cory did not favour the accepted method of digging straight down from the top of a barrow; he maintained that this could damage the finds buried inside. Instead he would open a small, exploratory ditch and work inwards from there. Rachel could not see that it mattered one way or another. Soon her parents would be tramping the dirt through the house and she would have to spur Rose into action to clean it all up again. Then the scullery would be full of bits of pot to be washed and the dining room would have bones laid out on the breakfast table. It was always the same.

She watched as Cory paused in his digging and leaned on his spade, rubbing a hand across his forehead. His disgusting broad-brimmed hat tilted at a more rakish angle still. Rachel looked at him and tried to work out why Lady Sally had described him as one of the most charismatic men of her acquaintance. She had an appreciation of classical statuary and by those standards Cory was not particularly good looking. His face was too thin and his features slightly irregular. Nevertheless, the hard, clearcut planes of his face were somehow pleasing to the eye and it was difficult to tear one’s gaze away. Then there was his thick, tawny hair and his cool grey gaze and his long, rangy body that looked so good in the saddle-or emerging from the river…Oh, yes, Rachel could appreciate Cory Newlyn in a completely objective manner. Even so, there was nothing objective about the strange pit-a-pat of excitement in her stomach as she watched Cory at work, and when he turned to look at her, she looked away and hurried off without speaking to him. She felt strangely embarrassed and certainly not brave enough to broach the subject of the watercolour book. That would have to wait for another day.

As Rachel hurried along the path towards the house she imagined that she could feel Cory’s gaze on her retreating back. Impartial appreciation…Yes, she understood how attractive Cory might appear to another lady. For a brief moment, though, impartial was not how she felt at all, and she did not like it.