Page 4 of The Raven’s Lady (The Duke’s Men #2)

A brilliant spring morning followed the rain of the day before. The birds started up shortly before first light, and by the time the kitchen fires were lit and the chocolate brewed, Cassie had escaped with a set of keys to the dower house. No one except William observed her leaving. Honoria was at her writing desk and Grandmama was riding.

There was nothing like the clear light of day to reveal truths one would rather not face. They were quite out of money, and Sir Adrian was their best hope of providing a respectable means of keeping Verwood solvent. He would be back, and Cassie wanted to be prepared for his return.

He had no idea what an immovable object her grandmama could be, but Cassie sensed that Sir Adrian was not easily swayed from his course. She had changed her opinion of him since their first meeting. What had seemed like kindness to Dick Crockett was perhaps mere annoyance at the inconvenience of the scene in the inn yard. Sir Adrian clearly had money to toss at problems to make them go away. The question that puzzled Cassie was why he wanted to toss money at Verwood. It seemed odd to her that he had fixed his attention on a small, relatively obscure Hampshire property at an inconvenient distance from London. If she understood his motive, she felt sure her position would be stronger. As it was, he had seen her true circumstances, the worn furnishings, old gown, and muddied boots. It irked her to think he was right. She had to be practical.

She crossed the drive and followed the narrow carriage way through the woods. Weeds sprouted through the gravel, and when she reached the yellow stone dower house, all she saw was neglect, an overgrown lawn, sprawling shrubs, and drooping vines. Cassie tried to remember the house’s better days in her childhood when Grandmama lived there before the deaths of Cassie’s older brother Edward, and shortly after, her father. When her uncle became duke, he chose a rather larger estate in Kent to be his principal seat, selling to their neighbor Lord Ramsbury much of the unentailed land of Verwood, leaving the hall to be Grandmama’s residence.

Cassie thrust her key in the lock. The door yielded with a crack, and she entered, immediately shivering at the cold and wrinkling her nose at damp and dust and, she suspected, mice. Sir Adrian had offered to help them move households, and she wondered what other help he might agree to give in his determination to strike a deal.

In the ground floor rooms, she found the furnishings swathed in holland covers, dust, and cobwebs. The drapery had long since been removed from the windows and reused in the main house. Mice had definitely taken over in the kitchen. Only when she climbed the stairs, did her impression of the house improve. The bedrooms, though empty of furnishings, were bright and airy in the morning light, looking out past the kitchen garden over a stone wall into a small open field. A brief childhood memory made her smile. It was a rabbit field. Perhaps, in spite of Honoria’s fears, the house could be made livable. Cassie knew which rooms Grandmama would claim, and which would suit Honoria. Cassie would settle in the middle, between her two relations, where she usually found herself.

She finished her tour of the rooms. If Sir Adrian wanted them to move to the dower house, she would hand him a list of needed repairs.

*

After breakfast Raven sent a bewildered Trimley off to London with instructions, and set out for the village smithy. The landlord at the Crown directed him to George Crockett’s establishment, a long, low, whitewashed building with a thatched roof, darkened and bowed by weather, standing at the lower end of the village. In the yard a chestnut tree towered over a rustic table and chairs, and chickens scratched about, under and around a farmer’s cart without a wheel. A pair of sturdy russet-haired boys tended a smoking bed of coals. Ten feet from the boys stood a wooden framework like a perfect spider’s web surrounded by a ring of leather buckets filled with water. A red setter lounging at the threshold of the open door rose and came to give Raven a greeting, his plume of a tail wagging. From inside came a rapid series of blows of a heavy hammer on wood.

As Raven ruffled the dog’s silky ears, one of the lads dashed into the shop, and the hammering stopped, followed by a quick exchange of male voices. Then the lad reappeared. He halted in front of Raven. “If ye be needin’ me Da, sir, he asks ye t’ wait a tick while he sets a wheel for farmer Hewitt. Me mum has coffee and cake if ye like.”

“Thank you. And you are?” Raven asked.

“Ned Crockett, sir. If ye’ll follow me, sir.”

Raven nodded, and the boy turned and led him into the smithy, dark and warm, and lit by the glow of the forge. The room smelled of iron and horse and burning coke. As Raven’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he took in Crockett’s arrangements. The long, narrow shop was divided into three areas, at one end a nook under a window with a bench for waiting customers, the main area dominated by the forge against the rear brick wall and the anvil on its stump, and at the end, where Raven had entered, an enclosure for horse-shoeing.

Crockett stood, mallet in hand, contemplating a large wooden cart wheel, assessing whatever repairs he’d made. He was tall and rather wiry, wrapped in the leather apron of his trade, with the muscled forearms of a man who hammered and bent iron into shape. He had a head of shaggy russet hair and a beard to match. Standing opposite him was Dick, the youth Raven had met at the inn the day before. A clear resemblance marked them as father and son, though the youth was the brawnier of the two men. When Dick Crockett spotted Raven, he signaled his father with a quick series of hand motions.

Crockett turned to Raven at once. “So yer the gentleman that stood up for my lad.”

Raven nodded.

“Thank you, sir. If there’s aught I can do for ye, just say the word.”

“There is something, when you can spare the time. But you must know that your son’s first defender was Lady Cassandra Lavenham.”

Crockett glanced at his son. The youth seemed to follow the conversation without the cringing anxiety he had shown the day before. “So our Dick tells us. Still, we are indebted to you, sir. Let my good wife get you some coffee or a pint if you prefer, and you can tell me what it is. First, I must set this wheel for neighbor Hewitt.” Crockett indicated a fair-haired man in a neat brown suit and a straw hat, sitting by the window.

Raven nodded, and Crockett sent Ned through the far door of the shop. A woman appeared, drying her hands on an apron, and bustled up to Raven.

“Sir, good morning. You’re most welcome here. Will you have a pint or some coffee and cake?”

“Coffee,” said Raven, “if I may take a mug outside. I’d like to watch the wheel setting.”

Mrs. Crockett, dark-haired, round, and rosy-cheeked, beamed at him. “There’s a bench against the wall.”

Raven followed Crockett and Dick as they carried the wheel, which Raven guessed must weigh at least two hundred pounds. When the Crocketts lowered the wheel onto the webbed framework in the yard, the Crockett boy Raven had not yet met walked round it, dousing the rim with water. Then the elder Crocketts took up their tongs and moved to the smoldering fire. Watching each other, they lifted from the heat a perfect hoop of iron, flat like a ribbon. They moved in step and positioned the hoop over the waiting wheel. At a nod from Crockett senior, they lowered the heated iron onto the wooden rim. The second boy and Ned sprang into action pouring water around the rim where iron and wood met. Hissing clouds of steam rose into the morning air. Crockett moved in the wake of the boys, hammering metal and wood together as the cold water tightened the iron hoop around the wooden rim. The whole operation was quick and smooth, and Raven could see that Crockett knew his business, and had trained his sons to do their part. It no longer seemed odd that Dick Crockett had found employment with the imperious old duchess.

While Crockett senior and Dick lifted the cooled wheel from the web-like frame, Mrs. Crockett brought Raven a mug of coffee, which he drank, admiring the way father and son worked together. When they needed words, both men used hand gestures. They set the wheel on the wagon axle, and the younger boys brought a sleek and sturdy horse around from the back of the smithy. The farmer, Hewitt, reappeared and hitched his animal to the cart. Civilities were exchanged, and off he drove.

Raven rose from the bench. Crockett came his way, and Mrs. Crockett emerged from her kitchen again to offer her husband a pint. He removed his heavy gloves and took a long pull on his drink.

“Now, sir, what can I do for ye?”

“I won’t keep you long. I am looking to… lease the Verwood property, and I understand that your son works for the dowager duchess.”

“Does all the shoeing for her,” said Crockett.

“Then you must have an idea of the scale and state of the operations at Verwood. I understand the stables will not be included in the facilities a tenant may use.”

“Wondering why that is, are ye?” Crockett asked.

Raven nodded. “I thought you might be able to enlighten me. Is it a working stud?”

Crockett appeared to consider Raven’s question. “I’m that glad ye helped our Dick yesterday.” He regarded Raven with a measuring glance. “Ye kicked a hornet’s nest with that Hugh. He’s a wrong one. Ah well, it’s like he’s gone back to town with yer blunt.”

“So, he’ll not trouble your lad?”

“Oh, Hugh will turn up again when he runs out of money. When he does, I’m thinking to send Ned with Dick on his rounds, to be safe. Ye’d best have a sit down.”

Crockett led the way to the table and chairs under the chestnut tree. When they’d settled, Mrs. Crockett came and placed a plate of hard eggs, pickles, and cheese on the table.

Crockett built himself a stack of the edibles. “You asked the size of the place. Verwood is quite grand. Some are like to say it’s too grand for three women.” George Crockett shrugged and took a swallow of his drink. “There are twelve stalls, three foaling boxes, eight loose boxes for riding horses, and six for the farm’s workhorses. There’s a four-bay coach house, though the dowager uses but the one coach, and that not often. As to the managing of Verwood, her grace is quite particular and takes it all on herself.”

Raven did some quick mental calculations. The cost of such an operation hardly made sense for a household of three women with little acreage to supply rents. “But it’s not a working stud?”

Crockett took another pull of his drink. “Was once, but the duchess doesn’t keep trainers. She hires ’em, but they never stay. The last one left three years ago when there was a promising young stallion. In those days there was a steady queue for services. Then it all stopped.”

“Do you know why?”

A guarded look came into Crockett’s face. “It’s not my place to say. Toffs, beggin’ yer pardon, sir, are a different sort from us plain folk.”

“Well, I can say,” said his wife appearing again and setting a fragrant slice of bread on her husband’s plate.

“Now, Mary,” Crockett began.

“Don’t now Mary me, husband. If Sir Adrian here is going to have aught to do with Verwood, he should know what’s what. There’s been no trainer there, since Lady Cassandra had her accident.”

Raven was sure that his face betrayed surprise. He had an instant recollection of Lady Cassandra’s muddied boots under a worn gown, and her slumping shoulders.

“Now Mary,” said her husband again. “Ye don’t know for a fact that Lady Cassandra’s accident made her grace close the stud.”

Mary Crockett, hands on hips, met her husband’s frown without blinking. “What I do know is that Lady Cassandra went to London and came back changed. She rode that horse of Her Grace’s that people say is unmanageable. Now Lady Cassandra doesn’t ride, doesn’t go about to assemblies and balls and the like. You’ve seen the poor girl’s limp. And Her Grace doesn’t race her horses or do foaling or training. Mind you, Her Grace will have to sell a horse or two if things don’t change.”

Raven watched the frown deepen on Crockett’s brow. “Her Grace is good to us, woman. It’s not our place to judge how she runs Verwood. Nor to be speculating on what happened to a young lady of quality in London.”

Raven rose. He had no desire to start a quarrel between husband and wife. “I beg your pardon, Crockett, Mrs. Crockett.” He had learned a good bit more than he’d expected, but the mystery of the lease opportunity had deepened. Apparently, there was more to the leasing plan than mere economy. “I didn’t mean to pry, only to understand the business end of things.”

“Well,” said the unrepentant Mrs. Crockett. “You’ll be doing Lady Cassandra a favor if you lease that house, take the burden of paying the bills right off those shoulders of hers.”

“Ma’am, I hope I may, and you may trust me not to spread idle talk about the ladies of Verwood.”

“Are you going out there today?” Mrs. Crockett asked.

Raven smiled to himself. It appeared that whatever he did in the neighborhood would soon be known to everyone in the village. “Directly,” he said.

“May I trouble you to take some honey to Lady Cassandra?”

“Now Mary,” began her frowning husband.

“I’m happy to take honey to her ladyship.” At least the honey would give him an opening for a conversation.

*

On the road to Verwood, Raven thought about the practical woman he meant to win over as an ally. Everything he’d heard from the Crocketts confirmed his plan of appeasing the duchess through her horses, but now there was this mystery about Lady Cassandra Lavenham. The footman who answered the door claimed to have no knowledge of her whereabouts.

“She walks a great deal, sir,” he told Raven with a shrug. “Shall I see to your horse, sir?”

“Her Grace won’t object?”

“Not to Apollo, sir, he’s a favorite, born and bred here.”

Raven smiled and handed the reins and a coin to the youth. His luck was holding. He stood on the steps and surveyed the long drive as he had done the day before, trying to imagine where Lady Cassandra might have gone. He had not passed her on his way from the village. Then he spotted her at an opening in the chestnut trees lining the drive. She emerged from a faint track that led into the woods, dressed plainly again, in a hooded cloak, and those boots. Since being knighted, he had become accustomed to females in glittering finery, floating or gliding effortlessly around the ballrooms and parks of London. It seemed improbable that Lady Cassandra, with her feet firmly on the ground, had ever been one of them as Mrs. Crockett had suggested.

Lady Cassandra saw him and halted, frozen for a moment, frowning. He came down the steps and strode her way. When she moved to meet him, he kept his gaze on her face. If she limped, he would see the limp soon enough. They met at the edge of the carriage drive.

“Good morning,” he said.

“You persist I see. May I remind you that Verwood is not for sale?”

“It is a lease I’m after, and I find persistence generally yields results. Did you walk far this morning?”

“Just to the dower house.”

He glanced down the track into the woods from which she had come. He suspected that her little jaunt to the dower house meant that she had been thinking practically, as he’d hoped she would. “Ah, how does it look?”

“Neglected.”

“Can you picture yourself living there?”

“That is not the right question.”

“No?”

“You mean can I picture my grandmother and my aunt living there?”

“My offer to help with the move still stands.”

“Sadly, such an offer is of no use with the house in its current state.”

He laughed. He recognized a negotiating tactic when he saw one. “We do want the same thing, you know,” he said.

“Do we? And what is that?” she asked.

“A signed lease for Verwood.” He offered her his arm. “Show me what needs to be done to this dower house of yours.”

She glanced at his arm, and gave a little shake of her head, clearly unwilling to accept his help. He didn’t know what to make of her refusal. Resistance or defiance? He doubted that she was as lofty as her grandmother, but he could not be sure. She turned and took the path into the woods, and he fell into step beside her.

When the house came into view around a curve in the gravel drive, she stopped and looked up at him, her expression amused, irked, and above all, intelligent. “Do you always get what you want?” she asked.

“I like to think I choose the objects of my pursuit carefully.” Her nose distracted him briefly. A smooth, straight, slightly upturned nose of the feminine sort, it had a flat, shallow dent along the ridge, as if broken at some time. Her accident must have been serious.

“An obscure estate in Hampshire is a careful choice?”

“You won’t deny that Verwood is a fine house.”

“But it’s not for sale.”

“A lease will do… for now.”

“You are provokingly confident. I spent months persuading my grandmama that leasing Verwood is absolutely necessary if she—”

“—does not wish to part with any of her horses,” he finished for her “And then one unguarded remark from your aunt Honoria set your grandmother off. What if, instead of draining Verwood’s coffers, the stables paid for themselves? They used to, did they not?”

Her expression changed. “How do you know that? Who told you?”

“I spoke with the Crocketts this morning.” Raven produced the honey jar from his pocket. “Mrs. Crockett sends you some of her honey.”

Her gaze dropped to the jar wrapped in linen and tied with blue bow. “Mary Crockett is a kind neighbor, but you must not credit everything she says.”

Plainly, Lady Cassandra was aware of her neighbors’ speculation about her. Raven thought her cheek flushed, but it might only be the coolness of the morning and the exercise. He waited for her to take the honey. The sun hung above the trees. The raucous bird song had died down a little. A hint of warmth was in the air. In London, in his grandfather’s grand Italianate villa, Raven rarely heard birds. Bells ringing the hour and carts and wagons of every sort made the swelling predawn sound of the city waking. Not that he had awakened at dawn recently. For months, he had been dancing late into the night, coming home at first light.

Just when his holding out the honey jar grew awkward, she took it.

“Thank you.” She began walking toward the dower house again, and this time he caught the hitch in her stride. She made no effort to conceal it, and it didn’t slow her down. Still, Raven thought, much walking must lead to pain. The house came into view, two stories of yellow stone with a steep slate roof and a blue door. It looked neglected, but sturdy and well-situated. They approached the door.

“Crockett told me that her grace won’t keep a trainer. Do you know why?”

She reached into a pocket. “Grandmama has definite opinions about the training of horses, no sweating, no stoving. Men are often surprised that… a woman has any knowledge of the field.”

“Yet, her horses no longer race in spite of her notable past success.”

Lady Cassandra stopped abruptly on the threshold. “You must have had quite a conversation with the Crocketts.”

“They are grateful to Her Grace, and who better than those who know her ways to help me understand her.”

“Crockett never suggested that you offer Grandmama a trainer.”

“He did not. It happens that I know an unusual one.”

“Remind me again why you are so keen to lease Verwood.”

“Doesn’t everyone who makes a fortune, want a house?” He spoke lightly.

She thrust her key in the lock, and pushed the door open. He followed her in, noting the cold, and the faint odors of damp and dust. A small entry led to a good-sized parlor, cold and empty of color, with a circle of shrouded furnishings in front of a substantial stone fireplace. The house had none of the grandeur of Verwood, and he guessed the move would be a blow to the ladies’ pride. Their debts must be pressing.

“A good blaze will help this room,” he said. He pulled the holland cover off a chair, and under the rustling of the cloth, she murmured something he didn’t quite catch. He uncovered another chair.

“Stop.” She sneezed, and he handed her his handkerchief. “You are getting ahead of yourself,” she said. “Even if this house can be made livable, to get your lease you have to find your way into Grandmama’s good graces first.”

“You don’t think offering her a trainer will help?”

“It might, but perhaps there’s something else about you that would…”

“Overcome the taint of trade in iron and glass? I assure you I have been welcome this winter in all the loftiest houses in Mayfair.”

“Have you?” Her dark brows went up. “Somehow I don’t think unbridled conceit will be a winning strategy with Grandmama.”

Raven choked. “Unbridled conceit?”

“Apparently, you have acquired boundless confidence along with your fortune. Is that how you earned your knighthood?”

“I earned…”

She sneezed again, and Raven took hold of her elbow and led her through the house and out a door in the kitchen into a small courtyard. She leaned against a low stone wall overlooking a field, and sneezed a few more times. He waited.

“Speaking of conceit…” he began. “I wager there’s plenty of conceit in a household that can’t afford coal or servants or new gowns for a lady, but that pretends to be above leasing a portion of the property to a respectable man of means.”

Her eyes flashed up at him. She was taller than Amabel, and fearless and frank in her bearing with no illusion of feminine frailty, and, he suspected, she was about to let him have it. Then another sneeze took her.

“Oh bother,” she said, recovering. “It’s no use getting angry. The truth is that leasing Verwood is the practical solution to our family’s dilemma. It is just that the littleness of a drawing room only twenty feet across is a strong a reminder of our circumstances.”

“Will her grace care so very much about the house if the stables prosper?”

“No,” she admitted with a laugh. “You’re right. She will hardly spend any time here. But first we have to reconcile Grandmama to you as a tenant.”

Raven liked that we . It meant she was going to be practical. But he didn’t understand the problem exactly. “My money’s not suitable for the ladies of Verwood?”

“Your money’s fine. It’s you. You aren’t what we…” She waved a hand over his person. Even without a valet Raven had dressed himself to exacting London standards, so he couldn’t think what caused her to object to him.

“What?”

“Expected.” She blew out a sigh. “The tenant we imagined was… old, quiet, settled… married, content to drive a gig about the lanes or shoot a few pheasants in season. You’ll be noticed.”

“You didn’t tell Trimley that you required any of these qualities in a tenant.”

“That’s because the sir misled me. I thought Sir Adrian Cole must be a merry old nabob returned from India, or a mill owner bringing his wife and daughters from some blighted northern town to live in the healthful south. How did you acquire a ‘sir’ at your age?”

“My age?” He no longer thought of himself as a youth. Dick Crockett was a youth.

“I was knighted for making fire engines.”

“Fire engines?”

The perplexed look on her face made him laugh. “When I joined my grandfather’s business, he asked me what I wanted to make. His fortune came from cannons for the army and the navy, but demand had slowed. I started with glass. Glass makes money, but it doesn’t excite my grandfather. Then I suggested we make better fire engines, engines that can pump more water, at a faster rate. He liked that idea.”

“And a better fire engine led to a knighthood?”

“Five engines. Ours were deployed against the fire in the Houses of Parliament last October.”

“You were there, fighting the fire?”

“Yes.” His reputation as a man who fought the palace blaze meant he’d been pointed out in ballrooms all winter. Whispers had followed him. Women had looked at him with a sort of awe, and some women, with a kind of hunger.

Lady Cassandra gave him a shrewd assessing glance. Plainly, his firefighting did not stir any particular admiration in her.

He laughed and pushed away from the wall. “Not impressed? What about showing gratitude for sending disagreeable Hugh on his way?”

“I am grateful. Whatever your motive for that act, it was a kindness to Dick Crockett.”

“ Motive? You suspect me of having a motive for helping a fellow who was getting the wrong end of an unfair fight?”

“You threw money at a problem and made it go away. That’s hardly heroic.”

“Does my money have to be heroic to rescue Verwood from insolvency?”

She took a deep breath. “As I said before, it’s not the money, it’s you we need to present as an unobjectionable tenant.”

He shook his head. “You would prefer a tenant in his dotage who fought at Trafalgar or Waterloo?”

She grinned at him and shrugged her shoulders. “Even a minor victory like Navarino would do. Mostly, it would help if you could manage to be forty or fifty and a bit more… staid.”

“That,” he said, “is beyond my power. I am staying at the Crown and can return directly if you think of any way of gaining Her Grace’s approval.”

“Oh, the Crown. Which horse did they give you?”

“Apollo.”

Her brows went up again. “Then you have made an impression. Apollo is the Crown’s best horse, and Grandmama likes him. You must come for tea.”

“Tea? Why isn’t your solicitor handling the lease for you?”

“Because women can manage their own affairs,” she snapped.

“Tea it is, then, if you agree to support me as an acceptable tenant for Verwood, for my service to the nation.” Raven stuck out his hand to seal the bargain. He would have Trimley seek out Verwood’s solicitor and find out the reason for leaving him out of the lease plans.

She cast him a brief puzzled glance, then her hand met his. The sensation of it brought him up short, her small delicate hand in his larger one. He had been thinking of her as this forthright, strong-willed person, managing business affairs women usually left to men. The soft hand threw him off for a moment.

She withdrew her hand, and he recovered. It was Amabel he should be thinking of, not this odd, prickly independent woman.

*

Cassie knocked on Honoria’s door, received no answer, and pushed the door open. Honoria sat hunched over her desk, wrapped in her favorite shawl, pen in hand, staring out the window.

“Honoria.” Cassie waited for her aunt to return from whatever fictional scene absorbed her.

“Oh, Cassie,” Honoria said at last. “Have you been standing there an age?”

“Only a minute. Can we talk?”

“Of course, dear.” Honoria put down her pen, covered her writing with a cloth, and turned her chair to face Cassie.

“He’s coming for tea.” Cassie moved about the room, picking her way among stacks of books on the floor, pages of The Times , and a basket of rolled-up maps. There was, as usual, no place to sit, a sign that her aunt was deep in a story. Cassie had left her boots with William and wore a pair of light slippers. Her foot ached. She had not taken Sir Adrian’s arm, but of course, he had noticed her lurching gait. To his credit he was not so tactless as to ask her about it. Her limp was such a familiar part of the way she moved about at home and in the village that she had forgotten the curiosity it could arouse in a stranger.

“Who is coming to tea?”

“Sir Adrian, and we have to convince Grandmama that he is a worthy tenant.”

Honoria twisted the ends of her shawl. “This is my fault, isn’t it? If I hadn’t mentioned his desire to buy Verwood, Lottie would not have taken offense.”

“Please don’t blame yourself, Aunt. He still wishes to lease Verwood, but we have to convince Grandmama to accept him as a tenant.”

“Is he really our last hope?”

“He is the only one who’s shown an interest in the property.”

“It’s odd, isn’t it? How do you account for his interest in Verwood? He doesn’t seem the sort to bury himself in the country. Didn’t you tell Lottie that our tenant would be a quiet, older gentleman?”

That had been Cassie’s mistake. She had assumed any man with a sir before his name must be old. Like Honoria, she couldn’t account for his interest in the hall. “I think we have to take advantage of that interest whatever the motive behind it. I agreed to support his bid for Verwood.”

“Is that wise? Lottie thinks he’s presumptuous.”

“He is rich and willing to make the dower house livable for us, and he’s ready to act now.” Once they were relocated, Cassie told herself, they would hardly see him.

“But what will you tell Lottie?”

“I’m working on that. He’s done two things that might change her mind about him.”

Honoria straightened in her chair. “Tell me.”

“At the Crown yesterday…”

Honoria looked confused.

“When I stopped to get a ride home, Hugh was in the yard, berating Dick Crockett for an accident, which was most likely Hugh’s fault as you know how recklessly Hugh drives. I couldn’t let Hugh bully Dick, but then Sir Adrian, though I didn’t know it was he, intervened and sent Hugh on his way.”

“Intervened how?” Honoria asked.

“He offered Hugh sixty guineas for the damage to his curricle.”

“Sixty guineas! Oh my! And Horrible Hugh took the money and left.”

“More or less.”

Honoria righted her tilting cap. “My dear, what are you not telling me?”

“It was the way that Sir Adrian handled Hugh with such assurance.” Cassie was understating the scene. Sir Adrian had simply dominated everyone’s attention, including hers. To have a man like that living at Verwood would change everything.

Honoria nodded. “He sounds like Lofty Lottie.”

Cassie stopped her wandering. Honoria was right. Sir Adrian had that force of character that marked her grandmother, and the same singlemindedness. It puzzled her that he was directing all that energy and purpose toward Verwood.

“And the second thing, dear?”

“He makes fire engines.”

“How thoroughly modern! Do you suppose his engines use steam?”

“I didn’t ask.” She was out of practice with meeting people outside her own small circle, being curious about them. He claimed to make better fire engines. He had been in the midst of the great fire at the Houses of Parliament. He was truly active in the world, trying to change it, drawing its notice and unafraid of that notice when it came. They could not be more opposite. Perhaps that was why it was so unsettling to be near him. Still, once she and her aunt and grandmother removed to the dower house, she would likely see little of him. Verwood would keep him quite busy.

A sharp rap on Honoria’s door interrupted Cassie’s thoughts. Honoria started and glanced at the cloth covering her desk.

The door opened and the duchess walked in, still in her riding habit. “So here’s where you two are hiding.”

“Not hiding, Grandmama.” Cassie gave her grandmother a quick kiss on the cheek.

“No? More likely plotting. Have you heard what that man has done?”

“You mean our new… tenant?” Honoria asked.

“Our tenant? He wishes he had such a privilege.”

“Has he given you some new offense, Grandmama?” Cassie asked.

“Offense? Not at all.” The duchess looked round the room for a place to sit. “Honoria, what is this clutter? I know you’re bookish, but this is taking the whole thing too far.”

Cassie stepped in and removed the books from the bench at the end of Honoria’s bed. The duchess sat, and pulled off her gloves.

“Grandmama, you were saying Sir Adrian did something?”

“It’s the talk of my stables. Yesterday he saved Dick Crockett from that wretched boy of Ramsbury’s.”

“Horrible Hugh,” said Honoria.

The duchess shot her a quelling look and turned to Cassie. “If he thinks, he can insinuate his way into my favor by—”

“Doing a kindness to Dick Crockett? He had no knowledge of Dick’s connection to Verwood.”

“But I don’t doubt he’ll take advantage of it. Sir Adrian was here this morning, was he not? On Apollo.”

Cassie drew herself up and met her grandmother’s sharp gaze. She suspected there was truth in her grandmother’s assessment of Sir Adrian, but that didn’t change the facts. “Yes, he was here. He remains interested in a lease. I’ve invited him for tea.”

“Tea? A man like that doesn’t want tea, little cakes and dabs of sandwich. He wants substantial fare.”

“We should have a picnic,” suggested Honoria.

“It doesn’t matter what we offer him,” said Cassie. “What matters, Grandmama, is whether you are willing to have him as a tenant.”

“What do we know about this fellow? Who are his people? For what did he earn a frippery knighthood? I suppose he thinks a trip to St. James and being knocked on the shoulder by the king makes him very grand.”

“Sir Adrian makes fire engines, and he brought a pair of engines to the fire at the Houses of Parliament.”

“Did he? So he is not purely decorative then, but useful. Still, for an ironmonger, he aims above himself. Are we to let a duke’s house be polluted by a common tradesman?”

Cassie took a deep breath. Her grandmother might rail about Sir Adrian’s origins, but Cassie suspected that her real objection to the man was to his force of personality. “A modest country estate, discarded by the present title holder, and very much in need of an infusion of cash can hardly be polluted by a man who can afford it.”

Honoria’s eyes went wide at Cassie’s boldness.

The duchess laughed. “Very well, Cassie. I will meet this fellow again, if only to make it clear to him what is permitted and what is not.”