Highest Stakes (58 page)

  "Two hundred? 'Tis more than generous," she answered, hiding her surprise.

  He paused, regarding her narrowly. "Might I inquire why you chose Cheveley?"

  Her reply was candid. "'Tis by design, as you no doubt suspect, but your question leads to my final request."

  "Another? My bounty is not without limits, Sukey," he warned.

  "I doubt this last should cause you any undue distress. I merely ask if you yet retain ownership of a mare once belonging to Charlotte. I understood her to be stabled at Cheveley Park."

  "If I did, how should that signify?"

  "I believe the mare would greatly divert the girl. Would it pain you to give the horse back to her?"

  He considered the request. "The mare is bred. I will honor the request with one provision; the coming foal is mine."

With Charlotte pleasantly ensconced at Cheveley, her melancholia slowly diminished. The cottage, though small, was indeed perfect, and although it was a bittersweet reminder of her past, she was delighted with her reunion with Letty and Amoret.

  Charlotte began riding again, taking her mare out each day to explore her new surrounds. They rode along the chalk downs and clay-capped hills that ran southeast from Newmarket and comprised Cheveley. She and Amoret, who miraculously had not slipped her foal in their earlier adventure, made their leisurely way along the Newmarket-Ashley Road to the bridge at Broomstick corner and followed the thorn-set ditch that divided the grazing pastures of the heath from the rabbit warrens on the flat summit, aptly named Warren Hill.

  At Long Hill, she discovered the hawk ladder and the King's chair used by Charles II, but it was the vista at the site of the Cheveley Castle ruin that inspired Charlotte. Gazing over the sweeping heath and the chalk valley below, her plan was born. After nearly three months in her bucolic idyll, Charlotte was finally resolved to take Lady Susannah's advice and live her life again, and inasmuch as she was able, she would live it on her terms.

  Although Robert had been cruelly taken from her, their dreams still lived in her heart, and what better way to honor his memory than to make their dreams a reality. Having already mentally mapped out the landscape, Charlotte began to make inquiries of the available grazing land, lush green pastures that would nurture the foals she would raise.

  Charlotte had little money at her disposal, only the quarterly allowance of one hundred pounds that Sukey had negotiated for her, but it was more than enough. What need had she of carriages and ball gowns, when she chose to bury herself in a village populated by farmers?

  As her scheme took place, Charlotte leased a modest parcel, comprising ten hectares, in the chalk valley less than a mile south of Newmarket. The proximity of her pasture provided her easy access to the Newmarket Heath and Gallops laid out to train and exercise the Newmarket racehorses. As part of her daily routine, Charlotte would ride along Warren Hill, Long Hill, and Side Hill in unobtrusive observation of the prospective racers that would one day be her adversaries on the turf.

  As spring transitioned to summer and Amoret neared the end of her eleven-month gestation, Charlotte contracted laborers to build several large paddocks and shelters that would comfortably house Amoret and the future broodmare band. With Amoret settled for her confinement and only a month to go, Charlotte realized the need for a stud groom. She needed someone knowledgeable about breeding and foaling practices, should anything go wrong. But who? Hopeful of the answer, she dispatched a note and waited.

  Charlotte continued in newfound tranquility until receiving an unexpected letter from Beatrix. Her cousin had written woefully, pleading for Charlotte to come to Hastings Park and stand as godmother to the unborn child, and had lamented that she awaited the birth in loneliness and isolated confinement.

  Charlotte's first impulse was to ignore the letter, but her conscience nagged. Somehow, she felt sorry for her cousin. Had not Beatrix also been a pawn in Sir Garfield's game? Moreover, the infant would be kin. She would be the babe's second cousin through Beatrix, and an aunt through her marriage to Philip. Common civility dictated she at least attend the christening.

  Never having previously given thought to the matter, Charlotte also realized she was daughter-in-law to the Earl of Hastings, a man she had never even met. Daughter-in-law to an earl. She pondered the notion, and squaring her shoulders, decided to make the journey to East Sussex.

  Was she not now her own woman? She was free to leave at any time she chose. She had learned much from Lady Susannah's example.

  Charlotte and Letty packed lightly, travelling by stage, and arrived without incident at Hastings Park. Charlotte shuddered at first sight of the estate, experiencing another pang of sympathy for Beatrix in this desolate place.

  Greeted by her aunt, Charlotte and Letty followed her through the empty, cavernous halls to their assigned chambers. Letty unpacked while Charlotte accompanied Lady Felicia to her cousin's rooms, where she found Beatrix reclining in bed and looking pitiful.

  Still clad in her dressing gown, her hair tumbling about her pale face in tangled disarray, Beatrix greeted her cousin with a wan smile. "Charlotte! Truly, I did not believe you would come."

  Concerned by her appearance, Charlotte inquired, "Beatrix, have you taken ill? Is all right with the babe?"

  Heaving a greatly exaggerated sigh, she answered, "'Tis just this intolerable confinement. You have no idea how breeding drains one of life. 'Tis all I can do to dress some days. If it were not for Mama, I don't know how I should go on."

  "My poor Trixie," Lady Felicia said, clucking, "'twill all be over soon, dearest. The midwife predicts the pains will commence with the next full moon."

  "I should like nothing more than to be done with it, Mama. I have been miserable, exiled to this wretched place! I don't fathom why I could not have remained in London, but Edmund insisted I come here."

  "Dearest, you know tradition dictates the heir be born at the ancestral home. All the Earls of Hastings have been born here. Your babe is to be the future earl, after all, and as Viscountess Uxeter, you must abide by all the queer customs of the nobility."

  "But how much longer must I remain here?" Beatrix whined.

  "I daresay 'tis for your husband to decide. The health and safety of his heir takes precedence over your wishes to reside in London, my dear," her mother answered.

  "But couldn't I go to Wortley, Mama? Anywhere but this wretched pile of stone!"

  "You are just homesick, Trixie. 'Tis only natural when a girl weds and leaves her home. I daresay Charlotte feels the same. Do you not?" She directed the question to her niece.

  "I confess I have been very happily ensconced these past months in Cheveley, Aunt."

  "Cheveley, Charlotte? Where on earth is Cheveley?" her aunt asked.

  "In East Cambridgeshire, near Newmarket."

  "Newmarket, indeed! 'Tis a gentleman's playground and no fit place for a lady."

  "Only during the racing season, Aunt. 'Tis quiet enough the rest of the time."

  "Horse racing? I am confounded your husband tolerates this infernal obsession with horses! As a married woman, you should conduct yourself with more decorum," Lady Felicia chided.

  "I am the wife of an officer, letting a cottage from the Duke and Duchess of Somerset. Who should question the respectability of such an arrangement?"

  "Indeed, but I pity you, Charlotte, quite abandoned by your husband and having to make do with so little. Why has Philip not sold his commission and settled you both in a decent house?"

  A stab of jealousy caused Beatrix to add, "Poor dear, married to a man who prefers the army to his wife's bed."

  "The army is far safer for Philip Drake than my bed, Beatrix," Charlotte snapped. Her remark generated a gasp of horror from the other women.

  Her aunt added, "You are duty bound to bed with your husband. If you refuse him, he has every right to put you aside. You provide grounds for annulment!"

  "One might only hope, Aunt."

  "I cannot countenance such a speech from your lips, Charlotte!" her aunt said in reproach.

  Charlotte was moved by her resentment to answer, "I was forced into a union with a vile scoundrel. Did you think I might come to delight in my circumstance? Think again! Philip Drake should live a far healthier life remaining abroad."

T he
Campaign of 1744 began with Louis XV's proud review of his eighty thousand troops at Lisle. By contrast, Field Marshal Wade found his own allied army diminished when the Dutch and Austrians failed again to muster their promised quota. His command, as Lord Stair's before him, was further weakened by the petty jealousies and antagonisms of the Austrian and Dutch generals. As the allied army lay impotent with conflicting counsels and perpetual bickering, the French divided and conquered.

  When word of the campaign reached the House of Commons, Mr. Pitt's voice cried in outrage: "Once more we are made to look ridiculous before the world!" He narrated in a mocking voice: "On July the thirtieth, our forces encamped on the road to Ghent within a few miles of the enemy. On the thirty-first, a Scots captain was taken prisoner.

  "On August the first, they looked for a field of battle, but no enemy was nigh; on the second, they were put in fear, but danger proved at a distance. The third of August, they slept soundly. On the fourth, the army assembled for review, and on the fifth the Hanoverians foraged, reporting a shot fired at them! But on the sixth, the British forces foraged with no report of fire.

  
"And on the seventh day they rested."

The chamber echoed with stifled guffaws.

  Lord Uxeter leaned over to George Lyttelton. "So proceeds our
third
brilliant campaign. We advance and they retreat, just as two months ago, we retreated and they advanced. Is it any wonder we are ridiculed and our general mocked in farces on the French stage?"

  Mr. Pitt's manner grew more inflamed. "Even with the aid of Divine Providence in striking the King of France with fever, our generals proved singularly impotent! I am moved to ask, gentlemen, if this House must petition the Lord Almighty to place his archangel Michael in command, that we might actually be moved to fight!"