The Arrangement (26 page)

Of course, I could always tell Raoul that I had changed my mind about us.

Hah!
I thought bitterly. I had as much chance of doing that as a peasant had of turning overnight into a prince. For as long as I was within the vicinity of that heart-wrenching smile of his, I would be like putty in his hands.

I shut my eyes and huddled down in my solitary bed.

Don’t think about it,
I told myself as the rain beat dismally against the windows.
Take the summer one day at a time, and when the day comes for your heart to break, worry about it then.

* * * *

The rain stopped before daybreak, and the sun came out strongly enough to dry the lawns and allow Mr. Wilson to take his charges outdoors to play shuttlecock and bowls. These were games that Nicky had played occasionally at neighborhood gatherings at home, but he had nothing that remotely resembled the proficiency of Charlie and Theo. I had accompanied the boys outdoors because I felt the need to be close to Nicky that morning, and I could see that his ineptness both frustrated and humiliated him. This, of course, made me feel terrible.

We met John at the side door as we all moved into the house for luncheon and he asked Mr. Wilson what his plans were for the boys that afternoon.

“We’re all going for a ride,” the tutor replied with a smile.

I gave him a grateful smile. Nicky was a very good rider and right now he needed to do something at which he excelled. I thought that Raoul had been right when he told me that Mr. Wilson was a very fine young man.

At lunch Roger asked me if I would care to go for a drive with him into Henley, the closest town of any size to the castle. “Savile village is closer, of course, but Henley is a coaching stop and there are several large inns in the town as well as some rather nice shops,” he told me with an inviting smile.

“There is even an ice cream parlor,” Ginny informed me. “Be sure you make Roger buy you an ice.”

Roger lifted his fair brows. “Really, Ginny,” he said. “Ices are for children.”

“I should like to drive into Henley with you,” I told Roger. “It sounds a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.”

Truth to tell, with Raoul gone, time was hanging a bit heavily on my hands. I simply was not accustomed to the role of a lady of leisure.

After luncheon, I met Roger in front of the house and his own phaeton was brought around from the stables. The carriage was an extremely high-perched affair, its body a shiny black with yellow stripes, and it was pulled by a pair of glossy black geldings that were as showy as the carriage. Roger took my hand to assist me up into the perilously high seat, then he joined me, lifted the reins, and with a flick of his whip put the flashy blacks into motion.

For the first ten minutes after we left Savile I was a nervous wreck, but, somewhat contrary to what I had expected.

Roger proved to be an excellent driver and I found myself able to relax. Some clouds had come in while we were at lunch, which alleviated the heat of the day and made the afternoon quite pleasant. Henley was on the Folkestone road, and as we drove along, Roger kept up an entertaining flow of chatter that made it easy for me to respond without effort. Fields of wheat and hops rolled away on either side of us and we passed several small villages with their gray stone church spires ascending gracefully toward the sky.

We reached the inn just outside of Henley, the Black Swan, an hour after we had left the castle. Roger pulled up in the bustling courtyard.

“Would you like to stop here for a glass of lemonade?” he asked me with a charming smile.

I would much have preferred to stop somewhere less busy than the active coaching inn and asked if there wasn’t somewhere else in town where we could find refreshments.

His charm melted into faintly concealed annoyance. “I need to make a brief stop here, Gail, and I thought perhaps you might feel more comfortable indoors in the parlor than out here in the stable yard.”

“I did not realize that you wished to stop,” I replied with dignity. “If that is the case, a glass of lemonade will be very welcome.”

I allowed him to lift me down from the heights of the phaeton and to escort me indoors.

Since it was after lunchtime and before dinner, the public parlor was empty, and Roger found me a seat at a wooden table, ordered me a lemonade, then disappeared toward the back of the inn.

To be truthful, I thought he was answering a call of nature and paid very little attention to his behavior.

I was sipping my lemonade and looking idly around the old, dark wooden building when a man stopped at my table and said in a distinctly upper-class voice, “Excuse me, but did I see you come in with Mr. Roger Melville?”

I looked up. The man who was looking back at me was remarkable because of his extraordinarily dark, sunburned skin. Only his accent, his tobacco-colored hair, and the paleness of his eyes gave away the fact that he was English. “Yes,” I said cautiously. “You did.”

The man gave me an enigmatic smile. “May I further inquire if you came from Savile Castle?”

I was beginning to feel very wary indeed. Who was this man and what did he want?”

“Yes,” I said again, “we came from the castle. And may I ask who you are?”

“My name is Wickham,” he said casually. Without being invited, he sat down across the table from me. “I was once a friend of George Devane’s, but I’ve been in India for the last eight years.”

Needless to say, this was not a recommendation to me. “Oh?” I said coldly. “Well, I am not acquainted with you, Mr. Wickham, and I have nothing to say to you. Good day, sir.”

“I know who you are,” he said surprisingly. “You are Mrs. Saunders.”

His pale blue eyes regarded me as if I were a very interesting specimen he was about to dissect. I did not like the man at all. I particularly did not like the way he was looking at me, as if he knew something I did not know.

I said, “Mr. Wickham, I don’t wish to be rude, but I wish you will go away. I am not interested in your relationship with Lord Devane. In fact, I am not interested in Lord Devane, period. I am simply waiting here for the return of my escort, and once he arrives we shall be leaving.” I bestowed upon him a dismissive stare. “Goodbye,” I said.

He bared his teeth at me in what I imagined he thought was a smile. “You don’t mince words, do you, Mrs. Saunders?”

“No,” I said baldly, “I do not.”

He stood up. “I’m putting up here at the Black Swan for a while. Perhaps I will have the pleasure of meeting you again.”

“I doubt it,” I replied. “Good day, Mr. Wickham.”

He sketched me a mocking half-bow and moved away toward the door of the parlor. I watched him go and wondered who he could possibly be and why he had accosted me in such a manner.

Could Roger have insisted that we stop here so that this man could approach me? But why?

I was still puzzling over this problem when Roger came back into the room. “Are you ready to leave, Gail?” he asked as he stopped at my table.

“Yes,” I replied. As I stood up I said, “The oddest thing happened while you were gone, Roger. I was approached by a man named Wickham. He knew my name and insisted on sitting down and telling me all about his friendship with George.”

Roger’s fair brows drew together. “Did he bother you, Gail? I’m sorry. I had no idea anyone would have the nerve to approach you in here.”

“You don’t know anyone called Wickham?” I asked.

“No.”

“That’s odd,” I said. “He knew you.”

Roger gave me a sharp look. “What did he look like?”

“He was very dark. He was just back from India, he told me. His eyes were light blue and looked quite extraordinary in his sunburned face.”

No sign of recognition appeared on Roger’s face. He shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

The landlord, a tall, rather elegant-looking man, appeared at our table. “That will be two shillings, Mr. Melville,” he said to Roger.

“Oh, just put it on his lordship’s account, Murchison,” Roger said carelessly.

“I am sorry, Mr. Melville, but his lordship told me himself that I was not to charge any more of your bills to his account, that you were to pay for them yourself.” The landlord’s voice was apologetic but firm.

Roger went white to his lips. “Good God, Murchison! It’s not as if two bloody shillings are going to bankrupt Savile.” Roger took the coins out of his pocket and threw them on the table so hard that they bounced and would have rolled off it had the other man not put out his hand to stop them. Then Roger stalked out of the parlor.

I was left behind, looking at the landlord. The tall man gave me an apologetic look. “I am very sorry, ma’am, but I did not feel I could disobey his lordship’s orders.”

“I perfectly understand,” I said. “I am just wondering, Mr. Murchison, by any chance did his lordship give you this instruction two nights ago?”

The innkeeper thought for a moment, then apparently decided that there could be no harm in replying to my question. “Why yes, he did.”

I remembered that two nights ago Raoul had left the dinner table to go in search of Roger. Apparently he had found him there at the Black Swan, and I would have wagered anything that Roger had been gambling. I wondered if the mysterious Mr. Wickham had been Roger’s gambling partner.

I went along out into the stable yard where Roger and his phaeton were waiting for me. I allowed a groom to help me up to the high seat and we pulled out of the stable yard rather faster than was safe.

“Slow down, please,” I said sharply. “You are too close to town to be going this fast.”

He ignored me.

“Roger, I said
slow down.”

Very slightly he raised his hands and the blacks speeded up. The phaeton’s seat rocked unsteadily. I reached out, grabbed the reins from his hands, and stopped the horses.

He had not expected me to do that, and he swung around to look at me, his blue eyes murderous.

“If you wish to kill yourself, then go and jump in the lake and drown,” I said pitilessly. “Don’t take innocent people with you.”

“I do not want to kill myself,” he said furiously.

“Then slow down this phaeton.”

We stared at each other, and the anger that emanated from him was so palpable that he frightened me. “Didn’t you know that Raoul had cut off your credit?” I asked him finally.

He stretched out his hands for the reins. I put them into his fingers and he began to drive forward again, this time more slowly. “He told me he was going to do it, but when Murchison would not allow me to charge two shillings! Well, I rather lost my temper.”

This, I knew, was the only apology I was likely to get from him.

“I am sure that Raoul did not mean for you to be embarrassed like that,” I said soothingly, although privately I thought that Roger could certainly have plunked down two shillings for my lemonade without trying to make Raoul pay for it.

“It is exactly the sort of thing that he would want,” Roger contradicted me bitterly. “He wants me to grovel, to be humiliated, and all because the luck has run against me of late. The luck never runs against Raoul! He doesn’t know what it means to scramble for money like the rest of us do. He’s had complete control of Savile and all its resources since he was twenty-one years old, for God’s sake.”

“Does Raoul gamble too?” I asked with some surprise.

“Oh, no more than is expected. He doesn’t have to gamble—he already has everything.”

It seemed to me that Roger’s argument was definitely specious, but I thought this was probably not the wisest time to point that out to him.

“That damn woman,” Roger said viciously. “This is all her fault. I had the title, I had the property, I could have kept my head afloat perfectly well. And then she turned out to be increasing.”

“There is a good chance that you will still be Lord Devane, Roger,” I said. “After all, Harriet has certainly shown a propensity to produce girls.”

“That is true.” The tense expression on his good-looking face relaxed slightly. “Once I have access to the rent roll of Devane Hall, my financial pressures will be alleviated.” He shot me a very blue-eyed look. “Although any extra cash I can put my hands upon immediately will certainly be appreciated.”

I thought I knew what he was talking about. “If you can convince Raoul to relinquish Nicky’s money to you, then I will agree to it,” I told him. “Frankly, however, I think your chances of getting Raoul to agree are slender.”

“Well,” he said lightly, “it’s worth a try.”

I gave him a pleasant smile. “Certainly it is. I wish you luck.”

The rest of our trip was uneventful, but as we drove home through the cornfields my mind was filled with questions. Roger was evidently in dire need of money. Had he brought me out with him to see if he could get me to agree to his trying to get Nicky’s money out of Raoul? And what, if any, was Roger’s relationship with Mr. Wickham?

* * * *

We returned home to catastrophe. John met me at the door with news that Nicky’s pony had gone berserk in the woods, throwing Nicky into a tree.

My hands flew to my mouth. “Oh my God,” I said through their white-knuckled pressure. “Is he all right, John?” Then, as John hesitated:
“Is he all right?”

“He’s still unconscious,” John said. “The doctor is with him now, Gail.”

“Unconscious.” I began to run toward the stairs. “I must see him.”

“He’s not in his room,” John called after me. “We didn’t want to haul him up three flights of stairs, so we put him at the end of the hall here, in the countess’s bedroom. Come, I’ll take you.”

We turned to the right from the Great Hall and went into the withdrawing room, which was the room that separated the public from the private rooms on that side of the house. I had rarely been in this section of the house before, and at the time I was in no condition to notice anything, but later I would discover that the withdrawing room was followed by Raoul’s businesslike office, after which came a pretty morning room, and then, at the corner of the house, the countess’s dressing room, then finally the countess’s bedroom, which was where they had put Nicky.

I noticed nothing about the massive and ancient room as I rushed in the door. All I saw was the small figure lying in the huge, silk-hung bed. An elderly gray-haired man wearing a brown riding coat and brown boots was standing next to the bed talking to Raoul. Ginny stood next to the bed, watching Nicky.