James opened his mouth. Closed it, then said modestly, “Only distantly.”
“Ah.”
Jane explained, “Mr. Drake owns a hotel in Southampton.”
“The Drake Arms?” Sir Timothy said. “I have dined there myself. An excellent establishment. You are to be congratulated.”
“You are very kind. But all the credit goes to my chef, I assure you.”
Sir Timothy turned to her. “Jane, I have only come to ask if we might prevail upon you to join us for dinner tomorrow. Justina was saying only this morning that you haven’t been to the manor in ages.”
“That is thoughtful of her. Do greet her for me. But I’m afraid I shall find it difficult to get away.”
“Of course. We only thought now that . . . Well. Never mind. You let Justina know when you have an hour or two free. I know she would like to see you. And now, I shall trespass upon your time no longer. Good day to you both.” He bowed briefly, turned, and strode from the room.
Jane stared after him until his boot falls no longer reverberated the floorboards and the door had shut behind him.
She felt Mr. Drake’s gaze upon her. He said quietly, “You’ve disappointed him, I think.”
No, Jane thought. He disappointed me. . . .
Chapter
Eleven
Jane saved another dish of kipper the next day, and this time set it just inside the lodge door. Sure enough, the grey-and-black-striped cat came running from the stables and leapt atop the step.
Jane stood quietly in the open doorway. The cat sniffed and, lured by the promising smell, slowly crept over the threshold. As he began nibbling, then wolfing down the treat, Jane bent and traced a finger along his back. The cat growled low in its throat, but when she did not try to take away the food, the growling stopped, and Jane took pleasure in stroking his soft fur.
The cat allowed her to rub his head, then darted back out the door. Perhaps next time he would stay longer.
She straightened and watched as he loped away.
“Tell me you’re not feeding the stable cats.”
Startled, Jane looked up to find the farrier, Mr. Locke, frowning at her from the drive, fists on hips.
Caught. Red-handed.
“Only this one. Why?” she said, feeling defensive. What was wrong with giving a cat a little fish?
“They are supposed to be mousers. Not pets.”
“Why can’t he be both?”
“He will become too fat and content to chase mice.”
“Has the stable been overrun?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.” She was about to close her door but noticed he remained where he was. “Was there something else?”
“Haven’t heard you playing your pianoforte lately. We miss it, the postboys, ostlers, and I.”
She looked at him sharply. “You can hear me play from the stables?”
“Not during busy times, but during the afternoon lull or when the yard quiets down after dinner.”
Embarrassment pricked Jane. “I wish I’d known. I would not have played during quiet times.”
“Why? It’s a pleasure to hear you. Don’t stop because I erred in mentioning it. Tuffy and Tall Ted would never forgive me.”
“Tuffy and Tall Ted?” she asked. “Are those horses?”
“No! Ostlers.” He chuckled, a rare grin brightening his face, already shadowed with whiskers.
“Oh.”
“An understandable misapprehension,” he assured her. “I won’t mention it.”
“Thank you. I will play again . . . but I have been busy lately.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
Did his tone convey surprise, or disapproval, or what? His expression was difficult to decipher as well.
“By the way,” he added. “I saw Patrick go into the inn with Mr. Gordon a short while ago. He’s the local property agent, I believe. Some important meeting, perhaps?”
“Oh.” Jane did not want to admit that she was unaware of—or being left out of—any such meeting. “Yes, thank you,” she murmured. “Excuse me.”
She crossed the courtyard to the inn. Inside, she pushed open the office door, interrupting Patrick and the agent in earnest conversation. “Hello. What is going on?”
Patrick smiled. “Hello, Jane. Mr. Gordon was just telling me about a potential buyer interested in The Bell. Since you were not here, he gave the details to me.”
“I was only in the lodge. You might have sent for me.”
“I did not wish to bother you.”
“If it relates to The Bell I think I ought to be involved.” Jane turned to the agent. “I am sorry, Mr. Gordon, but I am afraid I must ask you to repeat yourself.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Bell. Happy to do it.”
“Just one moment, if you please. I would like Thora to hear this as well.” Jane excused herself, and found Thora in the coffee room, where she sat with Charlie Frazer over a pot of tea.
“Forgive the intrusion, Thora, Mr. Frazer. Thora, might I ask you to join us in the office, please?”
Thora rose immediately. “Of course. Excuse me, Charlie.”
When they returned to the office, Patrick gave Thora his chair and dragged in another for Jane.
Then Mr. Gordon began, “As Patrick said, I’ve received an offer on the inn from a potential buyer. Knowing of the bank’s interest in the place, I considered taking the offer to Blomfield, but I thought I would see if you were interested first.”
Thora sent Patrick an irritated glance. “Does everyone know the bank is threatening to sell the inn out from under us?”
“Not everyone,” Mr. Gordon replied before Patrick could. “But as I have conducted such sales for the bank in the past, I was of course informed.”
“Well, the bank doesn’t own The Bell yet,” Thora snapped.
Jane added more gently, “So we appreciate your coming here first, Mr. Gordon.”
He nodded. “I would be happy to deal with you directly, Mrs. Bell, for my usual fee. But I can only give you two days to decide.”
“Two days? What is the hurry?”
Patrick smirked. “Maybe Gordon here is worried his buyer might take a closer look at this old place and change his mind.”
“No,” the agent said. “But the buyer is considering other properties as well.”
“What price was offered?” Jane asked.
He named it.
Thora scowled. “That is far too low.”
Patrick tilted his head. “Gordon, since you’re here, I wonder if you might tell us the asking price on Fairmont House—just out of curiosity, of course.”
Fairmont House was not entailed, and after Jane married, her father had surprised everyone by selling it to a retired admiral. But the old mariner had died soon after, and his heir had no interest in some remote country estate, so he’d put it up for sale. But no one bought it.
Mr. Gordon named a figure.
Jane shook her head. “That is less than Father originally sold it for, but still well beyond my means.” Even if she could buy it, Jane knew she could never afford the maintenance on the place.
Mr. Gordon rose. “Well, I will await your answer.”
After the agent took his leave, Jane turned to Patrick in puzzlement.
“Why did you ask about Fairmont House? The only way I could buy it is if I sold the inn to someone else at a very good price. Is that what you want?”
“I was thinking of you, Jane. I know you will never be happy here at The Bell. Do you deny it?”
Jane felt Thora’s scrutiny, and barely resisted the urge to squirm. “I . . . don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” Patrick insisted. “And I’d like to see you happily settled in Fairmont or somewhere like it. And who knows, if you sell the inn, the new owner might want a competent manager and keep me on.”
It was possible, Jane realized. Thora, however, looked less than convinced.
Thora watched Patrick’s expression. What was he up to? W
as he really trying to help Jane? Thora hated the nagging suspicion that trickled through her as she looked at her son. Was she setting him up for failure by always expecting the worst from him—or were her concerns justified?
Patrick had given her reasons not to trust him in the past.
The sneaking, the lying, the manipulation . . . had it ended, or only just begun? Her heart ached for her son. He was so much like his father that it was tempting to lay the blame at Frank’s door, but she knew she had not been a perfect mother by any means. She had married so young and had little idea how to raise hardworking, responsible children. Yet John had turned out all right for the most part, had he not?
Thora shifted on her seat. She wanted to give Patrick a fair chance. She wanted to believe that he had changed. But the old suspicion kept gnawing away at her.
Why had he been meeting with Mr. Gordon alone? And what were he and Arthur Blomfield cooking up together?
Oh, God, please don’t let him be involved in anything illegal or immoral. . . . Merciful Father, please protect him, keep him on the right path. And give me wisdom, Almighty God, for I have never known what to do where Patrick is concerned, and all the more now.
Chapter
Twelve
A week had passed since the banker revealed the overdue loan, and Jane had not yet decided what to do about it. Wanting a change of scenery to clear her thoughts—and secretly longing to see Fairmont House again—Jane went out to the stables the next day, steeling herself to speak to Mr. Locke. Inside, she found their farrier shoeing an old nag.
“May I borrow a horse?” Jane asked him.
“Of course,” Mr. Locke said. “They’re your horses, after all.”
“Perhaps, but I would not want to leave the ostlers short for changes. Any decent riding mounts among the coach horses?”
“There’s always old Ruby here,” he said, a slight quirk to his mouth. “Slow and stubborn, but safe.”
“If she is the only one available, then she will do.”
He looked up and studied her, eyes glinting speculatively. “Are you an experienced horsewoman, Mrs. Bell?”
“I . . . was. Though I have not ridden much in years. And not at all this last year.”
He looked again toward the nag.
Jane quickly added, “I had my own horse growing up, a spirited Thoroughbred called Hermione. I all but lived on her back when I wasn’t forced to remain in the schoolroom.”
One dark brow rose. “A Thoroughbred?”
She nodded. “A descendant of Trumpator.”
He pursed his lips, either impressed or doubtful. “You don’t say.”
“I do. In fact, Papa made good use of that information when he sold her the week after my wedding.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “She no doubt fetched him a good price. I suppose he thought I would be too busy being a wife and mother to ride. But I missed her. I wished I’d asked him who bought her, but I did not.”
He narrowed his eyes in thought. “That being the case, perhaps you would do me a favor.”
“What favor?” she asked warily.
“We are boarding a horse for a gentleman who is away from home at present. You might exercise him for me.”
“Which gentleman? Would I know him?” Jane asked, thinking of James Drake, but then recalled that he’d arrived by coach.
“Not likely,” Mr. Locke said. “He’s from Pewsey Vale.”
“Will the horse take a sidesaddle?” Jane asked.
“It is not his preference, but he is very well-trained.”
“Well then, let’s have a look at him.”
Locke led the way deeper into the stable building and stopped at one of its many stalls. Inside stood a tall chestnut with a white blaze on his forehead. The horse regarded her with intelligent dark eyes.
“This is Sultan.”
“He’s a beauty,” Jane breathed, feeling excitement and a thread of trepidation. She hoped she could handle him.
Half an hour later, dressed in her old riding habit—thankfully in a muted Devonshire brown—Jane returned to the stables. The horse jigged a bit when Mr. Locke helped her mount onto the sidesaddle, but after a few turns around the paddock, he settled into his stride.
“He’s wonderful!” she called.
In reply, Mr. Locke opened the gate. “Don’t go far. Not on your own.”
“I won’t. Only to Wishford and back.”
Jane rode off on the spirited Sultan, down the hill and along the Wishford Road. Her nerves subsided and pleasure overtook her. Ah, the exhilarating freedom of riding horseback. How she had missed it. She looked around her as she rode, relishing the beauty of a Wiltshire spring day—green hedges, honeysuckle bushes blooming pink and white, and fields dotted with yellow buttercups.
After five or ten minutes, she signaled the horse across the new roadway. As she passed through the familiar gate to Fairmont House, she heard the telltale call of a cuckoo bird.
Jane halted Sultan on the half-circle drive and gazed up at the house where she had been born and lived the first two decades of her life. How strange to see its low wall and gate so near to the new turnpike, instead of the country lane that had formerly marked its approach. Weeds grew up among the pea gravel of the drive, and the lawn sprouted tall grass headed with seeds. The hedges had outgrown their shape and symmetry for lack of trimming. The house itself looked better, but one of the front windows had a long crack and another a pockmark spidering from its center. Had some vandal thrown a stone? Anger filled her, and Jane reminded herself yet again that her family no longer owned the house and hadn’t for years. It should not bother her if it lay abandoned and decaying or abused.
But it did.
Everywhere she looked, she saw memories captured in amber resin. There the lawn where she and her friends had played battledore and shuttlecock. There the flower garden her mother had loved. And up there, beyond the second level of windows, the room that had been hers—that had held her dolls and books and dreams.
Jane rode around to the rear of the house, lifting a swaying pine bough and ducking her head to pass beneath. The sharp sweet smell of pine brought back the memory of her and Rachel climbing these trees as girls, sitting in their upper branches, and talking about their dreams for the future—whom they would marry and how many children they would have. Jane had always wanted a large family, but dreams did not always come true.
She looked toward the stables, where she had spent so many hours grooming Hermione. And then at the pond behind the house, where Timothy had tried to teach her to fish. And the path through the woods, where they had so often ridden together.
How long ago it all seemed. But in the next breath, it seemed like only a few weeks had passed, for how clearly she could remember his good-natured teasing about his riding superiority, and challenges to race. The exhilaration of cantering across the countryside on her beloved horse, her friend at her side. She had thought then, with the naïveté of youth, that life would always be so happy and carefree. That she and Timothy would be close forever. And that she could predict how the future would unfold. How wrong she had been. She would never have foreseen her current situation. Not in a hundred years. Perhaps she should not have so hastily declined his recent invitation.
“Woolgathering?” a voice said, interrupting her reverie.
She whipped her head around, surprised to see the very man of her thoughts sitting at his ease atop his own horse. He wore a crooked grin, his hat pulled low. His hands, encased in fine leather gloves, held the reins with casual competence. In his fashionable riding coat and polished Hessians, he was the picture of a well-turned-out country squire.
“Reminiscing,” she admitted.
He looked up at the dim windows. “It’s sad to see it empty, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Well then. You must be glad about the news of an interested buyer at last.”
She sucked in a breath. “For Fairmont House? I did not k
now.”
He lifted a cautioning hand. “It is just something I heard in passing. I could be wrong.”
Mixed emotions flooded Jane. She should be glad, but she was not quite ready to relinquish the impractical dream of somehow buying the place back one day.
Sir Timothy gestured toward the wooded path. “Shall we ride together? For old time’s sake?”
Jane shook off her illogical disappointment and looked at him. She knew she probably shouldn’t but didn’t want to refuse another invitation from her old friend. She smiled. “Why not?”
When she returned to the stables, Mr. Locke was waiting for her.
“You were gone a long time. I was starting to worry.”
“I am sorry. I happened into an old friend.”
“Did the horse give you any trouble?”
“None at all. He’s marvelous. My compliments to his owner.”
Locke grinned. “I shall pass them along.”
He reached up and put his hands on her waist to help her dismount. Caught unaware, she grasped his shoulders—his broad, muscular shoulders. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she snatched back her hands.
His grin faded and he was all seriousness again. “Mrs. Bell, I hope you don’t mind. But I have heard about the situation you find yourself in with the bank.”
She huffed in exasperation. “Does everyone know?”
“I believe most of us do, yes. But I feel the need to caution you.”
“You need to caution me?” she asked snappishly. “What do you know about it?”
“Please, do not be offended. I have no intention of meddling, but I feel it my duty to make you aware of something.”
“What are you talking about?”
He hesitated. “I understand that you are considering allowing John’s brother to assume the debt in exchange for the inn.”
She lifted her chin. “That is one possibility. Why?”
“I wonder if you have asked Patrick what he plans to do with the place?”
“What do you mean? The Bell is a coaching inn, as you know very well.”
“Yes, it has been these many years. But I understand that he has something very different in mind for the property should he become its owner.”