“Wretched beast. I might as well clean you off with my brown gown, for all the good it’s going to do me now.”
Ruth came out. “Is she all right?”
“Safe but filthy.”
“The small washtub,” Ruth said. She left and returned to fill it with water from the pump. “I’ll get some soap and rags.”
Kitty put Sillikin in the water and kept her there. “Yes, I know you don’t like it, but perhaps this will teach you a lesson, milady. You know better than to run off like that.”
Suddenly contrite as well as miserable, the dog licked her hand and whined.
“Very well, but you’ve ruined everything. We’ll end up back in Cateril Manor, trapped under a dismal cloud forever.”
Unheard, Ruth had returned. “Is it as bad as that?”
Oh, Lord.Kitty took the pot of coarse soap and began to wash Sillikin in the cold water. “Marcus’s mother hasn’t regained her spirits, so she doesn’t want to think I have.”
“That must be difficult.”
“It is.”
“What will she say when you remarry?”
“I don’t know,” Kitty said.
And now we’ll never know.
Ruth went back into the house, and Kitty continued to clean the dog. She should have told Ruth the marriage would never happen, but she hated to shatter hope as much as she hated the prospect of returning to Cateril Manor.
Chapter 5
Viscount Dauntry, who’d been known most of his life simply as Braydon, trotted Ivor down the lane, trying not to let his annoyance travel to the unsettled horse. It would be pleasant to think the woman with the dog had been some servant, but her gown, though dismal, had been well made and her voice well-bred.
She had to have been the Honorable Mrs. Cateril, his prospective bride. He was astonished that Ruth Lulworth had been so duplicitous. That woman could never be a calming influence at Beauchamp Abbey or anywhere else. On top of riotous behavior, there had been riotous red hair escaping from her cap. He distrusted red hair.
He let Ivor canter to work out the fidgets, but that brought him back to Beauchamp Abbey all the sooner. He slowed to a walk as soon as it came into view. Was he the only new peer in Britain to so bitterly curse his fate?
Only weeks ago he’d been a happy man. He’d been plain Mr. Braydon, with ample funds, minimal responsibilities, and a comfortable suite of rooms in the most fashionable part of London. Now he was stuck here.
True, he’d become restless with an idle life, but he’d recently found occupation that suited him. A chance encounter with an army acquaintance had led him to an unofficial department of the Home Office that worked to prevent riot and revolution. It was headed by Sir GeorgeHawkinville, under whom he’d served at times during the war, and it provided interesting, challenging work.
The nation seethed with unrest because of the hardships brought about by the expense of the long war with France. That had been worsened last year by the bleak weather caused by the explosion of a volcano in the Far East. Some had dubbed it the year without a summer. That hadn’t quite been true here in Britain, but crops had been damaged and prices of food had risen even higher.
The suffering was genuine, and Dauntry sympathized with the poor and with the honest reformers who were trying to bring about change. He had no sympathy with those who were exploiting distress to foment violence and revolution.
Hawkinville worked under the sponsorship, protection even, of one of the king’s sons, Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex. Sussex was sympathetic to reform and wanted to find and deal with the revolutionaries without oppressing the honest poor or the honest reformers. He was a useful counterweight to the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, who would prefer to crush all dissent, but all in all, Hawkinville’s task was as delicate as picking thorns out of a lion’s paw.
Now the death of Princess Charlotte and the consequent succession crisis had added chaos to the brew. Britain needed a cool head in command. Instead, the Regent was hiding in Brighton, surrendering to grief over his daughter’s death, and the government seemed paralyzed by his absence.
The situation could explode at any moment, and Braydon needed to be on hand in London, but damned duty tied him here. It was months since his predecessor died, and things had slid awry. Some of the paperwork was in disarray, possibly in order to obscure errors and even theft. Money was certainly unaccounted for. In addition, he hadto handle the fifth viscount’s mother, the dowager Lady Dauntry, and his difficult daughter, Isabella.
He was learning his new trade and beginning to put things straight, but accounts, documents, and land management were one thing; difficult females were another. It was only natural that the dowager Lady Dauntry was in deep grief over the loss of her son and grandson, and Isabella mourned the loss of her father and brother. He understood why they both resented the stranger who’d taken over their home and could throw them out on a whim. Facts were facts, however. They were all stuck in this mess and nothing could change it. He’d pinned his hopes of sanity on a quick marriage to a sensible widow—a woman like the excellent Ruth Lulworth. Clearly opposites attracted. Had he somehow offended the gods that they thwarted him at every turn?
Pale Beauchamp Abbey was his ball and chain, but it was a handsome house. It had been well designed and well built nearly two hundred years ago, in a simple style that had probably been based on the Queen’s House in Greenwich, which was a notable work by Inigo Jones.
The gardens in front had a similar old-fashioned formality, and there, walking three small white dogs along a white gravel path, was Isabella, in deepest black. She was still in her mourning period, but she and her grandmother dripped with black and jet as a blatant reproach to cruel fate—that is, him.
He carried on to the stables and put Ivor in the hands of Baker, his groom. Nearly all the servants here were from the fifth viscount’s time, so he appreciated the few of his own.
