Bea was struck dumb. It was an idea which had not for one moment occurred to her, but now that it did, she saw all tooclearly the plausibility of it. Her stepmother had wondered many times why the Countess of Rennington had left Corland Castle at just the moment when it might be supposed that her presence would be of most benefit to her family. Bea had not been very interested in such speculation — once she had jilted Walter, his family was of no consequence to her. Now she understood the reason for her stepmother’s concern.
Lord Grayling’s attitude struck her as odd, however. “Amusing? How would that be amusing?”
“Why, it would mean that any lady who set her cap at Atherton, thinking to become a countess one day, would be sadly disappointed.”
Bea bristled at his supercilious smirk. “I hardly think any lady so fortunate as to marry Bertram would be disappointed in her situation, title or no.”
She spoke louder than she intended, perhaps, for several of the riders ahead of them turned round with curious expressions, but Lord Grayling only laughed. However, when he spoke, his tone was thoughtful. “Indeed she would. Atherton is a fine young man, in many ways, and his wife will be blessed indeed.” Then he spoilt the effect by adding mischievously, “I wonder who she will be? Can you think who it might be, Miss Franklyn? You are deep in the gentleman’s confidence, so I am sure you have some inkling of where his thoughts lie.”
“His thoughts lie mostly with Horace,” she said, chuckling.
The baron laughed again, louder this time, so that Bertram again turned round to frown at them. “That is true of most of the gentlemen here,” Lord Grayling said, his eyes twinkling merrily. “They may fawn over the ladies in the evening, but it is an absent-minded sort of attention, for their minds race ahead of them to the next talk.”
“And yours does not?” she said archly.
“Not even Horace has any power over me when there is a beautiful young lady present.”
“So that is why you take your sister about with you, I suppose, to protect you from thoughts of Horace.”
“She is lovely, is she not?” he said, smiling fondly at Miss Grayling ahead of them, the delicate feathers of her hat waving as she cantered along. She rode as well as she did everything else, and how unfair to lesser beings that any girl should be so beautiful and so accomplished, too. Lord Grayling leaned across to whisper in her ear, “But it is not she who distracts me from the Latin poets.” Before Bea could reply, he had straightened himself and went on in a more normal tone, “Miss Franklyn, my horse is restless, I would stretch his legs a little and there is a very tempting hedge over there. If you permit, the challenge would be amusing to me. You may follow the others through the gate and I will meet you again in the next field.”
Without waiting for her reply, he urged his horse into a gallop and tore away across the field to leap the hedge at a low point near the furthest corner. It was bravely done, and Bea could only watch and admire. By the time she reached the gate, which Bertram was holding open, Lord Grayling had already slowed his mount and was coming round to meet her again.
“Showing off in front of the ladies,” Bertram muttered as she passed through the gate. “Why can he not go through the gate like everyone else? What were you talking about, the two of you, that so amused him?”
“Everything amuses him,” she said. “He is a light-hearted man. Thank you for holding the gate, Bertram.”
She urged her horse forward with a smile to meet Lord Grayling, for at that moment his twinkling eyes were far more enticing than whatever crotchets were producing the ferocious scowl on Bertram’s face. Besides, the baron had paid her a very pretty compliment, had he not?‘But it is not she who distractsme from the Latin poets.’Who else could he mean, when he looked at her in that meaningful way?
As she complimented him on his horsemanship, noticing the strength in his thighs and the masterful control he exerted over his spirited mount, she exulted in her success. Now this was more like it! A handsome and charming man, a baron, no less, and giving her clear signs that he preferred her company above others. It was all very promising… very promising indeed. All she had to do was to push him a little into making his offer.
Only the shortness of time gave her any concern. A week, that was all she had left. Would it be enough?
16: Letters
Bertram seethed quietly over Grayling’s behaviour. He could not be sure whether his annoyance was jealousy at the fellow’s monopoly of Bea, or whether it was masculine disapproval of such a vainglorious display. Or perhaps it was pure envy, he thought gloomily. Bertram had not the skills to manage anything more than the smallest jumps. A fallen tree trunk was just about within his capabilities, but he would never attempt a solid hedge, even one recently trimmed, as this one had been. Yet Grayling had sailed over it and, even Bertram could admit, he cut a fine figure. He had the sort of muscular body that was precisely designed for such an exercise — powerful and masculine. As unlike Bertram’s slender form as it was possible to be.
And now Grayling was riding beside Bea again, smiling at her and leaning nearer to say something that made her laugh. How did he do that? It was flirtation, Bertram supposed, as he closed the gate after the last riders and followed them across the field, but he himself had never had the way of it, that light tonethat amused and beguiled and… something else. Some hint of admiration that ladies responded to like flowers unfurling their petals in the sun. Even so straightforward a girl as Bea Franklyn could not help responding to Grayling’s charm.
For the rest of the ride, Bertram followed the two of them, returning to Landerby Manor in a very disgruntled frame of mind, but quite unable to think of any way of distracting Bea away from the enticing charms of the baron.
The mail had arrived during the afternoon, and as the company gathered around the table in the entrance hall where the letters were laid out, the butler approached Bertram.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but this came today. I thought it might be best for you to give it to him yourself.”
He handed over a letter addressed to‘John Whyte, groom to Mr B Atherton’.
“A letter for Whyte? Oh, Lord. It must be bad news from home, I imagine.”
“That is what I suspected, sir.”
“Thank you, Graves. I will take care of it.”
He went straight back to the stables, where Whyte was still rubbing down Catullus.
“There is a letter for you, Whyte.”
“For me? Who’d write to me? I don’t recognise the writing… oh, I do, it’s Mr Dewar’s, the parson. It must be from my grandda. He can write well enough for his own needs, but not a letter. Dear Lord, what does he want, I wonder?” He turned the letter over and over in his hands, frowning at it.
