“That is a risk I must take,” Olly said. “It is my home… it ismine, and I will do whatever it takes to reclaim it. But you see why I have been so cautious to let anyone know I am in the country.”
“Indeed, you do not want to give them any warning before you point your lawyers at them,” Izzy said, excitement rippling through her. Secrets! What fun! “We must keep you hidden away at all costs. Very well, here is what we will do. You have returned from India but you arrived very ill. You are now recovering in the care of a man who befriended you on the ship. That will explainwhy we do not know precisely where you are. But if you are not to be with us, we shall need to engage an outrider… or a courier or some such to accompany us to Harringdon. It will occasion comment if we arrive without male protection. What a pity we did not think of this in York. It may be difficult here.”
“I can find someone, I am sure,” Olly said. “Shall I go and make enquiries now?”
“Please do, but someone respectable, Olly, not some half-pay officer who has been sleeping under a hedge for months.”
“Of course,” he said with a grin, and rushed off at once on his errand.
“Well, he is certainly full of enthusiasm,” Izzy said, picking up her wine glass and resuming her circuits of the parlour, for she could never sit still for long. Then, reproachfully, “It is a great pity you did not trust me with Olly’s history long before this, Sophie.”
“The fewer people who know, the better,” she said, lifting her chin a little. “Besides, until you turned up on the doorstep in Durham, I had not seen you for five years, remember? Our letters were sporadic at best, and stopped altogether when I moved to Durham.”
“I certainly wrote to you there, but you never replied,” Izzy said. “I suppose your unspeakable in-laws intercepted all your letters, in or out. Please tell me that Martin was not like this?”
Sophie’s face softened. “Martin was sweet, but then he left his family when he was only twelve to work for his great-uncle in London. He never had the kindness stamped out of him, although perhaps he was a littletoogentle.”
“Is that possible?”
“He always said he never wanted to hurt me, so… we never had children.”
“You mean, you… never… not at all?” Izzy said, shocked.
“We tried a couple of times, but it was awkward and Martin hated it, so… we never attempted it again.”
“But what else is marriage for, if not for children, or at least the possibility of them?”
“Companionship,” Sophie said with a rueful smile. “Or‘mutual society, help, and comfort’, as the marriage service has it. We were good friends, Izzy, and fond of each other, and I would not say we had a bad or an unsatisfactory marriage. We were both very contented. The only thing wrong with our marriage was that it ended too soon.”
“Perhaps he was already starting on the path to his final illness when you married,” Izzy said tentatively.
“Yes, perhaps that was it,” Sophie said with a finality that closed the subject. “Shall we go to bed? Olly may be a while looking for an outrider for us. He will have to have a drink with the fellow… talk to him a little.”
Izzy agreed to it, but sleep was long in coming that night.
9: Harringdon Hall
The morning brought the first disagreement since they had left Durham. Izzy had met the outrider engaged by Olly to replace him at Harringdon Hall, who was introduced as Barty, a respectably dressed man, whose only feature of interest was a complexion as weather-beaten as Olly’s, and for the same reason. Seemingly they had both spent time in India.
But as soon as they all went out to the yard, where the post chaise and Barty’s horse waited, she exploded.
“Oh, no, no, no, no! That is—! This is ridiculous. I will not be made a fool of like this. That horse — I would recognise that notch in his ear anywhere. What is going on here, Olly? Engage an outrider, I said, not employ someone who has clearly followed us all the way from Scarborough. What is your game, eh?” she said, rounding on Barty. “Are you going to murder us in our beds? Or is it just a bit of thievery? Some coins, a necklace or two, or—?”
“I can vouch for him, Mrs Horncastle,” Olly put in, cautiously using her false name with the ostlers and postilions looking on.
“You keep out of this. Let him speak for himself.”
The outrider straightened his spine, not in the least afraid. “No, ma’am, nothing like that. I’m as honest as the next man.” His accent was unfamiliar to her. Not Yorkshire or any of the northern counties. “Just wanted a job, like. Not worked for months.” Now that sounded more like a groom her father had once had who had come from Newcastle. Wherever he was from, his accent was false.
“And I say you are a fraud. What is your name?”
“Barty, ma’am.”
“Your real name.”
“That’s the only name I’m known by.”
“What were you baptised — Bartholomew?”
