Alex said, “You charmed all the locals. Did you wring them dry of information?”
“Of course. Never forget, Alex, a pub is where you learn everything you wanted and didn’t want to know.”
The coach rolled along a fairly smooth road, houses giving way to land and trees and hedgerows, larger houses.
Ryder was looking out the window. He drew in his breath and quickly poked his cane on the roof of the carriage. The coachman obligingly pulled the matched grays to a halt. Alex stepped out of the coach after Ryder. They stood together and looked toward the splendid Palladian manor in the distance.
“King’s Head,” Ryder said. “Mr. Kurtz, the local cooper, told me it was built in the mid-1700s by Robert Adam himself. It’s not massive, not a dominating presence like your uncle Douglas’s Northcliffe Hall. Look at the lush hill behind it, so many thick trees, trees everywhere, actually.”
Nothing. Alex felt absolutely nothing, no memory at all. He thought King’s Head looked confident, quite sure of itself, and wasn’t that an odd thing to think about a house?
Ryder admired the requisite classical Ionic columns in the front of the manor, proclaiming its adherence to Palladio’s classical theme. And of course the graceful arched windows all along the front on the mellow pink stone front, now deepening to red in the setting sun. In front of the house was a wide drive where two carriages could stop abreast. But what set King’s Head apart, Ryder had been told by Mr. McGrout, a local farmer, was the large meadow dotted with pine trees that stretched from the wide drive in front of King’s Head toward them. Several dozen sheep were roaming freely, grazing even to the edge of a stream that flowed toward the Channel. Ryder said, “One of the men at the pub told me it’s called the Green Stream because of all the algae and water reeds. Hesaid it was also considered cursed, but he didn’t tell me why.”
Alex was impressed, couldn’t help himself. This was really his home until he’d been taken?
Ryder said, “It looks like a perfect gem in an ideal setting, like a painting, tranquil, charming, invites you to lie down and take a catnap. I imagine everyone who sees it for the first time thinks this.”
Alex said, “It’s more than that, it’s magic.”
Ryder said slowly, “Magic? Well, perhaps so.”
Alex said, “Look how the sun shines on the Green Stream. There are twenty-three sheep, I counted them, and look. One of them is sort of strolling toward the water. To drink, I suppose, but the water looks vile. I wonder what it tastes like. What else did you learn?
“King’s Head was built on the site of an Augustinian abbey, seized by Henry VIII and sold to one of his barons, this from Mrs. Janes, the serving woman. She said there are even some Augustinian monks’ cells. It’s said their spirits abound and roam the land.”
I would have played in those ancient monks’ cells.
Ryder said matter-of-factly, “Does anything seem familiar to you?”
Alex slowly shook his head. He didn’t say it aloud, but he did feel a pull, but maybe that was only the result of the potent ale he’d drunk at the Hare and Hound in St. Lucy Head while Ryder was charming the locals and gleaning information.
Ryder only shrugged. “No matter, don’t worry about it. Memory is a tricky thing. Look at the hills behind the manor—elm, ash, oak, so many different species.” He paused. “I can picture you climbing those trees, exploring the forests, riding your pony through the parkland, avoiding the sheep, of course. I was told there are rich farmlands to the east all owned by Vereker Hepburn, Earl St. Lucy—your father, a popular man, fair and keeps his people prosperous and up todate with all the modern machinery, just like Winstead’s father, Lord Longham. I wonder if the two men know each other.”
His father. Alex looked again at the idyllic setting. It was perfect. It did calm the soul. Maybe that pull he’d felt portended a still-hidden memory? But try as he would, the pull he’d felt was now gone. He felt nothing at all. Alex suddenly felt like the boy Ryder Sherbrooke had saved—no one, nobody.
When the coach emerged from the thick copse of oak and maple, drove onto the wide drive and pulled up in front of King’s Head, Alex leaned out the open coach window. “Look, sir, many of the windows have gas lamps.”
“Yes, you’re right. It’s amazing, given how new an invention they are.”
Since Vereker Hepburn had installed gas lamps, it made sense he was a modern man who embraced change and new inventions. He knew his father was fifty-six years old, according to Vicar Piercebridge, a fit man for his age, and still strong enough to lift heavy tree branches, this said with a touch of envy.
He would know soon. Alex felt his guts cramp.
Ryder hated the sudden bleak look on Alex’s face, gripped his arm. “Stop your worrying. Everything will be all right. Now, I do wonder why the name King’s Head. I mean, no king ever laid his head on one of the beds, not to Vicar Piercebridge’s knowledge or any of the folk in the pub. But, a Mr. Bourne, the town butcher, did whisper to me about the ghost of one of the long-ago monks sleeping beneath one of the manor’s beds.”
A brief smile, but it fell away. Alex was still looking pale, tense. Ryder punched him in the arm. “Come, my boy, take a deep breath, call yourself Viscount Whitestone a few times and practice looking haughty. Good. Chin up. Come, let’s meet the inmates of King’s Head.”
Ryder and Alex walked up the dozen deep stone steps, between the Ionic columns rising two stories, to the wide front door, painted, charmingly, a rich dark blue with a large lion’s head knocker.
The door was immediately opened by a short, rotund man with a tonsure of white hair circling his head and a look of polite interest on his round face. He had shrewd dark eyes, took in Ryder’s well-tailored clothes in a flash. “May I assist you, sir?”
Ryder nodded, smiled. “I am Ryder Sherbrooke and this is my ward, Alex Ivanov. We are here to see Earl St. Lucy.”
The butler looked beyond Ryder’s left shoulder at Alex. He blinked once, twice, grew perfectly still. Then he sucked in his breath, stared, paled. He stumbled to the side, caught himself on the doorframe. He whispered, “Oh my, it is you, Lord Graham! Oh my precious boy, it’s really you? You’re alive, you’re home!” He touched Alex’s shoulder as if to prove he was really flesh and blood, threw his arms around Alex, hugged him tightly. “By all heaven’s divine blessings, you’re here, you’re really here. Home, at last you’re home.” He drew back, still clutched Alex’s arms in his hands. He was crying. “Oh, my dear boy, your father will be astounded, he’d given up hope, all of us had given up hope, but here you are—oh, he’ll be so happy, he’ll—” He swallowed, swiped his plump hand over his eyes and stepped back. “Forgive me, Lord Graham, but we’ve believed you dead for so many years, so many—yet here you are on our doorstep, home at last. Oh my, do come in. I’ll take you to your father immediately. His lordship is in the drawing room with Lady Eugenie—ah, your sister, of course, your older sister, but of course you know that.”
He stopped, cleared his throat, searched Alex’s face. “Lord Graham? What is wrong? Do you not remember me? I’m Blakeney, I put you on your first pony, watched you play withthe sheep, swim in that nasty Green Stream with Master Simon trying to drown each other, laughing like loons—”
Ryder said, “Lord Graham is overcome, Blakeney. If you would please take us to see his lordship.”
