We rolled up before a large house that was modest for a country estate. We’d passed the road to Blenheim Palace on the way, the vast pile of the Dukes of Marlborough, which Donata considered pretentious and overblown.
Grenville had opted for subdued. Built of stone during the days of the Stuart monarchs, the house had two gabled wings flanking the front door and a third wing to the right, making the home charmingly asymmetrical. An abundance of ivy and climbing roses growing over the three-story structure rendered it even more picturesque.
It was like Grenville to opt for understated elegance. His Mayfair home sported a fairly plain facade, as though its owner eschewed the grandeur that other men of wealth sought. No one would ever call the house we halted before a palace, but it was an attractive abode that spoke of friendly comfort.
The interior was as I’d expected—seemingly simple with whitewashed walls and dark wood paneling, but filled with inviting chairs, soft carpets, reading nooks, and large windows overlooking a lush garden, appealing even as cold weather set in. A large stable could be glimpsed down a hill, with horses wandering a pasture beyond.
“It is splendid,” I declared to Grenville as we gathered for a late supper. He’d showed me all over the house after we’d arrived, with the same pride Brandon had for his new hunter.
Peter and Anne were already tucked up for the night, and Grenville’s anticipated guests had not yet arrived, and so Donata and I, and Grenville and Marianne, were free to take pleasure in one another’s company.
“Very happy you like it.” Grenville, as resplendent as ever in a fine suit, one relaxed for country living, raised a glass to me. “I stumbled upon the house while visiting an old friend earlier this autumn, and happily, its owner was amenable to selling. He longed to retire to a village on the coast with his daughter and was pleased with the price I offered him. We moved in as soon as we were able.”
“There are a few draughts here and there, but we shove newspaper into the holes,” Marianne added.
She had been transformed. Marianne wore a blue gown tonight that was not quite matronly, but it hid much more of her limbs than had her frocks of old. A matching cap covered her golden curls, which had been tamed into a knot, a few strands of hair leaking out to retain her girlish appearance.
But her change hadn’t come from the clothes alone. Marianne had relaxed—her tense, feral demeanor had faded. She no longer feared, I could see, that anything she had would be snatched away on the moment, no longer pridefully disdained all offers of assistance.
She must have finally realized, as I had, that Grenville, beneath his elegance and man-about-Town facade, possessed a truly kind heart. If Grenville liked a person, he did so without reserve and without expectations of anything in return. That he loved Marianne wholeheartedly, I did not doubt.
Over the next few days, as I observed Marianne talking easily with Donata, befriending our children, and hostessing our visit with aplomb, I discerned that her adeptness in becoming mistress of the house was more than simply playing a role. I had never received a straight answer from Marianne Simmons about her origins, but as she moved about Grenville’s home, assuming her place as its lady, I saw an effortlessness in her that made me wonder if she’d returned to her natural situation.
Peter and I rode every morning. Donata used the opportunity for languor, indulging in long mornings in bed, gossiping with Marianne, or writing letters. Whatever business she’d conducted in London, she’d finished off in Oxfordshire, and now she relished her leisure. Anne was a constant companion, which neither Grenville nor Marianne complained of.
Grenville and I had long conversations about the murders of Warrilow and Laybourne, as well as the carbine Brewster had found, perhaps pointing to gun running, and Fitzgerald as a possible art smuggler. We also speculated on what would happen between Denis and Creasey. We talked long into the night, putting forth or rejecting theories, fortified by the promised brandy. Then in the morning, I would ride off my night’s imbibing, with Peter enthusiastically at my side.
There was plenty of good riding near the house—rolling hills, twisting lanes, and hedges to jump. The enclosure acts had reached the farms here, but we still found plenty of open country through which to have long runs.
Grenville’s guests began trickling in over the week. I noted that he’d been very careful, inviting only the most congenial of gentlemen and their ladies, with a mix of the aristocratic and genteel-born intellectual and artistic friends. None were scandalous, though some were unconventional, but no one would create any dramatic scenes at this gathering.
They’d been chosen because they’d not condemn Marianne nor snub her, I concluded. Grenville was canny enough to keep the guest list small, so that the fashionable would hear of this exclusive party and put aside their shock at his marriage to try to gain admission to future gatherings. Grenville was making Marianne interesting, an introduction to her something to be sought after.
I chuckled at his ploys but admired his wisdom. I let him play congenial host while I mostly kept to horseback, honing my son’s already excellent riding skills.
On a brisk October day, Peter and I took a trail that led along a descending fold between hills. Peter cantered his horse ahead of mine, disappearing around the hill’s bulk.
I followed more slowly, delighting in the view before me. The land receded into the distance, a blue haze swallowing it as it reached the gleam of a faraway river. If I were an artist, I’d paint the scene.
I continued riding around the gentle hill, expecting at any moment to find Peter.
I did not. I reached a gate in a grassy field, but it was shut. Deciding Peter must have leapt his horse over the low wall next to it, I turned my mount in a wide circle and jumped it across, landing on a downward slope.
At the bottom of that slope, in the waving grass, I saw a horse. It had no rider.
My alarm growing, I urged my mount forward. I rode a fine stallion, and he took me easily down the hill to the horse that skittered away from us.
Something had spooked him. I scanned the ground, but nowhere did I see Peter’s small body lying with broken limbs.
I gazed about, becoming more frantic by the moment. “Peter!” I shouted.
I heard no small voice calling back to me, no answer or cry for help.
“Peter! Damnation, where are you?”
I guided my horse forward, circling Peter’s mount in ever widening swaths, my gaze everywhere. I saw and heard nothing but the wind in the grass, the sharp cry of a sparrowhawk.
Mouth dry, I returned to the horse, walking mine slowly to keep Peter’s mount calm. Once I was close enough, I reached over and caught its reins. The horse trembled but did not attempt to bolt.
