Page 5

THE POWER OF THE BEES

The household at the Manor returned to a kind of normality but with the unexpected spice of a handsome young man in temporary residence. Lord Lynwood healed fast with the vitality of youth, but that same youthful energy meant he was bored and fretting to be up and active again. After two days’ satisfactory progress, Dr Bristow allowed him to spend the middle part of the day in the small morning room off the hallway, as long as his leg was elevated. This meant he was central to much of the activity in the house. On the first day he was allowed downstairs, Lucie knocked on the door and entered rather shyly. A slender fair-haired young man in a smart dark coat and breeches was settling the cushions behind his lordship, whose face was tense with pain. Lord Lynwood glanced up and, seeing Lucie in the doorway, smiled. ‘This is Simon, my valet, doing his best to nurse me but not reaching your exacting standards, Miss Carey.’

Lucie met Simon Toller’s eyes and they exchanged a glance before she turned to Lord Lynwood. ‘How are you, sir?’ She looked doubtfully at his splinted leg.

‘Oh, not too bad, given this is all my fault. That’s the bitter pill.’ His smile was wry as he brushed a hand through his thick dark hair, messing up his valet’s valiant attempt at imposing some order. Simon tutted and Lucie tried not to laugh.

‘At least your head’s healed and that bandage has been burnt.’

He resisted being cheered. ‘I’m putting you and your sister to such trouble too. I’m sorry. The old sawbones won’t let me move back to the Hall for another two days.’

‘It’s no trouble to us. And Mr Toller carries the brunt of your care. He’s a prince among valets,’ she said, catching his servant’s eye.

‘Oh, don’t add to his altitudes! He already treats me like a prime flat.’

Lucie smiled. ‘Well, you must know the old proverb: Il n’y a pas de héros pour son valet de chambre.’

Lord Lynwood snorted. ‘I fear a conspiracy while I am temporarily at a disadvantage.’

‘Not at all. Is there anything we can do to make the days pass more quickly? Would you like something more to read? I have Castle Rackrent just arrived in the post. Or we could play cards, although I think my country whist is probably not very exciting?’

‘Shall I teach you piquet then?’ He looked up, suddenly mischievous. ‘As long as you promise not to gamble away your fortune in some London gaming hell.’ Lucie’s face lit up and she opened the bureau drawer and picked out a pack of cards.

Lord Lynwood watched her in profile, her slender figure in the simplest of dresses and with the morning sun catching her carelessly tied curls. ‘How can someone so pretty languish unseen?’ he said softly under his breath. Lucie was too busy rummaging for more packs of cards to hear, but Simon Toller caught his master’s words and gave him a sharp look. It was obvious to both men, despite their different social standing, that Lucie was refreshingly unlike the carefully schooled and prinked young women in Town who cast their lures after men of title and fortune. In her unselfconscious way, she had revealed more of her character in a couple of days than most of these tightly controlled girls, barely out of the schoolroom, managed to convey in a year.

Unaware of Lord Lynwood’s thoughts, Lucie turned back to him eagerly. ‘Oh, I’d like to know how to play but we haven’t got any piquet decks. Can you doctor this one?’ She handed over a well-worn pack which he expertly riffled through, discarding all the cards below seven.

The young valet was worldly enough to know he should stay as a discreet chaperone to these two young people, so he sat on the window seat, attempting to restore the surface to his master’s fine worsted coat after its rude encounter with the road. The sight of the mutilated left boot had physically pained him, but experience told him that George Hoby would happily make his lordship another top boot to match.

He had carried over the card table and Lucie drew up a chair. She was usually not much concerned with the social class of those she met. Country life was informal and their acquaintances were few. Their servants also lived more closely with the family and the sisters had an easy manner with them, something the grand retainers of noble families disapproved of as unseemly. Lucie recognised Lord Lynwood belonged to this more formal tonish world and his evident air of consequence and London sophistication made her feel awkward and inexperienced. Her buoyant spirits readily revived, however, with the thought that she could practise her social graces on this personable young man, before she had to run the gauntlet of a harsher scrutiny and judgement awaiting her in the early spring. But it seemed his lordship had grown increasingly bored by society debutantes and their careful social graces and found it diverting to meet a young woman as candid and frank as she. He had little intention, apparently, of giving her much chance to practise her small talk and flirtatious pretences.

‘So you make it a habit to trespass in the woods at the Hall?’ he asked her straight as he shuffled the cards. Lucie was taken aback, and cross that her cheeks immediately flushed.

‘Only when I was younger,’ she demurred. Then a troubling thought struck her. ‘But who told you?’

‘I saw you last week.’ He looked up with a challenging gleam. ‘I think it was you up the famous oak tree.’ He glanced at her sideways and began to deal. She picked up her cards and frowned with concentration, but not just because she was faced with the complication of the game. He laughed. ‘But you, of course, were not as foolish, or weighty, as me and don’t seem to have ended up with a broken leg.’

‘I’m sorry. Bella has told me it’s quite wrong to trespass. It’s been years since anyone has been at the Hall and I got used to treating the woods as mine.’

‘It doesn’t bother me at all. Even if the land had been mine. The estate belongs to my cousin and guardian, Anthony Brabazon, and he has more than one, and anyway prefers Town. I doubt he’d notice what you got up to here.’ Lucie sought to change the conversation and asked Lord Lynwood to explain the arcane scoring system of piquet, but he was not finished teasing. He caught her wary gaze with his amused eyes. ‘Tell me, Miss Carey, at what age do girls in the country give up climbing trees and turn into young ladies?’

She dropped her gaze and appeared to be wholly concerned with her cards. ‘Probably at the same age that boys give up climbing trees, wouldn’t you think?’

‘Touché!’ he said and they both laughed. Simon Toller looked across quizzically from his perch at the window. They had forgotten his presence. Lord Lynwood placed the talon of the cards down on the table between them. ‘If truth be told, I was a trifle foxed, I recall. What’s your excuse?’

‘At noon! That’s no excuse.’

‘I’m not claiming it as an excuse, just mentioning it as a fact.’

‘I have always climbed that tree, since I was about eight years old. It’s special, but now you’ve broken off that great bough over the road…’ She allowed the sentence to hang there and bowed her head over her surprisingly good hand of court cards.

Piquet was a difficult game to learn and Lord Lynwood had told her severely to keep the score in her head. Lucie was losing the thread when he declared his hand a carte rouge just as the door creaked open and the small figure of James Lovatt crept into the room. His eyes were on the visitor, but he made his way to his aunt and grabbed her knee. Lucie put her arm around him. ‘Lord Lynwood, may I introduce my nephew, James? James, this is Lord Lynwood.’

‘Fell out of the tree.’ The toddler nodded with satisfaction. ‘Thought you was dead.’

‘I’m not surprised. I thought I was dead too,’ said Lord Lynwood conversationally.

‘George say silly to climb in boots. You dicked in the nob. Or fuddled?’ Lord Lynwood was momentarily disconcerted at such language issuing from the mouth of such a small golden-haired angel. But he could not suppress a surprised burst of laughter.