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For a moment she simply enjoyed the familiar symmetry of being aligned with a horse and the sense of Hermes’s power and sure-footedness under her. She gave him the command to walk on, and he began to circle the paddock. She and Hermes moved as one. Her body stayed straight in the saddle without the listing jolt of her walk, and hot tears stung her eyes. It was daft to feel so happy. She dashed away the stupid tears, and patted Hermes’s neck. He was as perfectly behaved as she’d thought he’d be. When they reached the far end of the paddock and turned back toward the little crowd watching them, Cassie thought she saw the blue of her grandmother’s habit disappear into the stable. Cassie shortened the reins, leaned forward, and gave Hermes the command to trot. He moved smoothly into the jaunty, faster gait that lifted her in the saddle. Once again they made a circuit of the paddock, showing off a little, rider and horse in unison, until she brought Hermes to a halt before his admirers. Dick was the first to touch the horse and let him know he’d done well.

Jay Kydd grinned up at her. “I forgive you everything, Bluebell,” he said.

Chapter Fifteen

When the brass clock on the mantel in his study struck nine, Raven stopped trying to make sense of a plan sent to him by Braidwood for a metropolitan firefighting force. The idea was something like what Peel had accomplished for the police, and Raven thought it was an idea whose time had come. He pushed back from his desk and went to pour himself a brandy. For perhaps the dozenth time, he wondered where Jay Kydd had got to.

Everything about the study at Verwood proclaimed Raven a gentleman of means, Sir Adrian Cole. The walls were richly paneled, the bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes on a wide range of subjects, the carpet thick underfoot, and the brandy, aged in oak barrels, smooth as silk. He had only to glance around at the furnishings and paintings, however, to be reminded that Verwood was on loan to him. The old man in the large portrait over the hearth was not Raven’s grandfather, but a former duke. The fair-haired boy, painted with his dog under a pair of trees, was not one of Raven’s mates but Lady Cassandra’s dead brother, who, if he had survived his time in the army, would now be the duke. Lady Cassandra appeared in a small sketch, as a young version of herself astride a pony. Raven raised his glass to the figures in the portraits. It did not matter that they once occupied the house. He was the one here now, and he meant to stay.

Brandy in hand, he turned to the window. From the southwest corner of the house the study looked down the long sweep of the drive, and he had not tired of the view. The June sky was pale blue above the chestnut trees. Dark forms of birds and insects, not yet settled for the night, flitted from branch to branch. Frogs and crickets made a loud chorus from the lake. Now that he was familiar with the landscape, he could see the gap in the trees where the lane led to the dower house.

All day he had kept his mind busy with his plans for the summer and kept at bay thoughts of Lady Cassandra. Their conversation had ended too soon. He wanted to know what she thought about his being Raven. She was the first person outside the circle of his closest friends to know something of his other life, though not the whole. He was the son of an officer with whom his mother had a liaison sometime during the early years of the great war with Napoleon. Letters his grandfather possessed showed that there had been an intention to marry, but the officer had died in Portugal. Raven’s grandfather admitted that he had been enraged over his daughter’s pregnancy, and that his anger had driven her from her home. It had been Wenlocke’s research that had uncovered where she had given birth to Raven and the Foundling Hospital to which she’d given him when she could no longer care for him. He had escaped both the hospital and a mill before he’d met Wenlocke.

Lady Cassandra had offered her account of the accident as an equal exchange for what she’d learned about Raven’s past. But her story concealed as much as it revealed. He wondered what had sent her out on an overlong solitary ride with no groom in attendance, and why now she had determined to ride the horse again. He told himself that all such speculation was fruitless and inappropriate. Lady Cassandra was his landlady, a person with whom his only tie was a lease covenant. It should not bother him that Jay would be there to watch her ride Hermes for the first time in three years, but the idea had lodged in his mind like a bubble only he could see in an otherwise perfect sheet of glass.

If Jay managed to charm the dowager and train the horse and the horse had a win, Raven would still have Verwood. His mind should remain centered on the surprise he planned for Lady Amabel and ball he planned to give. He took another swallow of the brandy. In a week Amabel would be at her father’s estate, and all the distraction of Lady Cassandra and her horse would come to an end.

A quick jaunty rap sounded on the study door, and Jay strolled in. “What’s this? Your library?” he asked.

“Study,” Raven said. “Where have you been? I missed you at dinner.”

“Drinking your health at the inn. You’re quite the hero there. Hiring people. Spending money. Routing the local bully.” Jay went straight for the brandy decanter, lifting it and taking a sniff. “Putting on airs, aren’t you? Brandy, servants, and all this?” He waved a hand at the paneled walls and bookshelves.

“Join me,” Raven lifted his glass.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Jay poured himself a glass and settled in one of the room’s green leather armchairs. “So, what did you get up to today? Because, I tell you, you missed seeing a fine horse.”

“Did you talk the dowager into running Hermes?”

“Only a matter of time. I’m sure the old girl’s keen to run him. But she turned stiff as a poker when your lady friend wanted to ride.”

“The old girl? That’s the dowager to you. And my lady friend?”

“Bluebell,” said Jay with a grin. “I’m keeping my name for her. It suits her. She’s not your London fashion plate. The girl’s a Trojan. Faced right up to the old … dowager.”

“I think she’s had some practice,” Raven said drily.

“Whatever that horse did to her, she rode him today like a trooper. A perfect seat, and great hands. You’d never guess she has a bum foot. Do you know what happened?”

“It was an accident caused by someone driving fast. She was leading Hermes when he reared and came down on her foot. Apparently, the doctors let the bones fuse wrong.”

“Well, it’s a shame. She was made to gallop.” Jay swirled the brandy in his glass. “Though odds are that it’s the bum foot that keeps her here. Otherwise, she’d have been married to some toff with a title by now.”

Unaccountably, Raven found himself wanting to change the subject. Jay’s easy assumption of a connection with Lady Cassandra was irksome. “You think the horse can win some prize money?”

“I’m sure he can, but it will take work. And Crockett. Those hands of his are magic. I’ll be up early tomorrow.”

Raven wanted to ask how long Jay meant to stay, but he held his tongue. In another week Amabel would be here. He found Jay watching him.

“That is, if you don’t mind. I won’t stay long, for I should be off to London to look for a rider for Hermes and find out who has horses running this season. It helps to know the field.”

The sky outside began to darken. Jay gave a prodigious yawn, put aside his brandy class and pushed himself up out of the chair. “Sorry, Raven, I didn’t ask you about your lady, your earl’s daughter. She’s coming here?”

“Not to Verwood, but to her father’s house, about five miles away.”

“When?”

“Next week.”