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If a man had spoken the words, Raven would have knocked him down. The cruel name said everything about Cassandra’s circumstances and nothing about her. There was no doubt in his mind that Cassandra had heard those words. Her wounded foot was nothing to them.

The liveried servant reached the little dock and waved at them. Raven stood with careful easiness and offered his hand to Amabel. “It looks as if your escape is over. Shall I row you back?”

She turned a contrite, worried face up to his. “You’ll come again, won’t you?”

“Every day if you’ll let me.”

He was rewarded with a radiant smile.

Chapter Sixteen

Raven’s daily ride to Ramsbury Park quickly became a habit until one morning dark clouds threatened. At his window, he contemplated asking for his carriage. The dowager’s rule that Raven advise her grooms of his intention to use a horse or carriage was particularly irksome in such moments. He put aside his irritation to work on the guest list for the ball.

By midmorning when no rain appeared, he decided to risk making the journey on horseback and sent for a boy to inform the stable to saddle his usual mount. No boy appeared. A quick search of the house by his staff did not turn up Joe, Ben, or Tim. Raven sent a footman to the stable, who returned with the news that the boys were not there, either.

Vexed with them and with himself, Raven left the hall by the front entrance. Preoccupied with his plans for the ball, he had been lax, letting them spend hours watching Hermes’s training. And he had been teaching them to swim. Now, he was repaid for allowing them so much freedom. He could think of a dozen places where they could get into trouble, starting with the lake. He strode down the drive and scanned the gray, choppy waters, relieved not to find them, and angry at the same time for the worry they caused him. With his temper rising, he headed for the stable.

On the north side of the house where the outer walk met the path through the formal garden, he heard shouts and the clash of metal as if some mortal combat were underway. He halted and listened more closely. The sound of distinctly boyish voices came from the other side of the hedge, from the very spot where he meant to propose to Amabel. He strode toward the sound and burst through the yew hedge and stopped cold. Joe, Ben, and Tim, with fierce frowning faces and swords drawn, stood looking at the fallen figure of Honoria Thornhill. She lay insensible on the grass, one hand clasped to her bosom, faded brown skirts oddly hiked around her knees, her stockings grass-stained. The boys saw him, and their expressions turned shame-faced. Raven hurried to the fallen woman’s side and dropped to a knee to see what could be done for her.

He saw no wound, no blood, and thought perhaps she’d hit her head. He turned over her limp hand to find a pulse and stared at ink-stained fingers.

“Sir A,” said Joe. “Miss T is teaching us sword fighting.”

“And dying,” added Ben.

Raven lifted the edge of her lace cap, looking for a head wound, and Miss Thornhill opened one eye. “Oh dear,” she said. “Sir Adrian. What must you think!” She tried to push up on one elbow. “I can explain.”

“First, are you hurt?” Raven asked. She shook her head, and the lace cap slid farther down over one ear. He offered a hand and helped her to her feet. Her skirts were tangled in some sort of knot, and she tugged at them in her flustered way. Amabel’s words about the dithery aunt came instantly to mind. Raven turned aside to let Honoria rearrange her skirts.

He leveled a quelling gaze on the boys, who, he noted, wore colorful odds and ends of scarves and jackets over their blue shirts and gray trousers. “Explain,” he said.

“We’re acting a scene in one of Miss T’s stories.” Tim pointed to a notebook lying open on the stone bench next to a pencil case and a lady’s straw bonnet.

Joe, with what Raven recognized as Miss Thornhill’s usual shawl hanging from his shoulders like a cape, and a scrap of red cloth tied around his sword arm, announced, “I am Don Adeo, the Admirable. What country am I from, miss?”

“Portugal, dear,” said Miss Thornhill.

“I’m a Portuguese colonel fighting for my country against … who are we against, miss?”

“Joe, you blockhead. We’re against the Frogs, old Boney’s men at Busaco,” said Ben.

“Are you the enemy, Tim?” Raven asked.

“Not me, I’m Richard Crawley, British Rifleman. You see I’ve got this green uniform to wear.” He tugged at the lapels of a lady’s spencer jacket.

“We take turns being the French commander—’Yew the ’Orrible.” Ben held a black mustache up to his lips. “We could show you how we do it.”

A suspicion was dawning on Raven about what he was seeing, and a stricken look from Honoria rather confirmed his thinking. “Show me,” he told the boys.

Ben stuck his mustache on, and he and Joe took positions opposite each other on the strip of grass in front of the very bench where Raven imagined himself proposing to Amabel. They raised their swords, hands on hips, knees bent.

“Miss,” called Joe, “read the part about ’Yew the ’Orrible.”

Raven looked to Honoria Thornhill. She did not meet his gaze, but took up the notebook from the stone bench and flipped through its pages.

“She writes the action down as we fights,” confided Ben.

“Ready?” Honoria’s voice wavered. “We’ll just do a small part for Sir Adrian. We’ve interrupted his day.” She cleared her throat and began to read.