Breaking the Rules (5 page)

Hatty Pedlar’s Tump was a primrose-covered mound about ten feet high, one hundred and forty feet long, and ninety feet wide, with a stone-slabbed entrance that gave into a deep passage and five burial chambers. The rough door that had protected the access was now hanging by a single hinge because someone had used a crowbar to force it open.

“Such unnecessary vandalism,” Mr. Elcester said angrily as he tried to straighten the door.

“Like the yew.”

“Yes, just like the yew.”

Ursula climbed on top of the barrow. “Let’s sit awhile,” she said, making herself comfortable at the western end, where the view over the vale was quite breathtaking. The River Severn, some seven miles distant and dotted with sails, wound its silver way southwest toward the Bristol, and over twenty-five miles to the north, beyond the grandeur of Gloucester cathedral, rose the unmistakable humps of the Malvern Hills.

Directly opposite where they were sitting, only half a mile away, was the outlier upon which stood Carmartin Park, but Ursula looked anywhere and everywhere except at Lord Carmartin’s magnificent seventeenth-century house and grounds; and anyway, her thoughts had again harked back to the conversation with Taynton. “Do you really think there is someone hiding in our woods?” she asked as her father joined her.

“Taynton seems convinced so, and until the matter is settled I want you to promise faithfully not to go there.”

She shaded her eyes to look up as a skein of seagulls flew noisily inland from the estuary. “Mr. Pedlar extracted a similar promise from me as I was leaving the vicarage.” She hesitated. “Actually, he told me something that probably confirms what Taynton said.” She related what the blacksmith had said about Rufus Almore.

Mr. Elcester was astonished.
“Almore
is afraid to go back to the woods? I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“Nor did I, but something frightened Miss Muffet near Hazel Pool this morning, so what with that and poor old Rufus, I have to wonder  ... ”

Her father nodded. “Well, if there’s a felon hiding there, the authorities will flush him out, make no mistake. They’ll probably find the chalice at the same time, and the defacer of the yew and this barrow.”

“And the entire squirrel population of the realm?”

He chuckled. “Maybe.”

Ursula plucked a primrose and twirled it thoughtfully. “I’m sure Taynton knew I’d had trouble with Miss Muffet,” she murmured.

“What makes you say that?”

“Just a feeling.”

“So now he has second sight as well, eh?” Her father raised an eyebrow.

“Either that or he’s the one frightening everyone.”

“Now that
is
silly. What possible reason could he have?”

“I don’t know, any more than I know why anyone should want to cut pieces of bark or wreck the door of a long barrow.” She smiled then. “Daniel Pedlar thinks Miss Muffet misbehaved because she’s a fairy ‘oss’.”

Mr. Elcester laughed. “He’s so steeped in country superstition he thinks all white animals are supernatural. So does half the village, come to that. Lord alone knows what he’d make of a squirrel with a red head and white body.”

Ursula looked away. “Don’t talk about the squirrel. I feel so angry about it that I could slip back right now and set it free.”

“Don’t you dare.”

She pressed her lips stubbornly together and didn’t reply. There was a long silence, and then Mr. Elcester spoke again, awkwardly.

“Ursula, m’dear, now seems as good a time as any to make a confession.”

“Confession?”

He sighed unhappily. “It concerns this Carmartin marriage business. I’m afraid it’s much more definite than I’ve given you to understand; in fact, it ... er, has virtually been settled.”

“Settled?”
She leapt to her feet.

“Lord Carmartin is away in London at the moment, but he has sent word that his nephew is coming down to Carmartin Park tomorrow. I have invited him to dinner the evening after, so that you and he are to get to know each other. An announcement will be made in due course.”

She was appalled. “Oh, Father, how
could
you let things get to this stage without telling me? And it’s all so—so
imminent!”

“Because I kept hoping against hope that I would find a way out. But thanks to swindling Mr. Samuel Haine, I have no choice but to take Carmartin’s offer seriously. At least this way, we can be assured of keeping the estate in our control, and with it the welfare of the village. Please say you understand, and forgive me.”

Ursula had to turn her back to him so that he wouldn’t see her tears, but at last she was mistress of herself again. “You know I forgive you, Father. How could I not when it is for the sake of the manor and the village? I know you would not do this unless it was absolutely necessary, so I will be amenable to Mr. Greatorex.”

Relief lightened her father’s brow. “Thank you, my dear. Anyway, look on the bright side, for perhaps you and he will get on famously.”

Ursula doubted it very much. She was about to resume her seat when her hair felt a little odd. She put her hand to the nape of her neck to see what was wrong, and realized that the ribbon bow had gone. Where on earth had she lost it? She glanced back toward the road, but suddenly, instead of the flat grass, bushes, and Scots
pines, she quite clearly saw a gracious and exclusive town square—London, she thought, although she didn’t know for certain—with a railed central pool containing an equestrian statue. A fine carriage was drawing up outside a house in the far corner, and she saw a gentleman glance out, a handsome fair-haired gentleman with arresting gray eyes ... . A thrill of excitement trembled through her, a stirring of something, she knew not what. The gentleman’s eyes were so direct, as if he would see into her very heart, that an irresistible longing washed her veins. She knew he was dear to her. So very dear. And yet she was certain she’d never seen him before.”

“What is it, m’dear?” asked her father curiously, for she had been standing quite motionless, apparently gazing at nothing.

The square and the gentleman vanished. “Mm? Oh, nothing. I— I just seem to have lost my ribbon.” Her voice shook a little, for she couldn’t quite believe what had happened in the last few seconds.

Her father was puzzled too. “It was there a moment ago. It must be lying here somewhere.” He got up to glance around, but there was no sign at all of the lilac ribbon.

Ursula was still unsettled by the vision, or whatever it had been. “It ... doesn’t really matter. I have more of it at home,” she murmured. She had just seen the face that was her fate; she knew as surely as she knew her own name. Kismet, wasn’t that the word the Ottomans had for it ... ?

Mr. Elcester mistook her cast, and took her hand suddenly. “M’dear, I cannot begin to tell you how much I regret having to foist an unwanted marriage upon you. If I’d attended that damned meeting with Haine in London instead of sending my fool of a lawyer ... ”

“Your lawyer is anything but a fool, Father, so if he was gulled by Mr. Haine, then so would you have been.” Ursula pulled herself together. She’d imagined the square, the carriage,
and
the gentleman! It would be ridiculous to think it had been anything more than that.

“Damn it all, Ursula, I have never even clapped eyes on Samuel Haine, yet because I was greedy for profit, he managed to dip his sticky fingers well and truly into my purse. I really believed that emerald mine to be a sound proposition. Emeralds? Pah! I now loathe the sight of them, even the ones in your dear mother’s jewelry.”

“I hope you do not mean to forbid me to wear them?” Ursula asked, thinking of a rather lovely necklace of which she was particularly fond.

“No, of course not, my dear, but oh, if I had Haine here now, I vow I would hang, draw, and quarter the villain.”

“Then it’s as well he left the country in such a hurry.”

“With his ill-gotten gains.”

The notes of the key-bugle sounded again as the Cheltenham
Flying Machine’s
brief halt at the Green Man came to an end. Soon it swept into view out of the dip, and Mr. Elcester went to soothe the two horses as the stagecoach thundered past with its full complement of outside passengers holding on to their hats.

A few minutes earlier in London, where the weather was very cold and windy, unlike that of the warm Gloucestershire spring, the fine town carriage Ursula had ‘seen’ was driving smartly toward St. James’s Square. There were three occupants: Sir Conan Merrydown, whose carriage it was, his new friend the Honorable Theodore Greatorex, and Theo’s boisterous, recently acquired, white wolfhound, Bran—full name Bran the Blessed, Son of Llyr—who was proving quite a handful in the confines of the carriage. The two men had met shortly after Theo’s return from living in Naples, and they immediately forged the sort of strong friendship that both knew would stand the test of time. Now Theo was lodging with Conan at the latter’s house in Bruton Street.

Theo was twenty-two, and definitely
not
the fair-haired, gray-eyed gentleman Ursula had glimpsed, for he had inherited dark hair and dark eyes from his father’s Spanish grandmother. His wardrobe was what one would expect of a newly arrived young gentleman of
ton;
or rather, it was what one would expect of a newly arrived young gentleman of
ton
who was finding it difficult to make ends meet in the costly world of London’s high society, for it was all secondhand. He wore green Cossack trousers, a baggy style made fashionable by Czar Alexander, and a wide-collared apricot coat that had a great many gathers at the top of the sleeves. Thanks to Bran’s exuberance, his top hat had been knocked sideways, there were muddy paw prints all over the greatcoat that lay on the seat beside him, and his neckcloth had been crushed beyond redemption because the wolfhound had spotted a smug marmalade cat seated in a doorway! All this when Theo needed to look his best for an important meeting with his uncle, a fact he had been bewailing for several minutes now.

Conan, who
was
the fair-haired, gray-eyed gentleman, had listened enough. “If your appearance is so damned important, why on earth did you bring that great fool of a hound with you? You
know
how clumsy and overenthusiastic he is!”

“After what he did on your carpet this morning, I thought it best that he not stay in the house.”

Conan gave him a look, for a rather costly Aubusson had suffered greatly on account of Bran the Blessed; Bran the Pest was more appropriate. There were times when he wondered if perhaps the new friendship with Theo would
not
stand the test of time after all! He leaned his head back against the carriage seat. At twenty-eight he was handsome to a fault, and as secure and privileged as Theo had it within his grasp to become. His thick fair hair had a habit of falling forward over his forehead, requiring constant pushing back, and the eyes that had so impressed Ursula were a deep clear gray. He had a quick smile, a ready sense of humor, and impeccable taste in clothes, as was clear from his superb charcoal coat, tight-fitting cream trousers, and immaculate Hessian boots. A single diamond glittered in the small folds of his neckcloth, and his top hat rested at a casual angle that many a gentleman spent hours trying to achieve; to Conan it came naturally.

The Merrydowns were an illustrious family from the Welsh marches, with considerable estates along the border between Shropshire and Montgomeryshire, and he was more often in the country than in London, so it was a stroke of good luck that had led to his meeting with Theo. No doubt the unfortunate Aubusson would consider it a stroke of very ill luck indeed!

Theo was contrite about the carpet. “I’m truly sorry, and when I’m in a position to do so, I will replace it.”

“Yes, you will.”

Theo smiled sheepishly, but then his face darkened once more. “But first I’ll have to marry an awful clothier’s daughter!”

“Would that be the daughter of an awful clothier? Or the awful daughter of a clothier?” Conan replied lightly.

“This isn’t funny!”

“All right, so let us be serious. Theo, my old dear, I’m very much afraid that Ursula Elcester is to be your bride, and that is the end of it.”

Theo managed to haul Bran from the window, then straightened his hat and composed himself a little before answering. “Why should I have to marry a woman I find abhorrent?” he demanded.

“Why? Because your uncle says so, and while he cannot deny you the title, he can certainly deny you the things that aren’t entailed, of which there are many, not least his personal fortune.”

“It’s easy for you to say—you don’t have to marry her!”

Conan looked at him, perplexed. “Why on earth are you so set against her as a bride? And how on earth can you call her abhorrent? You haven’t even met her, let alone been able to form an opinion. She might prove to be your perfect woman.”

“Perfect woman? I think not. My uncle informs me she is a bluestocking with yellow hair.”

“Silver-blonde, as I recall,” Conan corrected.

“It can be purple for all I care. Can you imagine anything more vile than such an overeducated country creature? I simply cannot understand women like that. They aren’t natural.” Theo scowled out at the windswept street, where gentlemen’s hats were in peril, and ladies’ skirts threatened to reveal far more of the female anatomy than was acceptable, even in these days of perilously thin muslins.

Conan smiled. “I prefer to reserve judgment about Miss Elcester, who I am sure is as natural as anyone else. I’m afraid I do not go along with the view that the female of the species should not exercise her mind and talents as much as the male.”

“Then we agree to disagree. Women were put on this earth to be empty-headed, sweet, and clinging.”

“Such a vapid creature would bore me to tears within a day.”

Theo pulled a face and fell silent. Things had seemed so bright when he’d come to London at the beginning of February and made himself known to his uncle. Lord Carmartin had accepted his identity and announced an intention to make him his heir. All well and good, but the price was this damned marriage. “Why, oh, why, can’t the Elcester female be an adorably dizzy redhead whose notion of intelligent reading is the latest edition of
La Belle Assembleé,”
he moaned. “From what I gather of dear Ursula, she delights in translating ancient Celtic myths! She probably spins her own yarn as well, and likes to design complicated patterns to weave into her own cloth! Oh, Lord, I feel positively suicidal.”