Joan Wolf (22 page)

Two deer appeared out of the mist and crossed the path in front of us. I spoke sharply to the spaniels, who nobly refrained from giving chase.

“There is one thing in all of this I don’t understand at all, Annabelle,” Stephen said. “Why do you think Gerald named me to be Giles’s guardian?”

I said honestly, “I have no idea.”

We walked for a few more paces. It was light enough now to see the roofline and chimneys of the house.

Stephen said, “I always thought that Gerald regarded me as nothing short of an idiot.”

It was true that Gerald had never had any patience with Stephen’s causes. He had been particularly livid when Stephen had caused his famous uproar at Eton. Gerald had been at Oxford at the time, but he had heard about his brother’s folly from far too many people to forgive Stephen easily.

“I was extremely surprised when Mr. MacAllister read out your name,” I confessed. “Like everyone else, I expected the guardian to be Adam.”

A pinkish glow had now appeared in the sky above the eastern horizon. “Oh dear,” I said, “the servants will be getting up. Someone is bound to see us coming in, Stephen.”

“Adam would have been the logical choice,” Stephen said. He had always had a one-track mind.

I humored him. “All I can surmise is that Gerald suspected you were Giles’s father and wanted you to have some say in his upbringing.”

“No.” Stephen rejected that idea. “It doesn’t add up, Annabelle. Gerald wouldn’t first try to throw me off the scent by misleading me about the date of Giles’s birth, and then do a complete about-face and name me as Giles’s guardian.”

“Well... when you put it like that, I suppose it doesn’t make sense.”

I had not bothered to fix my hair before we left the pavilion, thinking I would be able to make it back to the house before anyone was up. “Wait a minute, Stephen,” I said now, and stopped and fished in my jacket pocket for the combs Stephen had removed from my chignon last night. I stuck the combs between my teeth and began to braid my hair, pulling it forward over my shoulder.

Stephen watched me. “I wonder,” he said slowly, “if Gerald suspected there was something wrong with Weston’s books.”

It took a moment before I understood what he was implying. Then my hands stilled and I said, as sharply as I could around a mouthful of pearl-encrusted combs, “You cannot mean that Gerald mistrusted Adam!”

“I don’t know, Annabelle.” Stephen ran his fingers through his own tousled hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “But why didn’t Gerald name Adam?”

I pulled the thick braid I had just created up to the top of my head and secured it with the pearl combs. I said, “First of all, Stephen, you must realize that Gerald certainly did not expect to die at such an early age. When he made that will he probably thought that, should he die before Giles was twenty-one, Adam would be too old to act as an effective guardian for the boy Giles would still be. Gerald probably wanted someone who would be more sympathetic.”

“Perhaps that is it,” Stephen said.

I began to walk forward again. “I am sure it is.”

“Nevertheless,” Stephen said, “I am going to go over Adam’s books with great care.”

I stopped once again and swung around to face him. I planted my hands on my hips and said, “I cannot believe that you can be so suspicious!”

I recognized the stubborn look on his face. “This is my son’s inheritance we are talking about, Annabelle, and I don’t want to find that Adam has been gambling it away.”

“Adam does not gamble!”

“I hope you’re right. I hope I don’t find anything. But I am damn well going to look.”

We were now within sight of the house. I said, “I will go first and leave the back door open for you. Wait at least fifteen minutes before you follow me, Stephen.”

He nodded. We looked at each other. I swayed a little, and his arms came around me and we kissed.

How could we possibly feel like this again so soon?

“I have to go,” I said huskily.

I saw him swallow. He nodded. “Go.”

I called softly to the dogs and left Stephen standing beside the stone urn filled with pink petunias that marked the beginning of the gravel path to the lake.

Chapter Fifteen

I had slept for only a few hours, and I should have been exhausted, but instead I felt more alive than I had in years. I breakfasted with Giles, thus managing to avoid the rest of the family, and repaired to my office to await Sir Matthew, who was coming to discuss hunt business with me. Almost the first thing he said when he came in the door was, “You look radiant this morning, Annabelle.”

This was not good news. If I was altered enough for Sir Matthew to notice, I most certainly would not escape the sharp eyes of my mother.

“It must be the weather,” I said. “I thought I smelled autumn in the air.”

This was very clever of me, as any mention of autumn infallibly made Sir Matthew think of hunting. “Did you?” he said hopefully.

I grinned at him. “How are the pups coming along?”

“Very well indeed,” he said. “I really think we have the makings of one of the best packs in the country, Annabelle.”

After a bit more chitchat about the hounds, we proceeded to the business that was the reason I had asked him to come to the hall. I said, “Most of the farmers we were counting on could not come up with the subscription money, Sir Matthew.”

He had been regarding with approval the painting that hung over my desk—a hunt scene that he had given me as a wedding gift—but at my words his eyes snapped back to my face. “Who couldn’t come up with the subscription money?” he demanded.

“Roger Whitelaw, for one.”

“Whitelaw
is not taking a subscription?”

“It’s not that he doesn’t want to, Sir Matthew,” I explained, “but he told me that money is tight. Now that the war is over, wheat is not fetching the price it once did.”

“This is terrible,” said Sir Matthew, and I understood perfectly that he was not referring to the drop in the price of wheat.

“We cannot afford to exclude our farmers from the hunt,” I said. “Their goodwill is too important to us.”

“I realize that, Annabelle,” Sir Matthew said testily. “Damn it all, it was trying to placate the fanners—or, more exactly, the farmers’
wives
—that got us into raising the price of the subscription in the first place!”

I sighed. “We can’t seem to win, can we? I wonder if other hunts have these problems.”

“I don’t know about the shire hunts, but the local hunts certainly do,” Sir Matthew replied. “Just look at the terrible time Hartly had last year over Aldesley Wood.”

Lord Henry Hartly was the master of the West Sussex Hounds, and Aldesley Wood, which belonged to the Marquis of Highdon, was an important part of his hunt territory.

“I have heard nothing about Aldesley Wood,” I replied. Sir Matthew looked at me incredulously. “You never heard that poisoned meat was put out in the wood and two of Hartly’s hounds died?”

I was aghast. “How dreadful! Why did I never hear about this? “

Sir Matthew drummed his long, elegant fingers on the velvet chair arm. “Well, now that I think of it, Annabelle, I only learned of it myself at the very end of the season, and at that time you had other things on your mind.”

There was a moment of silence as we both remembered Gerald.

Then, “Tell me what happened,” I demanded. “All the world knows that Lord Henry regularly draws Aldesley Wood. Who would do such a dreadful thing as to put down poison in such a place? “

“Hartly suspects the marquis’s agent,” Sir Matthew replied ominously.

“What?”

Sir Matthew nodded. “Fellow by the name of Appleby. He complained to Hartly that no one was killing the foxes and they were becoming a nuisance to the local farmers. But Hartly said that he wasn’t drawing any foxes because the keepers weren’t stopping the earths.”

Foxes are nocturnal creatures that normally return to their dens, or earths, in the morning. If the earths are not stopped up to keep the foxes from going into them, then there would be no foxes abroad for hunters to hunt. Most large landowners, like the Marquis of Highdon, cooperated with the local hunt by having their keepers stop the earths on their property during hunting season. If the marquis’s keepers were not stopping the earths in Aldesley Wood, then obviously Lord Henry would not have found any foxes. They would all have been sleeping peacefully belowground while the hounds cast around in vain, trying to draw them.

“What makes Lord Henry think the marquis’s agent is responsible?” I asked.

“Well, when Hartly first received an impertinent letter from Appleby, complaining that the foxes were not being killed, he was naturally enraged, and he wrote directly to the marquis to object that his keepers were not doing their duty by the hunt. Hartly continued to draw Aldesley Wood while he was waiting to hear back from the marquis, and that was when his hounds were poisoned. You can imagine his fury.”

I shuddered to imagine his fury. Any master who sees his hounds die of poison wants vengeance, and Lord Henry was not known for his temperate personality.

“What happened then?” I demanded.

“Hartly went up to London to see the marquis in person. Highdon is an old man now, and he never was much of a sportsman, but he knows his duty to his country. He refused to dismiss the perfidious Appleby, but he instructed his keepers to stop the earths in Aldesley Wood.” Sir Matthew’s thin, ascetic face looked as lucent as that of a monk who has just had a vision of heaven. He said, “If I were Appleby, I would take care to keep out of Hartly’s way.”

I nodded fervent agreement.

“Getting back to this business of the farmers,” Sir Matthew said briskly. “I take it that
none
of your tenants have subscribed? “

“That is right.”

Sir Matthew snorted.

“Precisely,” I agreed.

“Well, we must have ‘em,” Sir Matthew said grumpily. “I suppose we could offer a reduced subscription rate to those fanners over whose property we hunt.”

This was precisely the solution I had come to myself. “That is an excellent idea, Sir Matthew!” I said warmly.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Is this going to leave us short of funds, Annabelle? “

“It might,” I confessed. “Since last I spoke to you I have only collected subscription money from my cousins Jack and Jasper.”

Sir Matthew looked surprised. “Shouldn’t think either of them would have that kind of money. It’s well known that Jack ain’t got a feather to fly with, and Jasper can’t have anything above his army pay.”

“Adam tells me that Fanny has come into a little inheritance,” I explained. “He bought Snap for Jasper to ride.”

Sir Matthew pursed his lips. “Well, well, well.”

A little silence fell and my eyes went, as they so often did, to the Stubbs painting on the opposite wall.

“What about Stephen?” Sir Matthew said. “He must have come into his mother’s money by now. Do you think you might convince him to take a subscription? “

I lowered my eyes from the painting and looked at Sir Matthew.

“I suppose not,” he said.

Stephen hated to hunt. He felt bad for the fox. I had learned never to get into a discussion about hunting with Stephen. He always left me feeling guilty that I loved it so much,

“I suppose I could ask the duke,” I said slowly. “He hunts.”

Sir Matthew shuddered. “Don’t do that, Annabelle,” he begged. “I’d rather go short of funds than ride out with Saye.”

Since this was my own feeling, I did not try to change his mind.

“Well,” he said, “we must just do the best we can with what we have.”

“I’m afraid so,” I agreed.

Instead of getting ready to leave, Sir Matthew settled himself deeper into his chair and sipped the wine I had given him when first he’d come. “How are the new horses coming along? “ he asked chattily.

“Slowly,” I answered with a wry smile. “I always forget how green Thoroughbreds are when they first come off the track.”

“By the end of the season you will have them going like lambs,” Sir Matthew said heartily.

“First I have to get them out,” I said. “They badly need to clock some miles in the woods. And my regular hunters need conditioning before the season opens.”

“I have to get my young hounds out, too.” Sir Matthew leaned forward eagerly, balancing his wineglass on his knee. “There’s no reason why we can’t start cubbing season a little early. You don’t mind getting out of bed at four, do you, Annabelle?”

“Of course not,” I said gamely.

One of the main drawbacks of cubbing season is that the weather is still warm and you have to get the hounds out very early, while the air is cool and the scent is still on the ground. In late August this meant that I would have to be at the stable by five in order to meet Sir Matthew by six.

Needless to say, not very many people turned out for cubbing.

“Actually, it would be a good thing to start cubbing now,” I said. “Jack is staying with us, and I can get him to take one of the new horses for me.”

Sir Matthew gave me a long, level look. “You never mentioned how Jack came up with the subscription money.”

“He had a lucky turn at the gambling table,” I said.

For some reason, I found that I did not want to tell Sir Matthew that I had paid for Jack’s subscription.

“Hmmm,” said Sir Matthew. His expression was skeptical.

“Perhaps I can convince Stephen to come out cubbing with us, too,” I said. “You always make certain that we don’t draw a fox, so his sensibilities won’t be outraged.”

“Damn fool ideas that boy has,” Sir Matthew fumed. “Foxes are vermin, damn it!”

This was not a discussion I wanted to pursue. I said, “I have some reservations about one of the horses that I bought. He’s much more highly strung than what I usually look for, and I’d like Stephen to ride him. Stephen is always so good at getting a horse to relax.”

“I’ve never been able to understand it,” Sir Matthew grumbled. “The boy does nothing but lounge about in the saddle, and horses will do anything for him.”

It was true that Stephen was not a serious horseman, in the way Sir Matthew understood serious. But Stephen had a great natural ability to sense what a horse was feeling. You could almost see a tense, fearful horse heave a sigh of relief when Stephen picked up the reins.