The Convenient Arrangement (15 page)

Hearing a bark, Valeria looked down the hill. Then she realized the noise had come from her left where a cottage was hidden amid a clump of trees clinging to the wind-sculpted hillside. She walked faster. Another bark sounded, and she gathered up her skirt, raising it above her high-lows, and pushed her pace nearly to a run.

A yellow dog bounded out from the trees, cutting her off. She cringed as the dog rushed to her and leapt up. Turning her back on it, she was not quick enough. It jumped again, this time lapping her face. Her eyes widened. It did not wish to bite her, merely to show affection. At this moment, she could use some affection.

She reached down to the pat its head, but froze when she heard another deeper bark. A black dog came darting from the trees straight toward her. It did not lunge, because its girth was too great. When she took a step backward, it shoved its head under her hand.

With a nervous laugh, she realized both dogs were vying for a pat on the head. “Good afternoon,” she said with a smile.

The yellow dog lapped her hand, and both looked up at her expectantly.

“I'm walking this way.” She pointed along an almost invisible path leading up to the higher reaches of the moor. “You are welcome to join me.”

She laughed when they took off up the path, then paused and looked back to see if she was following. They crashed through the bushes and splashed into a rivulet coursing along the hill as she continued along the path that was growing steeper with every step.

By the time she entered a copse near the crest of the hill, her breath was banging against her side. The back of her left leg was aching, and the back of her right was on fire as the path grew more vertical. She glanced back, but could see nothing through the trees. Just a wee bit farther, then she would turn around. Every step was a challenge which kept her from thinking of that blastedly irritating man and his plans to marry her off with lightning speed and of her own uncertainty about him.

“Why can't things ever be simple?” she asked, and the black dog bounced back, dripping and covered with pieces of leaves, to stare up at her with an offer to pet him again. She did and smiled. “I envy your witless enjoyment of this day.”

With a bark, the dog ran to catch up with the yellow one that was scampering up a bank that was even steeper than the path.

Valeria shook her head, laughing tersely, because she had no breath for more. Picking up a long branch, she broke off the twigs attached to its sides. She used it as a walking staff to help propel her up the hill.

A flash caught her eyes as she walked among the trees. Looking to her left, she saw a pool of water gathered on a shelf of earth. It was surrounded by trees and more than fifty feet away. She wondered if she could toss a stone into it.

A proper lady would never do such a thing
.

She ignored that irritating thought. What would a proper lady do? Mayhap she would allow the rumors whirling about Exmoor to betroth her to another man she did not know. She had trusted her guardian to arrange her first marriage, but she was a woman grown now. She must depend on her own instincts to decide whom to marry and when.

With a laugh, she picked up a pebble from the path and tossed it through the trees. It struck one tree, then another before crashing to the ground. Gathering up a second, she let it fly. This one became entangled in the branches and dropped only a few feet in front of her. As she reached for another stone, the black dog whined. She smiled. They thought they were part of this game. Patting the dog on the head, she drew back her hand to throw the rock. The dog put its mouth over her hand and looked up at her with eager eyes.

“No, no,” she said with a laugh. “This is my stone.”

He moved aside and sniffed the ground.

She tossed the rock and laughed when she heard the surprisingly deep, definitely satisfying plop of the stone in the pond. When she wiped dirt from her hands and turned to continue up the hill, she laughed again. The black dog had a stone, twice the size of the ones she had been tossing, in its mouth. It was carrying it as proudly as if it had caught a rabbit in the hedgerow.

The yellow dog was racing about, clearly not wanting to be left out of the game. It pawed at the ground near the wall, then ran after the black dog, nipping at its side playfully.

Valeria followed. The trees thinned, and then she was at the top. Turning to look in every direction, she knew seeing the moors from here was worth struggling up the hill. She should bring someone up here to savor this view, but there was something wanton about enjoying it alone now. The hills rolled away like gargantuan green waves in one direction while the land fell into the gray sea in the other. Along the hills, sheep dotted the fields, resembling grave markers bleached in the sun and cast wildly across a churchyard. Trees, which had survived the battering of the wind, were as twisted as the path she had climbed.

Running her hand along the moss-covered stones on the stone wall, she wondered who had first dared to come up here and try to tame this amazing place. Yes, it was desolate and often boring and occasionally frightening, but it was glorious on this sun-swept afternoon when the only clouds in the sky were a brighter white than the sheep.

The black dog came up to her again and leaned its head against her leg. She smiled and patted it, but said nothing. Silence seemed too much a part of this land, demanding that everyone and everything that trespassed on it should respect that hush. The wind might howl and whistle, but it was a wondrous music she wanted to enjoy.

“We are well met today.”

Valeria whirled and stared up at Sir Tilden. He seemed as tall as a distant hill when he rode closer to her. With the wind sweeping through his blond hair, she could believe he was a direct descendent of some Viking chieftain who had conquered this moor a thousand years ago. She was about to ask him how he had managed to ride up the steep hill when she realized the path leading down the other side was gradual.

“It is a grand day, isn't it?” she asked as he swung down from his horse.

“It is now.”

She struggled to keep her smile from wavering as his gaze coursed up and down her like a pack of hounds chasing a fox across the moors. Turning back to the wall, she leaned her arms on its uneven top and gazed down at the shore. “The walk up here is worth the view. It is extraordinary.”

“Flawless, I would say.”

Her hands clenched on the stones, but she forced them to soften from fists. Undoubtedly Sir Tilden had heard the poker-talk that Miss Urquhart had been so pleased to repeat. Mayhap he gave it credence. If so, she would have to disabuse him of his delusions without hurting his feelings.

“Have you lived here all your life?” she asked. The past seemed a safe topic.

“Most of it, save for when I went to school or had the privilege to visit Town.” He came to stand behind her.

Even though she waited for him to shift to one side or the other, she realized he had no intention of moving. For her to do so was sure to give him insult, and she could not turn around without being too close to him. Dash him! She never had had any patience for court-promises and come hither smiles, which might have been one of the reasons she had so gladly accepted her guardian's offer to arrange her marriage to Albert.

She could not help thinking of how Lorenzo's breath had created a sensual warmth against her skin when he had protected her from the bats. He was not as handsome as Sir Tilden, and he clearly had no interest in courting her. Then why was she thinking of him now? Dealing with one irritating man at a time was more than enough for her.

“Do you miss London?” Sir Tilden asked, his breath coursing along her nape.

She silenced the shudder, leaving an ache on her tense shoulders. If she had not listened to Miss Urquhart's prattle, she might not be so uncomfortable now. She was being jobbernowl to let an old woman's chatter unnerve her so.

Or was it only Miss Urquhart's gossip? Sir Tilden stood too close for propriety. Mayhap matters were different here on Exmoor, but she was the same, and he stood too near for her comfort.

“This is a big change for me,” she said, knowing she must say something.

“Which is difficult in addition to your tragic loss.”

She slowly looked over her shoulder and saw sympathy on his handsome face. No man should be this good-looking, and she wondered why some lass had not hauled him to the altar before this. “Thank you, Sir Tilden—”

“I would as lief that you address me as Tilden, if you will.”

“I would like that.” She faced him, pressing back against the wall as she waited for him to edge away a step. “You must feel free to use my given name as well.”

“And I would like that, Valeria.” He leaned one hand against the wall, not far from where her own hand rested. “You seem to be recovering very well from your loss.”

“Albert's death and then Paul's—”

“Not that, the loss of your home and fortune following your brother's tragic accident.”

Her eyes widened. Not even country-put manners were an excuse to discuss the private issue of her finances. This man had met her but once before today, but she could read in his eyes an avid curiosity about the mistakes Paul had made at the card table.

Slipping past him, she said, “I do not wish to speak of that matter.”

“I understand.”

“I'm glad.” Mayhap he was not a complete bumpkin, after all.

“I thought only to ease my mind on what is true and what is nothing more than mumbles on the wind. From what I heard from Lord Caldwell—”

“Do not speak that cur's name in my hearing!”

Valeria hurried back down the steep hillside. When Tilden called after her, she did not look back. She could leave him to stare after her, but she could not escape the horror Austin Caldwell's name conjured out of her memories. The top-lofty man had led her brother into a life of high-stakes gambling and the fast life of Cyprians and blue ruin that may have led to his death. She suspected he had played a part in persuading her brother to use her assets to back his debts until even they were not enough. The pursuit of the game and the chance to win at the price of another's utter ruin were all that mattered to Lord Caldwell. If Tilden was a tie-mate of Lord Caldwell, she wanted nothing to do with him either.

When the dogs whined, she waited for them to catch up with her. She glanced back, but Tilden and his horse were gone. No doubt, he considered her as queer in the attic as Miss Urquhart. She did not care a rush. All she wanted to do was flee, for a few moments, from the problems that haunted her. She would have liked to go back up the hill and linger without Tilden Oates to distress her, but, if she stood still for very long, her uneasy thoughts came back to plague her. If nothing else, she would be as tired as David after a day of meandering across the moors and would be able to lose her cares in sleep tonight.

Valeria followed the dogs at a cautious pace. She reached out to hold onto the wall, so she did not end up skittering down the path like the small stones rolling ahead of her. Blast it! She should not have let Tilden bother her so much. Going down was worse than climbing up.

Her foot slipped into a hole, and she clutched the stone wall. She looked down at the freshly turned earth. This must be where the dogs had been digging. She lifted out her foot and struck something. Whatever it was clunked hollowly against the wall. Her eyes widened.

It was a vase. A cracked vase. Picking it up, she stared in amazement. She could not mistake the figures on the glossy red vase. The design was almost identical to one she had seen at a friend's house in Bath, not far from the Pump Room. Her friend had been one of several people along the street in the shadow of the Bath Abbey, who had been complaining of strong-smelling water seeping into the cellars. When masons worked to stop the leak, they had dug into the floor and found a vase much like this one. She recalled Claudia mentioning that it was very likely from the time of the early Roman empire.

Turning it over in her hands, she noticed a small hole in the back. It still was in remarkably good condition for having been buried more than a millennium. She looked along the wall and saw places where someone had been digging. Was this where the late Lord Moorsea had found his broken pottery that filled so many crates back at the manor house? She peered over the wall and saw, just below, the chimneys of Moorsea Manor sprouting like frozen weeds from the roof of the house.

Lorenzo would be delighted to see this. Excitement pulsed within her as she imagined his smile when she took this to him. Without a doubt, he would spend the rest of the day going through his uncle's library to find information that might help him identify this vase. If she stayed and helped him, she might be able to chase away the ghosts of the rumors that both Miss Urquhart and Tilden Oates seemed to be accepting as the truth.

More quickly than she had guessed, Valeria entered Moorsea Manor. The curve of the moors had suggested she was farther from the house than she had been. She had left her two canine companions at the front gate, noting that both of them now carried a stone as if they thought they were part of a game.

Lorenzo was sitting in the library, as she had expected. When she called his name, he came hastily to his feet. Papers flew across the floor.

“No, no,” he said as he gathered up the pages, “I can do this.”

“I won't read your poetry if you do not want me to.”

He paused as he was reaching for a page that had landed under his chair. Looking up at her, he asked, “You won't?”

“It is
your
poetry, Lorenzo. You should share it only when and with whom you wish.”

“You constantly surprise me.” He stood and set the paper, upside down she noted, on the table by his chair. Closing the bottle of ink, he smiled. “I had thought the ladies of London were constantly poking their noses into each other's business to know the latest
on dits
.”