The Viscount's Deadly Game Read online

  And she also thought, but what else is going on here?

  Two

  Theodore didn’t expect Mary to appear at breakfast but she did, looking as fresh and rested as he could have wished for. She certainly didn’t look like a woman who had been late at a dinner party and then sleepwalking in the small hours of the night. The meal was a noisy and lively one, reminding him of the times when his family had been young. Seven daughters had meant rapid conversation and laughter throughout the day.

  Mary had not had children of her own – though she was young and there was still time, Theodore worried about her delicate health – but the Grey House was always full of merriment. Sibyl’s three boys, Jacob, Robert and Samuel, were tutored at home as they were not yet old enough to go away to school and instead of taking their meals in the schoolroom, were brought into the breakfast room, in a daringly Continental fashion. Cecil doted on his nephews, though Sibyl kept her mouth pressed shut and did not eat anything. She sipped at hot water flavoured with lemon, somehow without appearing to even part her lips. Adelia chattered with Mary, and Cecil seemed to focus on the boys.

  As soon as he could, Theodore slipped away.

  It was lovely to spend some time with his eldest daughter. And he was happy for Adelia, too. It was good for her to be engaged on a task, and finding a suitable man for Lady Beaconberg’s daughter was going to be a challenge she’d relish, he was sure.

  But he was curious about Lord Beaconberg’s stables and he was keen to meet Sir Arthur for himself. He was particularly looking forward to seeing the now-famous Golden Meadow, the prize-winning horse. He had a rough idea of where the stables business was located, and it was a pleasant day to be wandering the rolling hills. This part of Yorkshire was less dramatic and more gentle than the steeper climbs to the west and north, but there was a hint of wildness in the air nevertheless. Something about the atmosphere said You are many days away from London, now. This is yet untamed country. Which was nonsense, quite frankly. York was a civilised place and other bustling, booming industrial towns were not so far away. The railways were everywhere; distances were no longer measured in the stages of a coach and horses. He had enjoyed the coach journey north but he knew that Adelia chafed at the time it had taken; she was infected with the modern urgency that seemed rife now. He still longed for the older, slower way of life.

  He strode along a well-maintained turnpike road, and tried very hard to think about horses rather than worry about his daughter and her tendency to sleepwalk. The incident had been an aberration, perhaps brought on by the influx of company to her house and the exertion of the dinner party. He put aside the fact that Cecil had said she’d been sleepwalking for a few months. Maybe the recent problems that had clouded the life of Dido, his second eldest daughter, was causing anxiety for Mary.

  Maybe.

  And finally he was able to successfully put his concerns to one side as he entered a busy and thriving stable yard, and he grinned with delight as he inhaled the familiar and comforting smell of hay and horse feed, leather and saddle soap, and the rich earthy warmth of the horses themselves.

  A stable lad spotted Theodore, took in the cut of his expensive coat and the confidence with which he walked, and immediately went to fetch an older man. This gentleman wore tweed upon tweed and a wide smile under his whiskers, and he greeted Theodore with a bluffness and unfeigned forthright joy. Theodore liked that in a man. When one could welcome another man in, without knowing who that person was, or what they could do for your own status and ends, that was a mark of a decent man.

  And this decent man turned out to be Sir Arthur Glanville himself; part owner of the racing stables and long-time business partner of Talbot Parr, Lord Beaconberg.

  Theodore quickly introduced himself and was even more inclined to like Sir Arthur as his demeanour did not change upon learning that he was in the presence of an Earl. Sir Arthur might not have been born to his title but he didn’t fawn or become subservient. He laughed heartily and offered to show Theodore around.

  “So you’re the little Mrs Parker-Grey’s father, are you?” Sir Arthur said as they walked companionably across the main yard, to a gap in between some loose boxes. It would have been insulting to hear that diminutive applied by any other man – about any other women. But it made Theodore smile.

  “I am. She’s the apple of my eye,” he replied with no embarrassment.

  “She’s a credit to you. And a fine assessor of horses, I must say! Though she doesn’t come down here as often as I’d like. She brightens the place up, I’ll give her that. She’s always welcome here, as is her husband – and her father.”

  Theodore thought that a stable yard, with its noise and dirt, was the worst place for a delicate young lady. Although on saying that, these stables were some of the cleanest he’d ever seen. “Does Mr Parker-Grey come here often?”

  “Rarely but we meet regularly in the club. He’s a fine gentleman. Very fine. But speaking of fine – there we are! Golden Meadow.” Sir Arthur ended his sentence with a curious sigh.

  “What a remarkable specimen,” Theodore said. He leaned on the post and rail fencing and admired the three-year-old colt who was being put through his paces by a tiny groom perched on his back. “So he won at Epsom, did he?”

  “Indeed he did. Two thousand guineas.”

  Theodore whistled through his teeth. It was both the name of the race and the amount of winnings that had been collected by the pale bay horse now prancing energetically around the paddock. “So what are your plans for him now?”

  “That’s ... up in the air. Various options. Come now, do you want to see a new filly who has just arrived?”

  Sir Arthur walked off abruptly and Theodore was bound to follow. He kept up and pressed Sir Arthur lightly. “But the St Leger is next month – another classic flat race for three year olds. He’d sweep the board, would he not?”

  “Maybe, maybe. Doncaster is a bit of a hike.”

  Doncaster was far closer to York than Epsom, so that statement didn’t make any sense. Theodore frowned but Sir Arthur could not see his face. He was picking up his pace and seemed determined to show Theodore around the whole stables. Theodore wondered, then, if Golden Meadow had picked up an injury which he hadn’t noticed while watching the colt being trained just now. Of course, Sir Arthur wouldn’t want that to become common knowledge. Theodore nodded to himself and was content to be led to a small cluster of loose boxes as Sir Arthur pointed over each half-door and listed off each horse’s good points.

  They were joined then by Lord Beaconberg who strode over as they were leaving one set of loose boxes and heading to an outdoor manège. In the middle of the manège a young man was turning in a slow circle, holding a long lunge rein in one hand and a whip in the other as a smart-looking dun stallion trotted around him.

  “Calaway!” Lord Beaconberg boomed in a familiar sort of way.

  “Beaconberg. How do you do.”

  “How do I do? How do I do? Very formal today, aren’t you?” Lord Beaconberg grinned and slapped Theodore’s shoulder just a little too hard. “Arthur showing you what’s what, is he?”

  “Yes, he’s been most welcoming. I must say, Golden Meadow’s a fine looking thing.”

  “He is! He is! Next up the St Leger, hey, Arthur?”

  “We’ll see,” Sir Arthur muttered. “We’ve other things to get into place first. I put the paperwork on your desk.”

  “I saw.”

  “And...”

  “I said, I saw it,” Lord Beaconberg snapped angrily, before composing himself quickly in front of the visitor. Theodore noted the altercation but it was nothing to do with him so he had turned away politely, watching the dun horse being urged into a slow canter.

  The first young man, who had greeted Theodore initially, was leaning on the fence a little distance away, also watching the schooling. He glanced sideways at Theodore and nodded. “Been lame, a little, for far too long, but I reckon he’ll be fit to race next year again. That, or
stud.”

  “Another prize-winner?”

  The man shook his head. “Not a patch on Golden Meadow. Golden Meadow laid the golden egg, or so they say around here.”

  “It only takes one winner,” Theodore said.

  “But that winner has to keep on winning,” the young man said, and sighed.

  That confirmed his suspicions: the now-famous horse was injured but it was a secret. Theodore sought to change the subject, and cast his eyes about for something innocuous to say. He spotted a swatch of uncut grass along the far edge of the fenced-off exercise arena, and against the fence was a tall stand of meadowsweet, its creamy blooms still thick and fresh in the late summer air. “I say, might I take some of that home to my wife?”

  “Sir?”

  Theodore pointed. “My wife, she loves the smell of meadowsweet. Says it calms her nerves, not that she suffers from nerves. Maybe she doesn’t because she inhales meadowsweet?” Theodore said, his voice fading as he wondered about cause and effect. Then he realised the young man was watching him expectantly. He resumed. “Anyway, I am so dreadfully sorry – I am Lord Calaway, and I’m staying with my daughter, Mrs Parker-Grey...?”

  “Oh! Oh yes! I do apologise – yes, of course. I had heard you were visiting. Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” The man took Theodore’s proffered hand and shook it. “Douglas Parr Mackie, jobbing groom and picker of meadowsweet for ladies.” He was just turning to head over to the sweet-smelling herbs when Lord Beaconberg intervened.

  “Mackie, stop loitering and bothering guests. You’ve work to do.”

  “Sir.”

  “Steady on,” Sir Arthur said mildly. “Lad’s been grafting hard since five this morning.”

  “And he’ll graft on until five tonight, at the very least.”

  Douglas Mackie was already scurrying away. Theodore snapped a few of the meadowsweet blooms himself. Sir Arthur and Lord Beaconberg were both smiling pleasantly, but they were smiling only at Theodore, and not at one another.

  It was a rather uncomfortable situation, Theodore thought, and that in itself was unusual. He didn’t often pick up on such undercurrents. It was time to take his leave, thank them for their kind hospitality, and make his way back to the Grey House for luncheon.

  LORD BEACONBERG WAS a pleasant man, and easy to get along with. Sir Arthur was likewise both friendly and jovial. So why did they appear to rub one another up the wrong way? There seemed to be a disagreement over their prizewinning horse and perhaps one man wanted to race him again soon in spite of injury; and the other objected. But they had been in business with one another for a very long time, and no doubt they had weathered such differences of opinion before.

  He mused upon it as he entered the grounds of the Grey House. The house was set back from the main road and he admired the well-maintained lawns that had not appeared to be suffering from the summer heat. Of course, this far north, they would get plenty of rain.

  Having a good team of gardeners also helped. Theodore loved speaking to outdoor workers. He was baffled, as a rule, by the legions of indoor servants who all appeared to have very strict demarcations as to their realms. “Smith will not touch the butler’s silverware, Theodore: she is my lady’s maid!” Adelia had said only the previous week, in shocked and snippy tones, as if such a thing were obvious. But he was on much firmer ground with gardeners. There was one, clad in pleasantly rustic shades of brown, bending over some grass next to a shrubbery and peering at the ground.

  “Slugs?” Theodore said as he approached. “Drown them in ale, that’s my advice.”

  “These creatures are a bit big for that, sir,” the man said as he straightened up. Far from being a pastoral and hoary old man of the soil, he turned out to be around the age of thirty and his cheeks were hardly ruddy at all. The man pointed at the grass. “Hoof-prints.”

  “So they are! The Parker-Greys keep a few nice horses for the carriages. Are they prone to escaping?”

  “No, sir, never, and since this ghost started appearing, we’ve taken to setting a watch on the stables all night just in case.”

  “What ghost?”

  “That ghost, sir.” The gardener pointed at the gouges in the lawn. “The ghostly horse what made them, sir.”

  “But ghosts don’t leave marks.” Then Theodore corrected himself. “But ghosts don’t actually exist.”

  “Then what left those prints, then, begging your pardon, sir?”

  “A ... horse?” Theodore hazarded.

  The gardener shook his head in total disbelief. “At night, sir? Silently and with all our horses locked up and guarded? No sir. They say a monk once lived near here, sir, and when the Vikings came, he fled with all the abbey’s silver and gold on a horse but they caught him and that’s what the ghost is, sir.”

  “That sounds exceedingly unlikely. I doubt there has ever been an abbey around here.”

  “A church, then, maybe. Or something holy. A big church,” the gardener went on, stubbornly. He shook his head as he looked at the prints. “Why do ghosts always make messes? See, if I come back as a ghost, I’ll be a good one and tidy up as I go.”

  There really was little point in continuing such a nonsensical conversation. Theodore backed away and headed for the house, hoping for a good cup of tea and some sanity.

  He encountered Mr Parker-Grey’s sister Sibyl Ramsgreave in the hallway as she was also heading towards the luncheon room, and he asked her what she thought of the gardener’s tale.

  “Utter poppycock, of course,” she said confidently as she allowed him to escort her into the room. “There was certainly no abbey around here.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “Indeed. The ghost is of a highwayman’s horse, and he ought to have known that.”

  Theodore showed her to a chair, and let the matter drop with a stifled sigh.

  Three

  Adelia could see that Theodore wanted to speak to her about something by the totally unsubtle ways he fixed his eyes upon her throughout the late luncheon like a slightly demented owl. As they left the room together, he began to talk excitedly about horses and she only half-listened. She had some pressing correspondence to deal with, and she needed absolute privacy.

  It was correspondence that was not only delicate, but unwelcome.

  But it had to be done.

  She nodded and let him ramble on about colts and meadowsweet – what, she suddenly thought, catching herself. Meadowsweet? He was halfway through an explanation but she’d missed the main point of it. Never mind. She smiled and said, “I’m sure” and “Yes” until he appeared to have exhausted himself, and let him wander off to the library to peruse Cecil Parker-Grey’s extensive collection of botanical illustrations.

  The very minute that she was free, she hurried back to their chilly wing, and ensured the door of her room was firmly closed before sitting down at her travelling writing case and opening the polished wooden lid.

  She had received another unwelcome letter from Jane Pegsworth.

  She picked it up and held it, and fancied that she could feel the woman’s spite seeping out from the thin paper and leeching into her own skin. Jane was her younger brother’s wife – though they were married in name only, and certainly did not share a life together any longer. Both subsisted in their own morass of shame on the very edges of society. This was a fact that Adelia preferred to – well, not to conceal, exactly, but she certainly didn’t speak of it.

  Ever.

  Only her best friend Harriet knew all the facts.

  The letter was yet another one begging for help. The only sort of help Jane would actually accept, however, was monetary assistance. And though this letter pleaded for finances to help send her boy to school – your own dear nephew and I know how you would not want to see him struggling through life in a state of neglect when it is in your power to grant him such an education as shall see him fitted to the life that ought to have been his right by birth – Adelia knew that any money she sent would surely be s
pent on Jane’s own lifestyle.

  In fact, Adelia had already provided a quantity of money and even a costly jewel to be sold to help fund the boy’s studies. She’d sent it with her shabby, shambolic brother who had turned up while she’d been visiting one of her other daughters. Clearly, that financial help had not made it to its intended recipient. She had suspected even then that it might not make it, even while hoping that this time, her brother would do the decent thing.

  Adelia sat back in the wooden chair and sighed. She let the letter drop back into her case. She didn’t need to read it again. She pulled out a sheet of good quality, woven paper and unscrewed the lid from the bottle of ink. But she was not writing back to Jane Pegsworth.

  She was unsure what she ought to do, so she wrote instead seeking advice from Harriet.

  She blotted the ink carefully and let it dry before folding the paper into an envelope. She spent another ten minutes in silent contemplation before writing a second letter and this one was no more cheerful than the first.

  My dearest Felicia, it began, addressing the fourth-born daughter of Adelia and Theodore. I do hope that this letter finds you well. I am so pleased you have been able to stay with our dear Dido while she suffers through these unpleasant and trying times. I am sure you are a great comfort to her.

  Adelia paused. In truth, Dido’s “unpleasant” times were now far better than they had been; the source of all her misery had fled the country. But still, one of Dido’s friend was dead and certain parts of society now turned its back on Dido due to the strange circumstances that surrounded that death. Yet Dido remained a rich woman and the wife of a Marquis was still the wife of a Marquis, however disgraced the atmosphere. She had security, her children, her home and the support of her family. And she had no wish to enter the sort of salons that were now barred to her or seek the company of those who found her tainted.