Page 1

Chapter One

The door of Verwood Hall, an old house of buff-colored Bath stone, built in the baroque style of Wren, stood open, admitting a sharp gust of wind which tugged at the hem of Lady Cassandra Lavenham’s plain brown cloak. Through the open door, Cassie could see dark clouds rolling in above the chestnut trees lining the carriage drive. She accepted an umbrella thrust her way by William, Verwood’s remaining footman and gathered her cloak about her.

Just as she prepared to step out, her aunt Honoria called down to her from the landing above the entrance hall. “Cassie, you’ll be soaked to the skin before you’re home again.”

“Very likely, Aunt, but I won’t mind. You do want your package, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, I’ve been waiting so long.” Honoria, her lace cap rakishly askew over graying red-gold curls, twisted the ends of a lovely, blue East India shawl draped over her shoulders. “Couldn’t we send William or one of the lads from the stables? I’m certain that if we stressed the … delicacy of the situation, William would be discreet.”

“No doubt, Aunt, but then, I’d miss my walk, and you know how unreasonable I become when I’ve had no proper exercise in a day.”

“You are never unreasonable, love, except in your deplorable tendency to self-reliance. Can you manage all that way? Your foot will hold up?”

Cassie smiled up at her worried relation. “My half boots are quite sturdy, and William has provided me with an umbrella.”

“You will return in time for our meeting, won’t you? I cannot manage the property agent alone.”

“If I get behind hand, I’ll stop at the Crown and get them to bring me in their gig. Don’t worry. I will be here.”

“Oh, good thought. The inn gig will be perfect for your foot.”

Cassie offered a cheery wave to Honoria, and stepped resolutely through the door. As soon as it closed behind her, her spirits lifted. She managed the front steps as she had learned to do and headed up the carriage drive. She judged that she had two hours at least for her errand in the village before the rain truly set in. The property agent was expected in the afternoon, so she would have time to change and put herself to rights before meeting with him.

Of the three women living at Verwood, Cassie, at twenty-four was the youngest. She judged that she had the easiest means of escape from the demands of managing a large household on somewhat straightened means. She rarely let weather interfere with her daily walks and felt no need to conceal them from her neighbors, however eccentric such solitary rambles might appear. Cassie could lose herself in woods and sky for an hour or more each day and return to Verwood refreshed in spirits. Miss Honoria Thornhill was Cassie’s mother’s surviving sister, a single lady of some fifty-odd years, whose escape was writing novels, an occupation which she concealed from Cassie’s grandmother on her father’s side. Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess of Verwood, the third member of their female household, had no tolerance for women scribblers as she called them. And so, once again, today, Cassie had been dispatched to the village to retrieve the first copies of her aunt’s latest book Audacity and Ambition.

A particularly strong gust caught her, and she quickened her steps, turning off the drive to strike out on a well-worn path through the woods. With any luck she would not only beat the rain, but when she returned, she and Honoria would secure a tenant for the house. It had become necessary to let the house due to Cassie’s grandmother’s passion for horses. At seventy-nine, Her Grace remained a remarkable horsewoman, and a demanding employer. No trainer satisfied the dowager’s standards, and no Verwood horse had raced in three years, nor had any of their neighbors sent horses to be prepared at Verwood. With Verwood no longer functioning as a stud, the staggering costs of maintaining a score of horses in the style her grandmother considered worthy of Verwood Hall was draining their resources faster than Cassie’s current allowance from her trustees or the proceeds from Honoria’s pen could provide.

Cassie had high hopes for the afternoon’s meeting with the property agent. His letter assured her that his wealthy client was determined to find a suitable house in the neighborhood for immediate occupancy. In Cassie’s mind the deal was as good as done. Verwood was the only house for let in the area. True, the house had a few shortcomings that perhaps made immediate occupancy not quite practical, a leak in the library, a hearth in the best bed chamber that smoked when the wind was northerly, but she was sure that a properly eager tenant would see that such difficulties could be overcome. First impressions mattered, so they were to meet in the red drawing room with an excellent tea prepared by Cook, another woman who knew how to manage on slender means.

*

In the private dining room of the Crown in Wormley, Sir Adrian Cole leaned one elbow on the sill of the old diamond-paned bay window and regarded his property agent, Jacob Trimley. Cole was becoming used to his new name and title, both of which had inspired the landlord of the Crown to put forth considerable effort to please. To those who truly knew him, he retained his boyhood name, Raven.

The Crown, where Raven and Trimley had taken refuge during an earlier deluge, served a decent roast fowl luncheon, the remains of which lay on the table next to the open ORDNANCE SURVEY map, sheet NUMBER 86.

The final gusts of the passing storm fluttered the frayed curtain at his elbow, and it occurred to Raven that the luncheon delay suited Trimley. There was something his agent wasn’t telling him about the estate Raven intended to buy.

“You haven’t made them an offer, have you?” he said.

The comment caught Trimley with his fork in the air. He stabbed a last bit of boiled potato, put his fork down, and raised his napkin to his mouth. From behind the cloth, he mumbled, “An offer to purchase would not be accepted.”

“Why not? You told me the place has been advertised for months without drawing any takers. By now the owner must be in dire need of funds.”

“They may have set the asking price a trifle high.” Trimley reached for his tankard of the landlord’s home-brewed.

“Why is that? I wonder.” Raven raised a brow. He thought the asking rate rather low. “What are you not telling me, Trimley?”

Trimley took a swallow of his drink. “Well, it’s possible that the place wants some attention.”

Raven sat up. “You mean it’s a bleeding ruin?”

“Nothing of the sort. Keep in mind, Sir Adrian, the location.” Trimley set down his beer and tapped the map. “You will not find another property as good, or one nearer Lord Ramsbury’s seat. The Verwood estate has a small park, to be sure, a thousand acres, but it’s well laid out. The lake is lovely, and the house sizable, just right for your purpose I should say.”

Raven looked at the map. In December he had marked out Lord Ramsbury’s estate and instructed Trimley to find a property in the neighborhood suitable for a newly knighted, obscenely rich gentleman. Proximity to Ramsbury’s estate was the key to Raven’s hopes and plans. Now, when an available property had been found, Raven wanted no delays. “That’s not the usual size for a duke’s principal seat, is it?”

“Well, no,” said Trimley.

The waiter entered and began to clear the table, and Trimley launched into a history of the dukes of Verwood, explaining how the title had passed from the last duke to his younger brother rather than to the son who had died in the Anglo-Burmese War.