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“That’s because the sir misled me. I thought Sir Adrian Cole must be a merry old nabob returned from India, or a mill owner bringing his wife and daughters from some blighted northern town to live in the healthful south. How did you acquire a ‘sir’ at your age?”
“My age?” He no longer thought of himself as a youth. Dick Crockett was a youth.
“I was knighted for making fire engines.”
“Fire engines?”
The perplexed look on her face made him laugh. “When I joined my grandfather’s business, he asked me what I wanted to make. His fortune came from cannons for the army and the navy, but demand had slowed. I started with glass. Glass makes money, but it doesn’t excite my grandfather. Then I suggested we make better fire engines, engines that can pump more water, at a faster rate. He liked that idea.”
“And a better fire engine led to a knighthood?”
“Five engines. Ours were deployed against the fire in the Houses of Parliament last October.”
“You were there, fighting the fire?”
“Yes.” His reputation as a man who fought the palace blaze meant he’d been pointed out in ballrooms all winter. Whispers had followed him. Women had looked at him with a sort of awe, and some women, with a kind of hunger.
Lady Cassandra gave him a shrewd assessing glance. Plainly, his firefighting did not stir any particular admiration in her.
He laughed and pushed away from the wall. “Not impressed? What about showing gratitude for sending disagreeable Hugh on his way?”
“I am grateful. Whatever your motive for that act, it was a kindness to Dick Crockett.”
“Motive? You suspect me of having a motive for helping a fellow who was getting the wrong end of an unfair fight?”
“You threw money at a problem and made it go away. That’s hardly heroic.”
“Does my money have to be heroic to rescue Verwood from insolvency?”
She took a deep breath. “As I said before, it’s not the money, it’s you we need to present as an unobjectionable tenant.”
He shook his head. “You would prefer a tenant in his dotage who fought at Trafalgar or Waterloo?”
She grinned at him and shrugged her shoulders. “Even a minor victory like Navarino would do. Mostly, it would help if you could manage to be forty or fifty and a bit more … staid.”
“That,” he said, “is beyond my power. I am staying at the Crown and can return directly if you think of any way of gaining Her Grace’s approval.”
“Oh, the Crown. Which horse did they give you?”
“Apollo.”
Her brows went up again. “Then you have made an impression. Apollo is the Crown’s best horse, and Grandmama likes him. You must come for tea.”
“Tea? Why isn’t your solicitor handling the lease for you?”
“Because women can manage their own affairs,” she snapped.
“Tea it is, then, if you agree to support me as an acceptable tenant for Verwood, for my service to the nation.” Raven stuck out his hand to seal the bargain. He would have Trimley seek out Verwood’s solicitor and find out the reason for leaving him out of the lease plans.
She cast him a brief puzzled glance, then her hand met his. The sensation of it brought him up short, her small delicate hand in his larger one. He had been thinking of her as this forthright, strong-willed person, managing business affairs women usually left to men. The soft hand threw him off for a moment.
She withdrew her hand, and he recovered. It was Amabel he should be thinking of, not this odd, prickly independent woman.
*
Cassie knocked on Honoria’s door, received no answer, and pushed the door open. Honoria sat hunched over her desk, wrapped in her favorite shawl, pen in hand, staring out the window.
“Honoria.” Cassie waited for her aunt to return from whatever fictional scene absorbed her.
