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Once, he would have headed for the barns to check on his horses. How he’d prided himself on his reputation for finding the most spirited yearlings with jumping promise and bending the difficult horses to his will, schooling them to jump obstacles they’d rather avoid. Gloried in the excitement of sitting astride a ton of barely controlled wildness while galloping through woods, fields and meadows, jumping streams, brush and fences.
There’d be no more of that, as yesterday had demonstrated with painful clarity.
He should go to his study, check the London papers and the current prices for prime hunters at Tatt’s. Or write to some hunting enthusiasts, asking if they were interested in purchasing any of his horses.
His spirits, already at a low ebb, sank even more at the prospect.
No, he couldn’t face that today. He’d go poke about in the library, which was as respectably large and well filled a room as he remembered. The pleasure of reading, a pastime often indulged while in winter quarters on the Peninsula, had been restricted by the dearth of books available. The single bright spot in his decision to retreat to Bildenstone was having access to the wealth of volumes his grandfather had accumulated.
Finding something intriguing would distract him from his misfortunes and raise his spirits, he told himself. Maybe he’d wander outside to read, see if the gazebo in his mother’s garden was still a pleasant place to sit.
He needed to start figuring out his future...but not yet. Once the additional aches of yesterday’s disastrous episode faded, he’d be in a better frame of mind to move forward.
* * *
An hour later, fed, dressed and feeling marginally better, Dom walked towards the library. Encountering the butler on the way reminded him of the previous day’s meeting, and he paused.
‘Wilton, I don’t wish to receive any more visitors. I mean no one, not even if God Himself turns up on my doorstep!’
Looking pained at that sacrilege, Wilton nodded. ‘As you wish, Mr Ransleigh.’
‘That’s what I wish,’ he muttered, and continued to the library.
After browsing through Caesar’s Commentaries, lamenting his inattention during Latin studies, Dom settled on a volume of Herodotus. The day having turned cloudy, he abandoned thoughts of the garden and settled in a wing chair before a snug fire.
As he’d hoped, the discussion of the struggle between Xerxes and the Spartans soon absorbed his attention.
* * *
When Wilton bowed himself into the room later, he realised enough time had passed that he was hungry.
Unwilling to leave the comfortable chair, he said, ‘Would you ask Cook to prepare some of the ham and cheese from last night, and bring it here to the library?’
‘Of course, Mr Ransleigh. But first...’ the butler hesitated, an anxious expression on his face ‘...I’m afraid I must tell you that...that a young lady has called. I explained that you weren’t receiving anyone, under any circumstances, but she said the matter was urgent and she would not leave until she saw you.’
Yet another lady on an urgent errand that would not keep? Who might it be now?
Though he’d happily tilled his way through fields of accommodating beauties before getting himself engaged, he’d always been careful; he had no fears that some dimly remembered female stood on his doorstep with a petit paquet in arms.
Curiosity was soon submerged by a lingering irritation over yesterday’s unwelcome visitors. ‘You didn’t admit her, did you?’
‘No, sir. Following your instructions, I closed the door—in her face, as she refused to move, a thing I’ve never done in my life, sir!’
‘Sounds like problem solved,’ Dom said. ‘Eventually, she’ll tire of waiting and go home. Will you have that tray brought up, and some more coffee, please?’
The butler lingered, looking even more distressed. ‘You see, sir, as the young lady arrived at just past eight this morning, while you were still abed, I felt no hesitation in refusing her. But it’s now nearly two of the clock and...and she’s still waiting.’
Annoyed as he was to have yet another person try to intrude upon his solitude, Dom felt a revival of curiosity which, as he reluctantly reviewed the situation, intensified.
He hadn’t mingled with society here for years, and only a few knew he’d returned to Suffolk. He had no idea who the woman might be, or what matter could be compelling enough to prompt her to come alone and wait for hours to consult him.
Arguing with himself that he would do better to ignore the caller, and losing, he finally said, ‘Who is it? Not the girl from yesterday, surely.’
‘Oh, no, sir,’ Wilton said, sounding scandalised. ‘Miss Wentworth’s mama would never allow her to call alone on a single gentleman. The Young Person didn’t give me her name, saying it wouldn’t be known to you anyway.’
It would be scandalous for an unmarried girl to call on him, Dom belatedly realised. He’d been out of England so long, he’d initially forgotten the strict rules governing the behaviour of gently born maidens.
Maybe she wasn’t so gently born.
There might be possibilities here, he thought, his body now taking an interest. Not that he was sure he was yet healed enough that such pleasant exercise wouldn’t cause him more agony than ecstasy. ‘You called her a “young lady”, though. Why, after such brazen behaviour?’
‘Well, she is young, and in speech and dress, she appears to be a lady, however improper it might be for her to come here.’
‘Alone, you said.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What has she been doing all this time?’
‘When I last glanced out, she’d seated herself on the brick wall at the end of the courtyard. She appeared to be reading, sir.’
‘She hasn’t knocked again?’
‘No, sir. I suppose, sitting where she is, she knows the household must be aware of her presence.’
So his unwelcome caller had been waiting for hours. Without trying a second time to force herself upon them.
Reading a book.
Persistence he understood, but he knew few men, and no females, that patient.
After an irresolute moment, that bedevilling curiosity overcame his body’s urging that he remain seated. Dom rose from his chair and paced to the mullioned windows.
Glancing out, he could see, below to his left, the three-foot wall that set off the courtyard spanning the space between the two Tudor wings projecting from the main block of Bildenstone Hall. Sitting there, wrapped in a cloak, was a female, her figure so foreshortened by height and distance that he couldn’t accurately estimate her shape or stature.
The day, already gloomy when he’d made his way to the library, had darkened further. As he gazed at her, a gust of wind rattled the window.
‘It’s going to rain shortly,’ he said, after a soldier’s inspection of the clouds. ‘That should send her on her way. I’ll have that tray now.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Wilton said, looking brighter. Apparently feeling that, having discharged his duty to the fairer sex by informing his master of the girl’s presence, he could now absolve himself of responsibility for her welfare, he trotted off for the tray.
A responsibility he obviously felt he’d transferred to Dom. Though his will tried to tell his conscience he wouldn’t accept the charge, within a few minutes of seating himself again, he felt compelled to return to the window.
The rain he’d predicted was pelting down from clouds that didn’t look likely to dissipate for some time. The girl was still there, though she’d tucked the book away and huddled in upon herself, as if to provide the smallest possible target to the besieging rain.
Her choice, he told himself, returning to his chair.
But after a few more minutes of reading the same paragraph over and over without comprehending a syllable, he tossed down the book and returned to the window.
She sat as before, huddled on the wall.
Uttering a string of oaths, Dom stomped to the bell pull and yanked hard.
A few moments later, Wilton reappeared, panting. ‘I came as fast as I could, sir!’
Dom walked back to window and stared down at the female, still sitting immobile as a gargoyle rainspout on a cathedral roof.
Probably didn’t shed moisture as efficiently, though.
‘Damn and blast!’ he muttered before turning to Wilton. ‘I suppose we’ll have to admit her before she contracts a consumption of the lungs.’
‘At once, sir!’ Wilton said, sounding relieved. ‘I’ll show her to the small receiving room.’
‘Better put some towelling down to protect the carpet. She must be drenched.’
Wondering when he was going to find the solitude he sought, angry—but more intrigued than he wanted to admit by the mysterious female—Dom exited the library and headed for the receiving room.
After entering, he took up a commanding position before the cold hearth—the lady might have won the first skirmish, but Dom had no intention of looking defeated—and awaited his uninvited visitor. Underscoring the caller’s lack of pedigree, she was being conducted to a small back parlour, rather than the formal front room into which the Squire and his ladies had been shown yesterday.
