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“Yes,” said Frances, glowing with pride.
“And you, Frances, fully intend to repair all your fortunes?” Hawk asked, tweaking a curl beside her left ear.
“I believe I shall have another traveling stall made,” she said.
“A very small, inconsenquential race,” said Beatrice, smoothing out her gloves. “I shouldn’t rely too much on the outcome.”
“Then why ever should you wish to purchase our horses if you place no reliance on their abilities?” Frances asked.
Edmund shook his head fondly at his betrothed, took her arm, and followed Hawk and Frances to the winner’s circle. Timothy was flushed and smiling, and so excited he could barely speak.
Hawk warmly congratulated his jockey on his victory, and also heard the grumbling from other race-horse owners. He saw money changing hands, a great deal of money. His ears picked up when he chanced to overhear one gentleman saying to another, “Flying Davie, huh, George! Where the devil did old Nevil pick up that magnificent piece of horseflesh? Odd coloring, reminds me of a thoroughbred I saw at Ascot last year.”
George, wiping perspiration from his brow, grunted. “Nevil never said a word about it. You remember Nevil—always bragging about his finds. Why would he keep mum about this fellow?”
Hawk’s interest was truly piqued when he returned to Desborough Hall to find Amalie’s letter waiting for him. He saw Frances give him a rather penetrating look, and quickly excused himself and made for the gentlemen’s smoking room. He read the letter once, and then again. His eyes went yet again to Lord Dempsey’s words: We took care of him, oh yes, we did ... Desborough srock ... it will be all over ...
What the devil was going on here? Hawk knew himself to be a straightforward man, unused to machinations of this sort. In the army, he had lied, cheated, and otherwise employed every means known to soldier to provide Wellington with needed information, but in this world, the one he’d now joined, he was uncertain how to proceed. He decided in the end that the differences couldn’t be so great after all. He had a problem and he must solve it.
He tracked down his father, who was enjoying a sprightly walk in the east rose garden. The warm summer air was redolent of their sweet scent. He shook his head at himself, for it made him think immediately of Frances.
“My boy,” the marquess greeted him. “Frances isn’t with me, more’s the pity. I wager you can find her at the paddock.”
“No,” Hawk said, “‘tis not my wife I seek.” He matched his stride to his father’s slower one. “Was Lord Dempsey a close friend of Nevil’s, sir?”
“Old Edward’s boy, Charles, isn’t that his name?”
“I believe so. Charles Lewiston.”
“Lewiston was a blackguard,” the marquess continued thoughtfully, dredging his memory. “I imagine that any son of his wouldn’t be a particularly sterling specimen. I remember Nevi
l speaking of him, yes, he was a friend of Nevil’s.”
“And of course Edmund was also.”
“Yes, certainly. Pity that Nevil couldn’t have been more of a man, but ...”
The marquess broke off, and Hawk frowned. “You told me once that you wouldn’t force a Soho trollop on Nevil. I really don’t understand, sir. Did he change so much?”
“You’ve forgotten his sneaky, mean ways, I see. He always was a petty, sniveling boy, and as a man, he got himself in with a scurvy sort of company. I saw little of him in the six months before he drowned, Hawk. He severed the connection, not I.”
“I remember receiving your letter, sir. I recall wondering how the devil Nevil could be so careless as to get himself drowned. He was an excellent swimmer, I know.”
“He was drunk, utterly castaway,” the marquess said, distaste in his voice.
“Who told you that he was?”
The marquess blinked a bit and stared searchingly at his son. “You know,” he said finally, “‘twas Edmund, of course. Came to Chandos Chase immediately to tell me. (Most proper is our Edmund. I had to pry the details from him.) Edmund is a gentleman.”
“Was Lord Dempsey one of the men aboard Nevil’s yacht?”
“I don’t know, Hawk. Why the interest now?”
Hawk was hesitant to speak further, and thus, hedged. “I’m not certain.”
The marquess looked at his son’s closed face and said, “I believe Edmund and Beatrice are to leave tomorrow. He, of course, must get his own cattle ready for Newmarket.”
“Do you wonder, Father,” Hawk said, “why Edmund is so very interested in buying all the Desborough stock? The price he offered me was beyond something grand.”
