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“But it was not a grand match,” said Sarah. “And so Lord Trestan refused.”
“His lordship ordered Mr. Deane off his land and then locked Miss Tamara in her room.”
“What?” said Sarah and Kenver in chorus.
“She kicked up quite a fuss about it.”
“Shouting and tears,” Kenver murmured. “I do remember that.”
“There was a deal of it,” Benning agreed. “We could hear through the windows.”
“I was continually being hustled out of rooms and sent away to the nursery,” Kenver added.
“A regular battle, it was,” Benning agreed. “Right up until Miss Tamara climbed out the window of her room and stole a horse from the stables.”
His sly look made Sarah wonder if he had aided in this “theft.”
“She ran off with that Deane fellow and married him.”
“An elopement,” murmured Kenver.
“And lived happily from that day to this, I hope,” said Sarah.
Benning nodded, whether agreeing with her hope or because he knew it was the truth, Sarah did not know.
“Why did no one tell me?” Kenver asked. “Why didn’t you?” he said to Benning.
“His lordship’s orders were never to mention it. I was employed by him. And Miss Tamara’s secrets were her own.”
Kenver muttered something inaudible.
“Until now when she has written to me,” Sarah said to Benning, who was no longer officially “employed,” she noted.
“She gave me leave to say whatever I liked about her. In case they was locking you up, I reckon. Or worse.”
“Well, that’s nonsense,” said Kenver.
Sarah met Benning’s gaze and suspected that the old man knew a good deal about what went on at Poldene despite his retirement. “Thank you for making sure I received the letter,” she said quietly. “How did you manage it?”
His face crinkled with amusement. “Miss Tamara knew if it came in the post, that butler of her ladyship’s would hand it straight over to her. To end in the fire, she reckoned. So she sent it here, enclosed in a packet to me.”
“You didn’t simply bring the letter to me though?”
“Miss Tamara wanted it known that she’d written. She called it ‘insurance’ in her letter to me. You was to get it, but everyone was to see that you had. A bit tricky, that was. I hung about the place until I heard Lady Trestan was sitting with her fancy guest.”
“The duchess?”
“Aye. Then I slipped the letter on a tray one of the lasses was taking up. I told her it was for the lady visitor, knowing that Liz don’t read too well, and she’d just hand it over.”
“A very public delivery.”
Benning nodded. “I thought that would do it.”
“And so it did. Thank you.”
The old man’s smile was a landscape of amiable wrinkles.
Kenver rose and walked over to the fence around the pasture, using the horses as an excuse to hide his muddled thoughts. An elopement was scandalous. But he knew such a slip could be mended if the couple was respectably married in the end. Particularly when they were living far away. No one in Lincolnshire would know anything about it. This was not a reason for eternal exile.
