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“He manages the garden,” Kenver replied without enthusiasm.
“He’s like one of those resident hermits,” added Sarah. “The ones people hire to look picturesque.”
“I wouldn’t call him that,” the duke replied.
“And isn’t that usually done on large estates with a large number of visitors?” Cecelia asked.
Sarah nodded.
“I could still have him ejected,” the duke offered.
“To the village?” Kenver asked “I suspect he would just come right back here.”
“Like a mouse you catch and put out in the field,” Sarah agreed.
Everyone looked at her.
“Is that how you treat mice?” The duke looked dubious but amused.
“My mother’s cat would bring them to her before they were quite dead.”
“And she didn’t care to, er, make them so?”
“We thought they looked so pathetic, all mauled about,” Sarah answered.
“And yet able to return.”
“There was one who’d lost an ear. He came back three times.”
Everyone looked at her again.
After a bit, the men went out to help Jowan ready the horses. The Terefords had ridden over rather than bring their carriage.
“We will be on our way in the next few days,” the duchess said to Sarah. “I am worried what Lady Trestan will get up to if she’s left without oversight.”
“We must deal with that ourselves,” Sarah replied. “We can’t be always relying on you.”
Cecelia nodded, acknowledging the truth of this.
“Kenver and I will face them together. We rely on each other now.”
“Indeed.”
The duchess seemed doubtful. Sarah wasn’t ready to inquire too closely into why that might be. She was afraid she knew the answer—that Cecelia thought them inadequate.
Fourteen
During their third week at Tresigan, a post chaise pulled up before the house late in the day. Sarah, sitting on the sofa in the large parlor surrounded by shoals of fabric, saw it through the front window. The vehicle was spattered with mud and looked as if it had traveled a good distance. She rose and went to the front door, opening it in time to see the traveler descend.
It was a woman of perhaps thirty-five in a neat but not particularly fashionable traveling dress. Her hair was black, her eyes hazel under straight dark brows. There was something familiar about her, Sarah thought, but she wasn’t sure what it was. She didn’t think they’d ever met.
The visitor strode toward her, looking Sarah up and down as if weighing her value. “Hello,” she said. “I am Tamara Deane. Tamara Pendrennon that was.”
“Kenver’s sister?”
“That’s right. Are you his new wife?”
The question was accompanied by a continuing examination, which probably found her wanting. Sarah nodded.
