AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Bailey, you’re on your best manners, stop that this instant.” He shrugged, looking uncomfortable, but at least stopped trying to snatch himself bald. “Where are the mares? And Aherne? I got a note this morning from my cousin—”
“They’re grand,” he assured her. “There was some toughs from London came down, sent by yer uncle, and meant to kill the poor things, but some lads showed up, from that duke over the border, and took care o’ them, right and tight.”
“Kill the mares?” Felicity’s fingers tightened on Jupiter’s reins, and he shook his head in annoyance. She stroked his neck, more to calm herself than him. “He sent men down to destroy my mother’s band?”
Bailey scratched his ear. “Them lads from Lowell Hall was there before we showed up with their fodder, so’s the girls were never in danger, missus.”
“I would never have gotten there in time,” Felicity said. Unnerved, she led the gelding to a paddock near the courtyard.
“Nor had a chance before seven armed men, nor even that pigeonhearted cousin of yours, the skinny one. Delilah nearly knocked the stuffing outta him, Rolly, or something.”
“Rollo,” Felicity corrected. “And Cecil? Was he there as well?”
“The roundy one? I heard him say he was the one as sent you a warning. Yeah, and then he fainted.” Bailey clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Fainted?”
“Scared for his brother, mebbe.” Bailey busied himself with taking off Jupiter’s saddle and setting it on the fence. “Delilah,” he shrugged. “You know how she is.”
He opened the gate, and Felicity let in Jupiter, who trotted away and commenced kicking up his heels. How he had the energy after their mad dash, she did not know.
“They are safe, you are absolutely certain?” She closed the gate herself, and her hands trembled as she closed the latch.
“Safe as houses, mum,” her second head lad asserted. “They was trotting away, not a bother on ’em. Off to the duke’s place, I reckon.”
“That is excellent news.” How had anyone from the Hall preceded her to the paddock? She had had a head start. She turned to Bailey. “And His Grace? Was he present?”
“Eh…it was right confusing, hard to say,” Bailey said. “Sure I wouldn’t know a duke if he nipped me on the arse.”
Felicity tried not to laugh at that. “Present yourselves to Marshall, the stable master at the Hall. I will insist on keeping my mares at Lowell Hall and that you and Aherne oversee them.”
“Sure, that won’t set the cats amongst the pigeons,” Bailey scoffed, and Felicity shook her finger at him.
“That’s more like it, you cheeky fellow. Off with you, and see to it that Himself gets his usual private paddock.”
“Eh…” Bailey grabbed his forelock once more for good measure and backed away. “Off I go, miss, off to the Hall, it’ll all settle in sure enough.” And with more speed than she’d thought possible, he nipped around the side of the stable and away.
“Bailey? Is all well with Himself?” Her only answer was the decreasing sound of running steps. “Bailey?”
Giving up, she turned toward the house. The Templeton ancestral pile was fashioned of cream-colored stone; it was a two-storied structure that lacked wings and an impressive forecourt, but whose portico lent grace to the facade. Modest flower beds flanked the shallow staircase that led to the unprepossessing door, and everything about it was not in the least bit imposing, something of a failure as the seat of a ranking peer. But it was her family home, and that was all that mattered.
She entered through the servants’ hall, where she once would have expected to see Cook preparing luncheon, or at least one of the tweenies trying to nick a heel of bread from the bakehouse. Felicity thought to nick a heel of bread herself, but as she roamed around, she found that the cupboards were bare, the larders were bereft, and the fire in the washroom had long been cold.
It appeared Uncle had closed the house with a view, as Mr. Bates had said, to selling it. She made her way into the ground floor parlor, where the shutters had not been drawn, for there was little to no furniture to protect from the ruination of the sun. Odd pieces were scattered about, but the bulk of the appointments were gone. “I doubt the neighbors would have stopped the servants robbing us blind,” she said, then winced. It was one thing talking to the horses, or even paintings of horses, another to be caught talking to herself. How dare Uncle Ezra do this to her inheritance? “If it is even my inheritance.” Blast it! She’d talk aloud if she desired. It wasn’t as though she’d be heard. She was alone.
“I am alone.” The state to which she had aspired since she debuted. She’d imagined she’d be kicking up her heels, much like Jupiter had, but instead she felt as barren as the vegetable store. The silence was not the silence of peace but of desolation. Templeton House was an empty shell, one too large to fill, even with her dreams and her autonomy. It was as unlike to Lowell Hall as it was possible to be.
Looking around, she saw that her father’s golden snuff boxes were no longer in the display case across from the hearth; the rosewood games table was not under the window where it should have been, and over half the pictures on the walls had disappeared. She doubted any of the paintings had been worth anything. That thought had her fleeing down the corridor, rushing into her father’s study—and it was gone, the portrait of herself and her parents, gone, taken, worth nothing to anyone but herself.
She leaned against her father’s desk, its drawers missing, and stared at the blank space on the wall. Who would have stolen the portrait? Had her uncle come himself and taken it? She looked around the room, dizzy from this loss. She regarded the divested desk. The odds of finding her father’s true will were slim to none, and sitting about like a woebegone partridge would do her no good. “If partridges do in fact have feelings, which I am certain they do, but ‘woebegone’ is rather a sophisticated sentiment.”
As she returned to wander around the public rooms, little appealed to her, in the end. She did think that Mrs. Birks would have use for the old chatelaine that had somehow ended up in the curiosity cabinet, and wouldn’t Coburn adore that carriage clock, the one with the ormolu and porcelain facing, even if it was French? She collected them to bring back to the Hall.
Perhaps the poor servants hadn’t been the ones to steal the art—perhaps the walls had always been that way, but had they been stripped over time, she’d never noticed, had not wanted to notice. How often had she dreamed of her future but dreaded it, too? Dreamed of making a splash in order to be free of the genteel struggle that was the result of her father’s sorrowful decline? Dreamed of being wanted for herself and not because her family was titled or in spite of being odd and willful and badly dressed. Hoped to be courted for herself and for her own qualities—yes, both good and ill.
Courted. Not kidnapped. Not ruined!Imaginebeing handed a ring, a gorgeous, probably ancestral ring, but handed it, diffidently, as though it were a glove she’d dropped. She deserved to be courted like the lady she was, because she was in fact a lady, even if her birth was not as high as the duke’s. She deserved a proper proposal. Even if it was a foregone conclusion, she deserved to be asked for her hand with decorum and honor.
“Enough.” Piling her booty on the piecrust table near the main staircase, she ascended, determined to keep her mind off the duke and on her quest to garner mementos. Mary would love one of the china bud vases Felicity had scattered around her childhood rooms. She’d also seek out the silver-chased hand mirror she herself had often mooned in front of, when she dreamt of being snatched up by the most eligible male of the season—
