Trusting Miss Trentham

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Icarus reached Whiteoaks a little after two. The big gray he’d hired was a handsome Roman-nosed beast, but it had a hard mouth and recalcitrant nature and had already tried to unseat him twice.

Whiteoaks was built in the style of Palladio, with white marble and tall columns and perfect symmetry. Icarus didn’t particularly care for it. He preferred rambling, red brick manors with ivy growing up their walls and odd turrets and strange staircases and no symmetry at all—buildings that looked as if they’d grown, not shining, hard-edged, white monoliths.

“Major Reid!” someone called cheerfully, as he trotted into the stableyard.

Icarus swung down from the saddle. “Matlock. How do you do?”

Matlock strode over, grinning.

They shook hands. Matlock’s grip was strong. “Lord, Major, you look like death warmed over!”

Matlock was closer to the mark than he realized. What would he say if Icarus told him the truth? That he was dead. That he’d been dead since Vimeiro.

“Fever take you again, sir?”

Icarus shrugged. “You know how it is.”

Matlock took this as a Yes. Miss Trentham wouldn’t have. “Let me introduce you to m’ host, Major, and then we’ll have a chat about old times.”

Icarus met half a dozen Kemps in a green and gold salon, bowed and shook hands and exchanged commonplaces for ten minutes, and then Matlock slid them out of the room and he found himself outside again, strolling in the shrubbery.

“I haven’t seen you since Portugal, Major! Seems so long ago, now.”

“A lifetime,” Icarus said. He cast a frowning glance around. Where the devil was Miss Trentham? She’d promised—

“I don’t need to introduce you to Miss Trentham, do I?” Matlock said, as they rounded a hedge and came upon a lily pond and fountain.

The tension in Icarus’s shoulders eased. “No.”

Miss Trentham sat on a stone bench carved with acanthus leaves. She wasn’t alone. A tall man with guinea-gold hair was leaning over her, one booted foot on the seat, a smile on his fatuous, good-looking face. One of her damned fortune-hunting suitors. Icarus’s jaw clamped tight, and he quickened his step—and took in Miss Trentham’s posture. There was nothing remotely stiff or uncomfortable about her bearing. In fact, she was laughing at something the man had said.

Illogically, Icarus’s irritation increased.

Matlock made the introductions. The Adonis was Miss Trentham’s cousin, Lucas Kemp. Icarus bowed punctiliously.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Major.” The Adonis’s handclasp was strong, his smile friendly. “Tom’s told me about you. Sang your praises, rather.”

The compliment caught him like a kick in the stomach. Icarus felt his face stiffen. “Don’t believe a word of it,” he said, trying to make his reply sound like a joke.

“Nonsense!” Matlock said. “You weren’t Wellesley’s favorite for nothing!”

Icarus tried to smile, but his mouth felt as if it was carved from stone. He glanced at Miss Trentham. She was watching him.

“Is it true you used to go behind enemy lines in British uniform?” the Adonis asked.

“Yes,” Icarus said flatly, almost curtly—and caught himself. This was the direction he wanted the conversation to go in. He tried to relax, to smile more naturally. “Yes, I did.”

They strolled in the shrubbery. Miss Trentham hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d claimed to know Matlock well; there was no formality between them at all. They talked to one another as if they were brother and sister. Icarus had seen Miss Trentham aloof and cool in a sea-green ball gown. He’d seen her aloof and poised in riding dress, aloof and mysterious in a cloak and veiled hat, aloof and sober in traveling dress. Today, she wasn’t aloof at all. She was approachable, friendly, relaxed—another woman altogether. The shape of her face altered when she smiled—not a small, polite society smile, but a genuine smile that did something to her cheeks, so that her mouth didn’t seem too wide, or her nose too long.

Tish, the two men called her, and she did look like a Tish, not a standoffish Miss Trentham.

Icarus told two of his more amusing reconnaissance tales, trying not to be irritated by the way the Adonis walked arm in arm with Miss Trentham—and then said, “By the by, Matlock, I ran into Dunlop in town last week.”

“Dunlop?” Matlock’s lip curled contemptuously.

“He mentioned . . . I don’t know if you recall, but he said you were present when he told Wellesley where I’d be meeting my scouts. I wondered whether perhaps you’d told anyone.”

“Me? No.”

Icarus almost didn’t bother to look at Miss Trentham—he knew it wasn’t Tom Matlock—but he did look, and Miss Trentham nodded.

“How long are you on leave?” Icarus said, turning the conversation.

“Until the end of the year,” Matlock said. “Wellesley’s got that dashed court-martial—cross as a bear!—said he doesn’t want me under his feet.”

Icarus lifted his eyebrows. “Two months? You’ll fill up a few sketchbooks. Has Matlock shown you his Portuguese sketches, Miss Trentham? They’re first rate.”

“I’ve seen ’em,” the Adonis said.

“I haven’t,” Miss Trentham said. “Did you bring them with you, Tom?”

Matlock grinned. “You’ll be sorry you asked.”

They strolled for the better part of an hour. The Adonis wasn’t fatuous at all. He seemed a pleasant man—quiet-voiced and sensible—apart from his annoying habit of walking arm in arm with Miss Trentham, or with his arm around her shoulders, or once—which made Icarus grit his teeth—holding her hand.

His irritation annoyed him. Was he a dog guarding a bone? He didn’t even particularly like Miss Trentham. She was bossy and despotic and interfering and nosy, and the way she had of ignoring his wishes was infuriating—but he’d actually missed her at the table, watching his plate and insisting that he eat more dinner, insisting he eat another egg for breakfast, and last night when he’d finally clawed his way back to consciousness, he’d wanted nothing more than to find Miss Trentham in his bedchamber, holding out a glass of brandy, measuring out a teaspoon of vile brown liquid, and then sitting cross-legged on his bed and reading Homer until her voice lulled him to sleep.

He missed her, damn it, and that was profoundly annoying. Missed her not because he liked her, but because of the way she treated him.

An unwelcome moment of insight came as they wandered through a knee-high boxwood maze: Miss Trentham treats me as if she’s my nursemaid.

Icarus halted. Miss Trentham treated him as if she was his nursemaid—and he liked it?

“Are you all right, Mr. Reid?”

And there she was, doing it again, watching him with those damned nursemaidish eyes.

“I’m fine,” Icarus said, curtly. He was thirty, not five. A soldier, for Christ’s sake! He didn’t need a nursemaid, and he most certainly didn’t want one.

Miss Trentham ignored this comment. “Shall we turn back? I confess, a pot of tea and something to eat would be nice.”

You don’t need refreshments, Icarus thought sourly. But you think I do.

“It’s the macaroons you want,” Matlock said, with a sly grin. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how many you ate yesterday, Tish. Six!”

“They’re extremely tasty,” Miss Trentham said, unembarrassed. “I’m sure Mr. Reid will eat six, too.”

Icarus saw the glint in her eyes and realized that this wasn’t a comment; it was a command.

Icarus ate six macaroons in the green and gold salon. Quite a number of other people ate macaroons, too, and honeycomb cake and seed cake and a dark, rich plum cake. The salon was cheerfully noisy. He counted eighteen people and five different conversations and one lapdog yapping to be picked up.

Miss Trentham didn’t revert to her society manners, but she became a little more formal. So did the Adonis and Matlock. Like children in the presence of their parents, Icarus thought, refusing a seventh macaroon.

He glanced around as the door opened to admit two new arrivals. The Adonis grimaced. “Keep your head down, Tish.”

Icarus studied the newcomers. Both were male, and both were headed their way. “Who are they?”

“The prim one is Tish’s stepbrother,” Matlock said, in an undervoice. “And the peacock is Lord Stapleton.”

Matlock made the introductions. The stepbrother’s eyebrows rose faintly. “Major Reid? I do believe I’ve heard of you.”

Prim wasn’t the correct word, Icarus decided after three minutes’ conversation with Bernard Trentham. Supercilious fitted better. Two minutes after that, he realized that Trentham believed him to be an aspirant to his stepsister’s hand. Indignation almost rendered him speechless. To be thought a fortune hunter!

“Are you in the neighborhood long?” Trentham asked, in a cool, disinterested voice. “You must visit again. I’m sure Letitia would be delighted to go riding with you.”

Icarus blinked, his indignation punctured.

“My cousin, Robert Kemp, is holding a ball this week. You must come if you’re still here.” A thin, condescending smile, a faint bow, and Bernard Trentham took his leave.

Icarus stared after the man, bemused. Had he just been approved of?

He shook himself, and looked around for Miss Trentham. Whatever her faults, she wasn’t arrogant.

Miss Trentham was talking with Lord Stapleton. There was no trace of the woman who’d walked arm in arm with her cousin in the garden; her manner was quite altered, polite and aloof, and her face had changed, too—nose too long, mouth too wide.

“Stapleton will be number nineteen this year,” someone murmured in his ear.

Icarus glanced round. Matlock stood at his shoulder. “Nineteen?”

“To offer for Tish’s hand. A low count, this year. It’s usually well over thirty, but I guess Julia’s death accounts for it.”

“Julia?”

“Lucas’s twin sister. Tish wore blacks a full year. Her best friend, Julia was. Bernard was none too pleased.”

Icarus had the feeling that he’d lost track of the conversation. “Not pleased about what?”

“The blacks. It put the suitors off. Ah, good. Lucas is going to the rescue.”

“Why would Miss Trentham’s stepbrother be displeased?” Icarus asked, still baffled.

“Wants to be rid of Tish, doesn’t he?” Matlock said, as the Adonis removed Miss Trentham from Stapleton with a smiling apology and a claim of prior commitment.

Icarus wrinkled his brow. He’d lost a thread somewhere.

“Tish and I are going for a ride,” the Adonis announced. “Care to join us, Tom? Major Reid?”

“Ah . . .” Matlock glanced at him.

“I must be going,” Icarus said.

“Then we’ll ride as far as the road with you,” the Adonis said.

Icarus made his bows to his host and strolled round to the stableyard again. The mounts were saddled and brought out, Miss Trentham joined them in riding dress, slightly out of breath—“Lord, Tish, you kept us waiting an age,” Matlock said, grinning—and two minutes later they were trotting four abreast down a long avenue of oaks.

“How long will you be in Marlborough?” Matlock asked Icarus.

“A few more days. Maybe a week.”

“Then you must visit again. We’ll go for a ride. There’s some good country round here.”

Icarus glanced at Miss Trentham. Her eyes were on him. She gave a slight nod, telling him to say yes.

“Thank you,” he said noncommittally.

“And don’t think I didn’t hear dear Bernard invite you to the ball,” Matlock said.

“Bernard invited him?” the Adonis said.

Matlock’s grin widened. “Nice of him, wasn’t it? Seeing as how it’s not his house or his ball!”

The Adonis snorted. So did Icarus’s mount, and then it tried to unseat him.

“That’s a nasty trick,” Matlock said, when Icarus had the beast under control again.

“Hmm,” Icarus said. His opinion of the gray wasn’t fit for Miss Trentham’s ears.

They parted ways at the gatehouse. “Come again,” Matlock said cheerfully. “Tomorrow afternoon? We can ride up on the downs.”

Icarus glanced at Miss Trentham. She was watching him, an imperative expression on her face, as if she was trying to pass on an urgent message. He could almost hear her voice in his ears: We need to talk about Bristol. Or perhaps she was trying to say, Make sure you eat your dinner.

“Very well,” he heard himself say. “Tomorrow afternoon.”