Trusting Miss Trentham

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

November 14th, 1808

Whiteoaks, Wiltshire

Letty was unable to speak privately with Reid on Monday. She rode out with him, and Lucas and Tom, and Almeria’s eldest daughter, Selina, and Lord Stapleton. Back at Whiteoaks, eating macaroons and sipping tea, Stapleton attentive at her side, she stewed with frustration.

“It’s young Oscar’s birthday soon,” Lucas said, reaching for a piece of plum cake. “What the devil shall I give him?”

Tom shrugged. “He’s your nephew. How should I know?”

“He’s mad about the knights of the Round Table,” Lucas said, chewing meditatively. “Imagines himself as Sir Gawain.”

“He’s already got every book about the knights there is,” Oscar’s sister Selina said.

“I know that,” Lucas said. “I was thinking . . . Could you paint Sir Gawain, Tom?”

“Of course.”

“If I model for Gawain, can you make me look like Oscar?”

“Of course,” Tom said again.

Letty saw her opportunity. “What an excellent idea! And I know the perfect setting: the folly! We should all ride over there tomorrow afternoon.” She turned to Stapleton. “It’s a ruined castle, you know. Wonderfully gothic. There’s even a secret passage.” A secret passage, and all sorts of nooks and crannies where she’d be able to get Reid aside for a few minutes’ conversation about Bristol. “And you must come, too, Mr. Reid.”

Reid cut her a glance. He’d heard the note in her voice. He nodded.

“That’s settled, then,” Letty said. “Do have another macaroon, Mr. Reid.”

Sir Henry Wright arrived later that afternoon. Lord Stapleton, correctly perceiving him as a rival, became even more attentive. He paid Letty compliments all through dinner, solicitously arranged her chair at just the right distance from the fireplace in the drawing room afterwards, and when she retired for the night, bowed over her hand, kissed it, and requested in a low voice the pleasure of her company for a walk in the gardens after breakfast.

Thus, Letty received her nineteenth proposal of the year in the bare-leaved garden at Whiteoaks. Gray clouds scudded overhead and a chilly wind whipped at her cloak. Stapleton had taken pains with his appearance. He strolled alongside her, wearing mirror-bright Hessians, pantaloons in a delicate shade of yellow, a long-tailed coat of blue superfine, and a slender-brimmed beaver hat. His neckcloth was tied in a style that must have taken a good half hour to achieve.

“My dear Miss Trentham,” Stapleton said, in an earnest tone. A gust of wind made the tails of his coat flap and lifted his hat from his head. Stapleton caught it before it could fly away. His hair was brushed into a fashionable Caesar, glistening with pomade. “My dear Miss Trentham,” he said again.

Letty schooled her face into an expression of polite interest, and listened to Lord Stapleton’s proposal. He had rehearsed it; the sentences came fluidly off his tongue. At least he wasn’t pretending to be in love with her. His tails flapped while he professed an affectionate regard for her, emphasized his earldom, and expressed the earnest hope that she’d do him the honor of becoming his wife.

“You feel affection for me?” Letty said, when he’d finished.

“Yes,” Stapleton said, gripping his hat while the wind tugged at it. “And the deepest respect.” Both statements rang false in Letty’s ears.

“Tell me, Lord Stapleton. If we were to marry, would you be faithful to me?”

“Ah . . .” Stapleton’s eyelids flickered, and then he smiled. “But of course.”

Clang.

“And do you intend to moderate your gambling? I understand you’ve lost more than forty thousand pounds in the last two years.”

Stapleton’s eyelids flickered again. His smile disappeared.

Letty met his gaze coolly. Would he tell her it was none of her business?

The silence between them grew. Letty wondered which would win out: Stapleton’s pride, or his need for money.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t suit, after all,” Stapleton said stiffly.

“No,” Letty said. “I think not.”

Stapleton made her a wooden bow, wished her good day, and walked off, trying to look dignified. The wind hustled him along, crowding his coat-tails between his legs.

The Whiteoaks’ folly perched on a wooded height, a small and ruined castle that looked as if it had been there for centuries—roofless, with half-collapsed walls and crumbling staircases and a derelict tower—but the disintegration was purely artistic; the folly was less than eighty years old.

They made quite a large party: Lucas and Tom, Reid, Sir Henry Wright, Selina and her younger sister Emma, and the grooms who were to look after the horses and set up the picnic. Letty stayed close to Reid as they climbed the fifty-two steps up to the castle and entered the grassy courtyard. Sir Henry gazed around, and laughed. “Fabulous!” He was a stocky young man, with a square, good-humored face and no pretensions to dandyism.

“Isn’t it just?” Letty said. “There’s a dungeon and a secret passage.”

They traipsed down to the dungeon first. Daylight slanted in through an iron grille, illuminating a dank and dismal little cell. Attached to one wall were rusting lengths of iron chain.

Sir Henry laughed again when he saw the chains. “This is almost too good to be true!”

“Wait till you see the secret passage,” Tom said.

“Where is it?” Sir Henry demanded.

Tom grinned. “You find it.”

Sir Henry accepted this challenge.

Letty took hold of Reid’s wrist and tugged him towards the stairs. Together they climbed back up to the courtyard. She led him across to a ruined gothic arch with a fine view of the downs, and sat on a tumbled block of stone. “Bristol,” she said.

Reid leaned against the arch.

“Let’s leave on Saturday. I’ll say I’m going to stay with Helen again. For ten days. That will give us time to go down to Exeter, if we have to.”

Reid gazed out over the downs, his eyes narrowed against the weak glare of the sun. “And your maid? Your real maid?”

“I’ll give her leave to visit her sister again.”

Letty turned her head at the sound of laughter and voices. Sir Henry, having assured himself that the secret passage didn’t start in the dungeon, emerged into the sunlight again, trailing an audience.

“Won’t she think it’s unusual?”

“Perhaps a little, but I’m sure she’ll be glad of an extra holiday.”

“Hmm,” Reid said, watching Sir Henry enthusiastically inspect the ruined walls.

Letty studied his face. “Don’t you wish to pursue this?”

Reid transferred his gaze to her. “I do.”

Tom’s description flashed into her mind, vivid and terrible. Her imagination built a picture: a scrubby gully, a creek, four dead men, and Reid lying unconscious, bound hand and foot, barely alive. “Then we leave on Saturday,” she said.

Reid looked at her a moment, and nodded. “I’ll arrange for a post-chaise.”

Letty looked down at her hands. She tugged at one gloved fingertip. “How’s Eliza?”

“Fine.”

“And you? How are you?” She looked up at his face again.

“Fine.”

“Are you using the valerian?”

“Yes.”

“Is it working?”

“You’re not my nursemaid, Miss Trentham.”

Letty recognized one of his evasions. “Have you been falling asleep again? Yes or no?”

Reid’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.

“Have you been eating enough?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw; he was gritting his teeth. “You’re not my nursemaid,” he said again.

They matched gazes. “It’s got to be in this wall,” Letty heard Sir Henry say. “The others aren’t thick enough.”

Letty looked away, out over the treetops. “My cousin Robert is holding a ball tomorrow night.”

“I know. I’ve been invited.”

“You’re also invited to dine with us beforehand.”

Reid was silent.

Letty glanced at him.

Reid’s silver eyes were narrow, his expression annoyed. “Your doing?”

She shook her head. “Lord Stapleton is leaving early. Almeria doesn’t like uneven numbers at the table. Not when it’s a formal event.”

Reid couldn’t hear the truth in her voice. He looked as if he didn’t believe her.

A crow of triumph told her that Sir Henry had found the entrance to the secret passage. Letty didn’t bother to look around. “I hope you’ll accept the invitation,” she told Reid.

That was the truth, too. But of course he couldn’t hear it.

Letty looked down at her gloves. She smoothed them from fingertip to wrist.

Breathless voices came from above them, and laughter. She glanced up. Five cheerful faces peered down at them from the ruined tower. Letty smiled and waved, and returned her gaze to Reid. His eyes were still narrow, his expression still annoyed. He looked nothing like the man Tom had sketched laughing in Portugal, nothing like the man Tom had described. “Tom says he’s never once seen you lose your temper.”

The muscles in Reid’s face tightened fractionally, as if her words had been a slap. He looked abruptly away.

Letty bit the tip of her tongue. She hadn’t meant to upset him. She looked down at her hands again, tugged slightly at each gloved fingertip, smoothed the kidskin over her wrists, and glanced at Reid. His profile was grim. “I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“My temper isn’t what it used to be,” Reid said stiffly, not looking at her. “The apology is mine to make. I regret if my manner has offended you.”

“It hasn’t,” Letty told him. “You have no idea what a relief it is to talk with a man who’s not trying to charm me.”

Reid turned his head and looked at her.

“I wish you would let me help you.”

“You are helping me.”

“I don’t mean help you find your traitor; I mean help you.”

Reid looked away again. “I’m beyond help, Miss Trentham.”

Letty’s eyes filled with sudden, stinging tears. At this moment, the two grooms arrived with the picnic. Letty blinked, and surreptitiously blotted her eyes, and watched the men open the wicker basket and begin laying out plates and linen napkins.

She looked up at the ruined tower. It was empty again, but the five explorers didn’t spill out into the courtyard; Sir Henry was following the passage all the way to the bottom.

Reid glanced at the picnic preparations. An expression of resignation crossed his face. “How many macaroons do you wish me to eat?”

Letty tried to smile. “I’m a great trial to you, aren’t I, Mr. Reid?”

He transferred his gaze to her, a frowning appraisal that lasted several seconds. “Yes,” he said. “But you’re an even greater help. You’ve helped me more than I deserve. If I succeed, it will be because of you. I’m more grateful than I can express.”

This brought another rush of tears to Letty’s eyes. She looked away, and blinked fiercely. “Five macaroons,” she said, when she had control of her voice. “And a piece of plum cake.”