‘Well, that put us properly in our place,’ Mr Peters observed calmly as he watched the marquis ride away.
Polly couldn’t help but admire his horsemanship as his powerful, supple figure adjusted to the pace of his galloping steed as if by second nature. He confused and angered her by turns, yet felt an odd tug of sympathy for him haunt her as she exchanged a rueful glance with Mr Peters and considered how they’d been ordered to spend their afternoon without him.
‘It will put the local rumour mill in a fine spin if we go on together without him, Mr Peters. You could always ride on alone and introduce yourself to the folk of the Spring villages. They will be pleased with any sign the marquis is taking an interest in them and are sure to make you very welcome. I might as well return to the castle and help with the spring planting since I seem to be redundant here.’
‘That was not well done. Lord Mantaigne is a man of more impulsive character than he wants us to know at times, but I cannot let you ride alone. I may not be a native of this place, but I do have eyes in my head and can see that large groups of men have been marching about this land all too recently for my comfort. You must not take risks with your personal safety, and only think how Lady Wakebourne and your brothers will feel if anything untoward happens whilst you’re out alone.’
‘I have been out alone, as you call it, for years.’
‘Then it’s a very good thing we arrived when we did,’ the man argued, and Polly only just suppressed an unladylike grunt of disagreement.
‘I could learn to dislike you nearly as much as I should your employer if you insist on being right all the time, Mr Peters,’ she said half-seriously.
‘I fear it is a sad failing in my half of our species, Miss Trethayne,’ he replied with a mournful shake of his head that disarmed her and made her feel a fishwife for taking her fury with the marquis out on this man all at the same time.
‘And of mine to argue. You really are wrong this time as well, though, because for us squatters it isn’t a good thing at all. With your coming, we must leave the castle and it is never a good thing to be rendered homeless twice.’
‘However maddening his lordship might be, he won’t turn you out to wander the roads with your family and friends like the lost tribe of the Israelites. I can see signs of an unknown number of people determined to invade your sanctuary, though, and well before we turned up. It could be a very good thing the owner of Dayspring Castle arrived before they could succeed, despite your mixed views on the matter.’
Polly noted how neatly the man had his own plans for the afternoon running as they retraced their route from the castle even as she had half her mind on arguing with him. She went along with him, though, because she was safer in his company and it gave her time to think. Soon she would catch herself thinking it a good thing they were here as well, if she wasn’t careful.
If their lives were different, how would it feel to arrive at Dayspring as a guest of Lord Mantaigne with her stepmother and Papa? For all of a minute she indulged in an air dream of herself superbly dressed and elegantly coiffured, stepping down from the carriage to meet the warm blue gaze of an admiring Marquis of Mantaigne. In such circumstances it might be quite all right to feel the same rush of heat and wonder as when they actually did meet; in a stable, among the faded and patched up rags of Dayspring’s glory days. Instead of being dressed in silks and finest muslins she’d looked more like a scruffy youth—sweaty and weary and windswept after another busy day trying to keep the wolf from the door.
The differences of how they really were fitted neatly into that one scene. He was rich and powerful and unforgivably handsome; she was poor, powerless and awkward as a heron in a hen yard. That’s how my life really is, she told herself sternly, trying to focus on what her real and adoptive family were going to do now Lord Mantaigne was back in his castle after all these years. Or he would be if he hadn’t just galloped away from it in a temper, and suddenly the unease she’d been feeling for the past few weeks left her worrying about his safety instead of her own or her family’s.
He would make an irresistible target for a villain lurking in still-untamed parts of the woods, or he might stumble on one of the secluded coves the landsmen used to hide their illicit cargo until they could be carried inland under cover of darkness. Marquis or no, he might never be seen again if he was unlucky enough to come upon them taking goods inland by one of the hidden lanes that scored the remotest parts of this countryside. Sometimes a Revenue Cutter lurking offshore would spur men into taking unprecedented actions, like moving a cargo by day, or setting an armed guard over their most precious hiding places.
Even if he was simply set upon by a rogue on the lookout for an easy mark, he would yield a fine haul. His clothes and boots alone would bring in several months’ wages for a labouring man, even at a fraction of their true value, then there was that fine gold fob-watch she’d seen him consult earlier today and his signet ring as well as the plain gold pin in his spotless muslin neckcloth.
Before she got to the end of a list of things about my Lord Mantaigne that could be profitably marketed by an attacker they were in sight of the castle and she had to put aside her horrifying inner picture of him lying naked and unconscious by some distant roadside. Maybe he would be held for ransom, and how on earth would they raise the enormous sum any sensible villain would demand for his safe return?
No! She must stop this nonsense; he was nothing to her, and it was up to Mr Peters to look out for his employer and answer the marquis’s friends if he went missing, if he had any of course.
* * *
Once she was home again, Polly did her best to go about the normal business of her day as if she hadn’t a care in the world, or a marquis who ought not to be allowed out without a suitable chaperon on her mind. By the time he rode into the stable yard as darkness was all but on them, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world, she had a thumping headache and decided to have an early night as Lady Wakebourne suggested with an anxious frown at Polly’s tense and pallid face. With any luck she wouldn’t dream at all and could forget about an annoying aristocrat without a care for anyone in his handsome head as easily as he had about her and Mr Peters this afternoon.
That day set the pattern for the Marquis of Mantaigne’s return to his primary country seat. Whenever it didn’t pour with rain he spent his days exploring the estate and its villages, with or without his secretary at his side. If he stayed home he was polite and surprisingly easy with the interlopers at his once-grand mansion and they did their best not to ask what he intended to do about them as days grew into weeks. Polly felt like the outsider as her friends and family came to look on him as a genial and civilised gentleman. So why was she the only one who felt as if she was constantly waiting for the second shoe to fall?
Her life had narrowed to the park and gardens, and she supposed glumly that it would prepare her for a time when they must leave and patch together some sort of life elsewhere. One day she came home from working in the fields around Dayspring to find a beautiful riding habit draped across her bed. For a moment she enjoyed the sheer pleasure of seeing the richly dyed forest-green fabric lying there in the dappled sunlight slanting through the ancient leaded windows. There were depths and shifts in the folds that told her it was the work of a master weaver and she knew that colour would suit her to perfection, if she had any intention of wearing it.
Knowing she was being stubborn and ungrateful, she still felt her temper rise to dangerous heights at Lord Mantaigne’s presumption. If the man didn’t like her as she was he could tell her so; this was an attempt to force her into the role of a meek and properly dressed female without him having to point out her clothes were unladylike and shocking even to a rake like him.
She refused to fit into a neat little niche where spinster ladies with no prospects must live. She couldn’t cram herself into such narrow confines even if she wanted to, she concluded, with a severe nod at the beautiful garment lying there