Lady Estelle Lamarr, strolling past on the lawn below with her brother, must have assessed the situation at one glance. “Mr. Thorne,” she called, beckoning with the hand that was not holding a parasol over her head, “do come walking with us. We are going to look at the boats to decide if they are safe to ride in.”
“You are going to decide, Stell,” Bertrand Lamarr said as Gabriel approached them. “You are the one who is so afraid of water it is a wonder you ever even wash your face.”
Lady Estelle linked her arm through Gabriel’s. “The trouble with having a twin brother, Mr. Thorne,” she said, “is that he will blurt out one’s deepest, most mortifying secrets to the very people one is most trying to impress.”
“You are trying to impress me?” Gabriel asked.
“But of course,” she said. “I am intended for you, am I not, by all the aunts and cousins from my adopted family? Oh, you need not look so aghast, Bertrand. Mr. Thorne and I had a frank chat about the whole thing last evening and understand each other perfectly.”
Her brother and Gabriel exchanged grins over her head.
“I did not initiate that conversation, I would hasten to add,” Gabriel told him.
“Of course you did not,” Lady Estelle said. “You are too much the gentleman. But everyone with eyes in his head—or hers—ought to have been able to see last night that it is Jessica and you, Mr. Thorne, not me and you.”
“Stell!” her brother scolded. “You will be putting Mr. Thorne to the blush, and all because he and Jessica played a duet together on the pianoforte last evening that ended in disaster and laughter. And—to change the subject—you see? I count five boats, and none of them have capsized. None of them are sinking or rocking out of control. No one in them looks anywhere close to panicking.”
“But how do we know,” she said, “that there are not supposed to be six boats out there? Where, oh where is the sixth?”
Gabriel laughed.
And rowing one of those five boats, he saw, was Anthony Rochford. Sitting facing him, her posture graceful and relaxed, was Lady Jessica Archer, the picture of summer beauty in a flimsy-looking dress of primrose yellow with a matching parasol that was raised over a straw bonnet. She was smiling and saying something. Rochford—it hardly needed stating—was smiling back with dazzling intensity.
Lady Estelle had seen them too. “Do you think, Mr. Thorne,” she asked, “that the missing earl is really dead? Or has he remained in hiding because he fears the consequences of making himself known?”
“If he is dead,” Gabriel said, “he must have died young. Of what? one wonders. And why should he fear if he was an innocent man? Perhaps he had nothing to do with whatever happened to his neighbor’s daughter or with the death of her brother. Or perhaps he was guilty in both instances and was the blackest-hearted of villains. Perhaps he simply died of his sins. Perhaps we will never know the answers. Would that be so very bad?”
“Indeed it would,” she said. “Curiosity demands satisfaction.”
“But as Papa remarked last evening on our way home, Stell,” her brother said, “it was not at all the thing for Rochford to tell such a story concerning his own family. And with ladies present. I can only applaud Alexander and Elizabeth for pointedly changing the subject, though I know you wish they had not.”
“But it was such a fascinating story,” she protested. “A wronged woman. Her irate brother. Imagine if it were you and me, Bertrand. A killing—a shot in the back. And his supposed killer fleeing for his life and disappearing off the face of the earth only to become in future years a missing earl. An earl about to be declared dead and replaced by another, more virtuous candidate. A new earl with a handsome son who is pursuing Jessica with all the charm he can muster. I have not been so well entertained in years. And that is nonsense, what you implied about a woman’s sensibilities being so delicate that she cannot hear about death and mayhem without swooning. It is no wonder our lives are often so dull. Leave it to men to decide what is good for us.”
They were met at the riverbank by other guests, who were either waiting for a boat to be free or watching those who were already out or simply enjoying the scenery and the sunshine. Viscountess Dirkson and Mrs. Westcott, the Earl of Riverdale’s mother, engaged them in conversation. The former looked thoughtfully from Gabriel to Lady Estelle as they talked, while the latter beamed at them rather complacently as though she were solely responsible for their being together. A Mr. and Miss Keithley, also brother and sister, came to talk with Lamarr and Lady Estelle and were introduced to Gabriel.
“Ah, the American,” Keithley said as he shook hands. “I have been hearing a lot about you. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Thorne.”
His sister blushed.
Over to one side, under the broad shade of a giant oak, Lady Vickers sat with four other ladies. She smiled and waved to Gabriel, and he raised a hand in return.
“Mr. Thorne,” the viscountess said, drawing him a little apart. “Charles and I are planning a soiree of our own this year, as we did last year. It gave us so much pleasure. It was a bit of a concert too, though nothing very formal. We had a tenor soloist, one of Charles’s friends, who always insists quite wrongly that he has no particular talent, and a harpist who played and sang some traditional Welsh tunes and reduced me to tears though she sang in Welsh and I did not understand a word. There was also a chamber group—pianoforte, violin, and cello. Charles and I spoke about you after Elizabeth and Colin’s party, and we were both agreed. Mr. Thorne, will you come this year, and will you play for us? The Bach piece you played the other evening and maybe two or three more?”
Oh good God.
“Ma’am,” he said, “I am honored. But I do not normally play in public, you know. And I have no formal training. I do not even read music.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, beaming at him. “That is part of your appeal. You have a . . . How did Charles phrase it? Ah yes. You have a raw and rare talent. Do please share it at our soiree. You will make me very happy.”
She was a Westcott, Lady Jessica Archer’s aunt, if he remembered correctly, her mother’s sister. She lacked the inherent haughtiness of demeanor of the rest of the family. There seemed even an anxious sort of humility about her. She also had a smile that went deeper than mere sociability. He instinctively liked Lady Dirkson. But at the present moment he wished like the devil he did not.
Play at a soiree? As a featured artist in an impromptu concert that would not be impromptu at all? He would not get a wink of sleep between now and then. And how would he practice? Was there a pianoforte at the hotel? If there was, he had not seen it. But when had he ever practiced? Would not practice invite disaster, since he would be preparing with his head? His music did not come from his head.
The viscountess was looking at him with what he could describe to himself only as naked hope.
“It would be my honor, ma’am,” he said. “But do not expect great things. I might ruin your whole evening. You must have heard how my duet with Lady Jessica Archer ended. You were there.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, clasping her hands to her bosom. “You have no idea . . . I composed four separate letters to you this morning, and I tore all four to shreds. Charles laughed at me, but he would not try writing one himself. I shall find him immediately and tell him of my triumph. I shall even gloat. But he will be as delighted as I.” She turned to summon Mrs. Westcott but spoke to Gabriel again before she moved away. “And you and Jessica were doing very well with your duet until you decided to challenge each other by playing faster and faster. You had me laughing, the two of you.”
A couple of the boats had come in. One of them had already been taken, and Lamarr was persuading Miss Keithley to go out in the other with him. The viscountess and Mrs. Westcott were moving off in the direction of the house, presumably to find Charles, who Gabriel assumed was Viscount Dirkson. Lady Estelle, in conversation with Keithley, broke off what she was saying to hail Lady Jessica Archer and Rochford.
“You must tell me, Mr. Rochford,” she said, “what it feels like to be out on such a broad expanse of water in such a frail craft.”
“But it is not frail at all,” he told her. “And I have some skill at the oars. Lady Jessica was perfectly safe with me, I assure you. If this gentleman is planning to take you out—”
“Lady Jessica,” Gabriel said, turning to her. “I have been told on no account to miss the hothouses while I am here. Have you been inside them yet?”
“I have not,” she said, twirling her primrose parasol like an extra little sun behind her straw bonnet. “Am I about to?”
“Yes,” he said, offering his arm. “We will see you all later on the terrace for tea,” he told the others.
For a moment it looked as though Rochford was going to come with them, but Lady Estelle had not finished with him. Her feet firmly planted on the riverbank, she asked him a further question about the boats. At the same time, she threw Gabriel a blatantly mischievous glance and waggled her fingers at him in farewell.
That was one very interesting young lady, he thought.