gaze steadily to show her he meant it and there was no point scheming to pair him off with some hopeful young lady she might have handy before then.
‘One day you’ll have to take that armour off and learn to be happy,’ she had replied with a knowing smile he didn’t want to question, so he shrugged and accepted their decision, since he could hardly do otherwise now the deed was done.
And now the whole world seemed to be conspiring against his long-held plan to find a convenient wife once Eve was old enough to marry. Virginia, Eve and even Tom Banburgh seemed to think he ought to wed for something warmer than mere convenience and surely they were all wrong?
‘There you are, m’lord,’ Josiah Birtkin’s bass voice rumbled at him from the doorway leading from the gardens to the stableyard and Luke swore at himself for getting distracted from all he had to cope with today.
‘So it would seem,’ he replied mildly enough.
‘Thought you should know,’ Josiah went on as if words had a tax on them.
‘Know what?’
‘Cross said they was followed back from the gallops just now.’
‘Why on earth would anyone follow a schoolgirl?’ Luke mused.
‘Don’t know, m’lord.’
‘Have you any idea who it was?’
‘No, he stayed well back. Cross thought it was his fancy to start with.’
Luke frowned even more darkly at the thought of Chloe’s daughter as quarry. ‘It makes no sense,’ he muttered and Josiah shrugged as if nothing his fellow humans did made much of that. ‘Where is he now?’ Luke asked, resolving to confront the rogue and demand what he was about.
‘Rode off when they got back to the paddocks, and, since he managed to look as if he was on his way somewhere else, nobody thought to challenge him.’
‘And you saw him close up, I hope?’
‘No, he was some way off by the time Cross mentioned him and had his hat pulled down over his eyes and a scarf over his mouth.’
‘It’s a cold day and a traveller might cover up against it, I suppose.’
And why trail a schoolgirl back to Farenze Lodge when a few casual questions would reveal her mother was only housekeeper here? And why would Verity Wheaton’s location matter to anyone but her mother, after all the years when nobody outside the household took any notice of either of them?
‘His beast had some Arab in him though, m’lord, and if the man wasn’t dressed like a farmer I’d have to call him a gentleman.’
‘Keep a lookout for him and I’ll have the watch doubled at night. If Miss Wheaton or my daughter ride out again, please make sure you or Seth stay with them and go armed, Josh, just in case,’ Luke ordered with a frown. ‘Be discreet about it; the fewer people who know the better since I don’t want panic breaking out, or the man scared off before we find out what he’s up to.’
‘Trust me not to blab,’ Josiah said, looking offended anyone might think he could, let alone Luke who’d known him since he was set on his first pony at Darkmere while still in short coats.
‘Aye, of course I do,’ Luke said with a wry grin and sent him back to the stables with orders to keep an eye on those who came and went on what would be a busy day for them all.
Luke intended to catch the man haunting Verity Wheaton and challenge him, so why was a prickle of apprehension sliding down his spine like ice water? He didn’t know the girl, had only set eyes on her a few times since she was a baby. Yet Eve had taken to her instantly and Chloe adored her, so how could he not be furious at any man who might try to harm or bother the child?
He would feel so about any girl, he reassured himself, and it was probably true, given the appalling hazards that could stalk a child as distinctive as Verity Wheaton. She had her own version of the striking colouring he found so irresistible in her mother. Her hair was closer to blonde and her eyes a paler blue than her mother’s stormy ones, but they shared the same fine-boned build and heart-shaped faces; the same fierce intelligence as well, he suspected, and some of the mother’s stubborn will and pride had been passed on to her child, if Verity’s determination to be with her mother at this sad time was any indication.
Luke frowned and decided he must make time to ask Chloe about Verity’s father sooner than he wanted to. Until then he’d trust Josiah’s sharp eyes and Eve’s company as well as his own vigilance to keep the child safe while her mother was managing his house and seemed barely to have time to eat, let alone sleep soundly.
* * *
A few hours later Chloe and the maids stopped work and wrapped themselves up in shawls and mittens before going out on the balustrade roof to watch the funeral cortège wind its way towards the church where the fifth Viscount Farenze was buried. The sombre procession went in and out of sight as it crossed the park and Chloe wished she could attend the service. As she was a female and a housekeeper with a house to prepare for cold and sorry mourners to return to, she bowed her head and recited the Twenty-Third Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer in memory of their beloved mistress and silently wished her ladyship Godspeed with all her heart.
When that was done they watched with tears in their eyes when the horses were taken out of their harness so the male servants and estate workers could drag the sombre rig the last stretch to the church instead. Chloe nearly sobbed as unguardedly as the maids at the sight of such love and devotion to a wonderful woman. She took a deep breath instead and handed out snowy squares of soft cotton and salvaged linen to those who had forgotten their handkerchiefs and hugged Verity close as they said a private goodbye to Lady Virginia.
They stayed in the chilly winter sunshine until a crush of nobility and gentry left the tiny church while the tomb was opened inside and Virginia’s closest family and friends saw her laid beside her beloved Virgil. Only then did Chloe order the staff downstairs to get Farenze Lodge ready for the mourners’ return and all the rituals of this solemn winter day.
Bran’s militant look at her former charge told Chloe she wanted her ewe lamb out of the frigid January air as urgently as she did Verity, but at that moment a robin began to sing as if its life depended on it from the top of an old holly tree nearby. Neither of them could bring themselves to scold the girls for avoiding the ladies who were gathered about the fire in the grand drawing room sighing and reading their prayerbooks after that. They went downstairs with the echo of that joyful song in their ears, a last serenade to a woman who had always lived life so richly and loved so well.
* * *
‘I’m glad Lady Virginia made it clear she didn’t want a grand formal fuss when she died. Miss Eve will miss her too much to want to play hostess to half the county as if she’d only lost her pet canary, with her being as close to her ladyship as she always was,’ Bran observed to Chloe over tea in the housekeeper’s room several hours later.
‘She did it very well, but she’s too young to endure much more formality today and Lady Virginia’s real friends know it. By leaving as soon as they decently could they took the rest with them by sheer force of will, which is why they were Lady Virginia’s friends in the first place, I suppose,’ Chloe replied as she eased her aching feet on to the footstool and blessed the comfort of a fire of her own. The demands of the last few hours seemed to crowd in all over again and she wondered if she’d
