‘The ground is dry, there is little wind and you have a team of four.’ The man turned to Laurel. ‘I am on horseback, so I can lead the way. It will be rutted and it’s a long pull, but it bypasses Cherhill and Calne and you will be able to re-join the road to Chippenham and Pickwick without having to turn back on yourself.’
Laurel studied him, wondering why he seemed vaguely familiar, but unable to pin down why. One man could hardly be a danger to her, she told herself. She had an escort of a maid and two postilions, albeit sulky ones. There was the risk of breaking a wheel or an axle and finding herself stranded on top of these godforsaken Downs, of course, but she wanted to get to Bath badly enough to take that chance.
‘Thank you, sir. I am obliged.’ She turned to the postilions. ‘You heard the gentleman, we will follow him to Sandy Lane.’
They turned and went to the horses without comment, although if backs of heads could speak Laurel thought they would be saying, You’ll be sorry. Or possibly, Women!
‘Ma’am, excuse me, but have we met before?’
He feels it, too?
The stranger was staring as though he hoped to penetrate her veil. He had blue eyes and dark, dark lashes.
‘I hardly think so, sir.’ She did not trust blue eyes, however attractive, and it was unwise to be drawn into conversation which was doubtless a handy ploy for scoundrels. Before you knew where you were you were revealing information about acquaintances and locations that would give a confidence trickster or a seducer valuable insights. Not that she thought him either, but presumably if such people were obvious they would not be very successful.
‘No, of course not.’ He frowned. ‘It was something in the way you tipped your head to one side when you were thinking. It reminded me of an old acquaintance.’ Whoever it was, the memory did not appear to give him much pleasure.
Laurel nodded and walked away from him to the chaise. His face was intelligent and sensitive when he was serious, not merely handsome. That expression made up for the blue eyes—in fact, it was positively engaging. Trust me, it said.
‘Hah!’ she said under her breath as she climbed into the chaise and made room for Binham on the seat beside her. Men were not trustworthy, strangers or relatives, or friends. Life had taught her that.
‘My lady?’ Her new maid, a stickler for protocol, including being addressed by her surname by her employer and as Miss Binham by the lower servants, was radiating disapproval at the conversation with a strange man. Her stepmother thought well of Binham. Laurel had plans to find the lady’s maid a new employer at the earliest opportunity unless she showed signs of developing a sense of humour.
‘Nothing, Binham. Hold tight, this will be a bumpy ride, I fear.’
They turned south, then west, climbing steadily, paralleling the modern road two miles or so away to their right on the other side of the great rise of Downland. Almost immediately the metalled road turned into a chalk track, rutted and white with dust.
Binham gave a little shriek at the first lurch, clutched Laurel’s dressing case to her bosom with one hand and grabbed for the strap with the other. Laurel held on tightly and looked forward, through the glass between the team of four and the postilions, to the horseman leading the way.
He was sitting relaxed on a big grey horse that had as much of a raffish air about it as its master, its tail ungroomed and long, its legs covered in the thick dust of the road. It was not some hired hack, that was for sure, not ridden on such a loose, trusting rein by a man who looked as though he had spent so long in the saddle that he was perfectly at home there.
Laurel pushed back her veil and narrowed her eyes at the broad shoulders, the comfortable slouch. It was most improbable, but there was still something familiar about the man.
No, it isn’t familiarity, she thought. It is as if someone rubbed out a faint pencil sketch of a young man and then drew this one on the same sheet of paper with the ghost of the original showing through.
Which was ridiculous. The only person she had ever known with such lapis-blue eyes had been Giles Redmond and he had been an unprepossessing youth, his big feet and hands, large nose and ears all seeming to belong to someone else and not the mousey, scholarly young man. He had been thoughtful and sensitive though, always a loyal friend—and always failing to meet his father’s expectations.
Gentle, kind, fun to be with and tolerant of the neighbours’ daughter, two years younger than him: no one had suspected that sixteen-year-old Laurel Knighton could fall for such a plain and retiring youth, even if he was the heir to a great title. But kindness, humour and intelligence could be as attractive to an impressionable girl as good looks and confidence.
The Marquess of Thorncote, Giles’s father, had wanted a son from the same mould as himself for his heir—active, noisy, enthusiastically confident, a man who would hunt all day and wench and drink all night. Instead he had Giles, nose in a book, secretive and more likely to shoot his own foot off than hit a pheasant.
Strange that he had so little idea of what his son was truly like, any more than she had known. It had almost been funny, the expression on the Marquess’s face the day the worm turned and Giles showed his true colours and her friend had revealed himself for the treacherous, deceitful beast that he was.
But that was nine years in the past. The Marquess was ailing now, they said, not that there was any social interaction between Malden Grange, home of William Knighton, Earl of Palgrave, her late father, and Thorne Hall. Not since the day of the betrothal debacle.
Malden was not her home any longer, not now that she had no function beyond that of spinster stepdaughter. Laurel narrowed her eyes at the worn brown riding coat ahead as though its wearer was personally responsible for her change of circumstances and the move to Bath.
Which was unfair, she told herself.
Just let me get to Laura Place—the name so close to her own must surely be a good omen—and I will learn to be contented and useful again. I refuse to become a sour old maid. I will be happy, find happiness in all the little things.
She was simply resentful of the stranger triggering something in her memory of those long-ago days, she supposed.
They were still climbing, the horses labouring now as the wheels stuck in deep ruts or lost their grip on loose stones. Open grassland spread out on either side and Laurel dropped the window, filling the stuffy interior of the chaise with cool air and the sound of birdsong all around them.
‘It feels like the roof of the world,’ she said as they came to a halt and she realised the vehicle was on the level. Then she hastily adjusted her veil as the stranger brought his horse round and leaned down from the saddle to look through the open window.
‘The team needs to rest a while after that pull and the view is spectacular.’
‘I have been looking at it, thank you.’
Definitely not a gentleman if he persisted in talking to a lady to whom he had not been introduced.
‘Not on that side, this way.’ He gestured with his riding crop. ‘Come and see.’
Outrageous, of course. She should snub him and raise the glass and sit demurely in the carriage until the horses were rested. She was thoroughly bored with that carriage.
I
