in his absence?
Rachel looked at him. If he was reluctant to be out in the moonlight, it certainly admired him. Inside the manor, by soft candlelight, he was almost too handsome: so much coin-bright hair, vividly blue black-lashed eyes and classically modelled face gave the impression of delicacy. In this pure cold light the strong bones of his face, allied to the athletic shape of his body beneath the rich clothes, conveyed uncompromising masculinity. When Bess shook her head decisively in answer to his question, he passed a hand over his hair resignedly.
Rachel had particularly noticed his hands at the supper table. They were unusual in their length of sensitive square-tipped fingers and a beautiful example of the human bone structure. She thought, quite impersonally, that she had never seen quite so lovely a feature on a man’s body before.
The innovation Bess had mentioned to Rachel and called the Queen’s Rest was a little stone house built on a space of land just before the formal house gardens became the pasture land. It was solidly built, its apertures glazed. From the front could be seen the manor, surrounded by its protective trees, from the back the open fields of the estate, patchworked in this white light. It was furnished very simply with two wooden, cushioned settles and warm and faded rugs underfoot.
It had come into being because the Queen enjoyed walking outside in all weathers but was becoming older now and needed to rest after even short walks. Maiden Court had, for many years, been somewhere she could go to relax in informal congenial company. Her long-time love, the Earl of Leicester, was very attached to George Latimar and liked to visit his friend—Elizabeth often came with him. Recently she had said to Bess that she found it difficult to remain mobile for even short periods, and so the stone building, known as the Queen’s Rest, had been established.
“Oh, I like it!” Rachel said now, sitting down and looking back towards the lighted house. Bess sat, too, but did not reply. After a moment, Rachel’s eyes were drawn to the sweep of rolling countryside. She did not see it, however, for her mind’s eye produced the very different view which she remembered from her grandmother’s casa in Spain. If I were there now, she thought wistfully, I would be looking at the tangled groves of olive trees, and listening to the cicadas which would surely be active on this June night. Later would come the traditional Andalucian singing until dawn— “I beg your pardon, my lady.” She started as Bess spoke to her.
“I was saying that it is positioned just right to see two views, but sheltered from the worst of the weather.”
“Indeed, my lady,” Rachel agreed.
“Now you have seen it,” Hal, who had propped his shoulder against the stout doorway, spoke impatiently, “shall we go back to the house?” Each moment, he felt, away from Katherine was a wasted moment. Who knew what advances Piers was making in his absence? As he thought this, he experienced a shock to realise how close he was coming to being seriously at odds with his best friend. Dangerously so, given Piers’s reputation—no insult, fancied or real, was allowed to pass by Roxburgh. It must not come to that, Hal resolved…but if it should, then so be it. Tonight he had met the girl, the one girl, he wished to marry. No one, not even Piers, could change his mind on that.
“If I could pay a short visit to the stables,” Rachel said, getting up.
“The stables?” groaned Hal.
“Why, yes,” Rachel said resolutely. “I rode here on a very…old, but valiant, mount. I would see she is quite happy before retiring myself.”
As they walked the path to the stable yard, Hal asked, “If she is so old, Rachel, why is she still in commission?”
“You should ask my cousin that question,” Rachel said quietly. “Where I am come from, such a horse, with years of faithful service behind it, would be out to pasture. Katherine feels differently.”
In the stables, filled with the warm breath of its occupants, Rachel looked about her with bright eyes as Bess paused to caress those she knew and Hal attended her. Harry Latimar kept a fine selection of blood horses. Rachel progressed along the stalls until she found Primrose, who greeted her with weary delight. As Bess began a conversation with one of the grooms, Hal came to Rachel’s side. He looked Primrose over with a frown, sure that the Maiden Court stables had never seen such a shambling wreck before. He said idly, “You enjoy riding, lady?”
“Yes, I do, or at least I did.” She was sure he was not interested, but added just the same, “In Spain, in my home, I was set up on my first pony before I could walk. My former countrymen are the best judge of horseflesh in the world.”
“Is that so?” Hal enquired, stifling a yawn. “But since coming to this country, you do not enjoy the activity as you used to?”
“I have no opportunity to enjoy it, sir,” she said bleakly. “You see before you—” she indicated Primrose “—the poor creature I was given for the journey here. She is, in fact, the only horse at my disposal.”
Hal raised his eyebrows before her vehement tone. “Yes, well, while you are here please feel free to take any nag you wish from our stables and try it. My father, too, is accounted a fair judge of the animals.”
“I know,” Rachel returned unguardedly. “My grandmother told me that many times.”
“Your grandmother?”
A little flustered under his suddenly interested eyes, Rachel said, “Yes…my grandmother, who was, in her time, also a connoisseur of all things equine. In fact, the horse that she acquired in England when she knew your father and took back to Spain was so fine an animal it sired a whole generation of colts owned eventually by the great families of Madrid and Castile.”
Hal blinked. A few moments ago this little girl could have blended very well into the grey shadows of the night; now she was brilliant with colour. A Spanish grandmother would explain that shade of hair colour, black with a bluish sheen, and the ripe mouth—rose-red without resort to the French paste. Her figure, too, undisguised by her ill-fitting gown, was seductively proportioned and her skin, so creamily pale, also declared her ancestry. But how explain those eyes—the colour of autumn-touched beech leaves—or the clipped English voice? He said, “And your parents? Were they Spanish?”
Rachel lifted her chin before his deprecatory tone. “My father, sir, was an English gentleman, and my mother of Irish descent, whose antecedents claimed Brian Boru as their blood kin.”
“Ah, well, that explains your interest in horses. A combination of Spanish and Irish blood is indeed formidable in that field.”
Rachel flushed brightly. Her tongue had been carried away by the familiar scents and sights in this place, and she had made a fool of herself. Before she could answer a groom appeared in the half light.
“Lady Bess has returned to the manor, sir,” he said to Hal. “She bids you return when you are ready.”
“I am ready,” Rachel declared. “More than ready.”
Hal laughed easily, saying, “Well, if the Lady Rachel is satisfied, then so am I.” He glanced at the groom. “She is somewhat of an afficionado in the place we are standing now, Wat.”
Rachel, who had been conscious of her flush and trying sternly to repress it, now found herself colouring more deeply. Afficionado! she thought angrily. To use such a word clearly puts me in my place. There followed some private thoughts using the untranslatable language of the Spanish stableyard where she had spent so many of her formative years. She followed her escort back to the manor, struggling
