Sycamore ambled into the stable yard a few moments later, looking as windblown as his horse.
“Did it help?” he asked, climbing from the saddle and stroking the mare’s sweaty neck.
“I’d still like to pummel you.”
“Let’s have some breakfast before I oblige you. Old fellows like you need to keep up their strength.”
The taunt held no heat, and as they strolled back to the house, Ash had the satisfaction of knowing he’d outridden his dashing younger brother.
“My virgin eyes,” Sycamore murmured as he and Ash rounded a bend in the trees. “That is Chastain’s new wife and his best friend, and I do not believe their embrace qualifies as platonic.”
Clarice Chastain was plastered against Francis Portly in a manner suggestive of intimacies either recently granted or soon to be shared. Portly’s demeanor had much of protectiveness about it, for all that it was far too familiar.
“I suppose the gazebo was taken,” Ash said, half of his good mood dissipating. “I did not take Mrs. Chastain for a fool, but provoking her spouse will only redound to the misery of all. Please make my excuses at breakfast.”
“This is a house party, Ash,” Sycamore replied, resuming their progress. “Since when did you become a Puritan?”
“More of a Quaker, Cam. I want peace, calm, and quiet solitude. Instead, we have a rural bacchanal, when I should be on my wedding journey.” Though the house party would conclude in a week. Ash clung to that singularly fortifying thought. “I am bothered by something, though.”
“You are bothered by everything of late.”
“This is something you can investigate. Why would Mrs. Tremont allow Chastain under her skirts? She’s a widow, she has means, she can dispense or withhold her favors as she pleases. She does not care for Chastain, and yet, she apparently accommodates his demands. Not only is Chastain newly married, he’s courting the favor of Lady Fairchild’s daughter and doubtless bothering the maids too. Why does Mrs. Tremont feel she must humor his demands?”
“That is a puzzle, isn’t it?” Sycamore murmured as they emerged onto the tall hedge forming the back side of the maze. “Particularly when a half-dozen randy young swains would eagerly accommodate her. I will get you an answer.”
“Be discreet, Cam.”
He waved his riding crop and sauntered on. “Discretion is my middle name.”
His full name was Sycamore Erasmus Momus Dorning, Momus being the god who’d instigated the Trojan War before being banished from Olympus.
“I wish I hadn’t watched the card play last night,” Della said, rolling a stocking up over her calf. “Poor Lord Tavistock looked bilious by the time the games concluded.”
Ash’s nose was buried in some letter from Jonathan Tresham that had arrived a day or two earlier. He was not watching Della dress—she’d purposely eschewed the privacy screen for that activity—and had barely spoken since they’d risen a half hour earlier.
“How much did Chastain cost Tavistock?” he asked.
Della named a figure. “And that was only last night’s damage. People are talking.”
Ash set aside his correspondence. “That is appalling. One has nearly to cheat to drop that much in one informal night of play.”
Her bare leg hadn’t earned his notice, but gambling, which he saw night after night, had. Della tied off her garter and took her foot off the vanity stool.
“Chastain treated it all as a lark. He’s costing Tavistock an enormous sum, and I get the sense Chastain truly enjoys making the young marquess miserable. Have you seen my…?”
Ash leaned forward so Della could retrieve her shawl from the back of his reading chair.
“Lady Wentwhistle ought to intervene,” Ash said.
“Lord Wentwhistle ought to intervene,” Della countered. “The hand of God ought to smite William Chastain, but I suspect a jealous husband is the closest we’ll come to that brand of justice. Aren’t you attending services?”
Ash rose and took her shawl from her, folding it over his arm. “Sycamore will happily escort you. All five of us in the coach would be a bit crowded.”
“Five?”
“The marchioness and Tavistock, you, me, Sycamore. Cam fancies her ladyship. I’m not sure what she’s about with him. You will enjoy the outing to the church, and I will finish reading Tresham’s figures.”
Ash, who could absorb a ledger the way a conductor read an open score, had been perusing Tresham’s figures for two days.
“Jonathan sent me something as well, Ash. I’ve been debating whether to show it to you.” And dreading the discussion Jonathan’s generosity would provoke.
“That sounds serious.”
Della opened her reticule, fished beneath her flask of tea, and produced a folded piece of paper. “My darling brother was peevish because nobody consulted him on the settlements. Jonathan will use this sum to establish a trust for me if I ask it of him, and he will manage the trust according to my directions.”
She passed Ash the bank draft, but he glanced at the figure without taking hold of the paper.
“You are a wealthy woman.” No inflection, no emotion. Nothing. Not gratitude, relief, insulted pride, glee—not any sentiment Della could detect. But then, Della herself did not know how to feel about Jonathan’s gesture.
“We can simply deposit the bank draft, Ash, which would make us wealthy.”
“We are quite solvent, my lady. More solvent by the week.” He sauntered off, looking splendid in breeches, shirt, and waistcoat. He’d not shaved, and to Della that hint of rakishness made his looks all the more appealing.
“What would you have me do with this?” Della asked.
“What do you want to do with it?”
“Tear it up?” Della stuffed the offending paper back in her reticule lest she do just that. “The money makes me anxious, if you must know. Everything makes me anxious. I want to be left in peace to be a good wife to you and sort out how our marriage should go on, and I feel as if I can’t catch my breath. I look up, and there’s Chastain watching me. I take a book to the terrace, and Lady Wentwhistle’s coven falls silent when I walk by. I sometimes think I should do as Susannah did that day long ago and take a book into the maze and fall asleep.”
She was babbling, so she jerked her reticule closed and willed herself to silence. Now was not the time to tell Ash he’d married a fretful ninnyhammer who shook like a leaf for no reason, occasionally fainted from worry that had no basis in fact, and dreaded the end of the world every fortnight or so.
Ash set aside her shawl and, to her great relief and surprise, took the reticule from her and wrapped her in his arms.
“If you disappeared into the maze, I would find you. A week from tomorrow, we will get into our coach—just the two of us—and gallop off to Dorning Hall. Young Lord Tavistock will leave tomorrow, called to the side of his supposedly ailing tutor. With the marchioness’s permission, and his lordship’s consent, I arranged to have a letter ostensibly from Tavistock Hall delivered first thing tomorrow morning. Chastain will be left without a partner for next week’s games. Tavistock’s debts will be paid as they stand upon his departure tomorrow.”