Page 28 of The Raven’s Lady

“Small? Wormley? That’s a London man speaking. We have everything a village requires—a green, a shop, a butcher and a grocer, a smith, a vicar, an apothecary. How can you say we are a small village?”

“A vast hub of commerce, eh? But very few families.”

“At least four and twenty.”

“And where am I to place you in such a company?”

“You needn’t place me at all.” Mr. Kydd was clever and persistent, like his friend. But Cassie sensed that she was far more intriguing as Bluebell, a little mystery, while as Lady Cassandra Lavenham, she’d be an object of distant civility.

“Afraid of a scold from your employer for letting a flash cove from London take you up?”

“You have no idea.”

“But you can’t resist me, can you? You may be a bit out of fashion, but you speak like a lady, so I’m guessing you are governess to some spoiled miss who gives you her cast-off gowns.”

She ought to be insulted, especially about the gowns, but for a mad moment Cassie wanted to seize the role he offered. Sense took over. “I would be a poor sort of governess if I deserted my charges after services to go driving with some fine gentleman.”

“Fine gentleman? There’s an elevation for you. Where’s home?”

“A governess makes her home with her employer. But tell me, Mr. Kydd, aren’t you off to London soon?”

“Ouch. You’re that eager to be rid of me?”

“Just making sure not to be taken in by the charms of a practiced London flirt.”

He laughed. “You see through me, do you?”

Maybe that explained her ease with him. He enjoyed teasing her, but his heart was not likely to be engaged. “I’m sure that in London, you’ll soon forget your Bluebell.”

“You wound me, but I’m off tomorrow. My uncle needs me in town, and Raven’s horses have settled in nicely at Verwood. Only Her Grace’s bad boy, Hermes, still has his doubts about the newcomers. Raven’s bays will toss their heads and ignore him. They know their worth.”

Cassie laughed again. Horses might not speak, but Mr. Kydd was right that they could show their feelings plainly and knew their places in the stable hierarchy. Grandmama’s very spoiled horses, like the woman herself, looked down on lesser creatures. Mr. Kydd was only wrong that Hermes was a bad boy.

He shook his head, not looking at Cassie, plainly absorbed in thoughts about the horse. “That Hermes is as handsome a devil as I’ve seen in an age! Fifteen two or three hands. I’m working on Her Grace’s man Snell to get his true story. It’s a mystery, you see. Snell is tight-lipped, but he admitted that Hermes is out of the Darley Arabian. There might be some Galloway in him as well to give him his size. With that bloodline, he could be the making of the Verwood stud. He’s young, no more than five, I’d say. He’d make a remarkable sire. There would be a demand for his get.”

“Wouldn’t he have to win some purses first? To gain notice?” Cassie asked.

Mr. Kydd gave her an arrested glance, and she was conscious of revealing too much knowledge of the workings of a stud. She had understood his quaint way of speaking of a stallion’s get, which a village girl should not. She was grateful that Mr. Snell, Grandmama’s head groom, was by nature taciturn. Hermes’s history was Cassie’s history. Once he heard their story, Mr. Kydd would stop flirting with Bluebell.

For a few minutes, a narrow, winding stretch of road required him to attend more to his driving than to her, but she knew he would come back to the mystery, and Cassie had to be careful not to give herself away. Bluebell could go driving with a fast gentleman from London, but Lady Cassandra Lavenham would be the talk of the village for the freedom she was enjoying.

As the road straightened out between open fields, Mr. Kydd returned to Hermes. Cassie smiled. If he gave his heart to anyone, it would be to a horse. “If I had the training of him, I wager he could race in one of the late July meets or by Lammas Day at the latest.”

“So soon?” The idea startled her. She closed her hands around a fold of the lap rug. Cassie believed Hermes was past his racing days. The idea that Hermes could race again by the end of summer could not be right. If Hermes could race, then Cassie was to blame for Verwood’s latest money woes. It was her accident that had led to Grandmama’s decision. If Mr. Kydd was right, it was Cassie who had held them all back, reduced them to leasing Verwood. Surely, his overly optimistic temperament had led him astray. A horse, even one as powerful as Hermes, could not race so soon, not after three years of idleness. She looked up, suddenly conscious that he was watching her.

“Have the blue devils got you again?” he asked.

“Not at all. I think this drive has done me a world of good, thank you. Now, you may set me down.” To a stranger there was nothing in the particular bend in the road, but beyond a copse of white hawthorn was a wooded path to Verwood. Cassie pulled the lap rug away and lay it across the back of the seat.

“What? I’m dismissed, am I?” He reined in his pair and looked about. “Here? What did I say?”

“You’ve said nothing amiss. I must return to my … people. Keep your horses in hand. I can manage.” She climbed down with only a little twinge in her foot as it took her weight.

Mr. Kydd regarded her with a puzzled look. “You know, Bluebell, you are hard on a man’s pride.”

“But you, Mr. Kydd, have boundless self-assurance, and won’t let one out-of-fashion country maiden flatten you.”

He laughed. “You’re not so easily rid of me. I have a standing invitation from Raven.” He looked around once again. “You’re sure of this place?”