Page 4 of The Raven’s Lady

His companion stuck his head out of the carriage. “Sir Adrian, we must be going.”

The stranger turned to her one more time. “You’re sure Hugh will not be a problem for you.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “I haven’t thanked you properly. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. You seem to have had Hugh under control.”

“Oh, I doubt that Hugh is ever under control exactly, but you knew what would turn him from his anger.”

“Greed, you mean?” One of his dark brows lifted. “I’ve met his like before.”

For a moment they stood looking at each other.

Then he offered her a brief bow, and climbed into the waiting carriage. As it pulled out of the inn yard, Cassie shivered in the breeze. She had vanished from the stranger’s thoughts. The brief warmth of his regard had passed. He had returned to whatever pressing business the storm had interrupted. She looked for Jenkins, the head ostler, to procure her a ride home in the inn gig. Honoria must be worried by now.

Chapter Three

Cassie set her package on the demi-lune table in the entrance hall and began to strip off her damp bonnet and muddied cloak. Her foot throbbed, but on the way home in the gig, she’d been thinking what a fine world it was with the spectacle of fleeing clouds overhead and the pleasing sensations that arose from the stranger’s kindness. There were such people in the world after all, gentlemen even, who, seeing a fellow creature’s distress, responded with kindness. The muffled sound of voices in the red drawing room caught her ear, and William appeared to take her cloak and bonnet.

“Who’s here?” she asked.

“Two gentlemen, my lady. Arrived not ten minutes ago. Miss Honoria is with them.”

Cassie glanced at the hall clock. The agent was early then, and not alone. She would have no chance to change, to arm herself a little, to shift her thinking to a more businesslike mode. The old blue dress she’d worn for her ramble to the village would have to do. If it made her look like a village waif rather than a duke’s daughter, so be it. Honoria needed her.

“And Her Grace?” Cassie tried not to betray any alarm at the prospect of an untimely visit from her grandmother. The lease arrangements were best concluded without her grandmother’s interference.

“Still with her horses, my lady.”

Cassie counted her blessings. Her Grace had agreed to the plan to lease Verwood, but maintained the view that doing so was an act of extraordinary benevolence for which any tenant must be excessively grateful. “Have refreshments been offered?”

William nodded. She thanked and dismissed him and paused only to square her shoulders before opening the old oak door.

“Cassie,” her aunt sighed. “Thank heavens. You’ve come.”

Cassie barely registered her aunt’s agitated countenance. Two gentlemen rose and turned her way. It was the kind stranger and his companion. The man must be his agent.

“You? You wish to lease Verwood?” Cassie stepped forward with a warm smile even as a stern, unbending expression took over the face of the man whose kindness she’d been considering as an unexpected blessing.

“Oh no, Cassie dear,” her aunt said. “I’m afraid there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. Sir Adrian wants to buy Verwood.”

The words stopped Cassie cold. Her smile died. Her bad foot sent a sharp twinge up her leg. “But we haven’t offered to sell.”

“You’re C. J. Lavenham?” he asked.

“Lady Cassandra Jane Lavenham,” Aunt Honoria confirmed.

Sir Adrian’s frown deepened. Cassie could see he had some objection to her role in the matter. “Your father was the previous duke?”

“He was. I’m sorry that you’ve come all this way to be disappointed, and no doubt, inconvenienced, but really”—she cast a reproachful glance at the agent—“we made it quite clear in our notice that we were offering to lease not sell the property.”

The agent cleared his throat. “Jacob Trimley, my lady, at your service. I believe we might yet reach an agreement, as Sir Adrian is keen to take up a residence in the neighborhood appropriate to his station.”

Cassie regarded the gentleman apparently eager to take over her house. She felt foolish. In the gig on the way home, she’d been dwelling on the kindness and solicitude he’d shown to Dick Crockett and herself in the inn yard. Now she could see only the determined set of his jaw and something implacable in his gaze. Here was quite a different adversary from Hugh. His presence altered the room, made its little flourishes of gilt and brocade seem overdone and outmoded. She sensed that his sharp eye had already spotted how faded and threadbare the chairs were.

She offered her guests a thin smile and moved to take a seat. The little business of settling in a chair next to Aunt Honoria and allowing the gentlemen to be seated in turn created a pause for Cassie to gather her thoughts. Verwood Hall needed a tenant, and of one thing, she was sure, Sir Adrian had the funds to meet her grandmother’s notion of a proper rent for the place.

She smoothed her skirts over her knees, considering how to proceed. “Thank you, Mr. Trimley,” she said, looking at the agent, not his client. “Verwood cannot be sold while my grandmother, Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess, lives. But we remain pleased to consider an application to lease on behalf of Sir Adrian, and hope that the established usages between landlord and tenant may yet offer some way to an agreement as you suggest.”