Catarina escaped to her room as soon as they reached Hill Street. How could she avoid meeting Nicholas? It would be too painful to see him again, to have to make polite conversation, and particularly watch him flirting with other women. At least she knew he would be away from London for a short while, so she could breathe easily again.
* * * *
Nicholas spent a few days at Brooke Court, then he and Jeremy, who had come down from London with him, went to Marshington Grange. A few of the villagers had been persuaded to consolidate their scattered strips of land from the three big fields, but it was a complicated and time-consuming matter to allocate the others in a way the men who still wanted to follow the old system found acceptable.
‘Me and pa and grandpa before ‘im allus ‘ad that strip,’ was a frequent objection.
‘If I ‘as that ‘un, it’s ten more minutes fer me ter walk in mornin’s.’
‘It’s not such good land, like the one yer wants us ter give up.’
Jeremy became more and more exasperated. He was telling Nicholas, as they sat over their port after dinner, of the many excuses he had been offered, as well as outright refusals even to consider his suggestions.
‘I’ve promised to build cottages on the consolidated farms, and charge low rents for the first few years, but even that won’t persuade the others of the benefits. Now they are saying they can’t afford to keep the same number of oxen for the ploughing. They complain the ones with the farms will acquire their own and won’t want to share them like they did in the past.’
‘Patience,’ Nicholas advised. ‘In a few years the rest will see the benefits and want to leave their old ways.’
He was finding it difficult to contain his own impatience. He wanted to see Catarina, but he was not at all sure why. How could he ask her to be his wife when this cloud of suspicion still hung over him. Had he mistaken the matter? Had she told the truth? How would she behave when, as seemed likely, they met after church on Sunday?
One way had suggested itself for him to discover the truth independently. Brooding over the quarrel when he first went back to London he suddenly thought he could ask Thomas Winterton to enquire about the death of a cousin in childbirth. No sooner had he decided he sent a letter, and was now eagerly awaiting a reply. Thomas knew the family, he could say he’d heard a rumour, and surely they would either confirm or deny it. Then he would know how to approach Catarina, whether he could try once more to make her an offer, or whether he would have to abandon hope of making her his wife.
Their discussion was cut short when the butler came in to say that Mr Trubshaw, together with Mr Lewis, was anxious to see Mr Brooke.
‘At this time of day?’ Jeremy asked the apologetic butler. ‘Oh, well, show them in. They can sit and have a glass of port with us. I’m not moving.’
He had been drinking too much of late, Nicholas thought, and was now afraid of not being steady on his feet. He would need help getting upstairs. He was concerned. This was a new departure for his younger brother, but after one angry retort the previous day, when he suggested Jeremy had drunk enough, he restrained himself from interfering.
Trubshaw looked frightened, Mr Lewis furiously angry, but Jeremy bade them sit opposite and held up his hand to stop them speaking until he had poured them both glasses of port and pushed the bowl of nuts towards them.
‘Well, gentlemen, what’s so urgent it can’t wait till morning?’
Mr Lewis was truculent, leaning forward and wagging his finger at Jeremy.
‘You may think it unimportant, Mr Brooke, but I don’t when my barn’s set alight.’
‘Your barn? Fired? When?’ Nicholas asked.
‘Earlier today. Luckily one of my lads saw it. If it hadn’t been raining so much yesterday so the ground was too sodden for planting, we’d all have been in the far field, with only my wife at the house. Then the whole lot, and the hay we’ve managed to save, would have been lost.’
‘Were you able to save it?’
‘Most of it, my lord. Part of the roof thatch has gone, and the posts and wall at one end aren’t safe, they’ll have to be pulled down and rebuilt.’
‘Do you know who did it?’
‘I have my suspicions. Dan, whose wife killed that lass at the Dower House, has been seen living rough in your woods. I wouldn’t give him his job back, and he resents it. I’ve no doubt it’s him.’
‘I’ve tried to find him, before now,’ Mr Trubshaw put in anxiously, ‘but I suspect he moves from place to place. I’ve found a couple of shelters he seems to have built from branches, but they’d been abandoned before I go there.’
‘Never mind that,’ Mr Lewis interrupted. ‘What we want’s a full man hunt in the woods. They’re too big for one man to search. Then we can give him up to the constable. Mr Brooke, will you let us do it, tomorrow?’
Jeremy raised his glass, found it empty, and refilled it. ‘Tally ho! It’sh off to hunt we go! What time in the morning can you get your hunt together?’
‘By eight. All my own lads are eager, and they’re down in the village now telling the others.’
‘Has Dan any friends who might warn him?’ Nicholas asked. ‘Lady Brooke once met him, and she told Staines, who told me, he claimed he had friends who took him food.’
‘They know if they warn him they’ll have me to deal with! So we have your permission, sir?’
Jeremy, slurring his words, nodded. ‘Shure you do, Mr Lewish. Where do you shtart?’
‘West side. Then he can’t make a break Devon way. Though I wish he’d go back there.’
* * * *
Catarina and Delphine were at a small musical evening where the latest sensational soprano, according to their hostess, would be performing. They had arrived early and been ushered to seats at the front. Delphine sat sideways on her chair and kept commenting to Catarina about the guests who followed them. Catarina resisted looking round, not wishing to know whether Nicholas might be there. She had no desire to meet him.
At the interval, after politely applauding an uninspiring performance by a very attractive but not very talented singer, they were invited to another room where a buffet had been laid out.
‘Let’s hope the trio we’ve been promised for afterwards is better,’ Delphine muttered into Catarina’s ear as they rose to move. ‘We can’t leave, sitting right at the front.’
Catarina nodded. She had suffered so many sleepless nights lately she had almost fallen asleep, and only by pinching herself hard had she managed to stay awake. She turned towards the door and gasped. Looking straight at her was Sir Humphrey Unwin.
There was no way to avoid him. She had not seen him since she had refused his offer, and to meet him here in London was most unfortunate, as he rarely visited. For a dreadful moment she wondered if he had somehow discovered she was here and had followed her. He stood aside to let the rest of the small audience leave the room, and when he could moved towards Catarina.
‘My dear Lady Brooke. What a pleasant surprise to see you here. Staines gave me the impression you had gone to Bath, but the man looked so shifty I rather doubted him. I wondered whether you had come to London, but you have not opened your town house, your tenants are in residence.’
So the man had checked up on her, had he? Why did he think he had the right to do so?
‘Sir Humphrey,’ she managed. ‘What a surprise to see you here. Do you stay in town for long?’
‘That will depend,’ he said, and gave her a speaking look. ‘Won’t you introduce me to your charming companion?’
As they moved on to the supper room, Sir Humphrey between them, Delphine kept up a flow of inconsequential chatter, allowing Catarina to regain her composure. They found a small table laid for three, and Catarina, whose appetite had vanished, tried to bear her part in the conversation while she nibbled at lobster patties and sipped champagne.
‘I hope I may be permitted to call,’ Sir Humphrey said as they rose at the signal and started back to the temporary auditorium.
‘Of course, Sir Humphrey. I receive on Wednesdays.’
‘Who is he?’ Delphine hissed as they regained their seats. ‘He was looking at you as though he could eat you.’
‘Walter’s friend. Hush now, they are waiting to start.’
‘I will not accept any more invitations to musical evenings,’ Delphine declared as they were driven home. ‘I don’t know which was the worst, the soprano or the violinist whose instrument was out of tune. Now, your very attentive Sir Humphrey. Tell me all.’
‘Let’s wait until we are back at home,’ Catarina said, conscious of the coachman, even though he might not be able to hear anything.
Delphine did not permit her to escape. She led the way into her boudoir and dismissed her maid.
‘Tell.’
Catarina bowed to the inevitable, praying that Delphine would not spread gossip, but unable to evade telling her.
‘He lives a few miles from Marshington Grange, has been Walter’s friend for decades, lost his wife a few years ago, his children are all married and away from home. He is lonely, and wants another wife.’
‘He wants you for wife. Catarina, my dearest friend, you won’t marry another old man, will you?’
‘Of course I won’t. I don’t suppose I’ll marry again.’
‘Has he offered?’
‘Yes, and I refused him, very decidedly, but like many men he cannot accept that what a woman says might be what she means. I’m horribly afraid he intends to ask me again. He implied as much when I refused him.’
‘And means to ask you while he’s here, if I read him aright.’
‘He’ll keep on asking until he wears down my resistance. He is that kind of stubborn man. But I swear I won’t give way.’
Delphine, to Catarina’s annoyance, laughed.
‘Poor man. He’ll come and make sheep’s eyes at you. We will have to provide you with a more suitable cavalier. That would perhaps deter him. I know just the right one. My brother-in-law George is a few years older than we are, a confirmed bachelor, but also a confirmed flirt. He will be in town in a few days, I must ask him to play the suitor and guard you from old roués like Sir Humphrey.’
Catarina began to deny Sir Humphrey was a roué, then wondered why she need defend him. If Delphine considered him in that light it might make her more willing to aid Catarina in avoiding or rejecting his offers. She was able to face seeing him again more calmly.
* * * *
The search of Marshington’s woods found traces of Dan’s occupation, but no Dan. Jeremy had woken with a sore head and refused to take part, saying he’d hear soon enough if the man were caught, but he had no desire to spend the morning tramping through wet undergrowth.
‘Let’s hope he has left the district,’ Nicholas said when Trubshaw brought the news.
He planned to go back to London on Monday, in two days’ time, and after a good deal of persuasion Jeremy agreed to go with him. Nicholas was relieved. He wanted to distract his brother from the difficulties he was encountering trying to introduce his ideas to the conservative villagers. Jeremy was young, too impatient, and liable to offend people by not taking their views into consideration.
On Sunday he hoped to see Catarina, but she was not in church, and when he asked Mrs Eade, hoping she was not ill, the Rector’s wife said she had gone to some watering place.
‘She has been indisposed for the past few weeks, and I believe a change will be good for her, but I do not know which spa she has gone to. I don’t believe it is Bath, for I wrote to enquire from a friend who lives there whether she had been seen. Besides, she has her own house in Bath, and could have taken the baby, but she left the child behind. So I assume it was a longer journey, and she would be staying in lodgings. The only servant she has taken with her is her maid. She did not even go in her own carriage, which is another reason I believe she has gone some distance.’
‘What a gabblemonger!’ Jeremy exclaimed when they were barely out of Mrs Eade’s hearing. ‘What business is it of hers where Catarina is? Why does she need to check on her?’
‘She was probably trying to help, assuming we needed to speak to Catarina about the estate,’ Nicholas said.
‘Apart from asking her if she knows how I can make these people listen to me, there’s nothing.’
They made an early start and reached Grosvenor Square late the same evening. Olivia, they were told, was at some debutante’s ball, and would not be back until late, so for once they went to bed early, though it had been suggested on the journey that they might look in at White’s for a few hours.
Nicholas had to remain in London for the next few weeks, to oversee Olivia’s own ball, and there were a few debates he wanted to attend in the House. It would be a long time before he saw Catarina again. He would have to do his utmost to forget her.
‘Nearly everyone has accepted,’ Olivia told Nicholas the morning after he reached London. ‘It will be such a crush! How wonderful!’
He smiled at her. His little sister had blossomed during the past few weeks. She had changed her hairstyle and she wore more fashionable gowns. She was acquiring some town bronze. Though still appealingly shy, she was not looking scared most of the time as she had when with Lady Keith. He seemed to have chosen wisely in asking Lady Mortimer to be her duenna.
‘So what have you been doing while we were out of town?’
She reeled off a list of balls and receptions and morning calls.
‘I wanted to go to Vauxhall Gardens, but Lady Mortimer said it was not suitable, too many cits went there, and we had no male protectors. Nicholas, now you and Jeremy are back, could we not go?’
‘We’ll see.’
‘That’s what you always say when you don’t wish to do something. I suppose you will say it when I ask to go to a masquerade. Louisa told me they are great fun.’
Nicholas made a mental note to tell Lady Mortimer to avoid Louisa, whoever she was, as a bad influence.
‘I’ll refuse permission entirely for that!’ he said now. ‘Vauxhall is bad enough, but for you, or any respectable girl, to go to a masquerade is out of the question.’
‘Why? People just go masked, don’t they?’
‘They — ‘ he paused. How could he explain to his innocent young sister that these affairs were licentious, that unsuitable, even disreputable people attended, and most of the men and women who patronized them were seeking particular unsavoury pleasures?