Chapter One

Major Gideon Rhyle, late of the 11th Light Dragoons, shifted uncomfortably on one of the rough benches set in the yard of a prosperous coaching inn situated in the old town of Guildford.

His shallow-crowned beaver hat rested beside him, as did a stout, simple crutch. His gray eyes narrowed against the glare of midday in August as he gratefully received the heat of the midsummer sun on his aching body. His great height and massive frame, at the best of times, made four hours spent in a stagecoach an ordeal. This was not the best of times.

He idly considered the tankard of ale in his hand, then lifted his gaze to survey the innyard. It was a busy place, as were all the inns of Guildford; their position on the Portsmouth Road bestowed on them popularity and renown. He took pleasure in observing the ordinary details of daily life that he had missed in the past five years--the ostler with a straw between his teeth, washing mud from a coach; an immaculate postilion checking his saddle; the serving maid with a soiled apron talking at the kitchen door with a laundry maid who had slipped off her clogs for a moment. A scent of roasting meat wafted from that open door, mingling with the warm odour of horses, leather and hay and, more faintly, the scents of the sea and the harbour at low tide.

With a rumble of iron-rimmed wheels, a substantial crested coach drawn by a quartet of matched bays swung into the innyard. It slowed as the ostler leapt forward, and the coachman drew his horses to a halt. A groom jumped from his perch, waved the ostler aside, and let down the coach's step.

A plump young maid, plainly gowned and bonneted, stepped to the ground. She turned and swung out a little boy of about five years. He was possessed of wayward auburn curls and was pulling fretfully at his dark blue skeleton suit. A lady--a tall, shapely young woman with a calm, comely face--followed the boy. She accepted the groom's hand with a pleasant smile and a word of thanks. She was gowned simply and sombrely; her traveling costume was a fine dark grey silk, and a black straw bonnet revealed only a single auburn curl. She bent to hear something the child said, smiled and took his hand.

The party advanced to the inn's main door to Rhyle's left, away from the yard he faced. Hastily setting his tankard aside, he straightened. He seized his heavy crutch in one large, well-shaped hand and, leaning on it heavily, rose. Once upright he paused, breathing heavily against the pain that spread from his thigh, upward to his hip and down as far as his ankle. With his well-favoured face set unconsciously in lines of suffering, he took half a dozen halting steps toward the old oak door, and bowed politely to the party.

The maid shot him a saucy, curious look, which he did not return. The child skipped up to him interestedly. "Are you a giant, sir?" he piped, tipping back his curly head the better to observe Rhyle's face above him.

"Christopher!" The lady, who had not appeared at first to see Rhyle at all, now surveyed him with a mingling of doubt, compassion and admiration as she admonished the child.

The little boy responded immediately to the reproof in her tone. "I beg pardon, sir, but you are very tall." He held out his small hand with touching confidence.

Rhyle smothered a grin, and gripped the little fingers gently but firmly. They exchanged a brief handshake, man and boy. "He speaks nothing but the truth," Rhyle said, lifting his grey gaze to the lady's face. "Surely he cannot be faulted for it."

He scarcely understood the urge that had moved him to stand and all but intercept the small group. The woman and child were undoubtedly mother and son. Though his father must have shaped the child's face, he shared hazel eyes with his mother--set widely beneath generous brows--and their small straight noses were identical.

"I thank you for your forbearance, sir," she said in a soft, low voice. She met his gaze directly, with gratitude in her look. "He is ever an honest, inquisitive child."

Speechless, the major bowed once more.

She hesitated, then turned away to speak with her servants. "Take Christopher within, Jenny." She summoned the groom who was assisting his coachman. "Marshall, examine the carriage carefully, if you please. I would have no more mishaps like that of yesterday."

"A mishap?" Rhyle was filled with sudden concern, though he was well aware he had no right to it. He glanced at the groom, who swung away immediately to obey his mistress.

"A cracked pole...a disaster averted." The lady seemed surprised by her own explanation, and with a polite, discouraging smile at Rhyle, she hurried with her maid and child into the inn.

Gideon Rhyle watched them disappear, and limped back to pick up his hat, leaning heavily on his crutch. He knew now very well what had moved him to accost the party. He had once dreamt there was just such a woman in the world for him; a woman he could cherish and with whom he would create a home, and raise a family. His action had been a momentary fulfillment of the fantasy.

Reality reestablished, he recalled that in the last year or two, the vision had faded. Now, suffering the aftereffects of battle and the disillusion of injury, he was done with dreams. He donned his hat. His stagecoach's horses were being harnessed.

The crested coach was unhitched and turned. The lady, it was plain from the painted indicator on the door, was the wife of an earl. Of course, he had recognized her position; her carriage, clothes and composure proclaimed it, despite the lack of height in her manner. He considered with anxiety the difficulty of the cracked pole they had encountered the previous day, then shook his head over the illogical concern. It was another man's privilege to be worried over it.

The coachman of the stage appeared with his guard, and the signal was given that the coach would soon depart. Rhyle took a tentative, awkward step accepting yet more pain from the movement, and then limped slowly to the door of the stagecoach. With the guard's help, he settled reluctantly within, the countess' coach removed from his view. He wished that her lovely face might be so easily expunged from his memory.

* * * *

It was only one day later that Clementina, Countess of Carmelth, said to her little son, "We are nearly arrived, my love; do you see, the signposts bespeak Brighton, rather than London now." Though their traveling coach was the latest in design and possessed of every comfort, she would be glad to quit it when they achieved their destination. Even the modern springs incorporated into the coach's construction had not been able to ameliorate the rough roads earlier in the day. The turnpike that they now traversed was blessedly smooth.

"I am tired of journeying, Mama," he said. Moodily, the young earl kicked the blue plush of the opposite seat.

"You did not sleep well last night." She considered his small face lovingly, then drew him to sit upon her lap with scant regard for the silk of her gown.

"I kept thinking of Sponge," he admitted, resting his curly head upon her bosom. Lady Carmelth smiled over his head at the nursemaid, Jenny. Sponge was the liver-spotted spaniel puppy, the runt of his litter, which her son had adopted.

"Sponge will be fine. Did not Jenks promise to care for him, Master Kit?" the younger girl assured him.

"Besides we must have made this journey, my darling," Lady Carmelth reminded her son. "Grandmama and Grandpapa have not seen us for ever so long. With Aunt Eleonora to be wed, and Aunt Felicity a toast of London society, we had to seize this opportunity to visit." She sighed.

She had had no real wish to travel into Sussex to Wheeling Hall, where her family was staying at the home of Eleonora's betrothed, Robert, Viscount Damerham. She had rather have visited them at home in Suffolk where they might be private.

But her family was a busy one, eminent in the ton, active in government, and now, of all times, they needed to be together. Her older brother Nicholas, her father's heir, was missing following the action in Belgium at Waterloo.

She had been apart from all her family's activity these five years. At eighteen, she had wed the youthful Earl of Carmelth, and was bereaved while with child, a year later. When she had only just emerged from her confinement and her mourning, the grandfather of her late husband had died and she had been plunged into black again. Her mother-in-law's death but eight months previous had prolonged the family's suffering, and it required that she remain at Carmelth with the only survivor of her husband's family, his grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Carmelth.

Her own family, whom she had desperately missed during the early months of her marriage, became secondary to her new life. Her son was the centre of her existence, and the family seat of his earldom was his world. It was out of duty to her son's estate and to the dowager countess that Clementina had remained at Carmelth in Gloucestershire the better part of five years.

Her family had of course paid visits, some fleeting, some--when her sisters came--extended. But this was Clementina's first trip of any distance in a very long time...a lifetime, it seemed. Despite the unwelcome destination, she looked forward to introducing the world to her child. And she anticipated experiencing with him her noisy, large, loving and active family. Though touched by sadness, she knew they would not grieve until and unless they knew without doubt that Nicholas was killed. In the carnage that had been Waterloo, 'missing' might mean anything.

"Look at the sojers, Mama!"

The piping voice distracted her from her musings. She directed her gaze to follow her son's pointed finger to several exhausted looking men in the tattered remnants of uniform who reclined at the road's dusty verge. She scanned them carefully, but her charming brother's fine face did not look back at her. She knew that it was foolish to look for him everywhere, but she could not abandon even the smallest possibility.

"The poor men," she said. "They have come back from the war, Christopher Nicholas, to find that there is no work for them, that their old life is gone. We do what we can. We have employed several at Carmelth."

"Like Jenks," he nodded.

"Yes," she said, dropping a kiss on his soft curls.

"Do you s'pose the giant was a sojer?"

"The gentleman was not a giant," she scolded very gently. "As you very well know. But yes, to answer your question, very possibly he was a soldier."

One wounded in action, she thought to herself, for pain had carved deep lines in his strong-boned face. From the shadow of the inn's doorway, she had watched him limp awkwardly with his crutch to the stagecoach.

She was grateful that her thoughts were interrupted as their fine carriage swung through a set of open, rather rusty iron gates. The drive was edged closely about with overgrown rhododendrons but they gradually fell away and Clementina leaned from her seat to the coach window to catch a first glimpse of Wheeling Hall.

She wrinkled her nose at the dust and shielded her eyes against the setting August sun. The house was imposing, but of indeterminate age and architecture. Of more interest were the people who stood beside the wide main door. "I do believe Grandpapa is on the step. Yes he is, and so too is Susan," she referred to her father and to her youngest sister. "How can they have guessed the moment of our arrival?"

She was interrupted as the coach lurched to a halt and Clementina found trepidation mixed with the excitement flooding her. It was some months since she had seen any member of her family. They had been involved in the London Season while she had been planning the year's work at Carmelth. Now, with sadness stalking them, how should they behave?

She gathered up her bead-fringed reticule and her fan, replaced her long-abandoned bonnet, and combed her fingers through Kit's tangled curls. She waited for the step to be let down, then stepped out into her father's arms.

His embrace was warm, and she knew immediately that she need have experienced no concern. The Marquess of Cheriton was a big man, kindly, preoccupied and clever, with a great affection for his six children. His neckcloth was awry, and his coat had been pulled on hastily. Clementina noted it lovingly, as she was herself subjected to a keen survey. She coloured a little and proudly presented Kit to his grandfather.

The older man shook hands gravely then picked up the child and tossed him, squealing with pleasure, over his shoulder. "You and the child are well," Cheriton stated rather than asked. "He has recovered from his fall?"

"Yes, indeed and it is so good to see you Papa. It seems an age since you were at Carmelth." She could not speak of Nicholas in the joy of reunion, but his wise eyes told her that her father understood.

"It's been nearly a year...too long without you and this rascal." The marquess turned his burden so that they could exchange a wide smile.

Clementina embraced her fair-haired young sister who had been waiting patiently.

Susan burst into speech. "I have been on the watch for you all day. We are holding dinner back. What a smashing bonnet, Clemmie!"

Clementina answered her young sister with a laugh. "I brought you one very similar, Susan, though not so very somber. But what shocking language! And James not even home from Eton. You look wonderful, my darling; you've grown."

"Wait until you see James! He is to meet us in Brighton; he must be taller than you."

"Do you come in; dinner is being held. I think we should dine, then you and the boy may retire. You must be weary." The marquess set his grandson on his feet and led the way within.

They passed indoors from the brilliance of a dusty sunset, to a spacious passage made dim and cool by thick walls.

Inside the great oak door of Wheeling Hall, Clementina paused and said, "What an unusual house, Papa!"

"You are right there, my girl," Cheriton replied. "The story is that Damerham's grandfather commissioned it from Adam, but Lady Ann has taken a turn for the Gothic, to the result you see."

"Lady Damerham is Gothic in everything," Susan said. She flushed as her father quelled her with a frown.

Clementina considered her young sister, and tucked away several half-formed questions.

Cheriton was continuing as though his youngest daughter had not spoken. "I believe most everyone is in the Hall waiting for you." He released Kit's hand, and introduced the stout butler who hurried up. "This is Pate, Lady Damerham's man; he is invaluable."

The man bowed with great dignity, and said, "Thank you, my lord. If I can be of any assistance, my lady, I would be most honoured."

Clementina smiled and thanked him, as he led them into the Hall. The chamber they entered confirmed her first impression of Gothic reconstruction. Two airy parlours had been knocked in to one and the ceiling beamed to imitate a vast medieval-style great hall.

The rest of the party was gathered at one end of the chamber, where tall doors led out to a wide east-facing terrace already dim with twilight. The ladies of Clementina's family hastened to her: her mother, the Marchioness of Cheriton, fair and handsome, and her sisters Eleonora and Felicity, close in age and alike in beauty. Embraces were exchanged, but mindful of the chamber's other occupants the marchioness soon quelled her daughters and performed the necessary introductions.

The widowed Lady Damerham was a vague-looking lady of middle age dressed in a curiously shapeless gown with a braided girdle about her ample waist. Her daughter, Miss Louisa Rainley, was a diminutive, dark-browed, rebellious looking girl with a mop of rich brown hair barely confined by a dingy riband. She appeared to be about seventeen years old.

Robert Rainley, the Viscount Damerham, was a stolid, pleasant-faced young man who took up Eleonora's hand possessively and made the newcomers a ponderous bow.

Clementina greeted them all pleasantly, concealing her curiosity, and gently drew Kit from behind her to make his bow. But shyness overcame him and he began to weep.

"Come my love, you remember Grandmama?" Clementina said. "He is very tired," she said to her mother.

"Of course he is," that lady said. She bent to the child's level.

Christopher, the Earl of Carmelth, hiccuped and allowed his grandmother to cuddle him.

Clementina took the opportunity to call Jenny to her side, and to say to her hostess, "Lady Damerham, I beg your indulgence for my poor child. He must retire. If Pate will direct us? I shall go above stairs just momentarily with them and return directly."

The mistress of the house waved a small, pudgy hand at her major domo and the butler, who had lingered with the nursemaid near the door, said, "I should be delighted, my lady."

Clementina saw her child and his nurse to their chamber, the house passing in a blur of inept Gothic decoration. After refreshing herself, leaving off her bonnet, and assuring Kit that she would soon return to him, she followed the butler--who had waited patiently in the corridor--back down the broad stairs to the hall.

Immediately upon their return Pate, alerted by a footman, announced the dinner, and ushered the party to the dining chamber.

When they were all seated--with little attention to protocol and only some regard for comfort-- Clementina said, "This is delightful beyond anything." She observed the beloved faces of her family around the table, and smiled at her hostess who nodded amiably across the expanse of linen.

"How kind of you to open your home to us," she said to her host, seated at the head of the table, on her left hand.

He flushed and stammered a polite disclaimer. She had had a concern when she had heard of Eleonora's betrothal that her sister was making a mistake similar to her own; that she was marrying a young man without close acquaintance, or thoughtful consideration. Upon meeting Robert, however, she fancied she was mistaken. Lord Damerham was responsible, kindly, and pedantic. He was as unimaginative and dependable as Eleonora herself, and their attachment, Clemmie realized, was deep and genuine.

The dinner proceeded without formality. The food was rather inferior, the service remarkably good, Clementina noted. She spied an harassed look upon the butler's face, and wondered at its cause. But her attention was claimed by her father, seated on her right hand.

"Yes, Papa?" She turned to him, certain she knew his question.

"You will see if you can make any improvement in our dinner fare?" he asked.

"I will of course, but I am only just arrived," she said.

"I am well aware of it. And I also know that you will be about improvements and easements wherever you may so soon as you have looked about you."

"Papa!" she protested with a laugh. "Though it seems to me that the cook is likely very good at her job, when she has proper help. A shortage of staff would explain Pate's distressed expression."

Her father snorted. "Minx, I have missed you."

"And I you, Papa. But despite that I enjoy your company, I think that tomorrow I must change the seating arrangement here at table. We are happy you and I, but only observe poor Susan, seated between Felicity and Louisa. Our poor little dear deserves better, and I believe we are comfortable enough here to be so rude as to rearrange ourselves."

She was proved right about informality as Eleonora spoke to her from across the table. "This is very nice, though I do wish, Clemmie, that you had joined us in London for the Season."

Clementina shook her lace-capped head decidedly. "I had no wish to join in the Season, my dear. I would only have been an object of pity and curiosity, and of gallantry. I have no need for pity, no time for curiosity and no wish for gallantry. Indeed, I have no desire to wed again, and so..."

"And so, your widow's cap?" Felicity asked. She paused in picking at her food to stare with visible distaste at the confection that covered much of Clemmie's luxuriant auburn hair.

"This conversation is unsuitable to be held in company," the marchioness said. She turned the subject. "Clementina perhaps will join us next Season, and we must be thankful she is with us now, at this trying time. You are good, Lady Ann, to bear with our uncertainty."

Lady Damerham made a dismissive noise, but did not speak, as she was fully involved in her plate.

"Shall James be long in joining us? I have not seen him for an age." Clementina followed her mother's lead in conversation. "Christopher will be over the moon to be in his company."

"He will come to us at Brighton," Susan said from her position well down the table.

Lady Cheriton looked scandalized by the informal conversational flow about the dining room, though she said nothing of it.

"Then we shall be delightfully crowded." Clementina observed Susan's pleasure at her words, Felicity's dismay, Louisa Rainley's determined scowl, and Eleonora and Robert's absorption in each other.

Nicholas should be with them; he would rejoin them, she was certain of it. A warm smile curved her generous mouth and lit her hazel eyes. Truly, she reflected, it was delightful to be in company and in the bosom of her large family again. To her surprise, it occurred to her to wonder if Christopher's 'giant' had had such a happy close to his journey. She hoped that he had.

* * * *

Gideon Rhyle, seated in his cousin's handsome drawing room, nodded amiably to his cousin's chatter while allowing his attention to wander. In the normal way, he did not suffer fools in silence, but his cousin was not quite a fool, and at his present stage of recuperation, her homely inanities were comforting.

He had been wounded in mid-June on the continent. He had taken two weeks to arrive at his home in Lincolnshire, and had spent a month there surrounded by all the comforts his parents and siblings could command. When his cousin's invitation, to spend time in the south of England at her home, had arrived, he had accepted as much for his family's sake as his own. He had had a need to prove to them and to himself that all would be well with him. He had spent a few days in Leicestershire with close friends and then had wandered south, traveling as his strength permitted, seeing more of his own country than he had previously in his life. He found the southern countryside as gentle, pastoral and comforting as he could have wished. But the travel had been almost too much for him; he had overestimated even his unusual strength. His journey's end had been a relief and he was content to be pampered.

He shifted in his chair, and set his teacup on a nearby table. The only real fault of his cousin, Lady Polegate, was her desire to improve her social standing. He discovered on his arrival that his mother's niece was married to a country squire as unpretentious as he was himself. But she was resolute in her pursuit of the fashionable, and she had chosen frail Egyptian-styled furnishings for her home. Gideon was hard put to find a chair in her drawing room that he was convinced would bear his substantial frame. He thought it fortunate that his illness had caused him to lose flesh; at his best fighting weight, he would have had to sit on the fine Wilton carpet.

The thought caused him to smile, which moved his cousin to break off her flood of information.

"Really Gideon, you were such a hobbledehoy of a lad, it gives me pause to see you now, so elegant and presentable. And that smile...well, it causes me wonder that you are not wed."

"Ah they all like the smile, Catherine," he jested, remembering the little lad's words at Guildford. "But the ladies cannot abide the giant's frame. And as for being presentable, 'tis only a superficial impression created for the titled company I have been keeping. I am--was--only a simple soldier."

"Soldier perhaps, simple never. My aunt wrote me of your work with the Foreign Office and those other officers. What were they called? Some Frenchy word."

"Reconnaissance officers," he said, repressing a smile.

"Yes, them. Besides you are not a giant. Large certainly, but well knit..." She stopped and coloured a little, an almost-pretty mouse of a woman.

"You'll have me blushing; best leave it be," he said, allowing the kind smile to appear.

"Well in any event, as I was saying, we have our own circle of friends, and they shall be glad to include you in their entertainments. A new face is always a diversion. Such as we have of the upper classes in our neighbourhood are not sociable. Lord Valence I should not countenance to receive, though Sir Martin finds him conversable. His sister is oddly reclusive. Lady Damerham is said to be entertaining some nobs at the Hall, but only because of her son's betrothal, and you may be certain those guests will have a sad time for an odder woman you may never meet."

"Valence?" asked the major. "Now there's a name I know. I did not remember he was from the south."

"I might have known you would be acquainted with the most disreputable character in the neighbourhood," sighed Lady Polegate. "Well, you may not bring him here."

Lady Polegate's sons burst into the room.

Gideon grinned at his nephews. They were stout lads of nine and eleven years, bursting with rude health, and stuffed with plans for his entertainment. "I shall visit Valence at his home," he said, "if I have opportunity. I have promised Sir Martin as much of my father's farming wisdom as I can recall, and your boys have vowed to show me the best fishing in the whole of England."

He added, "I need no entertainment, cousin, as well you know. I shall be happier spending time with your lads than anything. Don't trouble your head about me." He rose leaning on his crutch and, with a boy on either side, limped from the chamber. He was conscious that his cousin's worried gaze followed him. She would be even more worried, he thought with a grimace, had she known that his thoughts too often rested upon a married lady chance met at Guildford.

Back to book page.