Outrageously Yours (48 page)

Before Laurel could reply, the sudden jangling of the outside bell made them all jump. Laurel frowned. “Whoever could it be at this hour?”

“I’ll go see.” Aidan started to rise.

“No, I’ll go.” Holly set down her teacup and sidestepped out from between Ivy’s skirts and the table. “I’m sure it’s Mr. Biglow from the bakery. I lent him a book this morning, and in exchange he promised to bring by some of his wonderful scones after he closed up tonight.”

“Oh, splendid,” Ivy murmured. “More treats to turn my stomach.”

Downstairs, Holly moved aside the window curtain and peeked out. She was surprised to see, not Mr. Biglow’s cart at the curbside, but a black-lacquered brougham of costly design and lacking an identifying crest. Likewise, the dark-haired young man waiting on the foot pavement wore plain green livery that might have hailed from the household of any number of wealthy London denizens.

At least, that was what Holly’s neighbors would think. She knew better. Her heart clattering with excitement, she unlocked the door and threw it wide.

“May I help you?” She craned her neck to see past her visitor. The interior of the coach appeared empty. Was its passenger pressed to the squabs in an attempt to hide from prying eyes? Holly could hardly curb her eagerness as the young footman stooped to get a better look at her in the glow of the streetlamp.

“Miss Holly Sutherland?” His uneven tenor revealed him to be no more than eighteen or nineteen years of age.

“I am she.” Her own voice trilled the tiniest bit.

“This is for you, miss.” He placed a leather-bound book in her hands.

“Oh?” The title revealed the tome to be a chronicle of the Royal Ascot from the time of its inception to the year before last. “The flat races? I don’t understand. Who sent this? I thought—” But she couldn’t very well blurt out what she thought, because it appeared she had thought wrong. Her shoulders sagged beneath vast disappointment.

Her visitor leaned closer and whispered, “Look inside, miss.”

She flipped the book open, and a folded note fluttered out. Before it hit the ground, the young man caught it and handed it to her. Holly broke the seal, her elation returning as she read the hastily penned lines.

Unable to wipe the grin from her face, Holly refolded the letter, placed it back between the pages, and hugged the book to her chest. It seemed the Knightsbridge Readers’ Emporium was about to work its magic once again.

 

N
ever had Colin Ashworth despaired so entirely at the prospect of a cloudless day. Instinctively, he would have preferred the cover of a starless night, or the onslaught of a blustery storm to chase everyone indoors and banish inquisitive eyes from the stable yard, across which he presently picked a cautious path.

It was dodgy business, coming to Windsor’s mews today. A dozen or so of Her Majesty’s Thoroughbreds were to be exercised in the Great Park, and he intended to make sure that a particular horse was brought out with them. Should the head groom recognize him, or one of the trainers, or even the towheaded boy half stumbling, some dozen yards away, beneath the weight of a bucket of water . . . Colin shuddered to think of the consequences. His titles, estates, even his freedom—everything!—stripped away in an instant. His family would be humiliated, ruined, his friends and peers appalled. Worse still, there would be no means or hope of halting the small, localized disaster he sought to circumvent with his actions today. He hadn’t given the nudge that sent the dominoes tumbling, but it had been left to him to prevent the lives of countless individuals from falling into a scattered, unrecognizable heap.

So much depended on his success in the next few minutes; he must, therefore, have a care. And yet he reminded himself that caution would not do. He must appear bold and assured, as though he belonged here—which, in many respects, he did. He’d walked these cobbles that paved the walkways of the stables countless times, always welcomed, always shown the deference due his station, and never, never for a moment questioned. But he had never before come here in such a manner that no one would think to tip his cap to him—in such a way that, in a place as bustling as Her Majesty’s mews, no one would ever remember his being here.

It was a circumstance that, in its own peculiar way, lent him exactly the cover of night he desired.

 

Holly Sutherland knew the exact instant the brougham turned off the dirt road onto a cobbled drive: a jolt, infinitely more jarring than the countless others she’d experienced throughout the night, clacked her teeth together with a frightful noise that woke her from the fitful doze into which she’d slipped some miles ago.

Another jarring bump sent her little top hat sliding over her brow, and the book she’d cradled in her lap these many miles tumbled from her knees and thwacked to the floorboards. She bent over to retrieve the volume at the same moment the coach lurched to a stop. If Roger, the obliging footman who had spent the journey riding on the rear footboard, hadn’t opened the door at that precise instant and reached in to clasp her arm, she would have collided face-first with the rear-facing seat opposite her.

“You qui’ all right, miss?” he inquired in an accent that struggled not to reveal its Cockney origins. A towering youth with a head of wavy dark hair, he had the even, almost-handsome features typical of many young footmen. He released Holly and moved a deferential step backward.

“I’m . . . ah . . . fine, thank you, yes.” With the book clutched in one gloved hand, she straightened and endeavored to recover her dignity, an effort that fell short as she accepted Roger’s offered assistance, stepped down from the carriage, and attempted to take in the unfamiliar surroundings from beneath the skewed brim of her chapeau.

Chagrinned, she angled the hat into place and blinked in confusion at what the coach lights revealed. She had never been to Windsor Castle before, but she had seen its image often enough in books. The grim two-story edifice sprawling to either side of her was most decidedly not Windsor Castle. Facing her were some half dozen double doors that opened onto a cobbled forecourt, while above them dingy windows edged in beveled stone struggled to reflect the first gray glimmers of dawn.

A tiny seed of misgiving took root as many of the assumptions she’d formed in the preceding hours seemed to have been proved incorrect. “Are we . . . er . . . here?”

“We are, miss. And if you wouldn’t mind terribly, I must ask you to lower your veil before we proceed any farther. Just a precaution.”

However politely couched, this was no casual request but a necessary command. How well she knew that it wouldn’t do for her to be recognized. The smart little hat, designed to resemble a man’s miniature stovepipe, bore the addition of a netted veil that floated down her back, with a shorter layer that could be pulled down in front. The arrangement matched the black wool riding habit she had been requested to wear as well.

She reached up and dragged the somber netting over her face. She supposed the effect was exceedingly mysterious. Roger studied her a moment, gave a quirk of his lips that might have been an encouraging smile, and nodded his approval. “If you please, miss, follow me.”

As he led her down the length of the building, she took in more of her surroundings, including a perimeter wall breached by a pair of rickety wooden gates sorely in need of fresh paint, which were now being pushed closed by two liveried guards. Just before the gates met, she spied a rutted road that ambled up a low ascent before disappearing into the dimness of a rolling heath edged by chilly silver mist. As Holly’s gaze rose above the enclosing walls, silhouettes took shape against the steely sky: towers and turrets and imposing ramparts. Poised high above the rest like a monarch on her dais, Windsor Castle’s round tower stood bravely tall over the surrounding curtain walls.

The sight sent Holly’s blood racing through her veins. Was Victoria waiting for her inside those majestic walls? Oh, but then what was she doing in this gloomy place, where she could least imagine a queen ever setting foot?

“Miss?” Roger’s polite query roused her with a start. She tore her gaze from the distant castle and lifted her hems clear of the paving stones.

He led her between a pair of buildings that were similar in their austere granite design, and then down a damp, crooked little passage not yet penetrated by the dawn. The walls seemed to close in on her, and with a twinge of panic, she wondered if this could be a prison. Perhaps an inmate had escaped, and it would be Holly’s task to track him down. Good heavens, perhaps the villain was some deranged brute who had threatened Victoria; there had been several threats against her in the two years since she had ascended to the throne: some veiled, others quite blatant. . . .

But as they proceeded through the passage and a rectangle of dim light appeared up ahead, the scents of hay, manure, and sweat—both horse and human—permeated the stagnant air and elicited a sneeze Holly could not stifle despite her efforts.

“G’ bless you, miss.”

“Thank you. This is a stable,” she added with no small amount of surprise.

“The Windsor mews, miss.”

Gritting her teeth, she raised a hand to her nose to smother another such eruption. A stable, however lacking in charm, was certainly preferable to a prison. She had not ventured inside one in a very long while. Since her sisters’ marriages, she had once more gained access to horses and had gratefully resumed riding, but the animals were always saddled by grooms and brought out to her in the forecourts of her brothers-in-law’s stables. And what stables, with graceful proportions and elegant lines that rivaled the manor houses themselves. This place, these mews, seemed small and mean in comparison.

Perhaps, however, this explained the riding attire she’d been requested to wear. Could she and Victoria be about to embark on a journey on horseback?

She and Roger emerged into a dusky stable yard lined with stalls, their sleepy occupants shuffling their feet and snorting soft greetings as Holly walked by. A horse stuck his head over the gate, and she stretched out her hand to give his velvety nose a pat. The animal rewarded her with a nod and a whicker that brought on an onslaught of memories—those of happy days spent among Thorn Grove’s horses, learning all she could from the grooms. The recollection reminded her that
horse
was a good and honest smell, associated with some of the most cherished moments of her life.

Roger continued on, his lengthy stride prompting Holly to speed her pace to keep up with him. She began to hear voices now, and the sounds of stable hands beginning their morning tasks. Roger turned several more corners, until it seemed, to Holly, they had entered a tiny, twisting medieval village. They entered a second yard, where a team of workers, scarcely more than adolescents, carried buckets, brushes, and rakes, snaking armfuls of tack, saddles, and a host of other equipment. A couple of them tapped their hat brims to Holly, while others acknowledged her with nothing more than a timid flick of their gazes.

Roger opened a heavy wooden door and ushered her inside. A narrow passage drifted off to her right. Roger walked straight ahead, opened another door and gestured. “In here, miss.”

She was surprised to step into a cozy room furnished with a faded but comfortable-looking settee, a small oaken table and chairs, and a brazier set beside an unassuming brick fireplace. The effect was one of a slightly shabby retreat, perhaps the furniture having been deemed too worn to remain any longer in a drawing room but good enough to host a party of aristocratic riders. Then again, such a room in Holly’s childhood home of Thorn Grove, the modest country estate owned by her now-deceased uncle Edward, would have been considered perfectly adequate as an everyday ladies’ parlor.

“Her Majesty’s private viewing salon, miss,” Roger explained. He pointed to a curtained window behind her. “If you look out, you’ll see the enclosure where the royal horses are put through their paces.”

She moved to the window and glanced out the wavy panes at a paddock enclosed by high walls that sagged here and appeared to be crumbling there. A thick layer of sawdust had been strewn on the ground in a futile attempt to soak up the mud from the recent rains. Having recovered sufficiently from her bemusement, she experienced the beginnings of indignation on Victoria’s behalf. Her queen—her friend—deserved better than this. She turned back toward the room. “Forgive me for saying so, but these stables are in deplorable condition. Not at all befitting a queen.”

“Indeed not, miss.” Roger struck a lucifer and lit an oil lamp. “There are to be new stables built later in the year.”

“Well, thank goodness for that.”

“Do make yourself comfortable, if you please, miss.”

A cheery fire, laid earlier by some unknown hand, flickered from the grate in the hearth. Roger set about lighting the brazier while Holly settled on the settee and glanced about the room with a mounting curiosity she knew better than to voice. As in the coach, she set her book firmly on her lap, the gold embossed lettering staring up at her to announce the title:
A Chronicle of the Royal Ascot, from 1711 to 1847
.

Puzzling. But even more puzzling had been the secret message tucked inside. Both the tome and the note had been delivered only hours ago by Roger himself to the Knightsbridge Readers’ Emporium, the London book shop owned jointly by Holly and her sisters. She’d barely had time to comprehend the note’s meaning—that, like her sisters Laurel and Ivy before her, she was being called to the service of her country—before she had found herself whisked without further explanation out of the city and across the moonlit countryside.