The Deception (15 page)

“We’re going just as soon as I change,” I added.

“Good,” Harry said cheerfully. “I’ll come too.”

* * * *

The Greystone stables were half a mile from the house, on the far side of a small park of carefully planted chestnuts, beeches, and limes. There had been a thaw during the last two days, but the path from the house was graveled, so we did not dirty our boots with mud.

“I hope Adam didn’t do the stables, too,” I commented dryly as we passed under the bare branches of the lovely trees.

Harry said, “No fear of that, Kate,” and Adrian laughed.

The stables were actually like scores of other noblemen’s stables that I had seen. The outside of the barn was the same stone as the house; inside there were wooden boxes for the horses, dirt floors, a separate tack room for saddles and bridles, and a huge loft for hay. The carriage house, also built of stone, held four vehicles and had a large separate room for harnesses. Behind the buildings there were ten large, fenced paddocks. I saw that Elsa was turned out in the one nearest to the stable. She and the gelding in the next paddock were eyeing each other over the fence. Then she squealed, kicked up her heels, and galloped along the fence line, her head held high, her mane and tail streaming. The gelding followed eagerly. I smiled.

One thing that made the Greystone stable different from any other I had seen was the oblong of sand enclosed by a low wooden rail that lay behind the carriage house. It was a riding ring.

“Not quite the riding school in Lisbon,” Adrian said ruefully, “but I’ve had the surface leveled and the sand is firm.”

“Papa told me that all the great European maneges are housed in buildings that look like palaces,” I said. “The one in Vienna is supposed to be as magnificent as your drawing room!”

“I have never seen the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, but I can assure you that the Royal Manege in Lisbon is every bit as magnificent as my drawing room,” Adrian said. “The school had to disband during the war, but now that we have peace again I hope it will re-form. It is too valuable a resource to be lost forever.”

While we were speaking a groom was leading a saddled horse out of the stable. He was a dark bay, about fifteen and a half hands high, with a powerful arched neck and even more powerful quarters. Adrian nodded to the groom to hold him while we walked around him so I could admire.

“I have grown so accustomed to looking at English Thoroughbreds,” I said. “I had almost forgotten that horses could look like this.”

“Have you seen any of the European manege horses before?” he asked.

“I owned a Lipizzaner for a few years,” I said.

He whistled.

“He was old when Papa got him, but he was my best teacher, after Papa himself, of course.”

“Where did your father manage to lay his hands upon a trained Lipizzaner?”

I looked up at him and grinned. “He got him from an Austrian who was running away from Napoleon.”

He looked back at me, his expression unreadable. “And how old were you when you were riding him?”

I thought for a few minutes. “Thirteen and fourteen. He was twenty-four when I lost him to colic. He was a wonderful old horse—one of the Conversano line.”

“I am more reluctant than ever to get into the saddle,” Adrian said.

Harry chuckled. “I don’t blame you. The first time I saw her ride I asked her to divorce you and marry me.”

I like praise as much as the next person, and I could feel myself beginning to glow. “Euclide is splendid,” I said to Adrian. And he was. Lusitanos are more compact than Thoroughbreds. Their necks and backs are shorter, their legs sturdier, with wide, strong hocks that enable them to bring their hind legs under their bodies with relative ease. The English had created the Thoroughbred to run, but the Lusitano had been created to fight. The breed has changed little from the days when the Romans came to the Peninsula and founded stud farms and remount depots for their cavalry. At that time it was important that the hind legs be engaged in order to do the highly collected battle movements. The Portuguese have kept the engagement in order to perform the high school dressage movements of the manege.

“Get on,” I said to Adrian, and he did.

He was an excellent rider. His upper body was so big and strong that he could balance his horse just by sitting upright, and his legs were so long that he could influence with very little pressure. Harry and I leaned against the fence and watched him and Euclide for half an hour, and a number of times I had to blink tears away from my eyes. They were so beautiful together, so light and happy in their work. They had the kind of partnership that I think is one of the greatest treasures of the world.

“I understand perfectly why the Portuguese gave you Euclide,” I said when at last Adrian had come to a halt in front of me.

“Aye,” said a voice behind me, “that was a very pretty sight. I did not expect to be seeing high school dressage in the stable yard of an English lord.”

I recognized the voice and the accent instantly, and spun around. He was standing not six feet away from me, and his weathered old face was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. “Paddy!” I shrieked, and ran to throw myself into his arms.

He hugged me, then held me away and looked at me for a long moment. Finally he nodded, as if he approved of what he saw, and said, “I’m after hearing that you’re married?”

I felt Adrian come up behind me. “Yes,” I said, “I’m married to the Earl of Greystone, Paddy.” I turned to Adrian. “My lord, may I present Mr. Patrick O’Grady.”

Adrian held out his hand. “So you are ‘Paddy,’ “ he said with the easy, genial charm that was so attractive. “I am very pleased to meet you.”

Paddy put his work-worn hand into Adrian’s large clasp. “Thank you, my lord.”

Harry came up on my other side. “I say, Kate, is this your Paddy?”

“Yes, it is.” I turned back to Paddy. “This is my lord’s brother, Paddy—Mr. Woodrow.” Adrian rated a formal introduction; Harry did not.

Paddy nodded his salt-and-pepper head in Harry’s direction before turning back to Adrian. “That’s a beautiful horse you have there, my lord,” he said. “Miss Cathleen’s father would have liked him fine.”

“He’s a Lusitano,” I told Paddy.

“I can see that he’s a Lusitano, girl,” Paddy said. “And trained to the high school, too.”

“Her ladyship will ride him tomorrow,” Adrian said. “Then we both will be able to see how good he really is.”

Paddy smiled and said, “That is so, my lord.”

I tugged on his sleeve and demanded, “Where have you been all this time? Why have you never come to see me?”

“I was in Ireland for the winter, girl,” Paddy said. “I returned to England a week ago and went to Charlwood to find you. That was when I discovered that you had married his lordship here.”

Adrian glanced at the sleek chestnut mare that Paddy had ridden into the stable yard. “I’ll have one of the grooms see to your mare. Paddy,” he said. “Come along up to the house with us. My wife will want to talk to you.”

For the first time Paddy looked uneasy. He was perfectly comfortable with earls as long as they remained in the stables. An earl in his own house was something else.

“Come along with you, now,” I said in a good imitation of his own accent. “You and I both know that an Irish groom is every bit as good as any English earl could ever be.”

Paddy’s washed-out blue eyes twinkled at me. “Is that so, now?” he said, and let me take his arm and walk him up the graveled path to the house.

Paddy was predictably amazed by the medieval convent, but when we reached the upstairs drawing room his expression hardened into something approaching the grim. He stood beside me in the drawing room and took in the crimson-silk-hung walls, the immense Persian rug, the gold-medallioned ceiling, and the excruciatingly uncomfortable silk-upholstered gilt chairs that were arranged in an enormous circle around the marble fireplace.

Adrian looked at Paddy’s face and said easily to me, “Why don’t you take Paddy to the library, Kate? I’ll have Walters bring you tea. I have several appointments this afternoon that I must attend to.”

I gave him a grateful look.

“I’ll come with you, Kate,” Harry said.

“You have appointments also,” his older brother told him.

Harry looked surprised. “No, I don’t.”

“You do now,” Adrian said.

Harry looked mutinous. Then he met Adrian’s gaze. “Oh, all right,” he muttered, and kicked his foot like a disappointed schoolboy.

I herded the old groom down the corridor to the library, immensely grateful for my husband’s recognition of my need to have Paddy to myself.

Paddy looked around at the high, book-lined walls as he followed me into the room. I aimed for the two chairs that were placed in front of Adrian’s desk. “It’s a grand house you’ve got yourself here, Miss Cathleen,” he said. He took the chair I pointed him to. “Mr. Daniel would be proud.”

I took the second chair and turned it to face him.

“He seems a good man, the earl,” Paddy said. “Did you marry him for himself or for the Lusitano?”

I sighed and told him the whole story of my marriage. “So you see,” I ended, “poor Greystone is simply making the best of a painful situation.”

“I’m thinking it’s not many men who would find it painful to be married to you, girl,” he said. He looked at me shrewdly. “You don’t look too unhappy yourself.”

I could feel the treacherous color staining my cheeks. My eyes slid away from his. “I’m not.”

“I should not have left you with Charlwood,” Paddy said. A grim note sounded under the soft Irish accent. “It was what Mr. Daniel wanted, and at the time it seemed the right thing to do, but I should not have done it.”

“You couldn’t know he was a villain,” I said.

“I checked up on you, Miss Cathleen,” he said. “I went by Charlwood a month after Mr. Daniel’s death, and the tads in the stable said you were living there with a female relative. I saw you once and you looked all right to me.”

“You saw me! Why didn’t you let me know you were there?”

“You were grieving, girl. I could see that. I did not think you needed a reminder of your old life just then.”

For the first time I let myself acknowledge how hurt I had been by his neglect. It was good to know that he had not just abandoned me, that he had cared enough to check that I was all right.

Paddy was going on, “When I returned to Charlwood in the spring, they told me you had gone up to London to be presented to society. I thought that was a fine thing. Just what your da would have wanted for you.”

I made a face, which he ignored.

“When I came back from Ireland two weeks ago I went to Charlwood once again, hoping to see you. That was when I first learned you were married to the Earl of Greystone.”

“What made you seek me out this time?”

“It was time,” he said simply. “I’ve missed you, Miss Cathleen.”

“I’ve missed you too, Paddy,” I said. “I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

“I would never do that. But your father wanted you to take your place among your mother’s people, and I did not want to interfere.”

We smiled at each other, both a little misty-eyed. Then I said, “Paddy, I think Papa was murdered and I think that Lord Stade had something to do with it.” And I told him all about my encounter with Stade in London.

He leaned forward in his chair as I talked, listening intently. When I had finished, he said slowly, “I have long thought there was more to Mr. Daniel’s death than a hunting accident. After you left Newmarket with Lord Charlwood, I went around asking questions on my own, but I could find out nothing.”

“It has to do with Stade,” I repeated. “Remember how determined Papa was to show the marquis those two hunters we picked up in Ireland? He could have sold those hunters anywhere, Paddy. Why did he insist on going to Newmarket to see Stade?”

“Aye,” Paddy said. “I remember it well. And we got those hunters in Galway.”

We looked at each other. Galway is on the west coast of Ireland and Newmarket is on the east coast of England. It was a long way to bring two decent, but certainly not extraordinary, hunters.

I said, “If Stade killed Papa, then I want to make him pay for it.”

Paddy agreed. Well, I knew he would. He’s Irish.

He said, “But where do we start? I’m thinking the trail, if there is one, will be cold by now, girl.”

“I think we should start with the hunters,” I said. “We could make some inquiries at the farm where Papa bought them.”

“He got them off James Farrell of Inishfree Farm.” Paddy never forgot a name.

“I know you’ve just come from Ireland, Paddy, but do you think you could go back? I’ve got some money now. I can pay your expenses.”

Paddy scowled. “Didn’t I just sell a handsome young gelding to a fine army captain for five hundred pounds? I’ll not be taking your money, Miss Cathleen. I have plenty of my own.”

I had hurt his pride. I widened my eyes and said respectfully, “Five hundred pounds!”

“Aye.” He grinned at me, that gap-toothed grin I had known since babyhood. “And he never noticed that the horse was under at the knees.”

We laughed. Then the thin, weathered face opposite me sobered. “Mr. Daniel was more to me than my own blood could ever be. If someone did him dirty, then that someone is going to pay.”

I nodded my solemn approval of these sentiments.

“I’ll leave for Galway tomorrow, girl,” he promised.

“You’ll let me know what you discover?” I asked anxiously.

“I’ll come back like the wind as soon as I have something to report.”

“It was Stade,” I said. “I know it.”

“I will see what I can find out, Miss Cathleen,” he said. “Then we will plot our revenge together.”

Chapter Eleven

I introduced Paddy to Mrs. Pippen and asked her to feed him and find a room for him in the servants’ part of the house. As far as I was concerned, Paddy rated higher than the king, but I had enough sense to realize that he would be extremely uncomfortable in the palatial surroundings that prevailed on the family side of the baize-green door. Well, I thought the servants’ quarters were cozier myself.