Virginia Henley (35 page)

Tony arrived at the Mayfair town house without incident and waited for Mr. Burke to catch lip in the reception hall.

Adam Savage was just descending the stairs, on his way out.

“Tony, just the man I wanted to see. I’m late for the House as usual, but a few more minutes won’t make any difference. I want you to do me an enormous favor, but it entails going to Ireland.”

“Ireland?” Tony seized upon his words as a means of escape from London and Bernard Lamb.

“Yes, believe it or not I’m about to join the hallowed ranks of the nobility,” he said in a mocking tone, “albeit the Irish nobility. His Royal Highness has been bribed into offering me my choice of castles. Not only am I pressed for time, I don’t have much knowledge of castles. However, I assume you do….”

Tony’s spirits immediately soared at the splendid news.
“Well, I did rather misspend my boyhood studying ancient architecture.”

“Now is your chance to put your knowledge to the test. I’d like you to visit Blackwater in County Waterford and assess the place. Perhaps next week I’ll find time to visit the other property in Cork. Then I could meet you in Blackwater and we’ll travel back together.”

Just then Mr. Burke arrived. “Good morning, Burke. Perhaps you could arrange to travel with Tony to Ireland. Come upstairs, I’ll have Sloane write down how to get there and provide you with funds. Your best route is to sail from Bristol.”

Mr. Burke could see that Antonia had not confided last night’s events to Savage. At the moment she believed the proposed trip to Ireland was a lifesaver. Mr. Burke knew it only postponed the inevitable confession of her gender to her guardian. He knew his place, however, and did not dream of disclosing her secret. That was her decision entirely.

Tony’s steps were much lighter on her return to Curzon Street. “I want to thank you, Mr. Burke, for not forcing me to confess. I will feel so much safer out of the country. You don’t mind going with me, do you?”

“It is only proper that I escort you, but I’m quite looking forward to visiting my native land.”

Tony glanced nervously over her shoulder. “We must be absolutely certain that my cousin doesn’t follow us. If he did so, Ireland would be far less safe than London.”

By the time they got back, Roz was in the breakfast room. “Well, you were up and about early, or are you just getting home?”

“Of course not. I was summoned to Half-Moon Street and dutifully asked Mr. Burke to accompany me.” It was only a small lie. “Adam Savage is to become a member of the Irish peerage and he wants me to go and assess a castle in Waterford. He quite trusts my opinion since he saw what I did at Edenwood. Of course Mr. Burke shall
travel with me,” she added quickly before Roz could protest.

Lady Randolph and Mr. Burke exchanged meaningful glances. “Antonia, I didn’t want to upset you so I kept quiet, but yesterday I believe I saw Bernard Lamb at the corner of Curzon Street. I want you to be absolutely certain that he does not follow you.”

Tony’s pleasure in the trip to Ireland was suddenly diminished as apprehension filled her, threatening to expand into full-blown fear.

“I have a suggestion,” Mr. Burke confided. “Why don’t you put your own clothes on and dress as a lady?”

“What a splendid idea!” Roz agreed. “I’ll come with you to the Central Coach Office in Lud Lane to see you off and you can purchase tickets to Bath rather than Bristol. Then you can buy a ticket for the rest of the way when you get to Bath. Anyone who is watching or questioning will think you are Antonia returning to the fashionable watering hole like hundreds of other ladies of fashion.”

When Tony thought it through, she agreed that there was merit to their suggestions. She opened her trunk to pack Anthony’s clothes and found the golden bodice she had worn in Venice. As her fingers touched it it evoked such private memories that she didn’t want Roz to see it. She quickly covered it with Anthony’s clothes, then packed an overnight bag with her own clothes for the journey.

Antonia chose a pale green gown with a jade green, velvet pelisse for travelling. She wore her own hair powdered with one long curl falling over her left shoulder, beneath a bonnet of tulle, ribbon and ostrich feathers. It felt strange to be wearing corset and petticoat once again and oddly inhibiting too. In trousers she could stride or lounge about; in skirts she moved more decorously.

Roz packed only two extra dresses for the journey because Tony insisted that would be more than enough. The
moment they set foot in Ireland she would once again wear male attire.

The Port of Bristol was a hundred and twenty miles from London and necessitated an overnight stay at a coaching inn. Tony was glad of Mr. Burke’s company. He had an Irish wit that certainly helped pass the long, weary hours of the coach ride. She found her clothing very constricting and uncomfortable, and she would far rather have ridden on the box with the coachman, but she had to admit that she was treated with impeccable manners and gallantry by the opposite sex when she was dressed as a female. The gentleman and young lady traveling so companionably together raised no comment whatsoever, for they were taken as father and daughter from the outset.

When the coach stopped at Reading she realized she could not swagger into the taproom for an ale and a smoke, and it was brought home to her once more that it was a man’s world.

With every mile they traveled from London, her fear and apprehension about Bernard Lamb diminished. By the time they arrived in Bath her cousin had been banished from her thoughts, and she vowed not to think of him again until she returned to London. His dark shadow had fallen across too many of her days and she was determined to enjoy the respite.

Bristol was a busy seaport, teaming with sailors and ships from foreign lands. Vessels of the British Navy were anchored beside Spanish galleons and India merchantmen, while smaller fishing trawlers vied for space along the docks to unload their catches.

At a dockside inn Antonia changed into Anthony’s clothes and, traveling as two men, she and Mr. Burke had no trouble booking their passage to Dungarvan, a large harbor on the coast of County Waterford. Although spring was definitely in the air, the Celtic Sea was unbelievably choppy. It didn’t affect Tony, but when Mr. Burke started to look green about the gills, she was able to repay his
previous solicitude of her. She firmly held the bucket and gently sponged his brow while he spewed up his heart. Tony didn’t return to her own cabin until Mr. Burke had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

When they came out on deck the next morning they were just sailing into Dungarvan Harbor. The sun was shining its welcome and Tony could see that in contrast with the English port of Bristol, this small Irish sea town was inhabited only by locals. On shore with their luggage piled beside them, they drew every eye.

When they made inquiries about Blackwater Castle they were told it overlooked the Blackwater Valley less than a dozen miles inland. They could not rent horses, so in the end they hired a pony cart. Mr. Burke looked most apprehensive, but Tony laughed and assured him she would do the driving. He looked at her askance when she related the story of the phaeton race to Richmond that she had won. When she recalled how Bernard Lamb had deliberately run her off the road, she seethed inside with impotent fury. Then as she remembered the look on Adam Savage’s face when he saw his brand-new phaeton, the corners of her mouth lifted wryly and she understood why he doubted it was her cousin’s fault rather than hers.

The valley was greener than anything they had ever seen in England. The teasel trees and thornbushes were alive with songbirds. The air was filled with the fragrance of spring flowers mixed with mint and musk and mallow as the path snaked along between open meadows and the River Blackwater. In the distance they saw the battlemented parapets and thrusting turrets of a castle above the treetops, then as they drove closer they saw the castle itself rising from a tree-covered cliff above the river.

Tony drove the pony cart beneath a Celtic arch, past ivy-covered walls to a twin-towered gatehouse, then through the medieval gate into the courtyard. The caretakers gathered slowly, curiously. A stableman, a gardener, and a
housekeeper, all with friendly-enough faces, came forward to see who was visiting their ancient castellum.

Tony handed the reins of the pony cart to the stableman. “Good afternoon, I’m Lord Lamb. I’m come to look over the castle for the new Marquess of Blackwater.” The words came without much conscious thought, because she knew in her heart there was no question of choosing between this castle and anywhere else on earth.

Her words had a magical effect upon the caretakers. The housekeeper curtsied and the men touched their caps in deference.

“This is Mr. Burke, my butler of many years.” The Irish name produced smiles of relief. The doorway of the main entrance was arched with solid plank doors that had scrolled iron strap hinges. Mr. Burke took up the trunk and Tony picked up one of the bags while the housekeeper took the other. They entered a baronial front hall with a log fire crackling in the hearth.

Then the housekeeper, who said her name was Mrs. Kenny, led them through to what she called the banqueting hall, where another fireplace stood with a carved mantel reading
CEAD MILLE FAILTE
, a hundred thousand welcomes. All the furniture was medieval oak.

“Sure an’ ye’ll be wantin’ to see yer chambers now,” Mrs. Kenny divined. “In this wing there’s seven double bedrooms an’ of course the tower room.”

“Oh, I’ll take the tower room,” Tony said quickly, and Mrs. Kenny led the way up two sweeping flights of stairs, then down a long corridor. Tony smiled sympathetically as Mr. Burke tried to keep up with her trunk on his shoulder.

When they arrived Mrs. Kenny rolled her eyes at Mr. Burke as if to say, “Isn’t that just like the gentry to pick the farthest and most inconvenient chamber without a thought to the poor sod who has to lug and carry!”

“When would ye like to dine, my lord?”

“Whatever hour is convenient to the cook, Mrs. Kenny,” Tony assured her.

“Well, since I’m the cook, ye can dine at six, an it please ye.”

“That will please me very well, thank you.”

The moment Mrs. Kenny departed, Tony ran to the window. “The view is breathtaking. I can see straight down into the valley and across the water meadows on the far side of the river. From up here the water is black-green, and, look, Mr. Burke, straight across are mountains!”

“Those will be the Knockmealdown Mountains.”

When Antonia turned from the window, Mr. Burke thought she had never looked so radiant. “Blackwater is utterly perfect,” she said with reverence.

During the next few days Tony explored every nook of the castle and its gardens. There was a morning room, a sitting room, even a billiard room, as well as a small library and a chapel in sad disrepair. Outside there was an upper and lower garden as well as an orchard of pear, crab-apple, and fig trees. Tony took great delight in using a secret staircase that led from the twin-towered gatehouse down to the flowered walks of the Jacobean garden, overhung with creeper and early rose.

In a small, walled garden outside the morning room Tony discovered a treasure. It was a hammock slung between two shade trees, but the tiny spring leaves allowed the sunshine to filter through and warm the enclosure as if it were midsummer.

After lunch one day she took some papers pertaining to the castle’s history that she had found in the library and stretched out in the hammock to read them. Blackwater’s history was fascinating. She began to daydream, then slowly drifted off to sleep as the hammock swung gently to and fro.

At the end of the week Adam Savage sailed for Cork. He’d made two voyages to France already that week and it seemed he was forever walking the deck of a ship. When he arrived at Kinsale he was impressed with the vast acreage
that went with its castle. The coast was wild and rugged and he stood on the picturesque headlands with the spring breezes ruffling his black hair. It was most pleasant, but he realized in winter it would be bleak and storm tossed. Before he left he knew he could be quite satisfied with this castle and its holdings.

He tested the title on his tongue. Marquess of Kinsale. It had a certain ring to it. He purchased a horse and decided to ride to Blackwater in the next county, which was forty miles distance, give or take a mile.

As Savage rode inland he noticed that the climate was softer than on the coast. Spring had already arrived and wildflowers filled every hedgerow and early wild roses climbed every stone wall.

Savage traveled the same path to Blackwater that the pony cart had taken. He saw the battlemented parapets and thrusting turrets rise from a tree-covered cliff above the river. He rode beneath the Celtic arch, past the medieval gatehouse, into the courtyard.

A stableman came immediately to take his horse, knowing by the man’s powerful figure and air of authority that here was the new Marquess himself. As Savage entered the baronial hall he felt as if he had come home. Mrs. Kenny bustled forward to curtsy, but Savage raised her immediately and told her he would like to look about the place on his own. He liked what he saw. Kinsale faded from his memory.

He spied Tony in a hammock from the leaded casement windows of the morning room and stepped into the small walled garden. As he looked at the sleeping figure, a trick of the light made him blink his eyes. Dark lashes lay upon pink cheeks in delicate crescents. One slender hand lay curled upon his chest. Savage frowned at the youth’s feminine features.

At that moment Tony opened her eyes and scowled, annoyed that Adam had found her sleeping. She jumped up, thrust one hand into her trouser pocket, and picked up
the scattered pages. “Welcome to Blackwater. You need look no farther. This place is absolutely perfect. It was originally an abbey and it was King John who erected the original castle. Think of it … King John! Come and look at the banqueting hall,” she urged enthusiastically.

Adam Savage stared hard, thinking Tony could easily pass for a female. His eyelashes curled and his lips were full, almost sensual. As Tony led the way to the banqueting hall, Adam’s eyes swept down the tall figure in front of him. Tony’s clubbed-back hair was growing very long and the posterior before him was quite well rounded. Was it possible that Tony was a female? No, the thought was preposterous! He dismissed it immediately.