The front axle of the post chaise snapped as one wheel slammed into a deep rut, throwing Lord Robert Gresham against the side window hard enough to bruise. The loud crack, sudden sideways lurch, and bumping drag that followed spooked the team pulling the coach. The vehicle lurched and bounced as the two postilions struggled to get the four horses back under control.
Robert braced his legs and clung to a strap until they’d slowed enough for him to push his way out and help. He leaped to the head of the off-side leader and held on to wet leather. Mud from churning hooves filled the air, spattering his top boots, pantaloons, and greatcoat. A spray of the sticky stuff slapped his face as the horse tried to rear. “Be still. It’s all right,” Robert said, using the easy combination of reassurance and command he’d learned from his brother Sebastian.
It was a number of minutes before the horses were calm and the men could verify that the post chaise was irretrievably damaged.
“We didn’t see that dratted hole, milord, what with all the mud,” said the elder postilion.
As if on cue, the rain started up again, a slow but penetrating drizzle. A chilly drop slipped under Robert’s coat collar and trickled down his back. “A bad stretch of—” He looked up and down the narrow, rutted track. “I suppose one must call it a road.” He noticed that one of the horses had pulled up lame. The coach tilted forlornly in the middle of the lane, which curved around a small stand of trees just ahead. “We need to move the chaise.” If another vehicle came barreling around that turn, the results would be disastrous. Not that traffic appeared likely.
“We’ll drag her off to the side,” the man replied. “And Davy’ll ride back to that farm we passed and see about help.”
He didn’t sound optimistic, and Robert imagined he was right. The replacement would be whatever old thing the farmer kept in his barn. And it would take a couple of hours to procure. Robert looked around. There were no houses in sight, no buildings of any kind, actually, although they were no more than ten miles, he estimated, from his ultimate destination.
Robert sighed. It had been a long, hard journey into the North. If he hadn’t promised friends that he’d visit…but he had. Turning up his collar, he made his way over to the trees. The foliage, still thick in early October, kept off most of the rain. And it felt better to be out in the fresh air. He watched the postilions coax the team into dragging the coach off to the side. The younger man then mounted one of the horses and rode back the way they’d come. The other unhitched the remaining animals and led them over to a patch of grass, running his hands over their legs and checking for other injuries. Robert pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his face. It came away muddy, and he suspected it hadn’t removed all traces of dirt. He leaned against an oak and resigned himself to a stretch of boredom. So much for his early start today.
The rain dripped from the leaves overhead. A light wind rustled through them. The horses sampled the grass. The postilion settled himself under another tree. Robert thanked providence it wasn’t colder. Time ticked past.
Gradually, Robert became aware of a sound beneath the murmur of water. It was a soft whining, as of some creature in distress, and intermittent. Just when he would decide he’d imagined it, it would start up again.
The next time this happened, Robert searched for the source. He had to wait through another period of silence before he found his way to a low bush. Raising one of its branches, he discovered a huddled bit of dark fur. When he bent to look closer, a small head lifted, and dark eyes met his.
It was a dog, quite young, he thought, soaking wet and shivering. As he eyed it, the whimpering began again. The sound seemed involuntary, because the tiny creature stared at him without demand, or hope. Even as Robert gazed, the puppy’s head sank down again, too tired, or dejected, to resist whatever fate was about to descend on it. The brown eyes closed.
Robert straightened. He strode over to the chaise and pulled out one of the blankets provided to cover travelers’ legs. Bringing it back, he draped it over the puppy and picked it up, wrapping the small shivering form in warm wool. Cradling it in one arm, he retraced his steps.
“What’s that there?” the postilion asked as he passed. “A rat?”
“No, a dog. A puppy, really.”
“What sort of dog?”
“A mixed sort, I believe.” It hadn’t looked like any breed Robert knew.
“What’s it doing out here, then?”
“Lost, or abandoned. Perhaps something happened to its mother.”
“You ain’t going to put it in the chaise?” said the other man.
“I am,” said Robert. And suiting action to word, he climbed into the leaning vehicle and set the bundled blanket on the slanting seat beside him.
The puppy stirred and looked up at him. It was still trembling.
Robert reached out. The little dog cowered away, and Robert felt a flash of anger. What blackguard had taught this young animal to expect a blow? Moving slowly and unthreateningly, Robert rubbed the water out of its fur. Overall, it was black, a trifle shaggy, with odd stripes of brown along its sides, like tiny lightning bolts. Its ears were rather large for its size. They were pointed, but flopped over at the tips.
The puppy’s shivering abated when it was dry. It nestled into the blanket until only its nose and eyes were visible.
Robert reached into the pocket on the inside of the chaise’s door and retrieved the remains of a sandwich packed for him at their last stop. The puppy flinched at the sudden movement, and trembled at the crackle of paper as Robert unwrapped it. “It’s all right,” he said. “Or, it may be, unless you need milk. God knows where I’d find that.” He pulled a shred of beef from between the slices of bread and held it out. The puppy sniffed, but didn’t move to take it.
Robert placed the meat on the blanket. The little animal hesitated as if it couldn’t quite believe its luck, then lurched forward and snatched the beef. Teeth snapped and chewed. Perhaps the dog wasn’t as young as he’d feared, Robert thought. Perhaps it was simply small.
They continued in this fashion until all the beef was gone, and most of the bread as well. The dog gained enough confidence to take the last bits from his hand. Robert completed the ruin of his handkerchief by using it to wipe off the mustard. “Better?” he said when the animal would take no more.
The dog tried to stand, as if concluding that it was time to move on now that it had eaten. All four legs shook under its tiny weight, and it fell back to the blanket, which had shifted enough for Robert to see that the little creature was a male. “No need to stir,” he said. “It’s a foul afternoon.”
Indeed, the rain was beating harder on the roof of the chaise. Robert cracked the door and asked the postilion if he wanted to join him in the carriage.
“I’ll stay with the horses,” the man replied from his refuge under the trees. “I’m used to being out in all weathers.”
“If you’re sure?”
“Certain sure, milord. Could you be sure that animal don’t befoul the coach?”
“I’ll watch him.” Robert cupped a hand in the rain, wetting his sleeve, and offered the dog a bit of water. He lapped it up, and Robert filled his hand with water twice more before closing the door and sitting back, feet braced against the sideways sag of the seat.
The rain pattered above. Otherwise all was silence. Waiting was tedious. Robert hadn’t had anyone to talk to for hours, days. “What are you doing so far from a farm or village?” he asked the dog.
Wary brown eyes watched him.
“I expect it’s a sad story, and you’d rather not think about it,” Robert went on. “I don’t suppose you know Salbridge Great Hall? I’m on my way to a house party there.”
One of the dog’s ears twitched.
“No, I hadn’t heard of it either. But I understand that it’s the showplace of its district.”
The dog shifted in the blanket.
“Well, that’s what Salbridge said. It’s true we are speaking of Northumberland. The standards may be lower.” Robert gazed out at the sodden landscape. “I’ve never been so far north. I begin to see Randolph’s point.”
His companion made an odd sound, something like a gargle.
“Randolph is my brother. One of my brothers. He lives up here. I thought that an added inducement when the Salbridges urged me to come. I can’t think why just now.”
A gust of wind rocked the carriage on its springs. The dog nestled deeper into the blanket.
“Precisely,” said Robert. “But when friends beg for support one must rally ’round. I’m to lend luster to their gathering.”
The small dog cocked his head.
Robert smiled down at him. “I assure you that luster is one of my gifts. Hostesses count themselves lucky to have me. They, er, vie for my favor. Unlike— But I’m not thinking of her. I’ve given up thinking of her. I’m going back where I belong.”
The small dog’s gaze had become unnervingly steady. It held no threat that Robert could see. He would have said, rather, that it was speculative, philosophical. Would have, if the idea hadn’t been ridiculous.
“I like helping people enjoy themselves,” he added in the face of that unwavering regard. “I’m good at it.” And if he didn’t feel quite as convivial as usual, Robert thought, well, he would soon recover his high spirits.
The dog curled up and went to sleep. Robert made himself as comfortable as he could on the tilted seat. And together, they waited.
Just under two hours from the time of the accident, a vehicle came trundling up the road. Robert’s dire predictions were fulfilled when he saw the second postilion at the reins of a rough farm cart, with two thick wheels digging into the mud and a tattered canvas cover over the back.
“I thought you’d rather get on, even in this heap, than wait for a new chaise to be fetched, milord,” the man said when he pulled up. “Don’t rightly know how long that would take.”
Standing in the muddy road, Robert eyed the rustic equipage and the two large farm horses pulling it. No doubt the ride would rattle their bones.
The men moved his trunk from the chaise to the cart. He was going to have to perch upon it, Robert saw. There was no room for anyone but the driver on the seat. At least the rain had eased. Gathering blanket and puppy, he climbed up.
“You taking the animal?” asked the older postilion.
“You expect me to leave him here?”
“Well, I dunno. He ain’t a toff’s sort of dog, is he?”
“Would you like him?”
“Me? I got no use for a dog.”
It was just as well he refused, because Robert realized that he had no intention of handing the animal over. There was something curiously engaging about the small creature.
Lord Robert Gresham’s subsequent arrival at the Salbridges’ estate was quite uncharacteristic for a gentleman recognized as a pink of the ton. He was wet and muddy, his fine clothes horridly creased. He was worn out from the jolting of his disreputable vehicle. He had no hat—it had blown off during the last part of his journey and gone tumbling down an escarpment—and he carried a mongrel dog under one arm. Indeed, the grooms in the Salbridge stables very nearly turned him away. Thankfully, one who’d seen him in London came forward to confirm his identity.
“Broken axle,” said Robert.
“Ah.” There were general nods at this piece of information.
“Can some of you help me with these lads?” the postilion asked, climbing down from the cart and going to the massive horses’ heads. “They’ve done well, and I promised to have them back tomorrow.”
The grooms moved forward to help, and to retrieve Robert’s trunk. He followed the latter two as they carried his luggage through the stable yard to a back door. He didn’t intend to knock at the front in his current state and track mud across an immaculate front hall and staircase. He’d use the back stairs to find his assigned bedchamber and clean up before he greeted his hosts.
His luck was out, however. The Countess of Salbridge was in the kitchen, conferring with the cook, so she was among the group that turned at his entry, blinked, and stared.
There was nothing for it. Robert smiled, swept off an imaginary hat, and gave her a jaunty bow. “Hullo, Anne.”
“Robert?” she said, incredulous. “What are you— Whatever has happened?”
“Long story. Started with a broken axle on my post chaise. And, er, went on from there.”
The dog chose this moment to pop his head out of the blanket and stare about the room, shifting his gaze slowly from one person to the next, and the next. A kitchen maid gestured. Robert thought it was a sign against the evil eye. The countess bit her lower lip.
“Go ahead and laugh,” Robert told her. “I live to amuse.”
She did. “Oh, Robert,” she said after several moments of mirth. “Only you could carry off such a…memorable entrance.”
He gave his audience another elegant bow.
* * *
Several hours later, bathed and changed and feeling renewed, Robert sat in a luxurious bedchamber reading a letter from his mother, the Duchess of Langford. The missive had followed him from Herefordshire, where his family had most lately gathered for his brother Sebastian’s wedding, to Robert’s rooms in London, and now here to Northumberland. Aware that he hadn’t behaved quite like himself at the wedding, Robert wondered how he would answer his mother’s inquiries about his well-being. The answer that came to him was…later.
Setting the page aside, he stared out at the sweep of gardens outside the window. Salbridge Great Hall might be at the ends of the earth from a Londoner’s point of view, but it was a fine old stone pile. Parts of it looked to date from Tudor times, others from subsequent centuries. The interior had been refurbished with modern comforts.
The rain had lifted. Rays of afternoon sun illuminated turning leaves and late blooms, a manicured autumn vista. From this height, he could see the River Tyne in the distance. “I am very well indeed,” he tried aloud.
From a cushion by the hearth, his newly acquired dog turned a steady gaze upon him. The pup’s small stomach was rounded from the large bowl of scraps he’d ingested. Any other young dog would be dead asleep after such a feast, Robert thought, but this one was keeping a careful eye on his surroundings.
Meeting those brown eyes, and for some reason unable to look away, Robert had the oddest thought. He felt like a man who had always lived in a fine house, pleasing in every detail, and then one day discovered that a great cavern lay beneath it. In all his years, he’d never suspected the cave existed. When he explored this new subterranean realm, he found it a marvelous place, full of things he’d never dreamed of. The expansion excited and challenged him. But then, after a time, he encountered difficulties, bitter disappointments. And he began to wonder if the cavern was undermining the foundations of the house above, threatening general ruin.
Robert shifted uneasily in his chair. What the devil? That was not the sort of thought he would have had a year ago. It wasn’t the sort of thought anybody had. “It’s a relief to be back in my own, er, natural habitat among the haut ton,” Robert told the dog. “I should never have ventured out into circles where my gifts aren’t valued.”
The dog stared. Not in a belligerent way, but as if he could see right through Robert to the very back of his head.
“I’m not thinking about her,” Robert said. “That was simply a…glancing reference. To the past. I told you, I’ve given up thinking about her.”
One of the little dog’s ears moved, just slightly, as if he’d heard something off.
“This visit will be like relaxing in one’s own comfortable rooms after a long journey,” Robert added. “I am all anticipation.”
The pup offered a soft response. Not a bark, or a whine, or a growl. Actually, it sounded uncannily like some ancient curmudgeon at the club clearing his throat. Robert waited, almost believing that some sort of crabbed pronouncement would follow. Of course it did not. He gazed at his new companion, who returned the favor with solemn, unwavering regard. “I shall call you Plato,” Robert said. “You seem to deserve the name.”
He put the letter aside and rose.
“I trust you will behave yourself,” he added, indicating the box of sand he’d shown the dog earlier. He had no idea whether the pup—Plato—would use it, should the need arise, but he hadn’t wanted to leave him in the stables. Who knew how the pack there would receive him? Heading for the door, Robert wondered whether he could enlist his valet in Plato’s care. Bailey would arrive tomorrow with some things Robert had wanted from London. Doubtful. Unlike his brother Sebastian, Robert had a strictly professional relationship with his personal servant. Better to tip one of the footmen to check on Plato now and then.
Robert left his bedchamber, strolling toward the beautifully curved stairway that led to the lower floor, catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror as he descended. He did not, of course, stop to ogle himself in the glass. He was well aware that his new coat fit him to perfection. Weston was an artist with the shears. Robert knew he had the shoulders to fill the coat out, too, even if he wasn’t as tall as some of his brothers.
He showed a fine leg in his buff pantaloons, and the careful tousle of his auburn hair flattered his handsome face. The folds of his neckcloth would excite the envy of the young men—and many of the older ones—here. He looked, in fact, exactly like what he was, a pink of the ton. And he did not care a whit why people called it pink or what that might mean. He’d given up thinking of such stuff.
There was a momentary hitch in Robert’s step as he once again forced his mind away from the subject of a certain young lady. If she was incapable of appreciating his gifts, then she could just…go hang. He’d had much more fun back when he didn’t think of her. Hadn’t he? Yes, of course he had. And he was here to have it again.
Robert reached the bottom of the sweeping stair and walked along a lower corridor toward the buzz of conversation in the great drawing room. The tone was bright and excited, full of expectation. Gerald and Anne were known for their lavish hospitality, and for providing a perfect balance of planned activities and freedom at their house parties. Not here. They hadn’t lived in this house before the old earl’s death last year. But their established reputation as artists of diversion had lured guests all this way from town. Robert assumed there would be hunting, though he didn’t know the country, as well as walks and riding and indoor games and music and more. Or, guests could choose to lounge about with a novel in front of the fire on a crisp October day, or write letters, or whatever they liked. It was a familiar, beguiling prospect.
Robert entered the drawing room, a large chamber that ran along the back of the house with a row of tall glass doors that gave onto a terrace above spreading lawns. Beautifully decorated in ivory and blue, the room was dotted with comfortable groupings of sofas and chairs that encouraged conversation. Just now at midafternoon, however, most of its denizens were clumped together discussing plans for the rest of the day.
It was a promising gathering, Robert thought as he paused near the door. There were several young couples he counted as good friends and others closer in age to their hosts.
The largest group, though, clustered around Lady Victoria, the daughter of the house. She hadn’t received a proposal during her first season, so her parents had invited a number of eligible young men to the house party, along with some of her female friends to balance the numbers. Robert ran an appreciative eye over the latter, noticing several very pretty faces that he’d seen about town. He thought he’d danced with one or two of these ladies. In a minute he’d recall their names.
Robert’s closest friend among the Salbridges, the eldest son and heir, was not present. Laurence was off at his intended bride’s house for the hunting, Robert remembered. Some suspected he’d offered for the Allingham chit chiefly because her family had a huge estate in Leicestershire, but Robert knew that to be only secondarily true. Laurence had been quite taken with Marie as well. He’d told Robert so. Of course her enthusiasm for sport was probably part of the attraction. Robert smiled at the thought.
Lady Victoria gave him a brilliant smile in return. He couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome. Robert started forward to join the group.
He’d hardly taken two steps when the sounds of an arrival behind him made him turn back to the door. Then, for a moment, he thought he was delirious. It couldn’t be. But the figure standing in the opening was solid flesh, not a phantom. “What are you doing here?” he said.
“I’ve come for the house party,” answered Flora Jennings.
She was as beautiful as ever. In a simple pale gown, her figure was a marvel of subtle curves. Her black hair was dressed in curls, wisps falling about the pale skin of her face, clear-cut as an antique cameo. She presented a serene picture—until you noticed the fire in those cornflower-blue eyes.
“I was invited,” she added with a touch of familiar asperity.
“You can’t have been.” He hadn’t expected to see her again, unless he sought her out. They moved in completely different circles of society. The sight of her here was like running into his mother at a bare-knuckles boxing bout.
“Do you imagine I would push in without an invitation?” she asked.
The snap of challenge in her voice brought back countless verbal jousts. She was inarguably, unmistakably, here. “I don’t think you could,” he replied. “I’m only surprised to see you among people you profess to despise. Don’t you have cuneiform tablets to translate in London. Or something?”
She frowned at him. He was quite familiar with the expression.
A sturdy woman in her mid-forties emerged from behind Flora. She had sandy hair, regular features, and a gown that proclaimed fashionable good taste. “Hello, Lord Robert,” she said.
Here was the explanation for Flora’s presence. Harriet Runyon was related to a great swath of the nobility and received everywhere despite a marriage once thought beneath her. No doubt she’d managed the invitation. “Mrs. Runyon.”
With her customary air of sharp intelligence, and of brooking no nonsense, she replied, “How pleasant to see you.”
Robert’s refined social instincts signaled a whiff of danger, like the rustle in the undergrowth just before something formidable bursts out to surprise you. Which was odd. “And you, ma’am,” he said. He offered them an impeccable bow. “Welcome to Salbridge.”
Robert resumed his walk over to the group of young ladies. Lady Victoria greeted him warmly as an old friend she’d known since her early teens. He set himself to entertain them, and soon elicited a chorus of silvery laughs. It wouldn’t hurt a bit to let Flora Jennings see how charming most females found him.