Lord Elfingham’s idea was to get together a party to make a leisurely journey over the eastern arm of the Cotswolds to visit his horses, taking in local landmarks along the way. He and his rather alarming body guard, whom Lord Elfingham had introduced as Jeyhun Rasit-ogly, showed off their horse’s qualities and skills one afternoon and—after a few deft nudges to the conversation—more than thirty people expressed an interest in seeing Swinwood Hall and the Sutton breeding stock. The overnight trip was set up for the following week.
Cheltenham Society had accepted Elfingham on the surface, but the underlying currents of suspicion showed in the size and makeup of the party. Only twelve people joined Sophia, her sister, Elfingham and his body guard. The four extra ladies were all over twenty-one, three of them escorted by their husbands and one by her brother.
The remaining gentlemen comprised the Earl of Hamner, two of Felicity’s other would-be suitors and one horse-mad fellow who ignored the rest of the party as soon as he found that Mr Rasit-ogly spoke excellent English and was prepared to spend the first leg of the ride discussing the finer points of the genealogy and performance of the Turkmen horses that Elfingham was taking them to see.
After less than an hour, they stopped at a pretty inn overlooking the river. Servants were bustling in and out of the inn with laden trays, and a number of folding chairs had been set up under a large awning.
“How lovely,” Sophia said, as she stepped into the shade. A maid offered her a glass from a tray of them, with a choice of ale or cider. A sip confirmed that the cider was a little raw, but not unpleasant. “Did the inn arrange this, or did you?” she asked Lord Elfingham.
“I sent servants and supplies ahead yesterday,” Elfingham explained, “so we can enjoy the view and the sample the local brew while the grooms rest and water the horses.”
Most of the party were happy to sit and gossip out of the sun, but Sophia joined Felicity, Hamner and a few of the others in strolling to the ford that the Gloucester road crossed just before it met the one they were following.
“Apart from the inn and the ford, the village has little to commend itself to a visitor,” Felicity complained, after Hamner had dissuaded her from taking off her shoes and stockings to wade in the ford and hovered protectively when she stopped to admire a cottager’s garden. Both sisters were pleased to see the horses were ready to continue by the time they returned to the inn.
After a further hour on the road and two more toll gates, they arrived at Northleach, where a second awning disclosed the thoroughness of Lord Elfingham’s planning. “How many servants did you send, my lord?” Sophia asked him as a new set of grooms took the horses away to water, shade, and a bite of oats.
“Just the two sets,” Elfingham assured her. “They’ll move once we’ve left, and be ready for us tomorrow; this set in Turkdean and the others in Shipton.”
“And our maids and valets,” Hamner commented. A pair of carriages with the guests’ luggage and servants had left for Swinwood Hall early this morning. “You have done this before, Elfingham.”
Elfingham smiled, but made no comment. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said to the group as a whole, “we’ll take ninety minutes for a meal and rest. The village has a fine medieval church with, I am told, historic carvings that are well worth seeing. But first,” he waved his hand towards a trestle table where pies, bread, cheese, various pickled vegetables, fruit, and other easy-to-handle food waited to tempt their appetites.
After a drink and a pie, Felicity and the other single lady—chaperoned by one of the wives and trailed by Hamner and Felicity’s other two admirers—went off to view the medieval church of St Peter’s and St Paul’s. In pairs and groups, other members of the party wandered away to explore the little town or further investigate the offerings at the inn.
Sophia leaned back in her camp chair and closed her eyes, allowing the conversation between those who remained under the awning to fade into the generalised hum of birdsong, bees, and running water. Even half-asleep, she could pick one voice out of the background noise. It was the pitch, she decided. Lord Elfingham’s voice was deeper and lower than that of other men. It sent quivers through her.
Sophia was not sure she liked it. She was relieved when he went away to give orders for the horses to be saddled again for the final part of the journey, and she attached herself to Felicity and Hamner for the ride. Hamner and Elfingham treated one another with a careful courtesy, and avoided more than the most cursory conversation, like two stiff-legged cats forced to share the same territory and too evenly matched for open hostilities.
Quite apart from avoiding her unwanted reaction to her host, Sophia was keen to see whether Hamner’s sudden interest in Felicity betokened a genuine attraction or merely a desire to forestall Lord Elfingham.
The former was entirely possible. He was several years older than Hythe, and she knew that the Duke of Haverford had encouraged Hythe to find a bride, since such an accessory was useful in politics and necessary for producing the required heir. Haverford had even provided a list. “Pretty little ninny-hammers,” Hythe had told Sophia. “Well-born and well-connected, but not a single thought to share between them. I’m not ready to be leg-shackled yet, and I hope I can do better for myself when the time comes.”
If Hamner had been given a similar list, Felicity was probably on it. Not that she was a ninny-hammer, but she was certainly well-bred and well-connected. Perhaps Hamner, like Hythe, wanted a wife with whom he could hold an intelligent conversation. Perhaps not, his admonitions to Felicity about proper behaviour were more brotherly than lover-like.
Sophia said little, content to listen to the other two sharing opinions about the recent Season, the social activities on offer in Cheltenham, and the latest fashions. Several times, Hamner diverted Felicity’s attempts to introduce political topics or the war news. Silly man. If he really wanted to court Felicity, he’d need to show more respect for her intellect.
She allowed herself to drop back to join one of the other couples, and later rode with Elfingham for a while. There, she found herself in vigorous discussion over the recently declared war with the United States. The way Elfingham solicited and listened to her opinion stood in stark contrast to Hamner’s patronising approach.
One and a half hours at a comfortable walk brought Elfingham’s party out of the hills and along a country lane that terminated at the gatehouse for Swinwood Hall. The carriage way led to a large manor house in the Georgian style, and soon Sophia and her sister were being escorted up to adjoining rooms, where their maid Theodosia awaited them with hot water for washing and clean gowns.
“How was your trip, Theo?” Sophia asked. The maid was not a good traveller, but she had refused to send her mistresses off with only a strange house maid promoted for the day to serve them. Fortunately, the carriages had taken their time, with plenty of stops, “and we were that merry, my ladies, I scarcely noticed the bumping and swaying,” Theodosia said.
After tea and cakes, those anxious to see the horses could wait no longer. They hurried in an excited chattering group to the stables behind the house, and beyond to the railings of an exercise field.
A dozen horses danced out from the building, each with its own attendant. Their gait was flowing and graceful, almost a glide over the ground; their carriage proud and beautiful. During the ride, the guests had become accustomed to the unusual configuration of Seistan, Lord Elfingham’s horse, and Dorpel, Mr Rasit-ogly’s mount. These were the same: fine elegant heads, long flexible necks, straight bodies and thin strong legs. Several of the guest vociferously compared them with the thoroughbreds that most of them regarded as the pattern for horses.
Hamner looked with disfavour on the bright tack—harnesses garnished with bright metal and decorated with polished gem stones, wide collars and breast plates of the same materials, many with charms, medals or tassels swinging as the horses paced, rich oriental blankets with wide cream fringes worn under the saddles. “They look barbaric,” he sneered.
“They look magnificent,” Felicity argued. Sophia agreed: the lavish accoutrements complimented the horses’ elegance and the metallic gleam of coats.
At a signal from Elfingham, the attendants trotting beside the horses swung up onto their saddles, to put on a display of riding that silenced all negative comment, leaving the guests nothing to do but gasp and cheer as they wove in and out of one another, dropped to the ground beside a riding horse and then swung back up, turned themselves completely upside down, with their feet pointed skywards, ducked over the side again to cling to one side of the saddle, remounted backwards, and then ducked to the other side only to swing up again right way around.
The display finished with the row of horses standing in a line facing the impressed English crowd, and then bending one foreleg and stretching the other in an elegant and co-ordinated bow.
After the horses had been brought to the fence for the spectators to admire more closely, the group returned to the house, still discussing their astonishment at the spectacle.
When the other guests went up to change for dinner, James escorted Lady Sophia to a gig by the stables. He drove her over to the far corner of the estate, nearly a mile by the lanes, happily filling in the time by telling her the history of the Turkmen horse breed.
She asked interested and intelligent questions, which pleased him enormously. He’d love for his own passion for horse breeding to be something they could share. From his observation, couples who had at least some interests in common had better marriages and happier lives.
Should he hint at his desire to make her his wife? She must suspect by now, surely. He’d been careful to stay within the boundaries of an English courtship, as explained to him by his aunt; no more than one dance an evening, no steering straight to her side as soon as he saw her at any event they both attended, no singling her out without including her sister to give the appearance of propriety, no gifts beyond a polite note or a bunch of flowers. But within those constraints, he had been faithfully attentive for months.
And he’d sought her out in Cheltenham and organised this journey to spend time with her. Did that not tell her his intentions? Although she believed he was on his aunt’s errand.
In Para Daisa, his mother or another female relative would already have met with a female relative of hers. In England, he should, according to the courtship rituals Aunt Grace had described, call on the Earl of Hythe, the male head of the lady’s family.
Given Hythe’s attitude, such a meeting was unlikely to produce the results James needed.
He turned the gig into the lane that formed the main artery of the village, and stopped the horse outside a cottage that matched the description his aunt had given him. He unfolded the step and handed Lady Sophia down. “I believe the lady mayor lives here, my lady. Do you wish me to wait out here until she consents to meet me?”
Her relieved smile told him she had been wondering how to keep him from offending the villagers. “Thank you, Lord Elfingham. I shall present your credentials to Mrs Ingham.”
James continued to consider his options while he waited. If Lady Sophia showed the least sign of encouragement, he would declare himself, but she treated him no differently to Hamner or any of the other men he’d seen in her vicinity. If he spoke too soon, and she said no, he would be honour bound to respect her wishes. And what a meal his grandsire would make of that! If Winshire knew James had been rejected, he’d be throwing Charlotte in James’s direction again, or coming up with some other candidate for the position of granddaughter-in-law.
Lady Sophia appeared in the doorway of the cottage to beckon him in, and James put the conundrum to one side and prepared to be persuasive. His immediate goal was to convince both Lady Sophia and Mrs Ingham that the women and children who took refuge here were safe as long as the estate was under his stewardship. Whether that would further his longer-term goals remained to be seen.
Back in Cheltenham, James concluded that the trip had been of mixed success. The villagers were reassured, so that was a plus. The truce with Hamner had been reinforced by the man’s genuine admiration of James’s horses, and his other guests could also be expected to speak kindly of him, and by extension of the Winshires, after his hospitality. He’d spent nearly two days in the company of the Belvoir sisters, albeit with a dozen other ladies and gentlemen and a whole company of servants.
On the other hand, he couldn’t fool himself that his courtship of Lady Sophia had made any headway at all. Apart from the errand to the village, he’d seen her only in company, their conversation limited by courtesy and convention.
When he attended an assembly the following evening, he found the gains had been greater than he thought. The usual crowd around the two sisters welcomed him easily; those who had not made the journey to Swinwood Hall peppering him with questions. And both ladies greeted him with a friendly warmth that went beyond mere civility. So much so that he almost asked Sophia to reserve him two dances, except that he overheard her refusing Hamner. “I do not dance this evening, my lord,” she said.
“Sophia turned her heel a little this afternoon,” Felicity explained. “Indeed, I am sure we should have stayed at home tonight so she might rest it.”
“Nonsense,” Sophia insisted. “I will be gentle with it for a day or two, and that is all that is needed. I will be very happy sitting here, talking to friends and watching the dancing.”
Persuaded, Felicity allowed Hamner to carry her off into the dance, and James took the opportunity to sit beside his lady. There he remained, as others in the group came and went, enjoying the easy conversation and stating his intentions as loudly as he could without breaching the thrice-damned customs.
He was busy formulating a plan to continue monopolising Lady Sophia’s company when there was a stir at the doors to the assembly room, and Jeyhun, dressed casually in loose pants and Turkmen robe, strode across the dance floor, two of the retainers from home flanking him, and the master of ceremonies hurrying behind. The man was irate at the invasion, but not quite angry enough to attempt to stop three well-armed warriors intent on their own mission.
Jeyhun ignored everyone but James, stopping before him to say, in Turkmen, “His excellency has need of you, prince. There has been a fire.”
James, who had risen to meet him, accepted the document Jeyhun held out. As he broke the seal and read the letter, silence spread around them as if a spell had frozen the whole crowd. The letter, from his sister Ruth, confirmed the bare facts. Father had been caught in an inn fire while on his way to Kent. He had escaped the flames, but had been forced to return to London. He was asking for James.
He felt a light touch on his arm and looked down into Lady Sophia’s concerned eyes. “How bad is it?” she asked. “Is your family safe?”
James glanced at the armsman on the right, one of those who had remained in London with Sutton. “How badly is my father injured?” he asked, and those around him gasped.
“The burns are…” the armsman paused, looking for the right English word, “not dangerous, Lady Ruth says.”
“In that case,” whined the master of ceremonies, “if your servants could leave, my lord, we can—”
James spoke over the complaining demand. “We will all be leaving. One moment.”
He captured Sophia’s hand and bowed over it. “I must go to London, to my father.” How he wished he had the right to take her with him. “I hope I shall see you again soon, Lady Sophia.” Around him, the listening revellers stirred and murmured, so he added, “and Lady Felicity, of course.”
“Of course,” his beloved replied. “God speed, Lord Elfingham. I hope your father recovers quickly.
So did James, but if Ruth saw little reason to worry, he would trust to her knowledge. Of more concern was the part of the letter he hadn’t mentioned. Ruth believed the inn fire had been deliberately set, and that the incident was connected to one earlier in the week. The Winshire town coach had been ambushed, though Sutton and his men had driven off the attackers.