Louise Allen has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember, and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise lives in Bedfordshire, and works as a property manager, but spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating on the north Norfolk coast, or travelling abroad. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website—www.louiseallenregency.co.uk—for the latest news!

Dear Reader,

In the course of their courtship Ashe Reynard informed Belinda Felsham (The Outrageous Lady Felsham) that she should stop matchmaking for her bluestocking cousin Elinor because what Elinor needed was an intellectual, someone who could match her intelligence.

The problem was, where could Elinor, firmly on the shelf, find such a man? One who would see past the drab gowns and meek studiousness to the warm, loving, adventurous woman inside? Especially when she was convinced she did not want a man at all.

And then there was Theo Ravenhurst, in disgrace and, so his mother kept insisting, off on the Grand Tour. Only I had my suspicions that Theo was not pursuing a blameless course around the cultural sights of Europe but was up to something altogether less conventional. What would happen if these two cousins met, I wondered?

I hope you enjoy finding out and, if you have read the first three Ravenhurst novels, meeting again Eva and Sebastian, young Freddie and the indomitable Lady James.

Coming next will be The Notorious Mr Hurst. Lady Maude Templeton, having escaped marriage to Ravenhurst cousin Gareth Morant (The Shocking Lord Standon) has already fallen for the entirely inappropriate attractions of theatre owner Eden Hurst. She knows what she wants, and is not used to being thwarted, but this time it looks as though everyone, from Society to the gentleman himself, is set on her not getting her heart’s desire.

THE DISGRACEFUL MR RAVENHURST

Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Chapter One

August 1816—Vezelay, Burgundy

The naked female figure danced in timeless sensual abandon, revelling in the provocation of her blatant sexuality. The face of the hapless man watching her was etched with mingled despair and lust as he reached out for her, blind and deaf to the imploring prayers of the holy man who watched the scene unfold from behind a pillar.

It was hard to see the detail clearly in the shadows, and having to crane her neck upwards did not help, but the scene was unmistakable—and who was at fault, equally plain.

‘Honestly! Men!’ Exasperated, Elinor stepped backwards, furled parasol, rigid sketch book, sharp elbows and sensible boots, every one of them an offensive weapon.

‘Ough!’ The gasp from behind her as she made contact with something solid, large and obviously male, was agonised. ‘I beg your pardon,’ the voice continued on a croak as she swung round, fetching the man an additional thwack with her easel.

‘What for?’ she demanded, startled out of her customary good manners as she turned to face the doubled-up figure of her victim. ‘I struck you, sir. I should apologise, not you.’

As he straightened up to a not inconsiderable height, a shaft of sunlight penetrated the cracked glass of the high window, illuminating a head of dark red hair that put her own tawny locks to shame. ‘You were expressing dissatisfaction with the male sex, ma’am; I was apologising on behalf of my brothers for whatever sin we are guilty of this time.’ His tone was meek, but she was not deceived—there was strength in the deep voice and a thread of wicked amusement.

Yes, said a voice inside Elinor’s head. Yes. At last. She shook her head, blinking away the sun dazzle and whatever idiocy her mind was up to, and stepped to one side to see her victim better. He was smiling, a conspiratorial twist of his lips that transformed a strong but not particularly distinguished face into one that was disarmingly attractive. Somehow he had succeeded in charming an answering smile out of her.

She was not, Elinor reminded herself sternly, given to smiling at strange men. It must be part and parcel of hearing things. The voice had gone away now; no doubt it had been some trick of an echo in this cavernous place.

‘I was referring to that capital.’ Hampered by her armful of belongings she dumped them without ceremony on a nearby pew, keeping hold only of the furled parasol, partly as a pointer, partly because of its merits as a sharp implement. All men, her mother was apt to warn her, were Beasts. It was as well not to take risks with chance-met ones, even if they did appear to be polite English gentlemen. She gestured with the parasol towards the richly carved column top, Number 6B in her annotated sketches. ‘It is a Romanesque capital; that is to say—’

‘It was carved between 1120 and 1150 and is one of a notable series that makes the basilica of Vezelay an outstanding example of religious art of the period,’ he finished for her, sounding like an antiquarian paper on the subject.

‘Of course, I should have realised that, if you are visiting the basilica, you must understand architecture,’ she apologised, gazing round the wreckage of the once-great church. Outside of service times no one else was going to enter here on a whim. ‘Are you a clergyman, sir?’

‘Do I look like one?’ The stranger appeared mildly affronted by the suggestion.

‘Er…no.’ And he did not, although why that should be, Elinor had no idea. Many men of the cloth must have red hair. Some must also possess smiles that invited you to smile right back at a shared, and slightly irreverent, joke. And, without doubt, tall and athletic figures graced pulpits up and down the land.

‘Thank goodness for that.’ She noticed that he offered no explanation of himself in response to her question. ‘So…’ He tipped back his head, fisting his hands, one of which held his tall hat, on his hips to balance himself. ‘What exactly is it about this particular scene that merits your ire, ma’am?’

‘It shows, as usual, a man succumbing to his own base animal instincts and lack of self-control and blaming his subsequent moral downfall upon a woman,’ she said crisply.

‘I must say, your eyesight is excellent if you can deduce all that in this light.’

‘I have been studying the capitals for a week now with the aid of an opera glass; one gets one’s eye in.’ Elinor stared round at the nave, littered with crumbling masonry, broken pews and rubbish. ‘I have had to go round at least three times in an attempt to interpret as many as possible when the light is at its best. It is still possible to do that, but unless something is done very soon, I fear they may all fall or be damaged beyond repair or study. See the holes in the roof? The carvings must be exposed to the elements, even in here.’

‘You are a scholar, then?’ He was squinting upwards, his eyes fixed on the carved figures, frozen in their eternal masque of temptation and yielding. ‘Researching the iniquities of the medieval male mind, perhaps?’

‘My mother is the scholar, I am merely recording the carvings for her detailed study. She is an authority on the early churches of France and England.’ Elinor could have added that the medieval male mind probably differed little from its modern counterpart when it came to moral turpitude, but decided against it. It was not as though she had any experience of turpitude to base the assertion upon.

‘Indeed?’ The man switched his attention from the carving to her face and this time the smile lit up his eyes as well. They were green, she noticed. An unusual clear green, like water over pebbles, not the indeterminate hazel that looked back at her whenever she spared a glance in a glass to check that her bonnet was at least straight and there were no charcoal smudges on her nose. ‘I feel sure I should meet your respected parent. May I call?’

‘You are a scholar too?’ Elinor began to gather up her things, stuffing pencils, charcoal and paints into the battered leather satchel and swinging it over her shoulder. ‘I am joining her now, if you would care to accompany me.’

‘Let’s just say I have an interest in antiquities.’ He removed the easel from her hands, folded its legs up, lashed the straps around it with a competence that suggested he used one himself, and tucked it under his arm. There was a short struggle for possession of the stool, which he won, and for the parasol, which Elinor retained. ‘You are staying in Vezelay?’

‘Yes, we have been here seven days now. We are making our way down through France, visiting a number of the finer early cathedrals. Mama intends that we will remain at Vezelay for several weeks yet. Merci, monsieur.’ She smiled and nodded to the verger, who was wielding a broom and stirring up the gritty dust in the porch. ‘Sweeping seems pointless, he would be better employed on the roof with a tarpaulin.’

She dropped a coin into the outstretched hand of the beggar by the door and headed diagonally across the open space before the basilica, glancing up at her companion as she did so. ‘We have lodgings just down the hill here.’

There was something vaguely familiar about him, although she could not place it. It certainly made him easy to talk to. Normally Miss Ravenhurst would have contented herself with a polite inclination of the head and a murmured good day when she came across a male countryman to whom she had not been introduced. It would never have occurred to her to invite one back to their lodgings to meet Mama.

Perhaps it was the red hair, somewhat extinguished now as he clapped his hat back on his head. Being one of the red-headed Ravenhursts, she saw a less spectacular version of it every time she looked in the glass. It was generally considered to be a handicap in a lady, although if hers was less a good match for a chestnut horse and more the flame of well-polished mahogany by firelight as his was, she might have felt more reconciled to it. He seemed to have avoided freckles as well, she noticed with envy, but then, his skin was not as fair as hers was.

‘Here we are.’ It was only a few minutes’ walk down the steep main street, although it always took rather longer to toil back up the slippery cobbles to the basilica. The door was on the latch and she pushed it open, calling, ‘Mama? Are you at home? We have a visitor.’

‘In here, Elinor.’ She followed her mother’s voice through into the parlour, leaving her belongings on the hall bench and gesturing to the tall man to put the easel and stool down, too. At the sight of him, Lady James Ravenhurst rose to her feet from behind the table, its chequered cloth strewn with papers and books.

‘Mama, this gentleman is a scholar of antiquities who wishes to meet—’

‘Theophilus!’ Lady James lifted her quizzing glass to her eye and stared, for once clearly out of countenance.

Elinor stared, too. ‘Cousin Theo?’ Her disgraceful and disgraced cousin Theo? Here? ‘I haven’t seen you for years.’

‘Not since I was twelve, fifteen years ago,’ he agreed. ‘You must have been about seven. I wondered if it was you, Cousin Elinor.’

‘The hair, I suppose,’ she said, resigned to it being her most memorable feature. ‘I was ten,’ she added, ruthlessly honest. It was nice of him to pretend he thought she was only twenty-two now, and not an on-the-shelf spinster of almost twenty-six.

‘What are you doing here, Theophilus? I understood from your mama that you were undertaking the Grand Tour.’ Lady James gestured impatiently towards the chairs set around the stone hearth. ‘Sit.’

‘I am, you will agree, Aunt Louisa, somewhat old to be undertaking the Tour with a tutor to bear-lead me.’ Theo waited until the two women were seated, then took the remaining chair, crossing one long leg over the other and clasping his hands together. He appeared quite tame and domesticated, although a trifle large. If Elinor had imagined a dangerous rakehell, which she had been informed her cousin was, he would not look like this.

‘Mama uses the Tour as code for sent abroad in disgrace,’ he continued. ‘I am earning my living, avoiding English tourists and generally managing to keep my doings from the ears of my sainted papa.’

‘Your father, even if Bishop of Wessex, may not be a saint,’ his aunt said tartly, ‘but you have certainly tried his patience over the years, Theophilus. Where were you when the Corsican Monster returned from exile last year, might I ask?’

‘Oh, here in France. I became a Swedish merchant for the duration of the troubles. I found it interfered very little with my business.’

Elinor found she was grappling with unsettling emotions. Of course, she was pleased to see her cousin. Any cousin. The Ravenhursts were a large and friendly clan. But something—the memory of that unsettling little voice in her head, perhaps?—replaced the calm contentment that was her usual internal state with a cold knot in her stomach. If she did not know better, she would think it disappointment.

‘What are you frowning about, Elinor?’ her mother enquired. ‘Nothing is more productive of lines on the forehead.’

‘A slight headache, that is all, Mama.’ She had met an intelligent, attractive man—Theo was certainly that, even if he was not exactly handsome—and he turned out not to be an intriguing stranger, but one of the Ravenhurst clan. A relative. So what was there to be disappointed about in that, other than the fact he would treat her like they all did, as Mama’s bluestocking assistant? An hour ago she would have said she wanted a man to talk to about as badly as she wanted to be back in London, sitting with the wallflowers in the chaperons’ corner through yet another hideous Season.

Whatever Cousin Theo’s business was, it appeared to be flourishing. She might not know much about fashion, but she knew quality when she saw it, and his boots, his breeches and the deceptively simple cut of his riding coat all whispered money in the most discreet manner.

‘Did you say business, Theophilus?’ Mama, as usual ignoring her own advice, was frowning at him now. ‘You are not in trade, I trust?’

‘One has to live, Aunt Louisa.’ He smiled at her. Elinor noticed her mother’s lips purse; he had almost seduced an answering smile out of her. ‘My parents, no doubt rightly, feel that at the age of twenty-seven I should be gainfully employed and cut off my allowance some time ago.’

‘But trade! There are any number of perfectly eligible professions for the grandson of the Duke of Allington.’

‘My father has informed me that I enter the church over his dead body. It is also his opinion that I was born to be hanged and therefore a career in the law is ineligible. I find I have a fixed objection to killing people unless absolutely necessary, which eliminates the army and the navy.’

‘Politics? The government?’ Elinor suggested, smiling as much at her mother’s expression as Theo’s catalogue of excuses.

‘I am also allergic to humbug.’

Lady James ignored this levity. ‘What sort of trade?’

‘Art and antiquities. I find I have a good eye. I prefer the small and the portable, of course.’

‘Why of course?’ Careless of deportment, Elinor twisted round on her seat to face him fully.

‘It is easier to get an emerald necklace or a small enamelled reliquary past a customs post or over a mountain pass than a twelve-foot canvas or six foot of marble nude on a plinth.’ The twinkle in his eyes invited her to share in his amusement at the picture he conjured up.

‘You are involved in smuggling?’ his aunt asked sharply.

‘In the aftermath of the late wars, there is a great deal of what might be loosely described as art knocking about the Continent, and not all of it has a clear title. Naturally, if it sparkles, then government officials want it.’ Theo shrugged. ‘I prefer to keep it and sell it on myself, or act as an agent for a collector.’

‘And there is a living to be made from it?’ Elinor persisted, ignoring her mother’s look that said quite clearly that ladies did not discuss money, smuggling or trade.

‘So my banker tells me; he appears moderately impressed by my endeavours.’

‘So what are you doing here?’ Lady James demanded. ‘Scavenging?’

Theo winced, but his tone was still amiable as he replied, ‘I believe there is an artefact of interest in the neighbourhood. I am investigating.’

There was more to it than that, Elinor decided with a sudden flash of insight. The smile had gone from his eyes and there was the faintest edge to the deep, lazy voice. The coolness inside her was warming up into something very like curiosity. She felt more alive than she had for months.

‘Where are you staying, Cousin Theo?’ she asked before her mother insisted upon more details of his quest, details that he was most unlikely to want to tell her. Once Mama got wind of a secret, she would worry it like a terrier with a rat.

‘I’ve lodgings down in St Père.’ Elinor had wanted to visit the village at the foot of the Vezelay hill, huddling beneath the towering spire of its elaborate church. She would have enjoyed a stroll along the river in its gentle green valley, but Lady James had dismissed the church as being of a late period and less important to her studies than the hilltop basilica. They could visit it later, she had decreed.

‘Rooms over the local dressmaker’s shop, in fact. There’s a decent enough inn in the village for meals.’

And now he is explaining too much. Why Elinor seemed to be attuned to the undertones in what he said, while her mother appeared not to be, was a mystery to her. Perhaps there was some kind of cousinly connection. She found herself watching him closely and then was disconcerted when he met her gaze and winked.

‘Well, you may as well make yourself useful while you are here, Theophilus. Elinor has a great deal to do for me and she can certainly use your assistance.’

‘But, Mama,’ Elinor interjected, horrified, ‘Cousin Theo has his own business to attend to. I can manage perfectly well without troubling him.’

Her cousin regarded her thoughtfully for a long moment, then smiled. ‘It would be a pleasure. In what way may I assist?’

‘You may escort her to St Père to make some sketches in the church there. I will review your preliminary drawings of the capitals tomorrow, Elinor, and see what needs further detailed work. I doubt St Père will prove of interest, but you may as well eliminate it rather than waste a day.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

Theo watched Elinor, puzzled. Where was the assertive young woman from the basilica? It was as though the presence of her mother sucked all the individuality and spark out of his cousin. Sitting there, hands neatly folded in her lap, clad in a slate-grey gown that might have been designed to remove all the colour from her face and disguise whatever figure she might possess, she looked like the model for a picture of a dowdy spinster. He had been flattering her when he made the remark about her age when they last met; she looked every bit the twenty-five she admitted to.

He reviewed his agreement to take her to St Père. Was there any danger? No, not yet. It was probably too early for his client to have become restless over the non-appearance of his goods and, so far as he was aware, none of the opposition had yet appeared on the scene. If they had and he was being watched, escorting his cousin would be a useful smokescreen.

‘At what time would you like me to collect you and your maid?’ he enquired.

‘Maid? There is no need for that,’ his aunt rejoined briskly. ‘We are in the middle of the French countryside and you are her cousin. Why should Elinor require chaperonage?’

He saw the faintest tightening of Elinor’s lips and realised that she was sensitive to the unspoken assumption behind that assertion—that she was not attractive enough to attract undesirable attention.

‘I will walk down the hill, Cousin, at whatever time suits you,’ she offered. ‘There is no need for you to toil all the way up, simply to escort me.’

That was probably true; she seemed to know her way around the large village well enough, and it was a respectable and safe place. But he felt an impulse to treat her with more regard than she obviously expected to receive.

‘I will collect you here at ten, if that is not too early. The weather is fine; I have no doubt the inn can provide a luncheon we can eat outside. The interior is not really fit for a lady.’

‘Thank you.’ Her smile lit up her face and Theo found himself smiling back. Those freckles dancing across her nose really were rather endearing. If only her hair was not scraped back into that hideous snood or whatever it was called. ‘You will not mind if I am out all day, Mama?’

‘No, I will not need you,’ Lady James said, confirming Theo’s opinion that she regarded her daughter in the light of an unpaid skivvy. Her other children, his cousins Simon and Anne, had escaped their mother’s eccentricities by early and good marriages. His late uncle, Lord James, had been a quiet and unassuming man. Theo’s father, the Bishop, had been heard to remark at the funeral that his brother could have been dead for days before anyone noticed the difference.

Elinor was obviously fated to become the typical unwed daughter, dwindling into middle age at her mother’s side. Although not many mothers were scholars of international repute as well as selfish old bats, he reflected.

She might be a dowdy young woman, and have a sharp tongue on the subject of male failings, but he found he was pleased to have come across her. Sometimes life was a little lonely—when no one was trying to kill him, rob him or swindle him—and contact with the family was pleasant.

‘Is there any news from home?’ he enquired.

‘When did you last hear? I suppose you know about Sebastian and his Grand Duchess?’ He nodded. He had been in Venice at the time, pleasurably negotiating the purchase of a diamond necklace from a beautiful and highly unprincipled contessa. But even on the Rialto the gossip about his cousin Lord Sebastian Ravenhurst’s improbable marriage to the Grand Duchess of Maubourg was common currency. He had even glimpsed them together on one of his fleeting and rare visits to London, while their stormy courtship was still a secret.

‘And Belinda has married again, to Lord Dereham.’

Now what was there in that to make Elinor’s lips twitch? he wondered. ‘Yes, I had heard about that, too. I met Gareth and his new wife in Paris and they told me.’

‘Your cousins are all settling down in a most satisfactory manner,’ his aunt pronounced. ‘You should do the same, Theophilus.’

‘Should I find a lady willing to share my way of life, then I would be delighted to, Aunt. But so far I have not discovered one.’

‘Really? I wonder if perhaps the ladies who were willing were among the reasons your parents disapprove of your way of life,’ Elinor murmured with shocking frankness, so straight-faced he knew she had her tongue firmly in her cheek. She had a sense of humour, did she, his dowdy cousin?

‘They would most certain disapprove if I wanted to marry one of them! Perhaps you will be a good influence upon me,’ he countered. ‘Having heard a little of your views on male moral decadence, I am sure you can guide me.’

Fortunately his aunt was too busy ringing for the maid to notice this exchange. Theo refused the offer of tea, which he was assured had been brought from England in order to ensure there need be no recourse to inferior foreign supplies, and took his leave. ‘Until tomorrow, Cousin.’ He smiled a little at the heap of sketching gear and scholarly tomes in the hall; yes, this would prove an undemanding way to pass the time until all hell broke loose.

Chapter Two

Theo was conscious of a familiar presence behind him as he made his way down the steep hill, but the follower at his heels made no move to speak to him until they reached the square at the bottom where the gig was waiting.

‘Picking up ladies again?’ the other man said, swinging up beside him as Theo guided the horse out and down the St Père road. ‘Not your usual style, that one. Dowdy little hen. Still, expect she’ll be grateful for the attention. Got some trinkets to sell do you reckon?’

‘That little hen is my cousin Miss Ravenhurst, so keep your tongue between your teeth and your light fingers off her trinkets,’ Theo said mildly.

‘Right. Sorry, guv’nor.’

He allowed Jake Hythe, his groom, factotum, valet and right-hand man, a long leash, but he knew that one word was enough to ensure obedience. When you rescue a man from a well-deserved place on the gallows it tended to ensure an uncommon degree of devotion.

‘And keep an eye on her, if you see her about,’ he added. ‘Her mother’s mighty careless of her.’

‘As if it was your own self,’ Hythe assured him. The man had killed before now to protect Theo’s back—it was to be hoped for their own sakes that no local bucks attempted any familiarities with Elinor while he was around. ‘There’s no sign of them at their place on the hill,’ he added cryptically, jerking his head back towards Vezelay. ‘I reckon you’re going to have to get yourself invited to the chateau. How are you going to do that, then?’

There were, perhaps, advantages to having interfering, overbearing and well-connected aunts. Theo smiled to himself. ‘Do you think the Comte de Beaumartin would like my aunt, the daughter-in-law of the Duke of Allington, as a houseguest?’ he enquired. ‘Because I believe I am going to engineer a meeting.’

‘Cunning bastard,’ his companion said, in a voice of deepest respect. ‘You always thinks of something.’

Elinor was ready and waiting, opening the door the moment Theo laid his hand on the knocker. ‘I was watching for you to make sure you didn’t knock. Mama is deep in a letter to the Antiquarian Society, disputing claims of the Reverend Anthony’s about the development of the ogival arch, and must not be disturbed.’

‘Good God,’ he said faintly as he took her easel and satchel. ‘Ogival arches? Doesn’t it drive you insane?’

‘Not often.’ Elinor shut the door quietly behind them and fell into step beside him, not pretending to misunderstand. ‘Compared to being the companion to some old lady with a smelly lap dog in Bath, or being a general dogsbody for my sister and her six interesting children, it is a positively desirable existence.

‘I get to use my brain and what creative skills I possess. I can read five languages you know, including Ancient Greek. And I have a remarkable degree of freedom. In fact,’ she pondered, ducking under a pole with washing on it that protruded into the street, ‘I probably wouldn’t have this degree of freedom until I was in my forties under any other circumstances. Unless I was a widow, of course. But one has to be married first for that.’

Theo did not reply immediately. Elinor glanced up at him. Today he was dressed in buckskins and boots, a broad-brimmed straw hat on his head. He looked far less English and considerably more formidable for some reason.

It seemed to her that the relaxed, polite and slightly deprecatory young man in the parlour yesterday had been an act. All the Ravenhursts were good actors—there was a family joke that there must have been a scandalous actress in the family tree at some point in the past—perhaps in his line of business that was a useful ability.

‘Mama is a very considerable scholar, you know,’ she added. ‘It is not as though I am spending my time pandering to some pointless pastime. And it is better than sitting at home being a meek wife to some self-important gentleman who thinks women have no role except as mothers and housekeepers.’

‘That is not the sort of marriage I imagine our three cousins have lately embarked upon,’ Theo observed, fielding a ball aimed inexpertly at him by a small boy. He tossed it back, making sure it was catchable.

‘No. Those are real love matches. Marriages of equals, I truly believe.’ Elinor shrugged. ‘It was extraordinary luck for them, I suppose.’

‘Then you do not have much faith in men, Cousin, if you find three happy marriages extraordinary. But I gathered that up at the basilica yesterday.’

‘Some of you are perfectly all right,’ Elinor said with a smile. ‘I suspect men are as much a victim of society as women are; it is just that you seem to have much more fun. Look at you, for example—all over the Continent chasing antiquities and having adventures, I dare say. Just imagine what would happen if I tried it.’

Theo gave a snort of amusement. ‘It is a dangerous world out there. Even your valiant parasol would not be much protection.’ There were more weapons in her armoury than the sharp ferrule of a sensible sunshade, but Elinor did not judge it prudent to reveal them. Under his unconventional exterior her cousin could well turn out to as easily shocked as most men.

‘Here we are.’ He led the way to a neat gig drawn up in the shade of a lime tree and helped her to climb up, stowing the easel and the rest of her paraphernalia under the seat. ‘Would you like to drive?’

‘I’ve never tried.’ No man had ever suggested such a thing and she found herself quite taken aback. But Theo did not appear to be joking; he sat with the reins in his hands, the horse standing quietly, tail flicking against the irritation of the early summer flies.

‘I’ll show you.’

‘Thank you.’ Warily she held out her left hand and allowed him to arrange the reins in it. To her relief he kept hold of the whip.

‘Now, say walk on.’

‘In English?’

‘It appears to be bilingual.’

Elinor laughed, then stopped abruptly as the animal, obviously hearing the command in Theo’s more familiar voice, set off towards the lower road. ‘Ah! What do I do?’

‘Nothing. Keep contact with its mouth and wait until we need to turn off. Just relax.’ He seemed very relaxed himself, for a man who had handed over control of his vehicle to a complete amateur. The horse seemed relaxed too, as did the entire local population of dogs, chickens and small children who might have been expected to rush out and cause the creature to bolt, throwing them both into the ditch and killing them.

Elinor decided it was unfair that she was the only tense one. ‘So why, exactly, are you so in disgrace?’ she asked.

‘Nameless sins,’ Theo said with a sinister smile.

‘I refuse to believe it. Tell me.’

‘Very well. By the time I was sixteen I was disappearing over the school wall every night, bent on a ruinous course of drink, wenching and gaming.’

‘And were you ruined?’ He did not appear very dissipated—not that she was too certain what a rakehell looked like.

‘Morally? Undoubtedly. Financially, not one whit, which was what, I suspect, most infuriated my father. I was buying and selling even then. Buy from one dealer, sell to another. Scavenge around market stalls and pawn shops, clean things up and sell them on to the right person. I found early that I had an aptitude for cards and I was happy to take payment in objects, not coin. By the time I was sent down from university for running a faro school, I was able to support myself financially.’

‘I can quite see why that made the Bishop so cross. You should have gone creeping home, all penitence and desperate for him to keep up your allowance and instead you— Ooh! Where is it going?’

‘It knows the short cut.’ To her alarm Theo left the reins in her hand as the horse turned off the road and began to amble along a track. ‘Yes, I came home, announced my independence and I have been living off my wits ever since. I go home occasionally to give Papa the pleasure of delivering a thundering good lecture and for Mama to fuss over the state of my linen and to try to find a nice young lady for me.’

‘Without success?’

Theo grinned. ‘I run a mile in one direction at the thought of all those simpering misses while their mamas are sending them running in the other direction to escape my polluting influence.’

‘Aren’t you ever lonely?’ She had become so lulled by his relaxed manner and lazily amused smile that the question escaped her before she could catch it.

‘Lonely?’ The amusement vanished from his eyes, although the smile stayed on his lips. ‘Certainly not. Remember all those willing ladies you mentioned yesterday? And what about you? Aren’t you lonely?’

‘With all those fascinating antiquarian meetings to go to?’ Elinor responded lightly. It was no business of hers how Theo lived his life or whether or not he was truly happy. She could not imagine what had come over her to loosen her tongue so.

She was puzzling about it when the reins, which had been sitting so comfortably in her hand, were suddenly jerked forwards violently. Instinctively she tightened her grip and held on, only to find herself falling towards the horse’s rump. Then a solid bar slammed into her stomach and she was sitting back in the seat with Theo’s left arm still out-flung across her midriff. With his right he dragged on the reins to remove the horse’s head from the particularly lush patch of grass it was munching.

‘Relaxed is right, total inattention is perhaps taking it a little too far,’ he remarked while she jammed her straw hat inelegantly back on the top of her head.

‘Indeed. I can see that. Thank you. Walk on.’ They proceeded for a few steps. ‘You may remove your arm now.’

‘What? Sorry.’ It had felt warm and hard. He must be both exceptionally fit and very fast to have caught her like that, Elinor reflected. She had no idea how much she weighed, but she knew that, propelled forwards so abruptly, her body would have hit his arm with considerable force. Was the rest of his body as hard?

She caught the thought and felt the blush rise. What was she doing, having such improper thoughts about a man she hardly knew? She flapped her free hand in front of her face. ‘My, it is warm, is it not?’

‘Unseasonably so, and odd after the shocking summer we have been experiencing.’ Theo did not appear to notice anything amiss in her demeanour. ‘Turn left down that lane.’

‘How?’

Patiently he leaned across and covered her hands with his, looping the reins between her right-hand fingers as well, then using the pressure of his grip to guide the horse. Elinor made herself concentrate on what he was showing her, not how it felt, nor how the sharp scent of citrus cologne cut across the smells of a warm summer day in the countryside.

‘Turn again here.’ There were houses on either side now, but he left her to manage on her own.

‘I did it!’ Then, honesty got the better of her. ‘But he would have turned anyway, wouldn’t he?’

‘Probably. You have nice light hands, though. We must try another day on a less familiar road so he will have to be guided by you.’

‘Another day?’ The church with its towering spire and vast porch was looming before them.

‘I expect to be in the area for some days. A week or two, perhaps. Pull up on the far side at that gateway. You can see the ruins of the old church.’

Distracted by the news that there was an older church, one that might perhaps be of interest to her mother, Elinor handed the reins back and jumped down without waiting for Theo.

‘Oh, there is hardly anything left.’ She leaned on the gate, peering into the jumbled mass of stones, leaning tombstones and brambles.

‘You don’t want to go in there, do you? It’ll wreak havoc with your gown.’

‘This thing?’ Elinor gave a dismissive twitch to the skirts of her drab brown walking dress. ‘But, no, there doesn’t seem to be anything to see of any significance. Let’s look inside the other one.’

To her amusement, Theo offered her his arm as they walked the few yards to the great porch, big enough to put some of the village hovels into entire. He was an odd mixture of the gallant and the matter of fact, and she found it both pleasant and a trifle disconcerting. Gentlemen did not flirt with Elinor. They treated her with politeness, of course, but she was used to being regarded almost as if she were not there, an adjunct to her formidable mother.

Cousin Bel had made a spirited attempt at pairing her off with Patrick Layne. But he had been attracted to Bel, not knowing she was having an outrageous and secret affaire with Ashe Reynard, Viscount Felsham. The two men fought a duel over Bel in the end and naturally Mr Layne had no thought of turning his attentions to Bel’s bluestocking cousin after that.

It was as though being able to read Greek and Latin somehow labelled you as unfit for marriage. Not that she wanted to get married, but it might be nice, just sometimes, to be treated as a lady, not as a shadow, not as a mere companion.

And Theo, while definitely not flirting, was treating her like a lady, which was an interesting novelty. He was also acting as though he realised she had a brain in her head and did not blame her for using it—and that was delightful. She turned her head and smiled up at him and he smiled back, a smile that turned into a fleeting frown. Then he was opening the church door for her and she forgot to wonder what had caused that change of expression.

‘This is lovely.’ The church was full of light, clean, in good repair. Slender columns lifted towards the high roof and the air was full of the scent of incense.

‘It is, isn’t it? Do you want to sketch? I’ll get our things.’

Theo was gone before she could respond, leaving her to wander about the wide side aisles. Light streaming in illuminated an ancient stone statue of a saint in a niche. It might have been old and battered, but it was obviously much loved. A bunch of wild flowers had been placed in a jar on its plinth and many candles had burned out in the stand at the foot of the column.

Elinor found a stool and dragged it across to a position where she had a good view. Footsteps behind her announced Theo’s return. ‘A good subject. May I use it too?’

‘Of course.’ She let him set up her easel while she emptied her satchel and found her watercolours. Mainly pencil, she decided. Soft greys with a little white chalk and colour just for the flowers, a splash of poppy red and the deep, singing blue of a wild delphinium.

Beside her Theo was humming under his breath while he flipped open a camp stool and spread a large sketchbook on his knee. There were pencils stuck behind his ear, a long thin brush in his teeth and he looked at the statue through narrowed eyes while his hands unscrewed the top of his water pot. He was definitely an artist, Elinor realised, recognising the concentration and seeing the well-worn tools. She just hoped he would not find her efforts laughable.

It was strange sitting sketching next to someone else. Theo had not done so since his tutor had given him his first drawing lessons and he was surprised to find it so companionable. He rinsed his brush and sat back, biting the end of it while he studied the results of an hour’s work. Not bad. A little overworked, if anything. The habit of producing precise drawings to show to possible clients was too engrained now to easily throw off.

His eyes slid sideways to where Elinor was also sitting back, her head on one side as she frowned at the sketchbook propped on her easel. It was turned so he could not see her work; instead he looked at her profile, puzzling over his rediscovered cousin.

She was tall for a woman, slender, as far as one could tell from that badly cut gown. There had been softness, but also firmness against his outstretched arm when he had checked her fall. Her hair, which ought to be her crowning glory, was bundled ruthlessly into a thick net at her nape, presumably to disguise it as much as possible. Doubtless she had grown up being made to feel it was a handicap. His own sisters, Jane and Augusta, had escaped the family hair, and left him in no doubt about what a tragedy it would have been if they had not.

Her hands, unprotected by gloves, were long fingered, strong and ink-stained, her walk a stride that easily kept up with his. He suspected she was unused to gentlemen paying her much attention and found that rather endearing. But why on earth did she dress as though determined to appear a frump? The hair he could understand, even though he deplored it. But why sludge brown and slate-grey gowns that seemed to have been badly altered from ones made for a larger woman?

She tipped her head on one side, her lower lip caught in her teeth, then leaned forwards and touched her brush to the paper once more. ‘There. Finished.’

‘May I see?’ Jane or Augusta would have blushed and dimpled, pretending to be too modest to let a gentleman look at their work, while all the time waiting for praise. Elinor merely leaned forwards and turned her easel so he could look. ‘That’s incredible.’

‘It is?’ She was rather pleased with it herself, but she did not expect such praise.

‘You handle the drawing with such freedom. And the way you have so simply touched in the flowers with colour lifts the entire composition. I am envious of your talent.’

‘Thank you.’ She could not think of what else to say. She was unused to being praised and thought her work merely competent. ‘Recently I have been experimenting with a looser style. I must admit to being influenced by Mr Turner. He is very controversial, of course. It does not do for the sketches of record for Mama, of course, but I am enjoying experimenting. May I see what you have done?’

Wordlessly Theo handed her his sketchbook. The drawing was precise, focused, full of tiny detail she had not noticed. It should have been cold, yet he had changed the position of the flowers so they wreathed the ancient figure with a tender beauty.

‘But that is lovely. You saw things that I never knew were there.’

‘I am used to having to be very precise.’ He shrugged and she realised she was embarrassing him.

‘I can see that. No, I mean the way you have used the flowers to echo the curve of the mantle and highlight the sweetness of her smile.’ She handed the book back. ‘I shall look more carefully in future for the emotion in what I am drawing.’

Now she had really done it. Men did not enjoy being accused of emotion, she knew that. Theo was packing away his things somewhat briskly, but he looked up and his eyes smiled. ‘Perhaps we can learn from each other.’

I expect to be in the area for some days. A week or two perhaps, he had said. They could go sketching together again.

‘I am sure we can, if you have the time.’

‘I hope so. My plans are uncertain.’ Theo folded her easel and his own stool. ‘Shall we explore some more?’

They wandered through the church, peering into corners, admiring carvings. ‘Is your mother interested in domestic architecture as well?’ Theo asked.

‘Yes, although she has not made such a study of it. Why do you ask?’ Elinor moved a moth-eaten hanging to one side and sneezed as she disturbed a cloud of dust.

‘There is a very fine and ancient chateau in the village of St Martin, beyond St Père. I have…business with the count. Perhaps she would care to visit with me when I call. I would not be surprised if he did not invite us all to stay.’

‘Really?’ Elinor had clambered up on to a rush-seated chair to study the stained glass more closely. ‘Staying in a chateau sounds fascinating, but why should he ask us?’

‘Count Leon spent much of his life in England with his father during the French wars. They were refugees. I am sure he would welcome English visitors.’

‘You must mention it to Mama,’—who would not have the slightest qualms about moving into a chateau full of complete strangers if it interested her, Elinor knew full well. ‘Have you—?’ The ancient rush work sagged beneath her feet, then began to give way. ‘Theo!’

‘Here, I’ve got you.’ He swung her down easily and set her on her feet.

‘Thank you—you have saved me again.’ Elinor began to brush down her skirts. ‘I have been scrambling over the wreckage in the basilica for hours without so much as a turned ankle and today I am positively accident prone.’

‘Cousin—why do you wear such frightful gowns?’ Theo said it as though it was a pressing thought that had escaped unbidden.

She could still feel the press of his hands at her waist where he had caught her. Shock and indignation made her voice shake, just a little ‘I…I do not!’ How could he?

Chapter Three

‘Yes, you do,’ Theo persisted, seemingly forced to speak. He did not appear to be deriving much satisfaction from insulting her dress sense. ‘Look at this thing, and the one you wore yesterday. They might have been designed to make you look a fright.’

‘Well, really!’ A fright indeed! ‘They are suitable.’

‘For what?’ he demanded irritably. ‘Prison visiting?’ Although what he had to be irritable about she had no idea. She was the one being insulted.

‘Suitable for the sort of life I lead. They are practical. I alter them from old ones of Mama’s.’

‘A well-tailored gown in a colour that suits you would be equally practical. Green or garnet red or amber.’

‘What business have you to be lecturing me about clothes?’ Elinor demanded hotly. Theo looked equally heated. Two redheads quarrelling, she thought with a sudden flash of amusement that cut through the chagrin. She was not ready to forgive him, though. He might think her a dowd—he had no need to say so.

‘If you were my sister, I would—’

‘I am not your sister, I am thankful to say.’

‘You are my cousin, and it irritates me to see you dressing so badly, just as it would irritate me to see a fine gemstone badly set.’

‘A fine gemstone?’ she said rather blankly. Theo was comparing her to a gemstone? Some of the indignation ebbed away to be replaced with resignation. He was quite right, her gowns were drab beyond description—even tactful Bel had told her so.

‘As it happens, I have a couple of walking dresses that Bel bullied me into having made. I will wear one of those if we call at the chateau; I would not wish to embarrass you in front of your friends.’ She was willing to concede he had a point, although she could not imbue much warmth into her agreement.

‘That was not what concerned me—I am sorry if I gave you the impression that it was.’ He regarded her frowningly for a moment, then smiled, spreading his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘I truly am sorry. I spoke as I would to an old friend, out of bafflement that a handsome woman would diminish her looks so. But you rightly tell me to mind my own business; a chance-met cousin has no right to speak in such a way. I did not intend to hurt your feelings.’

And he had not, she realised, disregarding the blatant flattery of him calling her handsome. If she was honest with herself, she recognised in his outburst the same exasperation that sometimes led her to blurt out frank, or downright tactless, comments. She could remember demanding outright of a drooping Bel if she and Ashe were lovers. In comparison with that, a blunt remark about clothes was nothing.

‘I know you did not. Let us go and have our luncheon,’ she suggested. ‘I am starving.’

Theo ducked his head in acknowledgement of her gesture. ‘I will take the gig and our painting gear round to my lodgings first. It is on the way.’

A gangling youth came to take the reins as they led the horse up to a substantial village house. Theo lifted down the pile of easels and stools and opened the door while Elinor waited. From the exchange of words, it seemed his landlady was at home and after a minute she came out, a piece of sewing draped over her arm, a needle and thread trailing from the bodice of her crisp white apron.

‘Bonjour, madame.’ Elinor inclined her head and was rewarded by a flashing smile and an equally punctilious acknowledgement. Theo’s landlady was a handsome woman in her late thirties. Her abundant brown hair was coiled on top of her head and her simple gown showed off a fine figure. It could not, Elinor reflected wryly, be much of a hardship for him to lodge there. She was also, if the cut of her own gown and the fine pleating around the hem of the sewing she was holding were anything to judge by, a fine sempstress.

‘The inn is over here.’ Theo took Elinor’s arm and guided her towards the bridge. ‘We can sit under that tree if you like.’

The food was good. Plain country fare, and all the better for it in Elinor’s opinion, which she expressed as she passed the coarse game pâté across the table to Theo. ‘Do you keep house for Aunt Louisa?’ he asked, cutting them both bread.

‘Me? Goodness, no! I am quite hopelessly undomesticated. I do not have any of the proper accomplishments for a young lady.’ She glanced down at the lumpily-hemmed skirts of her offending gown and added, ‘As you have already noticed.’

‘Why should you, if your inclination is not in that direction?’ Theo took a long swallow of ale. ‘I have no inclination for any of the things I ought—I know nothing of estate management, my knowledge of politics is limited to keeping a wary eye on the international situation, it must be years since I went to a play…’

‘But I am a lady and for me not to have accomplishments is disgraceful, whether I want them or not. You are a man and may do as you please.’

‘True. A gratifying circumstance I must remind myself of next time Aunt Louisa is informing me that I am a scapegrace or Papa is practising one of his better hellfire sermons on me. Do you ride?’

‘Papa taught me when I was little, but I could never keep my seat on a side saddle. When I reached the age when I could not possibly continue to ride astride, I had to stop.’ Elinor sighed with regret. ‘Perhaps I will persevere with trying to drive instead.’

‘I knew a lady who rides astride,’ Theo remarked. ‘She has designed a most ingenious divided garment that looks like a pleated skirt when she is standing or walking. It was necessary to have the waistline made unfashionably low, of course, near the natural line. But it would be more suitable for your activities in the ruins, I imagine. It certainly appeared to give her considerable freedom.’

There was a faint air of masculine nostalgia about Theo as he spoke. Elinor bit the inside of her lip to repress a smile—or, worse, an indiscreet question. She would hazard a guess that the lady in question enjoyed more freedoms than simply unconventional dressing and that her cousin had enjoyed them with her.

‘That sounds extremely sensible,’ she observed, visited by an idea. ‘Do you think your landlady could make me such a garment if you were to draw it for her?’

‘But of course. From what I have seen on her worktable and her stocks of fabrics, she makes clothes for most of the ladies in the area, including those at the Chateau de Beaumartin, I imagine.’ Theo set down his glass and sat up straighter, reaching into his pocket for the big notebook he seemed to take everywhere. ‘Let me see what I can recall.’

What he recalled proved beyond doubt that he had a far more intimate knowledge of the garment in question than he should have. Elinor preserved a straight face as diagram followed diagram until she could resist no longer. ‘How clever of you to deduce all of that from the external appearance only, especially, as you say, the garment is designed to conceal its secrets.’

‘Ah.’ Theo put down his pencil. ‘Indeed. And I have now revealed a situation that I should most definitely not discuss with my sisters, let alone you, Cousin. How it is that I do not seem able to guard my tongue around you, I do not know.’

‘Was she one of the willing ladies I most reprehensibly referred to yesterday?’ Elinor enquired, not in the slightest bit shocked, only slightly, and inexplicably, wistful. Her newly rediscovered cousin was nothing if not a very masculine man. Doubtless he had to beat the ladies off with sticks.

‘Yes, I am afraid so. Rather a dangerous lady, and willing, very much on her own terms.’

‘Good for her,’ Elinor retorted robustly. It sounded rather a desirable state, being dangerous and dealing with men on one’s own terms. ‘May I have those?’

She reached for the little pile of sketches, but Theo held them out of reach. ‘On one condition only.’ She frowned at him. ‘That I choose the colour.’

‘Certainly not! I cannot go and discuss having gowns made with a man in attendance, it would be quite shocking.’

‘Gowns plural, is it?’ He grinned at her, still holding the papers at arm’s length. ‘I am your cousin, for goodness’ sake, Elinor, and she is my landlady. All I want to do is help you pick colours.’

‘Dictate them, more like,’ she grumbled, trying to maintain a state of indignation when truthfully she found she was rather enjoying this. It had been a long time since she had allowed herself to think about clothes as anything but utilitarian necessities. ‘Very well. And, yes, gowns plural if it will save me from being nagged by you.’

‘I am forgiven for my plain speaking, then?’ He moved the sketches a little closer to her outstretched hand.

‘About my clothes or your mistress?’ Elinor leaned forwards and tweaked them from his fingers.

‘Your clothes. And she was never my mistress—a term that implies some kind of arrangement. I am too careful of my life to entangle myself with that dangerous creature.’

‘Tell me about her.’ Elinor folded the sketches safely away in her pocket and regarded him hopefully.

‘No! Good God, woman, Aunt Louisa would have my hide if she had the faintest idea what we are talking about. I don’t know what has come over me.’

‘We are becoming friends, I think,’ she suggested. ‘I find you very easy to talk to, perhaps because we are cousins. And I am not the sort of female you are used to.’

‘That,’ Theo observed with some feeling, ‘is very true. Would you like anything else to eat? No? Then let us go and consult Madame Dubois.’

After five minutes with Madame, Theo was amused to observe that Elinor stopped casting him embarrassed glances and dragged him firmly into the discussion, even when he judged it time to retreat and began to edge towards the door.

‘Come back,’ she ordered, sounding alarmingly like her mother for a moment. ‘My French is not up to this, I do not have the vocabulary for clothes.’

‘What makes you think I have?’ he countered. She slanted him a look that said she knew all to well that he had plenty of experience with French modistes and turned back to wrestling with the French for waistline.

Between them they managed well enough and Madame grasped the principles of the radical divided skirt very quickly. ‘You could start a fashion, mademoiselle,’ she remarked, spreading out the sketches and studying them. ‘Your English tailors say we French cannot produce riding habits to their standard—let us see!’

They agreed on the riding skirt with a jacket and a habit-shirt to go beneath it, a morning dress and a half-ress gown. ‘Now, this is the fun part.’ Theo began to poke about in the bales of cloth and had his hand slapped firmly away by Madame.

‘Zut! Let mademoiselle choose.’

‘No, I trust Monsieur Ravenhurst’s judgement,’ Elinor said bravely, apparently only half-convinced of the wisdom of that assertion.

‘That for the riding habit.’ Decisive, he pulled out a roll of moss-green twill. ‘And that, or that, for the morning dress.’ Elinor submitted to having a sprigged amber muslin and a garnet-red stripe held up against her. Madame favoured the amber, he the red. Elinor wrinkled her nose, apparently unhappy about pattern at all.

‘No, look.’ Theo, carried away, began to drape the cloth around her. ‘See? Pinched in here to show your waist off, and here, cut on the bias across the bosom—’ He broke off, finding himself with both arms around Elinor, his nose not eight inches from where her cleavage would be if it was not swathed in fabric.

‘It is my bosom,’ she pointed out mildly. He felt heat sweep through him, dropped the fabric and stepped back abruptly. She caught the falling cloth, plainly amused at his discomfiture. ‘I like this garnet stripe, I think, and I agree with Monsieur Ravenhurst’s suggestions about the cut.’ She tilted her head provocatively, disconcerting him by her agreement.

‘Alors.’ Madame appeared to have become resigned to her mad English clients, or perhaps she was simply used to him and inclined to be indulgent. ‘The evening gown. Amber silk I have. A nice piece.’

‘Violet,’ Theo said, pointing. ‘That one.’

‘With my hair?’ Elinor asked in alarm. He grinned at her. There would be no hiding in corners in a gown of that shimmering amethyst.

‘Definitely.’ She was not going to prevail this time. And he felt as though he had found a ruby on a rubbish tip and had delivered it to a master jeweller for cleaning and resetting. It was really rather gratifying.

A price and a startlingly short delivery time having been agreed, Elinor found herself outside with Theo, feeling somewhat as though she had been caught up in a whirlwind and deposited upside down just where she had been originally standing. ‘I came out to look at a church,’ she observed faintly, ‘and now I’ve driven a gig, had my clothes insulted, eaten at an inn and bought three outfits.’

‘You may express your gratitude when you see the effect.’ Theo placed her hand in the crook of his elbow and began to stroll. ‘A walk along the river bank before we go back?’

‘I did not say I was grateful!’ Elinor retrieved her hand, but fell into step beside him.

‘Admit that was more fun than drawing capitals all day.’ He turned off the road and began to walk upstream.

‘It was different,’ she conceded. ‘Oh, look, a kingfisher.’ They followed the flight of the jewelled bird as it fished, moving from one perch to another. The water was clear with long weed streaming like silk ribbons over the mosaic of pebbles and here and there a weir broke the smooth surface into foam and eddies.

There did not seem to be any need to speak. Sometimes Theo would reach out and touch her arm and point and she would follow the line of the long brown finger up to where a buzzard soared overhead or down to a yellow butterfly, unnoticed almost at her feet.

She picked a tiny bunch of wild flowers—one sprig of cow parsley, one long-stemmed buttercup, a spray of a blue creeping thing she had never seen before—and tucked them into his button hole. He retaliated by capturing her straw hat, which she had been swinging by its ribbons, unheeding of the effect on her complexion, and filling it with dog roses, won at the expense of badly pricked fingers.

The path began to meander away from the riverside. Then Theo pointed through a tangle of bushes to where a shelving stretch of close-cropped grass ran down to the water. ‘Rest there a while, then walk back?’ he suggested.

Elinor nodded. ‘I could wander along here all afternoon in a trance, but I suppose we had best go no further.’ It was the most curious sort of holiday, this day out of time with the almost-stranger she could recall from her childhood. Restful, companionable and yet with an edge of something that made her not uncomfortable exactly…

‘You’ll have to duck.’ He was holding up a bramble. Elinor stopped pondering just how she was feeling and crouched down under a hawthorn bush, crept under the bramble and straightened up. ‘Careful—too late, stand still.’

Something was grasping her very firmly by the net full of hair at her nape. Impatient, she shook her head and felt the whole thing pull free. ‘Bother!’ She swung round, her hair spilling out over her shoulders, only to find Theo disentangling the net from a blackthorn twig. ‘Thank you.’ Elinor held out a hand.

‘Torn beyond repair, I fear.’ Theo scrunched it up in his hand and tossed it into the river where it bobbed, forlorn, for a while, then sank, soggily.

‘Liar!’ Elinor marched up until she was toe to toe with him. ‘It was fine. It is just like my gowns.’

Theo dropped to the ground, disconcerting her as she stood there trying to rant at him. ‘I wanted to see your hair. Would you like a drink?’

‘Yes, I would, but I’m not drinking river water—look, cows. And you did not have to throw my hairnet away.’

Theo was fishing in the satchel she had thought contained only sketching equipment, emerging with a bottle, a corkscrew and two horn beakers. ‘I did. What would you have said if I’d asked you to let your hair down?’

‘No, of course.’ Exasperated Elinor sat down too, hugging her knees. Hair was in her eyes and she blew at it.

‘I rest my case. Here, try this. It really ought to be cooler, but never mind.’

‘Do you always get what you want?’ Elinor took the beaker resentfully. The first mouthful of wine slid down, fruity and thirst quenching. She took another, her irritation ebbing away. It seemed impossible to be cross with Theo for very long.

‘I try to.’ He was lying back, his beaker balanced on his chest, hat tipped over his eyes. ‘There’s a leather lace in my bag somewhere if you want to plait it.’

‘And a comb, no doubt.’ Elinor began to rummage. ‘Honestly! And men complain about all the things women keep in their reticules. You could survive for a week in the wilds on what you have in here.’

‘That’s the idea.’ Theo sounded as though he was dropping off to sleep.

Notebook and pencils were the least of it. There was rye bread folded in greased paper, a water bottle, a red spotted handkerchief, a fearsome clasp knife, some coiled wire she suspected was for rabbit snares, the comb, a tangle of leather laces, some loose coins… ‘Ouch!’

‘That’ll be the paper of pins. Have you found what you need?’

‘Thank you, yes.’ Sucking a pricked finger, Elinor bundled everything back into the satchel and began to comb out her hair. Thanks to the careless way she had stuffed it into the net that morning it was full of tangles now and the task took a good ten minutes.

Finally she had it smooth. Her arms ached. Plaiting it seemed like too much trouble. She reached for the beaker of wine, found it empty and refilled it. As though she had called to him, Theo picked the beaker off his chest, sat up and pushed the hat back out of his eyes. ‘Finished?’

‘I have to plait it yet.’ The late afternoon sun was warm and the burgundy, unaccustomed at this hour, ran heavy in her veins. Sleep seemed tempting; Elinor straightened her spine and tipped the unfinished half of her wine out on the grass.

‘I’ll do that.’ Theo was behind her before she could protest, the weight of her hair lifting to lie heavy in his hands. ‘Give me the comb.’

He seemed to know what he was doing. Elinor reached up and passed the comb back over her shoulder, then wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees and rested her forehead on them. It was curiously soothing, the sweep of the comb through her hair from crown to almost her waist. Soothing to sit there in the warmth with the birds chattering and the river splashing and her own pulse beating…

Chapter Four

‘Time to go.’

‘Mmpff?’ Elinor woke up with a start to find the shadows lengthening over the meadows and Theo on his feet, stretching hugely. ‘I’ve been asleep?’

‘For about half an hour. Me too.’

As she moved her head, the weight of her plait swung across her shoulders and curls tickled her cheeks. ‘What have you done to my hair?’ Reaching up, she found he had braided it, not from the nape, but elaborately all the way down from the crown, leaving wisps and curls around her forehead and cheeks.

‘Plaited it. Isn’t it right? I did it like I would a horse’s tail.’ Elinor eyed him, unsure whether this was the truth or whether she had just been given some other woman’s hairstyle.

‘Thank you,’ she said at last, settling for brief courtesy and wishing she had a mirror to check it in. She ran a cautious hand over her head, half-expecting to find he had woven in buttercups while he was at it.

Theo was moving about now, stooping to pick up the wine bottle and the beakers, fastening the satchel. He moved beautifully, Elinor realised, the image of his body elongated in that luxurious stretch proving hard to dislodge from her mind. Long legs, long back tapering from broad shoulders to narrow hips—all those markers of perfect classical proportion it was acceptable for a lady to admire, provided they were depicted in chaste white marble.

She seemed to have spent the past few months surrounded by men acknowledged to be the best looking in society—some of them her cousins, one Bel’s new husband—and she could honestly say she had felt not the faintest stirring of interest in anything other than their conversation. Why she was noticing now that Theo’s boots clung to his muscular calves in quite that way was a mystery. It was not as though he was good looking.

Elinor got to her feet, brushed off her skirts and catalogued all the ways in which he was not good looking. His nose, though large and masculine, was undistinguished. His jaw line was strong, but his chin had the suspicion of a dimple which somewhat diminished its authority. His eyebrows were much darker than his hair and he showed no tendency to raise one in an elegant manner. His mouth was wide and mobile and he seemed more prone to cheerful grins than smoothly sophisticated smiles. Yes, she could quite see why Cousin Theo would not fit in to London society.

He was ducking under the treacherous brambles again, holding them up for her with one hand, the other outstretched. Elinor took it, crouched lower and was safely through. Somehow her hand remained in his as they turned back along the path towards St Père and somehow it felt remarkably normal to have those warm fingers wrapped companionably around hers.

‘I will come at ten tomorrow and see if Aunt Louisa would like to call on the Count.’

‘It is her writing day tomorrow, it may not be convenient. She will probably wish to make it the day after.’ And tomorrow would be a free day for Elinor, unless she was required to redraw her basilica sketches. If Theo was not going to make his call…

‘It is, however, the day on which I am calling on him, so I am afraid your dear mama will just have to fit in with someone else’s convenience for once.’ She blinked, startled by the thread of steel in Theo’s tone. ‘I will come in with you when we get back, if you would prefer not to pass on that message.’

‘No, no, please do not trouble yourself. I will make sure she understands that any other day would not be possible.’ His chin, elusive dimple or not, suddenly looked really rather determined. Elinor shrank from the thought of finding herself in the middle of a confrontation between her mother and Theo.

‘Does she bully you?’

‘No. Not at all.’ He made no response to that. Elinor walked in silence, well aware that her mother did not bully her for the simple reason she never had any occasion to stand up to her. Given that she was on the shelf, and the alternative ways of life were so unappealing, she simply went along with whatever Mama wanted. What would happen if she ever did find herself in opposition?

‘We are nearly back; you had best put on your bonnet again.’ Theo fished another lace from his satchel and gathered her prickly roses into a bunch so she could tie on the flat straw hat again.

‘That,’ he remarked, flipping the brim, ‘suits you. We will save it from the bonfire.’

‘What bonfire?’

‘The one for your gowns and any other garment you possess that is sludge coloured.’

‘You are just as much a bully as Mama,’ Elinor remarked, climbing into the gig and waving away his offer of the reins.

‘Am I?’ Theo’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘Say no to me, then, and see what happens.’

‘Very well. I will not burn my old gowns.’

‘What will you do with them?’

‘Give them to my maid, who will probably sell them.’

‘An excellent solution. See, no opposition at all.’

‘You are all sweet reasonableness, in fact.’

‘Of course.’ The horse toiled up the hill to the square below the long steep street to the basilica while Elinor tried, and failed, to come up with a retort that was not thoroughly unladylike. Theo guided it towards the hitching post in the shade.

‘No, I can walk from here, honestly.’ He looked doubtful, then clicked his fingers at a burly man lounging against the tree trunk.

‘Hey, you. Carry this lady’s things up the hill for her.’ The man caught the coin tossed in his direction neatly, then came to lift the sketching paraphernalia from the gig, shouldering the easel and waiting for Theo to hand Elinor down.

‘Tomorrow at ten, then? Thank you for my day.’

‘And for the new gowns?’

‘I reserve judgement on those until I see what they look like.’ She laughed back at his smile and set off up the hill, her porter at her heels.

* * *

Theo caught Hythe’s eye and nodded almost imperceptibly before the man set off in Elinor’s wake. He tipped his hat over his eyes, leaving just enough room to see under the brim, and leaned back against the backboard, apparently asleep. It was a useful trick, and had served him well in the past.

That had been an unexpected day. Unexpected, different and quietly pleasant. It had left him with the desire to set a match to the entire contents of his aunt’s study, though. Poor Cousin Elinor. No—he had started out feeling sorry for her, but that, he acknowledged, was not the right emotion.

She was intelligent, amusing, artistically talented and really rather lovely, if she could ever be brought to see it. On the other hand, her very unconsciousness of her looks was part of her charm.

Or was it just him? Certainly no other gentleman had shown her overt attention in the past or she would not have been so completely relaxed in his company. It seemed she vanished at will behind a mask that disguised her as spinster bluestocking and both she, and all the men she came in contact with, accepted that.

When he thought of the liberties he could have taken with her—probably would have taken with someone of more sophistication—he shuddered. The feel of her, her waist trim between his palms as he lifted her down from that chair in the church. Her hair, glossy under his hands as she let him handle it. Her total relaxation as she slept on the riverbank beside him. And her warm, long-fingered hand trusting in his as they walked back.

Through his narrow viewpoint Hythe came into sight, striding down the hill. ‘That the same cousin, guv’nor?’ he asked when he was up on the seat and Theo was lifting the reins.

‘The same. Why?’

‘Thought her a bit of a drab piece yesterday. Different today, bit of a sparkle about her.’

‘She needed some fresh air,’ Theo said. Fresh air, a change of scene and someone to appreciate her. Perhaps Count Leon would take a fancy to her; that would distract him nicely.

Was there any danger, taking his aunt and cousin into that chateau? No, surely not. Even if it were the count who had robbed him of the ch—the object. Even to himself he did not name it. It seemed hard to believe that he was the culprit, the man who had struck Theo down and murdered the old count, his father. If he was innocent, then the danger would come when whoever did have it attempted to sell it back to the count. Theo could send the women packing as soon as that happened.

His hand went to the small of his back where the pistol was wedged into his belt and then down to check the knives slipped into his carefully made boots. Things were safe enough now. His mouth settled into a thin smile that did not reach his eyes.

‘Good afternoon, Elinor.’ Lady James hardly glanced up from her work table as Elinor came in, a rustic jug with the wild roses in her hands. She looked around for a free flat surface, then gave up and stood them in the hearth.

‘Good afternoon, Mama. Did you have a good day?’

‘Passable. Those sketches of yours are acceptable, I do not require any of them redone. What was the church at St Père like?’

‘Of as late a date as you supposed,’ Elinor said indifferently. At least she did not have to spend any more time squinting into shadows in the basilica. ‘There are the ruins of the old church next to it, but nothing of any interest remains.’

‘You were a long time.’

‘Cousin Theo and I went for a walk. I found the exercise invigorating after so much time spent drawing.’

‘Very true. A rational way to spend the day, then.’ Lady James added a word to the page, then looked up, apparently satisfied with the sentence she had just completed. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

‘Oh.’ Elinor put up a hand, startled to find the softness against her cheek. ‘My hair net caught on a twig and was torn. I had no hair pins, so braiding it seemed the best thing to do.’ In for a penny… ‘I ordered some new gowns while I was in the village. Cousin Theo’s landlady is a dressmaker.’

‘Nothing extravagant, I trust. There is plenty of wear in that gown for a start.’ Clothing, especially fashionable clothing, was not just an unnecessary expense, but a drug for young women’s minds, in Lady James’s opinion.

‘They are well within my allowance, Mama—a positive bargain, in fact—and they are practical garments.’ She had lost her mother’s attention again. Elinor half-stood, then sat down again. Normally at this point she would retreat and leave Mama in peace, but today, after the experience of spending hours with someone who actually understood the concept of a reciprocal conversation, she felt less patient.

‘Mama, Cousin Theo tells me that there is a most interesting chateau in St Martin, a village beyond St Père. He has an introduction to the count and thought you may like to accompany him tomorrow and see the building.’

‘Hmm?’ Lady James laid down her pen and frowned. ‘Yes, if that is the Chateau de Beaumartin, I have heard of it. I believe it has an unusual early chapel, a remnant of an earlier castle. Tomorrow is not convenient, however.’

‘It is the day Cousin Theo will be visiting. That and no other, he says, so I am afraid we will have to be a little flexible if we are not to miss the opportunity.’

‘Flexible? He obviously has no concept of the importance of routine and disciplined application for a scholar. Very well. I never thought to see the day when I would have to accommodate the whims of a scapegrace nephew.’

‘I believe he is calling on business, not for pleasure, Mama. And he is a most accomplished artist,’ she added, feeling the need to defend Theo in some way. He would be amused to hear her, she suspected. Somehow he seemed too relaxed and self-confident to worry about what one eccentric aunt thought of him. ‘He will be here at ten, Mama.’

‘Indeed? Well, if we are to spend tomorrow out, then we have work to do. Those proofs will not wait any longer, not if I am to entrust them to what passes for the French postal system these days. It pains me to find anything good to say about the Corsican Monster, but apparently he made the mails run on time.’

‘Yes, Mama, I will just go and wash my hands.’ It did not seem possible to say that she would rather spend the remainder of the afternoon while the light held in working up some of the rapid sketches she had made during the day. The one of Theo drawing, for example, or lying stretched out on the river bank with his hat tipped over his nose, or the tiny scribbled notes she had made to remind her of the way that blue creeping flower had hugged the ground.

Never mind, she told herself, opening the door to her little room on the second floor. They would still be there in her pocket sketchbook, and her memory for everything that had happened today was sharp. All except for those soft, vague minutes while Theo had been plaiting her hair and she had fallen asleep. That was like the half-waking moments experienced at dawn, and likely to prove just as elusive.

She splashed her face and washed her hands in the cold water from the washstand jug without glancing in the mirror. She rarely did so, except to check for ink smudges or to make sure the parting down the middle of her hair was straight. Now, as she reached for her apron, she hesitated and tipped the swinging glass to reflect her face. And stared.

Her nose was, rather unfortunately, becoming tanned. Her cheeks were pink and her hair… She looked at least two years younger. Which was probably because she was smiling—not a reaction that looking in the mirror usually provoked. Or was it that?

Elinor assumed a serious expression. She still looked—what? Almost pretty? It must be the softness of those ridiculous tendrils of hair escaping around her forehead and temples. Looking pretty was of no practical use to a bookish spinster. On the other hand, it was rather gratifying to discover that her despised red hair could have that effect. And the unladylike tan at least disguised the freckles somewhat.

What would have happened five years ago during her disastrous come-out if she had dressed her hair like this instead of trying to hide it? Nothing, probably. She was still the younger daughter, destined to remain at home as Mama’s support. And she had always been studious, which immediately put men off. It took a long time, and numerous snubs, before she realised she was supposed to pretend she was less intelligent than they were, even when their conversation was banal beyond belief. But she never could bring herself to pretend. It was no loss; she would be bored to tears as a society wife.

The apron she wore when she was working was still in her hand, the cuff-protectors folded neatly in the pocket. She looked down at the sludge-coloured gown and tossed the apron on to the bed. The gown was going, it might as well go covered in ink spots.

Elinor ran down the twisting stairs, humming. Even the waiting proofs of A comparison between early and late eleventh-century column construction in English churches did not seem so daunting after all.

‘Pink roses?’ Lady James levelled her eyeglass at the crown of Elinor’s villager hat, decorated with some of yesterday’s roses. ‘And ruby-red ribbons? Whatever are you thinking of?’

‘The ribbons match my walking dress, Mama. And I think the roses look charming with it. The dress is one of those Cousin Belinda persuaded me to buy, if you recall. I thought I should make an effort for our call.’

‘Hmm. Where has that young man got to?’ As the clocks had not yet struck ten, this seemed a little harsh.

‘He is just coming, Mama.’ Reprehensibly Elinor had her elbows on the ledge of the open casement and was leaning out to watch the street. ‘Good morning, Cousin Theo. You are very fine this morning.’

‘And you, too.’ He swept off his tall hat and made a leg, causing a passing group of young women to giggle and stare. Biscuit-coloured pantaloons, immaculate linen, a yellow silk waistcoat and a dark blue coat outshone anything to be seen on the streets of Vezelay on a workaday Wednesday morning. ‘Has the bonfire occurred?’

Jeanie, their Scottish maid who had travelled with them from London and who was proving very adaptable to life in France, came down the stairs, opened the door with a quick bob to Theo, then vanished down the street with a large bundle under her arm.

‘Unnecessary, as I told you.’ Elinor whispered, conscious of her mother behind her gathering up reticule and parasol. ‘Jeanie’s on her way to the used-clothes dealer right now.’

‘Do you intend to converse with your cousin through the window like a scullery maid, Elinor, or are we going?’

‘We are going if you are ready, Mama.’

‘I am. Good morning, Theophilus. Now, then, who exactly are these friends of yours?’

‘Good morning, Aunt. Not friends, I have never met the family. I did business with the count’s late father earlier this year, just before his death. There are…complications with the matter that I need to discuss with the son.’

Lady James unfurled her parasol, took Theo’s arm and swept off down the hill, leaving Elinor to shut the door and hurry after them. ‘Count Leon is about my age and lived almost entirely in England since just before the Terror.’

‘His father obviously had the sense to get out in time.’

‘The foresight, certainly. He moved his money to English banks and his portable valuables he placed in hiding in France. The estates and the family chateaux were seized, of course. Most of the furnishings and paintings were dispersed.’

‘And your business with the late count?’

‘Mama!’ Elinor murmured, cringing at the bluntness of the enquiry. Theo was hardly likely to answer that.

‘Why, helping him retrieve the missing items,’ he answered readily. ‘I had some success, especially with the pictures. They are easier to identify than pieces of furniture.’

‘Ah, so you have located some more items,’ Lady James said, apparently happy now she had pinned down Theo’s precise business.

He did not answer. Which means, Elinor thought, studying the back of his neck as though that singularly unresponsive and well-barbered part of his anatomy could give her some clue, Mama is not correct and his business with Count Leon is something else entirely. How intriguing.

Waiting at the bottom of the hill was a closed carriage. Theo’s own? Or had he hired it especially? Determined not to be as openly inquisitive as her mother, Elinor allowed herself to be handed in and set to studying the interior.

Dark blue, well-padded upholstery. Carpet underfoot. Neat netting strung across the roof, cunningly constructed pockets in the doors and pistol holders on either side. Theo’s own, she was certain. Her cousin was a man who enjoyed luxury and valued practicality, she deduced, her gaze on the swinging gold tassels of his Hessian boots and her memory conjuring up the contents of his sketching satchel. But what sort of life encompassed carriages of this quality and the need for rabbit snares?

She lifted her eyes to find him watching her, one dark brow raised. She had been wrong to think he would not do that, she thought. Today, far from the comfortable cousin of yesterday, he was a society gentleman and a rather impressive one at that.

‘I was admiring the appointments of your carriage,’ she said calmly, in response to the raised brow. ‘Although I cannot see the container for the game you snare.’

He gave a snort of laughter, the gentleman turning back into Cousin Theo again. ‘You guessed it was mine?’

‘I am coming to know the style,’ she said, and was rewarded by a smile and an inclination of the head. He looked rather pleased at the compliment.

‘Whatever are you talking about, Elinor?’ Lady James did not wait for a response, but swept on. ‘How far is it, Theophilus?’

‘Another five miles, Aunt. I do not suppose I can prevail upon you to call me Theo?’

‘Certainly not. I do not approve of shortening names. Most vulgar.’

Under cover of brushing his hair back he rolled his eyes at Elinor, almost provoking her to giggles. She frowned repressively and set herself the task of talking her mother into a good humour before they arrived. ‘Do tell me about this chapel, Mama. I am sure I will not appreciate it without your guidance.’ This time Theo crossed his eyes, making her cough desperately and be thankful that the interior of the carriage was dim enough for Mama not to notice.

He was back to being the perfect gentleman again by the time they rolled past the outlying farmhouse, through the gatehouse and into the courtyard of the chateau. ‘I sent ahead yesterday to apprise them of our visit; we should be expected.’

As he spoke the great double doors at the top of the steps swung open and a young man stepped out, two women dressed in mourning black just behind him. Elinor did not like to stare and with the fuss attendant on having the steps let down, retrieving her mother’s reticule from the carriage and following her up the steps, it was not until she was within arm’s length of the count that she saw his face.

It was only the tightly tied garnet ribbons under her chin that stopped her jaw dropping: the Comte Leon de Beaumartin was quite the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

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