The Disgraceful Mr Ravenhurst

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.