The Disgraceful Mr Ravenhurst

‘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.