cliff-top conversation. “I’m sure we shall always be friends.”
When they reached the gamekeeper’s cottage again, at last, Nigel’s father came out to meet them. He had returned from the stables during their walk and had apparently been waiting by the door to receive them.
“Lord Somerville has returned early and is eager to speak with you, Lady Margaret,” the old man said nervously. “I did not want to interrupt your walk, but I fear he will come looking for you soon if you do not appear at the house.”
Margaret turned and looked at Nigel. He saw a wistfulness mixed with the worry in her gaze. She cleared her throat and nodded towards the trail that led through the trees towards the village.
“Perhaps it would be better if we parted ways here,” she said. “You could go back through the woods after you spend time with your father.”
She was asking him not to take the obvious road down that he had taken that morning. Nigel understood her meaning. She would not admit to them being more than friends, but she seemed to understand that her father would interpret their walk in another way entirely.
“I will do as you ask,” he said.
She walked away, and he watched her from the front step. She never turned around to bid him farewell, but he saw her pause by the stables to re-fasten the pins in her hair before walking the rest of the way up to the house.
Chapter 18
“You’ve an invitation, Captain,” Mrs Cather intercepted Nigel when he appeared downstairs the next morning. “It comes from Sir Arthur’s estate.”
Nigel had spent a restless night turning over thoughts of the conversation he had shared with Margaret on the edge of the cliffs, and now it seemed a startling shift to imagine himself the sort of gentleman that people like the elegant Sir Arthur – renowned for his hunting trips and his grand estate – should think worthy of an invitation.
“For me?” he took the card and opened it as the housekeeper poured him a cup of tea and went about setting the table with breakfast. He opened the letter.
My dear Captain Bateson, the letter began, almost comically familiar considering how Nigel had never before received any attention from Sir Arthur or any of his peers. I write to you on this most auspicious day to beg you to attend my card party this evening. My friend and long-time acquaintance, Major Andrew Moorhouse, assures me that you are a gentleman of good character who would add greatly to our party, and I have found that I cannot do without a fourth at my whist table. The event will begin at eight o’clock, but you may come whenever it suits you.
The letter was signed not with a name, but with the official seal that Sir Arthur used with all his documents. Nigel re-read it twice to be certain of its contents and then set about composing a response to be sent at once conveying his intentions to be in attendance at the event.
He was unsure how his social calendar would fare now that he had returned to his county a man too elegant to be looked at by his friends but too lowly to be considered by high society. This initial invitation had encouraged him that if he managed to keep the right connections, his future in Cornwall could be promising yet.
The day passed quietly enough, attending to some affairs about his residence and entertaining his father for the afternoon meal. Then he dressed in his uniform, as he had done on so many occasions, and called for his horse for the long ride to Sir Arthur’s home. He arrived as the last strains of evening light were fading from the sky.
Sir Arthur’s mansion was in a darker, heavier style than the surrounding estates, and had about it the elements of masculine fashion that Nigel had come to expect from Major Andrew’s particular friends. When he first stepped into the inner hall he was struck by the heavy wooden panelling, the impressive moulding and pictures hanging about, and the heads of several poor beasts that had been bagged while in the wilder parts of England.
The animals seemed to watch him reproachfully as he made his way through the main entrance and into the card room, which was just beyond the parlour. It was a smaller room, but still very heavily decorated and lit by lamps and candles. He saw no windows.
He was the last to arrive. This he