one interested in hiring an unknown singer, in spite of Lady Keswick’s unqualified praise.
Hopefully, Rosa wouldn’t need to fall back on her talent. Hopefully, she would find what she needed tonight and all her worries would be solved.
‘I am grateful for your help.’
‘Pshaw,’ the old lady said as she looked down at the company gathered on the lawn. ‘Did I tell you I was considered the best female archer in all of Sussex in my girlhood?’
Many times. ‘How did that come about?’ Rosa opened her parasol, shading them both from the afternoon sun.
‘It was in seventy-eight,’ Lady Keswick mused. Then scrunched up her face. ‘Or was it seventy-nine? No matter. Keswick was present, you know. He always said that was the day he learned about love…’
Love. Wasn’t it love that had brought Rosa to Sussex and to the house of a woman with a less-than-stellar reputation? An actress who had married an elderly nobleman. When Rosa saw Lady Keswick’s advertisement for a companion at this house, so close to where Rosa had grown up, the opportunity had seemed heaven-sent.
And if she was wrong about her father’s love? What then? Her hands clenched inside her gloves. She would not let such doubts enter her head. The idea was too painful to contemplate.
‘Oh, I say, nice shot!’ Lady Keswick cried, dragging Rosa’s attention back to the contest. Lady Smythe had hit the bull and was now laughing up at Lord Bannerby. It was the first time she’d seen the young woman look even moderately happy since she’d arrived. Bannerby tucked a loose strand of copper hair behind a shell-like ear with a grin that said his intentions were all bad, while Stanford glowered at the pair from the sidelines as if he wanted to challenge Bannerby to a duel for that touch.
Jealousy between rival males. Something in Rosa’s chest felt uncomfortable, the way a pebble in a shoe felt. A painful irritation.
She really didn’t belong in this house. The sooner she left the better. And tonight’s search would end all her difficulties. It must.
Garth stared up at the haloed moon and drew on his cigar. He sent a stream of smoke upwards to form a cloud above his head. A fluky gust of wind whipped it away. He enjoyed a smoke before bed, yet hated the smell of stale cigars first thing in the morning. So here he stood on the terrace to blow a cloud after the rest of the guests had retired. Some to their own rooms. Some to those of other guests.
He grinned as he recalled Bannerby’s obvious confusion when he’d chased him away from Penelope’s door. Hopefully that would be an end to the man’s ambition.
His lip curled. All he needed to do now was get the foolish wench to go home before a braver man than Bannerby tried his luck. Hapton, for example.
Garth turned the cigar in his fingers and observed the glowing tip through narrowed eyes. If he could get her out of here quickly, perhaps Mark need never know.
A scandal of that sort would make life for Mark unbearable. Unsupportable. The stupid wench.
He drew hard on his cheroot, fury at her deception a low fire in his stomach.
The sky turned dark. Rain spattered on his shoulders and in his hair, left dark spots on the terrace flags in a sudden rush of wind. The shower ceased. The cloud cleared, leaving the moonlit landscape grey and full of shadows. He gazed at that telltale ring of moisture around the moon and the increasing number of clouds floating by. More rain to come.
A door opened and closed somewhere around the corner. Someone coming in or going out? Mildly curious, he stubbed out his cigar and strolled down the steps. As he rounded the corner, he glimpsed the back of a figure enveloped in a black cloak. A woman, he thought from the slender shape and quick short steps. A chambermaid off to meet her beau in the village? He frowned. If he remembered correctly, the village lay in the other direction. There was something familiar about the hurrying figure. One of the guests?
A smile pulled at his lips. Intrigue was rife in this house, but why would one of the guests need to leave the comfort of a well-appointed bed in pursuit of bliss? Tantalised, he followed and caught another glimpse of the quick-paced shadow disappearing into the woodland to the east of the house, then a whiff of jasmine.
Mrs Travenor? Rose. Her height should have given