Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [34]
‘Letter for you, miss, just come.’
I opened the door only wide enough to receive it and took it over to the window. The paper and the writing were stiff and formal, like the man who’d sent it, the message very much to the point.
Miss Lane,
The mare may be sent to the Silver Horseshoe livery stables on the western side of Ascot Heath. The manager of the stables, Coleman, has agreed to pass on your letters to me, which should be addressed to Mr Blackstone, care of 3 Paper Buildings, Inner Temple. You will present yourself at 16 Store Street, near the new British Museum, on Monday. Ask for Miss Bodenham and act according to her instructions.
Early on Sunday morning I walked to the stables in sweet air between hay fields, with choirs of skylarks carolling overhead. Amos Legge was looking in at Esperance, leaning over the half door. He turned when he heard my step and gave a great open smile that did my heart good because it was so different from the man in black.
‘Just given Rancie her breakfast, I have.’
She was munching from a bucket of oats and soaked bran, the black cat looking down at her from the hay manger.
‘I’ve found a place for her,’ I said.
I’d expected him to be pleased, but his face fell.
‘Where’s that then, miss?’
‘The Silver Horseshoe, on the west side of Ascot Heath. You can take her there in the bull’s cart, then you’re on the right side of London for getting home to Herefordshire.’
He still looked unhappy, and I supposed he was calculating how little profit his long journey would have brought him.
‘You won’t go home quite empty-handed,’ I said. ‘This is for the expenses of the journey, and what’s left over you are to keep for yourself.’
I put five sovereigns into his hand. He deserved them, and being reckless with Blackstone’s money was some consolation for having to take it. He looked down at the coins and up at me.
‘I’m sorry it isn’t more,’ I said. ‘I am very grateful to you and hope I may see you again some day.’
The sovereigns went slowly into his pocket, but his hand came out holding something else.
‘My cameo ring? But you were to sell it.’
‘We managed after all, miss. She do resemble you somehow, the lady on it.’
Tears came to my eyes. That was what my father had said when he bought it for me. I drew out the ribbon I wore round my neck with my father’s ring that the black one had so reluctantly given me and knotted the cameo beside it. I thought my good giant might have gone hungry. His cheeks looked hollow.
‘Thank you, Mr Legge. That was a great kindness.’
He murmured something, then ducked into the box to pick up the empty feed bucket and went away across the yard. I spent some time with Esperance, stroking her soft muzzle, watching the way her lower lip drooped and twitched, sure sign of contentment in a horse.
‘I shall come and see you at Ascot when I can,’ I told her.
It occurred to me that, by sending her ahead, I’d committed myself to winning the governess post. Until then, I’d been priding myself on my cleverness, but now I was beginning to see how thoroughly I’d got myself enmeshed.
‘And I suppose you’d better go too,’ I said to the cat Lucy.
She gave a little mipping sound in answer and jumped lightly down to her place on the mare’s back. I left them there. In the yard, Amos was filling buckets at the pump. I held out my hand and wished him goodbye, but again he insisted on escorting me back to town. We didn’t speak much on the way and he seemed cast