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  They had reached the hall by now and the lady stood still to stare at Mariota as if she could not believe what she was hearing.

  “I find it hard to understand,” she said. “My brother is a noted horseman and I have never in my life known him to fall for no apparent reason.”

  “It is difficult to comprehend what happened,” Mariota answered, “but now you tell me that there were highwaymen near the place where he was found, perhaps they shot at his horse and missed.”

  “You have his horse?”

  “Yes, he is in our stables and not injured in any way.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” the lady said.

  “Would you like to come upstairs and see your brother?” Mariota suggested.

  “Yes, yes, of course. You will understand I have been so desperately worried about him. The terrible thing is that when I reached Madresfield where we are staying with the Duke, I could not remember and neither could my servants, where we were when the highwaymen robbed me.”

  She sighed and went on,

  “Up until now, we have been looking in the wrong places and it was only last night that one of the Duke’s servants made enquiries in your village and was told that an injured man had been brought here.”

  “We have been looking after your brother,” Mariota said soothingly, “and both our own doctor and a very experienced one from Worcester have said that there is nothing really wrong with him except he is concussed.”

  “And your servants have been nursing him?” the lady asked. “How very very kind. You must allow me to thank them.”

  “As we are very short-staffed,” Mariota said with a little smile, “I have had to do more of the nursing myself, while my father and our manservant, who is very old, have washed and shaved him.”

  “Is Lord Fordcombe your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your name is the same?”

  “My name is Mariota Forde.”

  “And mine is Noreen Coddington. My husband, Lord Coddington, was killed in the war, so I am now very much alone. So you can see how much my brother means to me.”

  “Of course I understand,” Mariota replied. “I too have a brother who means a great deal to me.”

  She thought it might be a mistake to mention Jeremy, but, as he was not there, it could not be of any consequence.

  They walked along the passage to the King’s room and, as she stole a glance at Lady Coddington, she thought that she had a kind gentle face and was not the sort of person who would be aggressively determined to bring the criminals who had done her very little harm to the gallows.

  They entered the King’s room and Jacob, who was sitting on a chair by the window, hastily rose to his feet.

  “The gentleman be awake, Miss Mariota,” he said, “but he be quite quiet.”

  “Thank you, Jacob,” Mariota said. “I will look after him now.”

  Delighted to be relieved of his duties, Jacob shuffled away and Lady Coddington moved to the bed to look down at her brother.

  “I am here, Alvic, and I am so very very glad to have found you,” Mariota heard her say. “How are you? Are you in pain?”

  “A – little,” the Earl said slowly as if to speak was an effort. “It’s most extraordinary, I cannot – remember what – happened.”

  “I will tell you when you are better,” Lady Coddington said. “I am sure now you must rest and sleep and not worry about anything.”

  “I am – very – tired.”

  The words came with an effort from between the Earl’s lips and, as his eyes closed, his sister moved away from the bedside.

  As if she thought their voices might disturb the Earl, Mariota walked out of the room into the passage and Lady Coddington followed her before she said,

  “It is a terrible bruise!”

  “I know,” Mariota replied, “but his head hit a very large stone and I believe there is another bruise almost as bad on his shoulder.”

  “He is alive – that is all that matters – and those wicked men did not shoot him, as they might have done.”

  “He had no other injuries,” Mariota said quickly.

  There was a little silence.

  Then Lady Coddington said,

  “Do you think it would be possible to speak to your father? I feel I must thank him for having my brother here and of course as soon as I return to Madresfieid I will send over my brother’s valet to help nurse him.”

  “I am sure it will be pleasant for his Lordship to have his own valet with him,” Mariota agreed.

  “It has been very kind of you to look after him,” Lady Coddington said. “You will find that Hicks is an excellent nurse and has been with my brother since his Army days and is, I promise you, no trouble about the house.”

  She spoke in a way that told Mariota she had understood how few servants they had at Queen’s Ford.

  She would in fact have been very unobservant if she had not realised that the carpets were threadbare and the curtains faded and it was obvious that everything about their home was poverty-stricken.

  As they walked down the staircase towards her father’s study, Mariota felt pride telling her that she was not open to criticism from anybody.

  They had done their best and, if their best was not good enough, then the Earl of Buckenham could be taken somewhere else.

  She opened the door of the study and, as her father looked up from his desk where he was writing and frowned at being disturbed, she said quickly,

  “Lady Coddington has come here, Papa, to identify our injured guest as her brother, the Earl of Buckenham. She is also very anxious to meet you.”

  “I am indeed!” Lady Coddington said.

  She walked across the room with her hand outstretched.

  “Thank you, thank you, Lord Fordcombe, for being so kind as to look after my brother. I can never be sufficiently grateful to you.”

  “I am glad my son found him,” Lord Fordcombe replied. “It might have been fatal for him to have lain where he was all night. But fortunately he was carried back here and my daughter has nursed him, I think, most efficiently.”

  “You have all been so very kind,” Lady Coddington said, “and I feel most apologetic that we have imposed on your hospitality.”

  Mariota saw her father smile and looking very handsome as he did so and she thought that he was pleased at the way Lady Coddington was thanking him.

  “May I offer you a glass of sherry?” he asked.

  “That would be very pleasant,” Lady Coddington replied.

  Mariota went quickly from the room to fetch the decanter.

  By now, as her father had given a glass to Dr. Mortimer as well as to Dr. Dawson, there was only very little sherry left.

  She wondered if she should go down to the cellars and find another of the prized bottles, then decided it would take too long.

  Instead she carried it in on the salver as she had done before to find her father and Lady Coddington sitting in front of the fireplace discussing not the Earl of Buckenham, but her father’s work on the family history.

  “Now I remember,” Lady Coddington was saying. “I have heard of Queen’s Ford and always thought it such an attractive name and of course I have read of your ancestors in the history books. You must be very proud of your family.”

  “I am very proud of their exploits as soldiers, sailors and politicians,” Lord Fordcombe answered. “I just wish at times that they had not found it so expensive to serve their country. This generation came into the world with nothing and they will go out the same way!”

  Lady Coddington laughed.

  “You make me feel guilty because my husband’s relatives, the Coddingtons, did the opposite. They are not as old a family as yours, but they always seemed to winkle themselves into positions of power and found it very much to their advantage.”

  “Then they were much more fortunate than we have been,” Lord Fordcombe replied and appeared to think it amusing.

  Because she was curious to see
how his sister’s visit had affected the Earl, Mariota left them and went upstairs.

  As she had half-expected, his eyes were open and, as she approached the bed, he said,

  “Was Noreen here – just now?”

  “Yes, your sister came to see you. She has been looking for you and now she has found you.”

  “And – who are – you?”

  “My name is Mariota Forde.”

  “Mariota? I have not – heard that name – before.”

  “You must go to sleep,” Mariota said gently, “and get well quickly. Your sister wants you back on your feet, but she is very happy to have found you.”

  The Earl did not reply, but Mariota knew that he was watching her as she tidied the bedroom and picked up the jug of lemonade that was almost empty.

  “Would you like a little more to drink?” she asked. “And I think tonight you will be able to eat something.”

  “I am – not hungry, but thirsty.”

  Mariota poured out what was left in the jug and realised as she did so that the honey with which she had sweetened the lemonade had sunk to the bottom of it and wondered if the Earl would find it too sharp.

  She did not say anything and he drank it without protest.

  When he laid his head back on the pillows, she said,

  “I am going downstairs now, to say goodbye to your sister. Then I will come back again. You are quite certain you don’t want anything?”

  “You will – come – back?”

  “I promise you I will. I am looking after you until your valet arrives tomorrow.”

  He did not answer and she wondered if he had understood.

  Then, as she reached the door and looked back, she saw that his eyes were still on her and thought perhaps that he was afraid of being left alone.

  “I will not be long,” she promised and had the feeling that was what he wanted to hear.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hicks opened the Earl’s bedroom door and Mariota carried in a large vase filled with flowers.

  “I thought these would cheer you up,” she said as she set them down on a table where the Earl could see them from the bed.

  “I certainly need something,” he replied in the dry manner she had come to learn was characteristic of him.

  She looked at him questioningly and he added,

  “I am feeling rather neglected. You have not been to see me this morning.”

  “I am sorry,” Mariota replied, “but I thought as you had your valet with you that you would not want me.”

  “Hicks, while admirable in many ways,” the Earl replied, “is not the most interesting of conversationalists.”

  The valet had left the room as soon as Mariota entered it and now, having arranged the flowers, she walked to stand beside the bed looking at the Earl and thinking how much better he seemed.

  The bruise on his forehead was almost black and it gave him a somewhat strange appearance, but at the same time the colour had come back into his face.

  With his hair brushed back from his broad forehead, he looked very different from the way he had when he had lain unconscious and she thought he might be dead.

  She was aware that his nightshirt, which was of silk, was very much smarter than her father’s one that he had worn at first.

  His own had a high frilled collar that looked almost like a cravat and, sitting up against the pillows, he appeared to have an authority which she had sensed long before he spoke to her.

  “This afternoon,” she said, “your sister will be coming here again to see you and Papa is going to show her some of the older parts of the house that are now locked up.”

  “Why?” the Earl enquired, looking slightly puzzled at the notion of locked rooms.

  “I should have thought that was obvious,” Mariota replied. “We cannot afford to keep them open, because they would have to be cleaned, and there is nobody but me and old Jacob to do the work, who you know is not a streak of lightning.”

  She spoke lightly because she was trying to amuse the Earl, but she saw that there was a slight frown between his eyes as he asked,

  “Are you so very poor?”

  “Worse than Church mice!” Mariota smiled.

  There was a little silence.

  Then the Earl said,

  “I realise I am being an encumbrance and, as the doctors refuse to allow me to move, you must tell me what I can do about it.”

  Dr. Dawson had been very firm when he had insisted that the Earl was not to be moved until the crack in his shoulder had healed and the headaches from which he suffered every day ceased.

  “We are quite happy to do what we can for you,” Mariota said quickly, “and you must not listen to Lynne.”

  The Earl smiled.

  Lynne had been very frank when he was well enough to be allowed to see her.

  “You have certainly brought the first bit of excitement we have had in the neighbourhood since the last important person occupied this room!” she had said.

  The Earl raised his eyebrows and she explained,

  “That was Charles II and, now I think about it, you are rather like him.”

  “Thank you,” the Earl replied, “I think!”

  “Papa has a whole chapter in his book of the feasting and merry-making there was at Queen’s Ford when he came here, but unfortunately your feasting will consist of rabbit and more rabbit!”

  She saw the surprise in the Earl’s face as she explained,

  “It’s the only free food available at this time of the year and Jeremy has often said that if he had to eat rabbit again he will grow a bushy tail!”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I can see it is a very sad story.”

  “Of course it is, for us,” Lynne replied. “I expect you have the most scrumptious dishes in your house in Oxfordshire.”

  “Who has been talking to you about my house?” the Earl enquired.

  “Elaine. That is the girl I share lessons with,” Lynne replied. “She told me how important you are and that you live in great luxury almost as if you were Royal and all the lovely ladies who do not already have husbands are trying to marry you.”

  The Earl tried to look severe and failed.

  Instead he smiled and remarked,

  “I can see my reputation has preceded me.”

  “Yes, even here in what my brother Jeremy calls ‘this dead and alive hole’ or ‘the back of beyond’, as we have no decent horses to get away from it, we just sit and watch the turnips grow.”

  “You are very voluble on the subject,” the Earl commented mockingly.

  “As food is the only thing we have to think about, a diet of rabbit has undoubtedly given us rabbit brains,” Lynne retorted.

  It was then that Mariota had come into the room and heard the last sentence.

  “You are not to tire his Lordship,” she said sharply, “and he is not interested in our problems.”

  “I thought he would like to know how the poor and needy live,” Lynne replied.

  “I doubt it,” Mariota said. “Dearest, could you go and tidy the drawing room for me, before Lady Coddington arrives? You have left all your things strewn over the sofa.”

  Lynne rose from her chair to say to the Earl,

  “That is a polite way of getting rid of me. Very well, if Mariota wants you to herself, I will make myself scarce.”

  She gave him an engaging, very attractive smile and left the bedroom before Mariota could rebuke her.

  “I am sorry,” Mariota said to the Earl when she had gone, “if Lynne bored you with our difficulties.”

  “I was not in the least bored,” the Earl replied. “I am just feeling embarrassed that I have forced myself upon you and brought Hicks into the house without doing anything about it.”

  Because she had the uncomfortable feeling he might be going to offer her money for their keep, Mariota stiffened.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, he said,

  “I am well aware, Miss Forde, that a family w
ho has embellished history for so many generations can be very proud, at the same time – ”

  “ – at the same time, I was hoping your Lordship would be content,” Mariota interrupted stiffly. “And you did say that the chicken was delicious.”

  “It was,” the Earl said firmly. “But I suppose, now I think about it, that it was an extra item on the housekeeping bill.”

  Mariota thought that he would be very surprised if he knew it was his own money, taken by Jeremy from his pocket, which had paid for it.

  The Earl went on,

  “Actually I told my sister when she comes this afternoon to bring you some fruit from the Duke’s greenhouses, which are famous. But I think we should also be practical and suggest that tomorrow she brings dishes that will not only build up my strength but yours as well.”

  Because she did not know how to answer him, Mariota walked away from the bed to stand at the window looking out at the untidy overgrown garden.

  To her it looked very beautiful in the sunshine, but she knew to a stranger that it would merely look unkempt and sadly in need of gardening.

  But a pride she did not even realise she possessed was rebelling against the idea of the Earl providing for his keep, and she felt that even if they had to suffer after he left then it would be a just retribution because his being here was due solely to Jeremy’s and her own masquerade as highwaymen.

  “Come here!” the Earl said. “I want to talk to you and I see no reason why I should have to raise my voice.”

  He was giving her orders, Mariota thought, and she resented the fact. At the same time he was an invalid and she could not refuse to do as he asked.

  Slowly and reluctantly she walked back to the bedside and the Earl added,

  “I am well aware now that your brother saved me from lying all night in the open when I might have developed pneumonia and that you personally have nursed and looked after me, until my sister found me, at great inconvenience to yourself. If you put yourself in my place, would you also not wish to show your gratitude?”

  It was difficult for Mariota to reply and he went on,

  “Hicks has told me how much you do in the house personally and that most of the food that has been brought up to me has been cooked by you. Do you enjoy being nothing but a servant in your own home?”