He had no answer. Of course it mattered, he wanted to shout, but for the life of him, he couldn't think why. He had plenty of money, and there would be other horses. He looked at Sally, who was hiccupping through her tears now, and then at Emma. Why the deuce do I wonder what you are thinking? he asked himself.

He was spared the pain of further a.n.a.lysis by the arrival of Robert. It was a soft tap on the door, as though sound was painful to his cousin. I can appreciate that, John thought grimly. He opened the door quickly, hoping that his cousin might be leaning on it to support himself.

"Robert!" he exclaimed, noting with a certain malicious pleasure that his cousin winced at his loud greeting. "Grand of you to loin us. Sit down, please."

Robert sat, after looking around at Sally, as though for help. His sister was deep in a handkerchief, and unlikely to be of any a.s.sistance. No one spoke. To Lord Ragsdale's supreme annoyance, everyone looked at him as though expecting leadership. He could have told them that was a waste of time, but since they seemed to expect him to take charge, he did.

Lord Ragsdale clasped his hands behind his back and strolled to the window. He stood there a moment, rocking back and forth on his heels, then regarded his cousins. "I would like one of you to tell me exactly what is going on, please."

Sally tunneled deeper into her handkerchief; Robert merely looked around. Lord Ragsdale sighed and tried again. "Your par-ents have solicited us to see that you, Robert, are located at Oxford, and that you, Sally, partic.i.p.ate in some part of the London Season."

Neither relative said anything. Lord Ragsdale paced away from the window, and then back again. "I know there are several excel-lent, if provincial, colleges in America." He looked at Sally. "And I suspect that Virginia society is lively enough to provide for a spring's entertainment. I must ask myself, then, why you have in-flicted yourself upon us."

"Really, John," his mother murmured as Sally began to sniffle again.

"Yes, really," he insisted, then paced some more. "Can it be possible that you are no longer welcome at home, Robert?" Lord Ragsdale asked. "Could it be that you have ruined your family?"

A long silence followed, but Lord Ragsdale did not leap into the void. He walked back to the window and looked out, waiting for an answer. And I will wait until h.e.l.l freezes over, he thought grimly. We may all grow old in this room.

"I really don't think it is as bad as all that," Robert said at last, his tone sulky. His mouth opened to say more, but Sally leaped to her feet and hurried to the window to face her cousin.

"It is worse than that," she said, her voice low and fierce. "Robert's gaming debts have mortgaged our home right to the attics. Papa has had to sell half his slaves, and the next two tobacco crops are already lost to repay Robert's creditors."

Lord Ragsdale whistled in spite of himself. "Good Lord, Robert," he exclaimed. "Can't you resist a wager?"

Once started, Sally was ready to contribute in abundance. "He cannot!" she exclaimed, deeply in earnest, tears forgotten now. "There are whole counties where Robert dare not show his face." Her own face clouded over again. "And no one will even consider a marriage arrangement for me, with Robert ready to sponge."

She looked so sad that Lord Ragsdale put his arm around her shoulders, drew her close to him, and provided her with his handkerchief. "I appreciate your candor, Sally," he said when he could be heard over her tears.

Sally looked at him, her wide blue eyes so like his mother's. "What will you do to us?" she asked.

He smiled at her. "Exactly what your parents wished, my dear." He leveled a less pleasant look in Robert's direction. "You, cousin, will go to Oxford. And if I hear of a single card being turned, you will be on your way to Spain, to serve in the ranks. I know a colonel of foot who will have you flogged regularly, if I ask him to."

"Oh, cousin!" Robert exclaimed, getting slowly to his feet, "I am sure that if you will let me bargain with Emma's indenture one more time I can . . ."

"Don't you ever learn?" Lord Ragsdale shouted, oblivious to what the other clients of the Norman and Saxon might think. "She belongs to me now, and I am more careful of my property! Sally, we will attempt to provide you with a come out of some sort. There must be someone of my acquaintance who prefers a pretty face to a large income." He released Sally, and turned to his mother. "And now, my dear, if you will fork over some of the ready, I will spring us from this inn."

She handed him some money, then patted his arm. "Well done, John," Lady Ragsdale said in a low voice.

"Someone had to do something," he said pointedly. He started for the door, then turned suddenly and shook his finger at Robert. "I mean what I say about serving in the ranks, you h.e.l.l-born babe!" He yanked open the door, looked at Emma standing there so quietly beside it, and pulled her out into the hall with him, slamming the door behind him.

"I want a word with you, Emma Costello," he snapped.

She said nothing, but pulled her hand from his and clasped them in front of her. She looked him directly in the eye, something servants never did, and he found himself unable to bear her level scrutiny.

"Dash it, Emma," he whispered furiously. "Why in h.e.l.l did you allow Robert to take you downstairs last night? Why didn't you wake my mother, or pound on my door? My G.o.d, he could have sold you to one of those ugly customers. Don't you care?"

She was a long time answering him. The servant looked down at her hands, her eyes lowered, and he noticed how absurdly long her eyelashes were. He was standing close enough to see that her skin was as beautiful up close as across a room, and with the most disarming freckles on her nose. She wore no scent but the honest odor of soap. Finally she looked at him.

"I did not dream that you would raise a hand to stop him, my lord," she replied.

Almost bereft of speech, he stared back. "You .. . you think I would have allowed him to sell you?" he demanded, his voice rising to a higher pitch not heard since his younger years.

"I was sure of it," she said, her voice soft.

If she had calculated for six months or more to devise a way to cut him to the marrow, she could not have hit upon a better plan. He stared at her another moment, and felt shame wash over him like a sudden cold spray. It was the most d.a.m.ning thing anyone had ever said to him, and it came from a servant. He regarded her another moment, and the thought struck him that she was probably right.

"Oh, Emma" was all he could say.

"With your permission, sir, I'll go back inside and help the ladies pack."

He nodded and walked down the hall to his own room. He turned at the door, his hand on the k.n.o.b, and glanced back at the servant, who had not moved. She regarded him in silence another moment, then went back into his mother's room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Lord Ragsdale thought the ride to Oxford would never end. He felt the loss of his horse sorely. A restless person by nature, he chafed at the inactivity of sitting still in a carriage. If he could have paced inside, he would have. As it was, he was forced to endure Sally's snufflings into a long succession of handkerchiefs, and her occasional frightened glances in his direction. Robert sulked in his corner, suffering a hangover of monstrous proportions, brought on by bad rum, drunk in immoderate quant.i.ties. He opened his mouth several times to speak, but nothing ever came out.

Lady Ragsdale seemed to enjoy the ride. She settled comfortably into the opposite corner, her nose deep in a novel. The only sound in the carriage beyond Sally's sniffles was the regular slitting and turning of pages. Emma Costello stared out the window, occupied with her own thoughts. Her face was blank of all expression, the perfect servant's face.

Except that I know you have not always been a servant, he thought as he watched her. As the miles and hours dragged by, he remembered a fairy tale from the nursery about a princess forced into servitude by a wicked maid. Absurd, he thought, wishing that he could fling open the carriage door and trot alongside. Ireland has nothing but a cursed population that stinks and breeds. I wonder how soon I can get rid of her, he thought.

As they approached Oxford, Emma Costello claimed his attention again. Sally and Robert were both asleep, leaning against each other, but Emma sat forward and grasped a strap by the window, surprised into exclamation. He glanced over idly to see what was capturing her notice.

"It is Magdalen Tower," he said, following her gaze. Come, come, John, he thought, try for a little conversation, even if she is Irish. "You should see it in high summer, with the trees all leafed j out." There. That was a respectable volley of dialogue. I can'ti have her thinking I am a dog of a fellow.

Emma nodded, her eyes still on the scene before her. "I thought it would look like that," she murmured.

He smiled at her, feeling the hypocrite because of his dislike, and unable to resist the vantage point of superiority. "I had no idea that Magdalen was a subject for the servants' hall in America."

It was a shabby remark, and he knew it. She looked him in the eye, and he felt the urge to squirm again under her scrutiny.

"My father went there," she commented, and directed her gaze to the window again, effectively shutting him out of all further conversation.

Lord Ragsdale felt himself blushing. My G.o.d, I have been set down, he thought in amazement. His embarra.s.sment worsened when he noticed that his mother watched him over the top of her spectacles, her eyes merry. He glared at her, and to his further discomfort, she winked at him.

"That's enough," he said, his voice too loud. He rolled down the gla.s.s and leaned out the window. "Stop the coach."

The carriage stopped. His mother watched in amus.e.m.e.nt, her finger marking the place in the book. Emma's emerald green eyes measured him up and down, and found him wanting.

He flung himself out of the carriage. "I will walk to Grand-mama's," he told his mother.

"Very well, John," she said. "Take your time."

He swore out loud as the carriage left him, and stood there a moment, wondering why he was walking, and not Emma.

Lord Ragsdale took his time getting to his grandmother's house. At first he walked fast in his anger, but as his rapid stride carried him along through narrow, favorite streets, he found himself slowing down, glancing about even, as though his friends from former years might reappear to walk with him, to commiserate, to cajole, to suggest alternatives to duty, to demand that he share notes or a pint. He sighed and stood still, staring up at Magdalen Tower, almost like Emma. "To remind me that life had a purpose once," he said out loud.

Others were pa.s.sing by. He reminded himself also that at Oxford, no one stared at people who talked out loud to themselves. The colleges cherished their eccentrics, and even after ten years and more, he felt himself under that same protective umbrella. It was a pleasant thought, and oddly soothing. He strolled along more slowly now. True, he could not recall what the purpose of life was anymore, but at least it was a comfort to be there.

He thought about lifting a pint at Walsingham's again, but the moment pa.s.sed. Instead, he let himself into the Brasenose Quadrangle and walked about until he p.r.o.nounced himself ready to lace his grandmother. I wonder that anyone ever leaves Oxford, he thought as he sauntered along the outer corridor, his eyes on the dark beams close overhead. He stopped, the first smile of the day on his face. There it was. He reached up and traced "John Staples," carved at the end of his second year. The smile left his lace. I was different then, he considered. I was better.

Chapter 5.

Dusk was approaching when Lord Ragsdale arrived at his Grandmama Whiteacre's house. He stood for a long time outside the building, admiring the stonework as he always did. The facade had been quarried from the same rock works as many of Oxford's buildings, and it glowed with that same otherworldly honey color of late afternoon. But the ivy was dead on the stones now, drooping in the drizzle that had begun as he crossed the Isis and hurried past her neighbor's homes.

He never could think of the place as a home, no matter how hard he tried. There was none of the rest within that he ever a.s.sociated with his own home. "And precious little of that on Curzon Street either, nowadays," he mused out loud. He wished he understood what had happened to his own home. True, Lady Ragsdale kept it beautiful and timely as always, but he felt no peace there anymore. And there was none here.

As he stood in the rain, several lights came on. He didn't wan* to go in. Grandmama would be there to pounce on him, and scold him. Lord knows she probably had plenty of charges in her a.r.s.enal. Sally would probably cry some more, and there would be Robert, pouting and looking ill-used. Mama would smile at him, as though she knew something he didn't. And Emma? Oh, Lord.

At what point did I lose control of my life? he thought as he started toward the front door. When did everything become an exertion? He rubbed his forehead and wished that the rain did not slither down his clothes and onto his back. He knew that he could not face his grandmother.

He stared hard at the house again, and there was Emma standing in the window. She stood as he was already used to seeing her, with her hands folded in front of her, the very stillness of her impressive to him, for all that he disliked her. He could not make out any of her features, but he knew it was Emma.

As he watched, he thought she raised her hand to him in a small gesture of greeting. He could not be sure, because the light was so dim, so he did not return the gesture. Besides all that, she was his servant.

My servant! he chided himself as he lifted his hand to the knocker, and Applegate-grayer but supercilious-looking as ever -allowed him to enter. Why on earth didn't I just let Robert lose her at the turn of the card? He might even have won, and either road, I would still have my horses. "Yes, what?" he asked in annoyance.

"I merely wished you good evening, my lord," Applegate repeated, sounding, if anything, even more disdainful than Lord Ragsdale remembered.

"Oh, very well," Lord Ragsdale snapped. "Applegate, am I in my usual room?"

"Of course, my lord," the butler replied, as though he addressed a dim-witted child. "My mistress wishes to see you first, however. If you will follow me, my lord?"

"I'd rather not," John said honestly as the footman grasped the back of his coat and helped him out of the wet garment.

It was Emma. "She especially requested that you visit her in the blue room, my lord," she reinforced as she held out her hand for his hat.

He handed it to her. "No relief for the wicked, eh, Emma?" he asked, no humor in his voice.

"Not in your case, my lord," she replied promptly.

Applegate coughed and looked away, as Lord Ragsdale nailed Emma with a frown. John slapped his gloves in her hand. "I should have left you at the Norman and Saxon," he murmured.

"It's a mystery to me why you did not," she responded, the lilt in her voice so prominent.

He shook his finger at her, ready to give her a share of what remained of his frazzled mind. Applegate coughed again, so he swallowed his angry words and followed the butler down the hall. He looked back at Emma once to give her another evil stare, but there she stood again, as calm as usual. d.a.m.n me, but you are irritating, he thought.

To his infinite relief, only Grandmama waited to pounce on him in the blue room; he was spared more of Sally's tears and Robert's distemper. He would have liked a pitcher of whiskey, but his grandmother handed him a cup of tea.

"Well, John, what do you have to say for yourself?" she demanded after the maid fled the room.

He took a sip of the tea and p.r.o.nounced it insipid. In silence for a moment, he gazed back at his relative, wondering what imp was suddenly at work in his brain. "Grandmama, why do you always greet me that way?" he asked, determined not to be afraid of her this trip. "I cannot remember a time since I was out of short pants that you addressed me otherwise." He satdown beside her. "It is not my fault that our American relatives are sadly wanting."

There, he thought, I have counterattacked. He took another sip, and regarded his relative, noting that all the females of the Whiteacre side of the family were blessed with pretty faces, from Grandmama to Sally. I wonder why I never saw that before, he thought, as he took another sip, winked at the old lady and set down the cup. Of course, they don't have Emma's high looks, but -h.e.l.l, what is in this tea? I must be losing my mind. Emma has put an Irish curse on me. He stared into the tea, his hastily acquired aplomb in serious danger already.

If he was going insane right there in the blue room, Grandmama did not appear to notice. She choked over her tea and glared at him. "It is ill-bred to wink, John," she reminded him.

Recovering, he smiled to himself, happy to have set her off guard. "Tell me what you think of the Claridges, my love," delighted to watch her choke again at his unexpected endearment.

She scowled at him. "Pathetic!" She wagged a heavily ringed finger in front of his face. "And so I told my daughter it would be when she insisted on marrying that American." She snorted in disgust. "Sally cried until my ankles started getting wet, and Robert could only say how ill you had treated him."

"Silly of me, wasn't it?" he commented. "I wouldn't let him gamble his servant away to a lecher." He paused, and took a thorough, if covert, look at his grandparent. It was always hard to measure her mellowness, but Lord Ragsdale turned on his most blinding smile and ventured. "By the way, Grandmama, how would you like another maid around the place?"

Grandmama let out a crack of laughter. "Not so easy! She's all yours, John! I hear from my daughter that you spent a fortune in horseflesh for her."

"I didn't have any choice!" he shouted, his desperation returning. "Grandmama, what am I going to do with Emma Costello?"

"Buck up, John," she retorted. "I never would have taken you for a whiner."

She finished her tea, refilled it half full from the pot at her elbow, then handed the cup to him, gesturing with her head to the cherrywood cabinet against the far wall. "Put in a drop of brandy before your mother returns," she ordered. "I expect you'll think of something to use Emma for, if you're any grandson of Lord Whiteacre. Besides all that, she's prettier than your mistress."

He stopped at the sideboard, his hand on the brandy, then poured in more than a drop. "Madam, pigs will fly before I get in bed with Emma Costello!" He doused his own tea with enough brandy to cause a blaze, if he sat too close to the fire.

She took the tea, and nodded at him, triumphant to have the upper hand again. "It doesn't surprise me that you should mention pork when you think of your light-skirt."

He glared at her in exasperation, wondering why he could not, ever win an argument with this feeble old woman. "Fae is a fine-looking woman," he said, trying to inject the proper amount of in-

ury into his voice, and avoid any suggestion that he was getting a little tired of her. "I prefer women with a little avoirdupois," he stated. That was true enough. Not for him slender women like Emma Costello, with nothing to hold onto. However, the Irish woman did have a pleasant shape, even if she was a trifle thin.

But this was no time to allow the mind to wander, and his cause was not being served by the fumes that rose from his teacup. "If you will not help me, m'dear," he said after a long, thoughtful sip, "give me some suggestions. Mama has already arranged to have a lady's maid waiting for Sally when we return. You know, someone who knows the ins and outs of life here better than Emma would. And I a.s.sure you I will not leave Emma within ten miles of Robert Claridge, no matter how she irritates me."

"You could put her in the kitchen, John," Grandmama said, taking another sip of her brandied tea, and held out the cup for more. "That's a good place for the Irish." She giggled.

"Not Emma," he said, wondering how she would fare below-stairs with the servants he employed. Besides that, as much as he disliked her, he couldn't ignore Emma's obvious intelligence anymore than he could overlook her trim shape. The kitchen was no place for Emma, no matter how much she richly deserved to be sentenced there.

"This becomes difficult," he told his grandmother as he laced their tea with a little more brandy. "I don't want her in my bed, Mama and Sally don't really need her, the kitchen would be better off without her . . ." He went to the window and grasped the frame as the room wobbled. "Maybe she can cl.u.s.t and dean. I mean, dust and clean."

Grandmama made no reply. He looked over his shoulder and smiled. Her head drooped on her chest, and she was beginning to snore. He sighed and rested his head against the window frame. What was he going to do with Emma?

To Lord Ragsdale's infinite relief, Robert Claridge allowed himself to be taken quietly to Brasenose College in the morning. The two of them rode in silence through the narrow streets of Oxford, which already bustled with scholastic purpose. Lord Rags-dale introduced his sullen cousin to the warden, and gave him his back without a qualm. After Robert had been ushered away, he spent more time with the warden, urging that worthy to let him know of any infractions.

"He's a worthless young man, sir," Lord Ragsdale concluded. "Had I known the extent of his worthlessness, I would never have moved heaven and earth to foist him upon you at this juncture of the term. But here he is, sir."

The warden regarded him with some amus.e.m.e.nt. "Do you have any sons of your own yet, Lord Ragsdale?"

"I do not, sir."

The warden smiled at him. "You cannot imagine then, how many variations of your conversation I have heard before."

He paused and Lord Ragsdale understood. "My own father, eh?" he asked, with just a ghost of a smile playing around his lips.

"Yes, my lord. Somehow we managed to turn you into someone acceptable to the world at large. I suspect we will succeed with this American, too."

Lord Ragsdale managed a reluctant smile. "The Brasenose touch, sir?"

"Exactly, my lord. I think we can render him sufficiently busy to keep him from the gaming table." The warden rose and held out his hand. "I will attempt to warn him with the perils of serving in the ranks, should he choose to indulge in a gaming career within our walls. Good day, my lord."