Page 41 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

“What do you mean you know that tree?” She draped the skirts of her habit over her arm. “Know it how?”

He crossed the field with Kate at his side, heading toward the woodland. It was a gradual downward slope from the road where they’d left the carriage. “My mother described it to me.”

She’d frequently spoken of Satterthwaite Court when he was a boy, telling him of her happy childhood on the estate, where she’d lived in isolation with her beloved pets, her doting grandfather, and their ramshackle staff of aged servants. It had been an idyllic time for her by all accounts. One that had ended abruptly when her grandfather had died and she’d been forced to remove to London.

Charles had treasured her stories, not least because they’d had a fairy-tale quality to them. In hearing them, he’d often envisioned his mother as an enchanted princess and Satterthwaite Court as the magical castle where she’d lived out her youth.

The oak tree had featured in many of her tales. It loomed ahead now, its enormous size and imposing branches unmistakable.

Kate accompanied him over ground made uneven by the roots of the tree. “Was it important to her somehow?”

“It was. She told me about it when I was a boy. About how she’d come here on her own.” He paused. “Well. Not entirely on her own. She kept a great many mongrel dogs. They’d gather round her as she sat beneath the branches. She used to read aloud to them.”

“To her dogs?” Kate’s eyes twinkled.

“Yes, I know. Some might call it eccentric.”

“I wouldn’t.” She walked closer to the trunk. “I think it’s charming.”

Charles set a hand on one of the bare branches. He imagined the privacy the tree would offer in the spring and summer when the leaves were in full. “My mother said she was happiest when she was here, sheltered under the branches with her dogs and a book. She was shy, like my sister. It was her sanctuary.”

“A very pretty one. It’s the kind of hiding place I’d like myself.”

“You enjoy reading, I believe,” he said. She’d mentioned novels to him more than once. He’d marked it, just as he had everything she’d told him.

“I love reading.” She wandered around the trunk, trailing her fingers over the bark. “And riding, and shopping, and dancing.”

Charles belatedly realized he was staring at her. Clearing his throat, he focused his attention back on the tree. “She carved a pair of initials. They should be here somewhere.”

“Is this them?” Kate drew his gaze to a small, waist-high carving. The chiseled grooves in the trunk were so faint Charles might have missed them otherwise.

He came to join her. “Good Lord. It must be.”

“F. S.,” she read aloud. “Is that her?”

Affectionate amusement softened Charles’s mouth as he examined the carving. “Not her, no.”

“Was it her sweetheart?”

“It wasn’t a person at all,” he said. “The F. S. stands for Fox Satterthwaite. He was a terrier she rescued in the village.”

Kate smiled. “A dog?”

“One of the many who were dear to her. He passed away when I was five, but I well remember him. He was a little rogue, still full of mischief into his old age. He’s buried on the grounds of Heywood House.”

“I believe you must love dogs as much as your mother.”

“I daresay,” Charles replied. “When I was a lad—”

A rifle shot rang out, cutting off the rest of his words.

It wasn’t abnormal to hear such a noise in the countryside. But this shot was unusually close. Too close. It whizzed past them in a rush of icy air, striking a branch only inches from where he and Kate stood.

Charles reacted instinctively.

Seizing Kate around the waist, he hauled her straight down to the ground.

Chapter Thirteen